Hey Nestor

[Nestor_Kelebay]

Point well made.

We humans have always faced extinction from one threat or another. If it wasn't a different tribe wanting to bash our skulls in with rocks it was the Soviet bear wanting to bash our skulls in with nuclear tipped missiles. If it wasn't famine because the rains didn't come and the watering hole was dry, it was a plague that swept across the known world killing us in a matter of days. The constant threat of extinction is something we humans have grown accustomed to living with. Global warming and nuclear terrorism will just have to stand in line and take their turn at killing us off, just like all the other perils we've faced.

Iran developing nuclear weapons and the Gulf oil spill almost seem uplifting when viewed in that light.

 

[granite-girl]

Why not drop the whole debate about what's happening and why and start developing green energy now? It really doesn't matter if global warming is real or man made, it doesn't alter the fact that our planet will run out of oil at some point, so why drag our heels about switching over to a sustainable alternative

.

I think that's already a given, I think there's lots of research/knowledge/availability out there. It's just getting around the oil lobbyist to get something done! They're out there holding all of that hostage to sell more gasoline to the poor people who can't do or don't know anything different. Everybody! And they are pretty rich & powerful....
Not to get all political- sorry !

 

[TxBuilder]

Human evolution lies on our use of tool that has progressed to technology. It's evolution based on the perception that we have to have the mental capacity to create use and maintain these tools. We have essentially reached the pinnacle of development with the exception of what we now have to weed out (cancer, idiocy, of recessive gene patterns) in order to advance further.

 

[Nestor_Kelebay]

Well, I think for the longest time anthropologists used "tool making" as gauge to differentiate between "man" and "animals", but we've since learned that many animals fashion simple tools. Apes have been seen to use thin sticks to fish ants out of an ant hill, for example. Some birds fashion leaves in a particular way to dig insects out of holes in a tree trunk. Dolphins will exhale slowly while swimming in a circle to fool the fish inside the circle that they're being coraled into a "net". Other dolphins wait outside the circle for the fish try to jump out of the "net" as they're easier for a waiting dolphin to catch while they're in the air. And, killer whales have been observed swimming in unison to cause small ice flows to tip over and spill the seals on them into the water (whereupon the killer whales feed on the seals). So, I think relying on tool making as a measure of intelligence has problems as the above examples show tool making by birds and some imaginitive thinking by enterprising dolphins and killer whales.

I just think that we should be trying harder than we are to break our addiction to crude oil. The way I look at it: "The more you look, the more you find." That's true with crude oil, but it's also true for all the other forms of energy, some of which we undoubtedly haven't even discovered yet. Why wait until we're in panic mode to look for, develop and benefit from other forms of energy. Isn't it more intelligent to do that now while we still have crude oil to sustain us?

 

[TxBuilder]

I think there is a world of difference between animals tool (stick and rocks) and ours (computers, bombs.).

 

[Nestor_Kelebay]

So, where do we draw the line?

Unmodified sticks and unmodified rocks = animal

Modified sticks and modified rocks = early hominid
?

 

[TxBuilder]

So, where do we draw the line?

Unmodified sticks and unmodified rocks = animal

Modified sticks and modified rocks = early hominid
?

We draw the line at complexity and intent. Not a simple machine you plan on using in the future? Human. Stick you are going to use to eat dinner? Animal and human (I love chopsticks). The point is this. If any one of those animals could progress their tool I would say that is evolution as well. At least evolution of ideas, which is necessary to understanding and competing in complex cultures.

 

[Nestor_Kelebay]

I just think that we really need to look after this beautiful little rock we live on because it's the only place we have to live.

If we kill this planet, we die with it. And, we have the capacity to wreck it's atmosphere, to fish it's oceans empty, to spread radioactive material over much of it's surface and to send it's climate spiraling out of control.

Let's not sink our own ship.

 

[TxBuilder]

I'm with you.