10 ms·

When some other animal species starts building libraries and exploring space, I'll consider them exceptional, too. Humans, a kind of animal, are quite distinct

When some other animal species starts building libraries and exploring space, I'll consider them exceptional, too. Humans, a kind of animal, are quite distinct from other animal species. We can't fly by nature, but we can build machines where not only we can fly, but we can fly to space. Most all other animals live today in the same ways, and with the same capabilities, as their ancestors have for centuries; but, humans have adapted and advanced in ways that hardly a generation lives the same as the one before it -- all from human-driven, intentional advancement. We're a quite distinct species (judgements aside). I don't see the harm in recognizing our superior differences; in fact, it's as important as recognizing our similarities and common bonds.

thatguy0900 5y ago
Our hands could be the drivers for a lot of this. Dolphins have no practical way to use or create tools, that is a pretty fundamental limitation on how you can advance, irrespective of intelligence. Who knows what kind of cool tools something like an octopus could have created and used with more intelligence though.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  Octopuses are probably intelligent enough; it's lifespan and teamwork that are the issues. An octopus works out how to use tools, and then… that knowledge goes away. No future octopuses will ever build upon that.
circlefavshape 5y ago
IMO this line is reasoning is flawed. You're judging us as exceptional purely because of the technology we have now. For most of the time our species has existed the only exceptional thing about us was our ability to control fire.
- bordercases 5y ago
  That sounds like a distinction without a difference in order to establish the claim. Surely technology now would make us even more exceptional than before
- nine_k 5y ago
  Is the influence that the article is talking about happening now, or has happened a long time ago, when humans did not change the environment noticeably? Certain other animals are very peculiar in their ways of living. I'd say that a headline like "Insects are affected by living next to ants" is more informative than the bland "Insects affect each other when live next to each other".
- chess_buster 5y ago
  Australian Fire hawks do it, too.
dota_fanatic 5y ago
On the one hand, sure. On the other hand, not so much. Most of us aren't exceptional and live today in the same way as our ancestors have for centuries. Our needs and desires and behaviors across our lifetimes aren't so different from other large mammals. The exceptional things about us are largely provided by our civilization, but even including those things, it's the same song, different day. The harm in "recognizing our superior differences" is in the unfortunate proclivity of humans to take that as justification for not recognizing any rights of the "inferior".
- svachalek 5y ago
  In what part of the world do people live as their ancestors have for centuries? I witnessed that a few decades ago in rural China. I don't think it's true there anymore. I can't imagine there are enough places now to constitute "most of us".
  - dota_fanatic 5y ago
    I sleep every night. I wake up and spent most of my energy on maintaining homeostasis (eating/drinking/waste/temperature), provision of resources, being social, raising young, and play. This involves walking, talking, gesturing, squatting, etc. Take someone from a thousand years ago and they engaged in the exact same behaviors. So there weren't living in a stick-framed house and using written forms of communication via personal computing devices and listening to recorded music or watching recorded stories. They still did a lot of the same stuff from day to day. We are more alike than we are different, same as how we're vastly more alike to other apes than different. Our subjective experience isn't all that different. This is especially true if you consider humanity as a whole, not some 0.1%er who has inordinate access to the fruits of civilization.
seph-reed 5y ago
> our superior differences Best to get out of this line of thought before our understanding of genetics really takes off. To quote Gattaca "We now have discrimination down to a science." It's already common to allow the oppression of inferior genes so long as they aren't human. What happens when we can measure human genetic inferiority? Will you be talking about superior differences then? Will you still dismiss the "differences" inferior to yours? Besides, animal genes might not even be truly inferior anyways. I suspect they have better foundations and potential than we do. It's just not utilized yet. Maybe humans aren't so great, just first to market (and only by ~20k years, which is nothing at all). I personally wouldn't be surprised if humans are actually embarrassingly stupid on the cosmic scale of sentience.

thatguy0900 5y ago

Our hands could be the drivers for a lot of this. Dolphins have no practical way to use or create tools, that is a pretty fundamental limitation on how you can advance, irrespective of intelligence. Who knows what kind of cool tools something like an octopus could have created and used with more intelligence though.

wizzwizz4 5y ago
Octopuses are probably intelligent enough; it's lifespan and teamwork that are the issues. An octopus works out how to use tools, and then… that knowledge goes away. No future octopuses will ever build upon that.

circlefavshape 5y ago

IMO this line is reasoning is flawed. You're judging us as exceptional purely because of the technology we have now. For most of the time our species has existed the only exceptional thing about us was our ability to control fire.

bordercases 5y ago
That sounds like a distinction without a difference in order to establish the claim. Surely technology now would make us even more exceptional than before
nine_k 5y ago
Is the influence that the article is talking about happening now, or has happened a long time ago, when humans did not change the environment noticeably? Certain other animals are very peculiar in their ways of living. I'd say that a headline like "Insects are affected by living next to ants" is more informative than the bland "Insects affect each other when live next to each other".
chess_buster 5y ago
Australian Fire hawks do it, too.

dota_fanatic 5y ago

On the one hand, sure. On the other hand, not so much. Most of us aren't exceptional and live today in the same way as our ancestors have for centuries. Our needs and desires and behaviors across our lifetimes aren't so different from other large mammals. The exceptional things about us are largely provided by our civilization, but even including those things, it's the same song, different day. The harm in "recognizing our superior differences" is in the unfortunate proclivity of humans to take that as justification for not recognizing any rights of the "inferior".

svachalek 5y ago
In what part of the world do people live as their ancestors have for centuries? I witnessed that a few decades ago in rural China. I don't think it's true there anymore. I can't imagine there are enough places now to constitute "most of us".
- dota_fanatic 5y ago
  I sleep every night. I wake up and spent most of my energy on maintaining homeostasis (eating/drinking/waste/temperature), provision of resources, being social, raising young, and play. This involves walking, talking, gesturing, squatting, etc. Take someone from a thousand years ago and they engaged in the exact same behaviors. So there weren't living in a stick-framed house and using written forms of communication via personal computing devices and listening to recorded music or watching recorded stories. They still did a lot of the same stuff from day to day. We are more alike than we are different, same as how we're vastly more alike to other apes than different. Our subjective experience isn't all that different. This is especially true if you consider humanity as a whole, not some 0.1%er who has inordinate access to the fruits of civilization.

seph-reed 5y ago

> our superior differences Best to get out of this line of thought before our understanding of genetics really takes off. To quote Gattaca "We now have discrimination down to a science." It's already common to allow the oppression of inferior genes so long as they aren't human. What happens when we can measure human genetic inferiority? Will you be talking about superior differences then? Will you still dismiss the "differences" inferior to yours? Besides, animal genes might not even be truly inferior anyways. I suspect they have better foundations and potential than we do. It's just not utilized yet. Maybe humans aren't so great, just first to market (and only by ~20k years, which is nothing at all). I personally wouldn't be surprised if humans are actually embarrassingly stupid on the cosmic scale of sentience.