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Ask HN: Why are you proud of your species?
On another thread, weavejester recently wrote, "Not only are we never satisfied, we're also very quick to criticize our society and species." I want to ask about the positive side. What have we as a species done that you're proud of?
A few I can think of are going to the moon, reading our own DNA, and the classification of all finite simple groups.
I favor this kind of hard progress over (1) artistic works, because it's more collaborative, and over (2) justice/quality-of-life improvements, because it's hard to credit those to human intent vs technology and emergent processes. Feel free to disagree!
- Mystalic 18y agoCreation of the printing press, invention of irrigation, nearly every physics discovery.
- troytabor 18y agoI'm proud that we can debate without physical confrontation; higher-reasoning I guess. Think about it, if all debates where a physical confrontation it wouldn't be the best ideas that would win, but just those who are stronger would win. Ok... So that's out there a bit. More on the lines of what you're asking, I'm proud that we realise it when we're getting out of hand and actually try to do something to alleviate the issue; philosophies of how to do that asside.
- Allocator2008 18y agoThe library of Alexandria was perhaps the noblest human achievement ever, compounding the greatest of our knowledge, historical, scientific, etc. into one location.
- gaius 18y agoI wonder if, relatively speaking, Alexandria was more or less comprehensive than the British Library or the Library of Congress.
- jackzombie 18y agoDuring the time that the works were collected for the library of Alexandria fewer people could read and write than can today, which made it difficult for people to write books. Today, with blogs and other works available over the internet, we have the capability to create a vast database of everything from the noblest to the most unrefined or unsophisticated works of human achievement. Anybody with access to the internet can publish their opinions online for others to agree or disagree with them in order to find the truth about things. Plus dentistry has come a long way, we deal with toothaches much better nowadays than our ancestors could ;)
- DanielBMarkham 18y agoPeople have no idea for the time what a huge undertaking that was. It was like our space program. I blogged about how information density is outstripping our ability to adapt a few days ago. (shameless plug: http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2009/02/who-was-i-again.php http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2009/02/who-was-i-aga... )
- gaius 18y agoAll beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment...
- jacquesm 18y agounified field theory* general relativity big bang the theory of mind the discovery of evolution Einstein Rosalind Franklin Darwin Galileo Michelangelo Newton Alan Turing Da Vinci Ghandi MLK The list is endless... And who knows, maybe one of you will be on a list like this at some point in the future... * getting closer...
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- jackzombie 18y agoI think that we should try to eliminate the distinction between artistic works and technological/scientific works. They should both go hand in hand. The word technology comes from the Greek word techne which roughly translates to art. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techne http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techne
- cmars232 18y agoWe have laughter, fire, art, lovemaking and the best tools around.
- gills 18y agoHumanity has survived long enough to produce me. Yeehaw.
- ErrantX 18y agoI find pur ability to achieve and improve the most amazing. I could single out a list of things ot be hugely proud of as a species: but that belittles (not deliberately) all of the other achievments (especially the ones in the past we have forgotten or ignore). The capacity of humanity always amazes me (and, conversely, it saddens me to see so many people waste it).
- c1sc0 18y agoBoiling water to make tea (East); brewing and fermentation of wheat to make beer (West); the realization that human health begins with clean water. In more recent times: the LifeStraw.