# The Damned Human Race



## DATo (Sep 4, 2016)

The Damned Human Race

by

DATo


I read somewhere that men first domesticated animals about 80,000 years ago. Then in the year 0 we find Romans building aqueducts and roads. In other words it took 80,000 years from putting cows in pens to building aqueducts. It then took a mere 1969 years from building aqueducts to putting a man on the moon. The point I am trying to make is that modern man became "modern man" very, very quickly. The sophistication of our technology has surpassed our basic primal, animal instincts for individual greed and power by leaps and bounds.


We are still Cro-Magnon Man. This is not meant as a pejorative but a fact. Our technologies, forms of government, economics and general lifestyles give us the illusion that we are more advanced than prehistoric man, but actually the opposite is true. Scientists believe that prehistoric man was, on average, much smarter than we are. He needed to be smarter to survive in the unsympathetic environment he found himself in. Those who were stupid did stupid things and died so the _smart_ gene prospered through propagation and the _stupid _gene died off. This was part of natural selection, but smart does not necessarily mean moral as we would define morality. 


It is a sobering thought to consider that in addition to being intelligent all of our far distant ancestors were among the most murderous, thieving, rapacious and immoral humanoids who ever lived, if they hadn't been we wouldn't be here because that's what it took to survive. Those genes prospered as well. Man's technology and mode of living has advanced because a very few special people over human history created technological inventions, forms of government and law, and forms of trade. The VAST majority of the estimated 100,000,000,000 (that's billion) people who have ever lived simply used what the "special" people gave us but the rest were, down at the bone, still little more than savage animals. They were then, and we are today.


Is it any wonder then why we see so much tyranny, greed, immorality and corruption even among the world's civic leaders, religious leaders or just about anyone you'd care to name? As William Golding said in _Lord Of The Flies_ when explaining to Simon the nature of the beast ... "I'm close. I am part of you. I'm the reason it's no go."


I did not will the fingers of my hands into existence, it took millions of years of evolutionary attrition to create them as it took millions of years for us to psychologically become what we are and unfortunately we are not going to change any time soon. Lurking silently just below the surface of our confident pseudo-sophistication lies the face of the beast.


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## escorial (Sep 4, 2016)

humans have created technology and keep evolving with it and in this humans can prove the existence of a grand design and creator but have kept their primeval traits and disguised them with religion and laws etc...as you eluded to humans are always human no matter how long it took for them to realise they are human beings....i really enjoyed your reasoning and it kept me thinking from beginning to end..enjoyed and would like to read more..cheers.


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## Lorem Ipsum (Sep 4, 2016)

Very well stated DATo and thought provoking. Under all this technology, we are all still human. 

But, I do have to wonder how scientists define “smart”. Comparing the intelligence of prehistoric man with the intelligence of modern man really seems like comparing apples to oranges. Technology has changed so much that the skills required for survival are not the same. If you threw me into prehistoric times, there is a good possibility I would die quickly due to ignorance. But the same may be said for throwing a prehistoric man into today’s society.


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## LeeC (Sep 4, 2016)

Enjoyed your thoughts DATo. To me, any society created through genocide, and bent on material gain, can come to no good end. Maybe that's a natural order device? Your thoughts about intelligence and progress led me to the thought that maybe our so-called progress has only succeeded in allowing the ignorant to survive — there's a wild thought. I think of where we've gotten more as cleverness than real intelligence. 

“_Man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible God and destroys a visible Nature, unaware that this Nature he’s destroying is this God he’s worshipping._” ~ Hubert Reeves

Which brings me to a lighter note, if you'll forgive me including a meme I noticed on social media.


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## ppsage (Sep 4, 2016)

The question is always to what extent cultural evolution can replace biological evolution in terms of behavioral motivation. To a very considerable degree I would contend, although Sigmund Freud begged to differ in his sort-of-serious monograph, Civilization and Its Discontents, where he argues that all persons civilized suffer neurosis therefrom. ------------ Not that tech development hasn't been an acceleration, but the timeline presented here is sketchy at best. Maybe some wild dogs were starting to co-evolve with humans 80k YBP but the whole penned cattle thing is closer to just 8 or 10,000 years ago. And useful aqueducts preceded their Roman perfection by most of a millennium. Tech development is surely amazing, there's no reason to hyperbolize it into disinformation.


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## Winston (Sep 4, 2016)

The very traits that got us to where we are as a species (independent reasoning, toughness and decisiveness) are actively discouraged in today's society.  From a Darwinian standpoint, we favor the weak over the strong to propagate and prosper.

Humankind is near, or past our developmental apex.


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## dither (Sep 5, 2016)

Winston,
you may well be right although i believe that the absolute apex, and you might consider this a contradiction in terms, is armageddon.


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## Sam (Sep 5, 2016)

LeeC said:


> Enjoyed your thoughts DATo. To me, any society created through genocide, and bent on material gain, can come to no good end. Maybe that's a natural order device? Your thoughts about intelligence and progress led me to the thought that maybe our so-called progress has only succeeded in allowing the ignorant to survive — there's a wild thought. I think of where we've gotten more as cleverness than real intelligence.
> 
> “_Man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible God and destroys a visible Nature, unaware that this Nature he’s destroying is this God he’s worshipping._” ~ Hubert Reeves
> 
> ...



_"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. One man thinks himself the master of others, but remains more of a slave than they are". _

~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau.


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## DATo (Sep 5, 2016)

ppsage said:


> The question is always to what extent cultural evolution can replace biological evolution in terms of behavioral motivation. To a very considerable degree I would contend, although Sigmund Freud begged to differ in his sort-of-serious monograph, Civilization and Its Discontents, where he argues that all persons civilized suffer neurosis therefrom. ------------ Not that tech development hasn't been an acceleration, but the timeline presented here is sketchy at best. Maybe some wild dogs were starting to co-evolve with humans 80k YBP but the whole penned cattle thing is closer to just 8 or 10,000 years ago. And useful aqueducts preceded their Roman perfection by most of a millennium. Tech development is surely amazing, there's no reason to hyperbolize it into disinformation.



It wasn't intended to serve as "disinformation" but rather a metaphorical allusion to the concept of a technological timeline. My choice of "penned cattle" certainly qualifies as precedent to the building of aqueducts. Some people on these forums need to lighten up just a little bit. This is a forum post not thesis defense. Perhaps you can understand the concept of A coming before B? Domestication of animals certainly occurred before the building of aqueducts. That was all I was trying to say. Take a pill.


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## ppsage (Sep 5, 2016)

Promoting the notion that technological civilization is ten times longer than evidence supports is disinformation of biblical proportions. It's a very simple matter for any competent and conscientious writer to indicate clearly the metaphorical nature of his assertions. Just because it's the internet doesn't mean we should be able to lie with impunity. -------------- The oldest known pills are from a 140 BC (2146 YBP) Roman ship wreck, but, although no evidence has come to light yet, I think they're probably quite a bit older than that because the technology to make them is pretty simple.


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## Kevin (Sep 5, 2016)

Cleverness vs. intelligence.... 

Cleverness is all about problem solving. Problem solving is about seeing patterns. Patterns are all about predicting future outcomes. Future outcomes can be sorted into short term and long term. And then of course there are mistakes in predictions, unforeseen consequence etc. ,  and then there is personal greed/sociopathy. Now that we're not limited to a day to day struggle directly threatened by , or threatening other competing groups for our basic needs we have the luxury of other pursuits. We still however, when offered, bang the babysitter or exaggerate the damages. This helps insure the continuation of our bloodlines while competing with other exaggerating babysitter-bangers. Survival of those who take what opportunity gives. 

We're not done evolving; we were done the moment we came into being. We can't become 'un-smart' any more than we can 'un-grow' body hair, or lose our appendixes. All those smart genes or dumb genes that were flowing around however many thousands of years ago are still flowing around in today's 3 billion mass of humanity. They're not going anywhere, today there's just more of us, the consequence successful and compounding problem solving. We haven't changed. Having so many we have the 'expression' of more possibilities, but those possibilities were always there.  We are our ancestors and and they are us.


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## felixm (Sep 5, 2016)

The "stupid gene died  off"?  I don't think so. It's alive and well, and living in America right now.


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## ppsage (Sep 5, 2016)

The patterns of coding on dna which we call genes shift and change over time. Alleles, the specific coding for particular genes, can definitely go extinct. Complex behaviors, such a stupid, never arise from a specific gene content, or even very much from predictable combinations of them.


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## GKGhost (Sep 6, 2016)

Of course the human race is damned. 97.5% of them are born sheep. Ironic isn't it, in a way, that sheep were the first animal named in the Bible - the people attending church a "flock" and the priest/pastor a "shepherd". Even from the ancient times those who were superior maybe not in intelligence but definitely in their drive to succeed knew what the average human truly was. 


But really most people are "individuals" in name only who are incapable of thinking for themselves, acting for themselves, and doing for themselves. Why do you think police separate witnesses of major crimes? It isn't to make them comfortable it is to keep the batty clowns from coming up with the exact same stories listening to other people recount stuff - the _monkey see, monkey do_ or in this case the _monkey hear, the monkey recount_ act. 

Besides I think it amusingly cute, in a pathetic sort of way, the individuals who roost in Tim Hortons or other such places whining about this or that [e.g. politics, perceived injustice, etc.] as if such intimate circles of do-nothing-whiners will change a single thing. Well I guess it makes them feel good in the age-old saying of birds of a feather flock together and they can all lament among one another but beyond that circle no one gives a damn about what they're whimpering about. 

On the other hand I've known people who literally forced the government itself to change their ways. 

But as the average person is a do-nothing-whiner that is why governments and other "leaders" are as they are. British Columbia, for example, was nearly run into the ground by the most asinine sorry excuse for a premier imaginable and yet the do-nothing-whiners kept voting him in because a) he was their party or b) they were voting with the masses [sheeple]. 


Further, it is the "hive mind", which the naïve think is wonderful but which sociologists and other scientists think is damning, as to why stupidity portrayed in the excessive buying of garbage "brand names", the buying of overly large houses, the promotion of useless "celebs" who just 50 years ago would be where they belong [the gutter], and other such ventures [e.g. paying $5,000+ for a button on a car one year newer than the previous year] is a common trend. Some of those practices were coined _keep up with the joneses_ in the early 1900s and the New York Times comics had a blast indicating such sheep-like-people [aka sheeple] were blessed with rather simple minds. 


With respect to technology... doesn't mean you're smarter. If anything with the on going trend of texting & driving, people walking into objects / traffic / off bridges, etc., such is a pure indication that the human race is getting stupider with every generation. As a friend from India once told me she doesn't need calculators because when in school she didn't have them and she can do higher mathematics in her head. I rarely use calculators and every single one of my friends, as well as my employer, takes great pleasure in rattling off numbers to me so that I can calculate on the bat. 

Similarly while at a burger joint a couple weeks ago I'll never forget the utter contempt the manager [a woman in her 60s] used towards the new cashier [a girl 20-30] about how the till made the calculations for said cashier - read between the lines & the manager was indicating that she thought people around the cashier's age incapable of doing basic math. I've encountered it myself when giving cashiers a few coins to make up the difference [so as to get a solid bill back] and they stare at me like a fish out of water because they _*can't*_ calculate 2 + 2 = 4 without a calculator at hand. 

Smarter sure, if one's intelligence is truly comparable to a fish out of water. Actually, given what they've found with octopus, some fish might be smarter. 


But what you must remember - remove technology and most people won't have a freaking clue how to survive. They'll die off like the honey bee. But the "primitive" societies, those that don't know and couldn't careless what a computer is or view cellphones as meaningless, will continue living as they have always lived and will continue to live.


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## Courtjester (Sep 27, 2016)

A most enjoyable read. You touch upon two things about which I have long been thinking. First there is the remarkable technical progress of humankind, second the lack of moral advancement. One might argue that both are attributable to the long period of patriarchy.

I would say do not despair. Why not? If I may put in  a word, it is that the recent assertiveness of the female side gives us grounds for rejoicing. I am very pleased to note that women are increasingly acceding to the influential positions formerly occupied almost exclusively by males. In my opinion, this will lead to a greater spirit of cooperation between the genders, to the benefit of all of us.

Had you not produced this piece - and done it very eloquently - I would have offered something along similar lines myself. An excellent effort in my view.


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## Desmond Curry (Oct 31, 2016)

Seattle is grey and wet this time of year. I feel bad for all the people that suffer from seasonal depression living here. They probably need lamps, and sleep in tanning beds to keep themselves sane. This time of year's when the private parts on mammals get so cold that everybody's desperate for a warm partner before December so they don't get left in the freezer to fend for themselves. The crafty go-getter knows of the upcoming change in temperature long before it happens and gets em while it's hot, leaving the procrastinator abandoned to dwell in personal fatigue and desperation without a drop left. Us fools who wasted our time meaninglessly on pretentious words and loose strings of beautiful thoughts devoid of any action or purpose. We let them all die before they where ever really born casting off every opportunity. People love to give to someone who needs something, especially if it's something someone doesn't want openly... That's the idea anyway. To try and fail and try again, that's the righteous path! The pursuit of happiness and money and pussy and dick and all that shit. You can't resent someone who went out his way to get something just because he has more than you. WRONG! We all do... Even the go-getters and the righteous procrastinators. We all hate it when someone is better than us at getting what we want (unless they share.) We hate someone who is better at doing what we do because they seem more functional than us. They don't even carry the heavy burden of resentment we do because they don't see us as a threat. Contempt perhaps, but featherweight compared to our resentments. Fuck him with his hot girlfriend and his nice car and his great job and his nice suit... I don't need a suit. Fuck him.


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## bobo (Nov 11, 2016)

Desmond, there'll always be someone better than yourself - but also some a whole lot worse !!
Herein lies much peace - so why don't you just be you,  and if succeeding in that, you'll be the best 'you' ever  :encouragement: :encouragement::encouragement:


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