5 ms·

It's funny/scary how much less sophisticated we humans are than how imagine ourselves to be.

chris_mc 8y ago
Following our nature is easy, we just do it naturally. Opposing our baser instincts is hard, so a lot of people don't. The greatest leap as a species we can take is if we can make it a social imperative to act against those urges, but in today's corporate-controlled world, our "corporate overlords" want us to react on instinct to purchase expensive, wasteful, and useless items and services. Until we figure out how to hold a corporation to the same ethics and morals we hold individuals, that won't happen.
- ivoras 8y ago
  > The greatest leap as a species we can take is if we can make it a social imperative to act against those urges As likely most geeks and office warriors can vouch for, fighting your endocrine system leads to depression, anxiety and "finding yourself" problems. Rather than fighting nature, which is a losing battle from the concept itself, I think the ideal is to find a balance with it, this means (however Jungian it sounds) accepting both our darker and lighter sides, both intellectual and physical.
  - eeZah7Ux 8y ago
    > fighting your endocrine system leads to depression citation needed > Rather than fighting nature What? Humans have a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefrontal_cortex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefrontal_cortex for impulse control. "This brain region has been implicated in planning complex cognitive behavior, personality expression, decision making, and moderating social behavior."
vokep 8y ago
When you think about it though, for all our sophistication we... >Can only hold ~7 unique items in mind >Have relatively low resolution memory, and instead of just seeing it like that, unsure/unknown details are filled in almost arbitrarily >Are absolutely entirely single threaded - best form of multitasking is quick switching at a rate that obscures the switching - switching is still occurring though and is observable >Use language with lots of complexity maybe, but in simple algorithmic/programmed ways (grammer isn't straightforward, but lots of typical interactions are basically algorithms we naturally act out) We are a collection of narrow intelligences which are quite powerful, and when combined result in a working general intelligence (to different degrees of success). That general intelligence sees the power of the narrow bits that make it up and proclaims "wow, I am complex and powerful" when its really just the cobbled together result.
- Florin_Andrei 8y ago
  On the flip side, we can also come up with Plato's dialogues, general relativity, La Gioconda, and the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.
- druffen 8y ago
  >>>le meme arrows
eeZah7Ux 8y ago
No. People are way more complex than that. It can be very tempting to jump to superficial conclusions by reading these publications e.g. imagine a direct correlation between testosterone and need for status. Instead there can be a million confounding variable that depend on psychology and society.

Following our nature is easy, we just do it naturally. Opposing our baser instincts is hard, so a lot of people don't. The greatest leap as a species we can take is if we can make it a social imperative to act against those urges, but in today's corporate-controlled world, our "corporate overlords" want us to react on instinct to purchase expensive, wasteful, and useless items and services. Until we figure out how to hold a corporation to the same ethics and morals we hold individuals, that won't happen.

ivoras 8y ago
> The greatest leap as a species we can take is if we can make it a social imperative to act against those urges As likely most geeks and office warriors can vouch for, fighting your endocrine system leads to depression, anxiety and "finding yourself" problems. Rather than fighting nature, which is a losing battle from the concept itself, I think the ideal is to find a balance with it, this means (however Jungian it sounds) accepting both our darker and lighter sides, both intellectual and physical.
- eeZah7Ux 8y ago
  > fighting your endocrine system leads to depression citation needed > Rather than fighting nature What? Humans have a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefrontal_cortex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefrontal_cortex for impulse control. "This brain region has been implicated in planning complex cognitive behavior, personality expression, decision making, and moderating social behavior."

vokep 8y ago

When you think about it though, for all our sophistication we... >Can only hold ~7 unique items in mind >Have relatively low resolution memory, and instead of just seeing it like that, unsure/unknown details are filled in almost arbitrarily >Are absolutely entirely single threaded - best form of multitasking is quick switching at a rate that obscures the switching - switching is still occurring though and is observable >Use language with lots of complexity maybe, but in simple algorithmic/programmed ways (grammer isn't straightforward, but lots of typical interactions are basically algorithms we naturally act out) We are a collection of narrow intelligences which are quite powerful, and when combined result in a working general intelligence (to different degrees of success). That general intelligence sees the power of the narrow bits that make it up and proclaims "wow, I am complex and powerful" when its really just the cobbled together result.

Florin_Andrei 8y ago
On the flip side, we can also come up with Plato's dialogues, general relativity, La Gioconda, and the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.
druffen 8y ago
>>>le meme arrows

eeZah7Ux 8y ago

No. People are way more complex than that. It can be very tempting to jump to superficial conclusions by reading these publications e.g. imagine a direct correlation between testosterone and need for status. Instead there can be a million confounding variable that depend on psychology and society.