Thanks giving

[AHadley]

You'd think that one would lead to the other, wouldn't you? Nuclear weaponary, nuclear drive on submarines. Maybe the same applies to other things?

[bigbadbogie]

It did for us, but that is only because we wanted it to.

If an alien species was obsessed with speed, rather than war, then they would not have bothered to make weapons as they are of no use to them.

The only way that another species could ever get to us is if they were obsessed with speed.

[AHadley]

OK, OK...

how the hell did we get from thanksgiving to what the threat from anything out there is?

[bigbadbogie]

Still, those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.   Every time a more advanced culture 'meets' a less advanced culture the less advanced one is destroyed.  Time and time again we've seen this here on Earth...

And yet we keep beaming "Look at us!  We're over here!" out into space.

Huh...  go figure.



-Av-

That's how.

[SkyNET]

I'm personally tired of hearing that humans are violent, ignorant destroyers. Sure people are good at killing each other, but they're also good at many other things. Also, "Alien" doesn't nessecarily mean "technologically advanced"'. We have the theoretical technology for interplanetary travel RIGHT NOW. We just don't have the funding or interest in expanding on it.

I'm also tired of people generalizing the actions and interests of governments and elite individuals as "we". How many of your neighbours would want to creat a weapon that could vaporise cities? How many average people want to go to mars? How many people want to discover the origins of the universe? I'd say a variable amount, but not everybody. And I'd say considerably less actually do or attempt to do these things.

I'm also tired of people forgetting that humanity is made up of INDIVIDUALS, with their own interests. Society? Only exists in your head. That society is composed of many different people who don't know, care about, or work with, everybody else. I see people refer to humaity as "we' and it's like everybody's faceless. It's just a mass of bodies who in the context given, are all after the same thing.

[bigbadbogie]

Whatever our morale intentions, we always look out for number 1 first. And that means kill everything that immediately threatens us.
If someone is pointing a gun at your head, you will not be thinking about a nuclear war that could happen if your country was potentially attacked sometime in the future.

We have had the technology for interplanetary travel for decades, yet the people who could make it happen seem more interested in sitting on their fat arses with pockets full of cash, gloating to everybody that sees them and pretending to be important.

Every child wants to be an astronaut, until they grow up and learn that it takes decades of hard work and training. That is the true face of humanity.

[SkyNET]

There's that "we" again. Selfless acts occur, rendering the argument that people only look out for themselves fallacious.

[bigbadbogie]

Ok. You win.

0.0001% of humanity will upon a single occasion, do something not entirely selfish.

[SkyNET]

Good enough for me. As long as someone somewhere is doing it, I still have faith in people.

[Nielk1]

What we call intelligence, that is supposed to make us the most important life form. In reality, what makes us important is compassion. Human compassion, as many Scifi Movies point out, if what can be called proof of the soul. This compassion gives us what we call a moral standing, which although flawed, helps to perpetuate the idea of helping others selflessly. The thing that gets in the way is not "Human Nature" but nature it self. The drive to survive can make us cruel and egocentric. The human aspect of this is greed for money, but as money is technically an alternative for supplies, we are simply perpetuating the ensurement of our personal survival as animals do in fighting over food (even if they have a full stock of food right at home).

[Zero Angel]

Pretty much agree with NK1. I just want to add that the drive to survive is one of our baser instincts. However, we must have a sufficient amount of this before we can cultivate the higher ideals. Not money, but our perception of security, which is sometimes derived from the possession of it (in reality, nobody really believes they're rich -- people think that in order to be rich, they must possess twice of what they have now). Anyways, one who struggles to survive, is not likely to use compassion effectively until he is secure in his position. Look at countries such as Switzerland and Denmark, they are generally regarded as stable nations with moderate governments (high social freedom, moderately high economic freedom) -- they are also some of the highest ranked nations on how happy its citizens perceive themselves to be. Countries such as Zimbabwe, which do not possess a stable government or economy, and contain restrictive governments are ranked near the bottom. An exception to this is China, which is ranked somewhere near the middle (though the site admits some sampling bias, where the poor and illiterate were not tested thoroughly).

http://worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl/