Me too! Down with Purity First, long live Sarif Industries!

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-pLGCfvc7yq4/TXJY34U-UtI/AAAAAAAAA7g/RFPheE00N1g/house_facepalm.jpg

Holy cow my signature is bright. :blink:

I admit that mankind has it's flaws, but we are who we are (No Ke$ha reference intended.)

So yeah, I'm proud, and if aliens ever attack, I'd be the first to join the Earth Army.

Edit: Sure, we're evil, cruel, and quite bad overall, but you must also admit that we've done some pretty awesome things in the past. Plus, a lot of our women are really hot.

Edit 2: Having said that, if we could actually turn into vampires or something, I'd take the option.

I don't think proud is the right word. How could I be proud for being what I am, when I really had nothing to do with where we are at the moment. I'm I happy about being a human? Yes, we live great, mostly care free lives.

Actually... The really hot thing is true... K, humanity's significance and glory has been proven

I don't have a choice and I don't really find it prudent to argue for or against.

I just Am.

Humanity itself? tis a HUMAN concept, a glorification to think that our ways are somehow special and non linear, to say we are at large evil bastages perturbs me as well. I mean yes we do horrible things, but worse has happened before our time and will afterwards, but it wont be defined as we think about it, at present knowledge Civilization has existed in whats worth a blink of an eye for as long as we've been "sentient" and we've been "sentient" for as long as a blink of an eye compared to our exsistance. That existance is a blink of an eye compared to past Lifeforms on this earth, and life has existed as much as a blink of an eye compared to the Planets formation -> Formation of the Solar System -> Galaxy -> All of existence. not to mention what else may have existed in the Solar system that existed before ours reformed from its Super noval Ashes.

Point and case

think not so much of ones place in the Universe, and how worthy one is in that existence, and focus more on what can you do to make that fleeting memory last as long as possible.

We are special in one way. We are a stepping stone of mechanics, and things that are out of our control. I think if you looked at the big picture, if there is truly is more life out there, we're just a "way" of becoming. Which brings up the quasi off topicness of other beings. which interestingly has as much going against it, as for it. One being that our universe is rather young, and that the human perception has more influence on its surroundings than we know or realize. the actual physics and truth about the sixth sense, that could arguably explain how we are here, and why we interact with it.

I'll try to get some links, give me a sec.

No, I wish I was an ant.

I am an anthropologist by training, and I think humans are an out of control species and have become too over-populated, unbalancing the natural order.
Too smart and effecient for our own good.
Plus, its not like we are evolving into anything better. Instead social policies and technology have replaced natural selection.
But, watcha gonna do? :shrug:

Proud? No reason to be.

I think we are evolving intellectually, take a look at fascism being overthrown. It is happening slowly but it is happening
And on our bad catering of the planet, Whilst I do support conservation, I can't help but think. Would we have tried to save the Mammoths?
Extinction is (to an extent) a natural process and there are some cases where I think it is inevitable some species will become extinct, we can only postpone the inevitable (Polar Bears for example)

This is now getting back to these arbitrary morals we possess... but so what? What is the natural order? It is entirely conceivable that an asteroid the size of our moon may smash into this earth and destroy all life as we know it on it... but it is a perfectly natural act that has no bearing on the universe in which our planet is invisible to in comparison and we, ourselves, having only been a naturally evolved primate species, are natural. All that we do is natural... but on the topic of morals, what does our so-called "unbalancing" actually mean beyond our own unique conceptions and moral ramifications that are, in actuality, of little meaning... especially the objective meaning of all that exists within the universe... which is essentially just what we make of it as there is no objective meaning or measure of balance and morality?

So, your saying that we aren't the moral crusaders whose duty is to protect Earth?

I agree, I do appreciate conservation, but species have been hinted to extinction or starved to extinction in history so I do not see the difference between that and human expansion wiping out species.
Whilst we shouldn't go out of our way to kill things, I still think we should do things for the good of mankind as a first prioirity and conservation as a second, because that is how every other species works.

So in that case, anything goes? It doesnt really matter what we do?
Perhaps.

I say conservation is important because we need this planet, not the other way around... and that is how the issue should be marketed.

Typical campaign: "Save the polar bears."

Me: "Who gives a about the polar bears?! Save us!"



Anyway, yeah, there is no objective balance or significance of this rock or anything on it to the universe. The reason this planet is important in any way to us (or should be, anyway... in my opinion) is because it is our home and we thrive off of its habitability. The universe wouldn't care if we nuked the surface to Oblivion... nor would the polar bears or the butterflies. WE would care, however... and that is all that needs to be provided for us to care about protecting our home planet.

Many, many species have come and gone without our influence, yes, and many others have been wiped out by hunting, foresting, pollution, and so on. The trouble, if someone doesn't care about saving them for the sake of saving them, is that focusing on human needs can have unintended side-effects that wind up endangering us. Many people don't realize that once we've finished sterilizing Earth to be perfectly fit for human habitation, we've probably killed ourselves. It's the butterfly effect, wherein one species depends on another. For example, people plant things in their yards based mostly on how they look, but many insects can only feed from or reproduce on specific plants local to their habitats. A butterfly may be able to eat the nectar from a flower, but its caterpillars can't digest the plant's leaves. Birds that ate them may move on or starve, and no longer spread the seeds of a different plant, and so on. We clear a lot of land in our needs for huge amounts of food, but we still need the insects that pollinate crops. There was a big commotion over honeybees dying off; bees not native to this continent, used to pollinate plants also not native to this continent.

"Save the cute animals" is generally a poor way to approach conservation, but it needs to be treated as something that goes hand in hand with our own priorities. Mass extinctions are something that can kill millions of us in the future as easily as bombs.

I understand that obviously we can't go around exterminating species at will, but I was referring more to people being against human expansion on the grounds of conservation.
We need animals and the food chain, but a lot of people seem to think we are not apart of that chain and should try and not leave any impact on the world.
And in the long, long run species will evolve to accomodate humans and co-exist, that is unless we coddle them and prevent natural selection. Which in turn would leave them more vulnerable in the long run.

There a 6,000,000,000 humans on this planet and an estimated to be around 20,000 - 25,000 polar bears left which makes a polar bear 240,000x as important as an individual human (if all humans had the same value, which I would argue they don't).

Polar bears have as much right to life as any other creature on this planet and it is because of human activity and ignorance why many animals are becomming endangered or extinct. Habitat destruction, over fishing, polution, hunting/poaching, global warming (humans have at least contributed towards it) are some examples of why.

I am glad to be human but not proud to be human. It is only a handful of humans that actually achieve anything that's worth anything. Most just pass through life not bothering to care or completely uncaring towards to the world we live in.

I'm not proud of being part of the human race, but I'm proud of myself and the things I have achieved as me, and I'd rather be a Siberian Tiger or Wolf

Yes I am. I can't get in on details... A religious argument would definitely start.

Mostly. I'm proud to be nerdy, too, and look at how many idiotic people there are among us.
I'd be MORE proud if the general attitude of mankind would be better though. This devil-may-care attitude has brought us into the modern world, sure, but now that we have the technology, we have the capability to make this planet better than it ever was to live on.

Who would be sentient enough to appreciate it? God I suppose. :shrug:

Actually, I'm proud on my Neanderthal genetics. Caveman brow ridge ftw!

Like others before have said, I am neither proud nor ashamed of being a human, I just am. Sure, I might prefer to be an anthropomorphic arctic fox, but I guess human will have to do.



*high-five*

No. I would rather be a dragon or something.

No, not really at all. I'm happy I'm human rather than a bug or something but not proud. I'm more proud of my country/ accomplishments/ ethnicity/ individuality.

Not really, being a soul svcking parasite and the cancer of the earth can't be the best option in life.

If there were only ten people on this planet but two of them owned 80% of the world's wealth, then you'd still have what appeared to be over-population.

Our planet can take many more humans than we currently have, what it can't take is that same amount of people living under the current financial and social systems.



As for the natural order, who gives a [censored] about nature? it is a blind, merciless construct that serves only itself, it is willing to cruely sacrifice billions of entities and leave them lying by the side of the road of evolution, being responsible for such marvels as cancer and aids among a myriad of other torturous afflictions, i say as long as we ourselves are comfortable to hell with nature, it's only pretty on the outside and deserves no respect from it's victims, i.e us, besides, we are part of nature too, if we destroy it, it's just nature destroying itself.