Hope or Delusion?

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Re: Hope or Delusion?

Post by Blind groper » Sun Mar 17, 2013 6:20 pm

People never learn.

The world has always had its doomsday prophets. They are always wrong, and they always keep coming.
For every human action, there is a rationalisation and a reason. Only sometimes do they coincide.

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Re: Hope or Delusion?

Post by cronus » Sun Mar 17, 2013 6:30 pm

Blind groper wrote:People never learn.

The world has always had its doomsday prophets. They are always wrong, and they always keep coming.
When they are right they perish and don't get to write about it, nor does anyone else. The only ones recorded are the ones who got it wrong. Doesn't mean they all got it wrong though does it? :tup:

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Re: Hope or Delusion?

Post by Blind groper » Sun Mar 17, 2013 7:49 pm

Scrumple

Doomsday prophets are more ambitious than that. They have this tendency to predict massive doom, not some picayune local doom. Massive doom means everyone dies. I think you can note that this has not happened.

Here is the score :

Optimists 100%
Pessimists zero.
For every human action, there is a rationalisation and a reason. Only sometimes do they coincide.

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Re: Hope or Delusion?

Post by cronus » Sun Mar 17, 2013 7:59 pm

Blind groper wrote:Scrumple

Doomsday prophets are more ambitious than that. They have this tendency to predict massive doom, not some picayune local doom. Massive doom means everyone dies. I think you can note that this has not happened.

Here is the score :

Optimists 100%
Pessimists zero.
With the Neanderthals

Optimists 0%
Pessimists dead too.

:coffee:
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Re: Hope or Delusion?

Post by Audley Strange » Sun Mar 17, 2013 8:00 pm

"He's got me struggling to hang on to hope, like a drunken sailor in a tug boat
with a bottle of vodka in my overcoat and my dog-eared bible lost overboard." The Mercy Beat.
"What started as a legitimate effort by the townspeople of Salem to identify, capture and kill those who did Satan's bidding quickly deteriorated into a witch hunt" Army Man

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Re: Hope or Delusion?

Post by Blind groper » Sun Mar 17, 2013 8:47 pm

Scrumple wrote:
With the Neanderthals
It may have escaped your notice, scrumple, but we are not Neanderthals.


Well, most of us anyway.
For every human action, there is a rationalisation and a reason. Only sometimes do they coincide.

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Re: Hope or Delusion?

Post by cronus » Sun Mar 17, 2013 8:55 pm

Blind groper wrote:
Scrumple wrote:
With the Neanderthals
It may have escaped your notice, scrumple, but we are not Neanderthals.


Well, most of us anyway.
They were smarter....that much is true. :smoke:
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Re: Hope or Delusion?

Post by Blind groper » Sun Mar 17, 2013 9:02 pm

Scrumple wrote:
They were smarter....that much is true.
Wrong.

That is a hypothesis without supporting evidence.

We know, however, that they are extinct, and they became extinct within a few thousand years of Homo sapiens invading their territory. This implies that our species outcompeted them, or simply killed them off. Neither supports your hypothesis.
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Re: Hope or Delusion?

Post by cronus » Sun Mar 17, 2013 9:05 pm

Blind groper wrote:
Scrumple wrote:
They were smarter....that much is true.
Wrong.

That is a hypothesis without supporting evidence.

We know, however, that they are extinct, and they became extinct within a few thousand years of Homo sapiens invading their territory. This implies that our species outcompeted them, or simply killed them off. Neither supports your hypothesis.
I prefer the baby swapping hypothesis. Saps looked cute and they wanted and got cute....unfortunately unbreedable stock. Like capitalism and the web, seems a good idea at the time. :coffee:
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Re: Hope or Delusion?

Post by Tyrannical » Sun Mar 17, 2013 11:33 pm

Blind groper wrote:
Scrumple wrote:
They were smarter....that much is true.
Wrong.

That is a hypothesis without supporting evidence.

We know, however, that they are extinct, and they became extinct within a few thousand years of Homo sapiens invading their territory. This implies that our species outcompeted them, or simply killed them off. Neither supports your hypothesis.
I suspect that neanderthal had a much higher calorie requirement than modern man. Not only were they larger and more muscular, they probably burned more calories as heat as a cold adaptation. That meant less neanderthals per square mile, and they probably had to move more often to follow game.
A rational skeptic should be able to discuss and debate anything, no matter how much they may personally disagree with that point of view. Discussing a subject is not agreeing with it, but understanding it.

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Re: Hope or Delusion?

Post by Horwood Beer-Master » Mon Mar 18, 2013 12:57 am

Blind groper wrote:I am an optimist.
The basis for that optimism is history, which shows humanity identifying problems and then solving them. The fact that problems exist does not mean they will overwhelm us.
You're misreading history. Many times the problems were not solved, many times they did overwhelm. Cultures and civilisations fall; often in catastrophe and death.
To believe that the fact people survived catastrophe and rebuilt somehow means the catastrophe wasn't really a catastrophe at all is nothing more then temporal chauvinism.

Optimists will say "we got though it before; we'll get through it again", but in both cases I'm inclined to ask "who's "we"".
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Re: Hope or Delusion?

Post by Blind groper » Mon Mar 18, 2013 1:47 am

To Horwood

Depends which history you are reading.
The Renaissance changed the world, because out of the Renaissance came the scientific method. It is the last 400 years, since Isaac Newton and Galileo, that count. Before that, no one really knew how to increase knowledge in any systematic way.

In that 400 years, there has been a steady (indeed, exponentially increasing) growth in knowledge and human capability. In that period of time, there have been local and short term disasters, like WWII, but no collapse. Instead, our civilisation has been going from strength to strength.

That period has, however, been challenged numerous times with serious problems. Each such problem has been faced and overcome. Of course, I cannot guarantee that the next great problem may not be the one that sinks us all. But, based on that 400 years of triumphing over the potholes of progress, I see no reason why technological and even economic growth cannot continue.

The world today is a much better place than it was before this process began. While there are always hiccoughs along the way, on average, we have seen steady progress and improvement. Simply pointing out the problems of our present time is not strong evidence that this progress will not continue.
For every human action, there is a rationalisation and a reason. Only sometimes do they coincide.

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Re: Hope or Delusion?

Post by cronus » Mon Mar 18, 2013 7:04 am

Blind groper wrote:To Horwood

Depends which history you are reading.
The Renaissance changed the world, because out of the Renaissance came the scientific method. It is the last 400 years, since Isaac Newton and Galileo, that count. Before that, no one really knew how to increase knowledge in any systematic way.

In that 400 years, there has been a steady (indeed, exponentially increasing) growth in knowledge and human capability. In that period of time, there have been local and short term disasters, like WWII, but no collapse. Instead, our civilisation has been going from strength to strength.

That period has, however, been challenged numerous times with serious problems. Each such problem has been faced and overcome. Of course, I cannot guarantee that the next great problem may not be the one that sinks us all. But, based on that 400 years of triumphing over the potholes of progress, I see no reason why technological and even economic growth cannot continue.

The world today is a much better place than it was before this process began. While there are always hiccoughs along the way, on average, we have seen steady progress and improvement. Simply pointing out the problems of our present time is not strong evidence that this progress will not continue.
Dials look fine don't they? Have you looked out of the window at the brickwall of water approaching though? :coffee:
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Re: Hope or Delusion?

Post by Horwood Beer-Master » Mon Mar 18, 2013 8:11 am

Blind groper wrote:To Horwood

Depends which history you are reading.
The Renaissance changed the world, because out of the Renaissance came the scientific method. It is the last 400 years, since Isaac Newton and Galileo, that count. Before that, no one really knew how to increase knowledge in any systematic way.

In that 400 years, there has been a steady (indeed, exponentially increasing) growth in knowledge and human capability. In that period of time, there have been local and short term disasters, like WWII, but no collapse. Instead, our civilisation has been going from strength to strength.

That period has, however, been challenged numerous times with serious problems. Each such problem has been faced and overcome. Of course, I cannot guarantee that the next great problem may not be the one that sinks us all. But, based on that 400 years of triumphing over the potholes of progress, I see no reason why technological and even economic growth cannot continue.

The world today is a much better place than it was before this process began. While there are always hiccoughs along the way, on average, we have seen steady progress and improvement. Simply pointing out the problems of our present time is not strong evidence that this progress will not continue.
So you're ignoring any history before 400 years ago? On what basis?

In the great sweep of human history 400 years is nothing.
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Re: Hope or Delusion?

Post by Blind groper » Mon Mar 18, 2013 8:22 am

To Horwood,
Who is laboring under the delusion that the present day is no different to the past.

The last 400 years is unique. The present day is unique. Can you name me any time. And I mean any time, in which the world was as united as it is now. In which traditional enemies are now trading partners. In which China sells to the USA. In which Russia and England work together. In which scientists from all over the world go to international conferences and share their secrets. In which all nations agree that slavery is bad, child labor is bad, that universal education and universal health care is good. In which people actually work together.

The present day is unique. No other period in history comes close. We are enormously ahead of each and every time period in the past, both in technology and capability, and in terms of universal ethical standards. Go back even as little as 100 years, and you will find a number of nations who believe that it is their right to conquer others to increase their territory (the real cause of WWI). No one (except perhaps, Israel) believes that today.

Today, we are empowered as never before. We have universal ethics as never before. We have a United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. And no one (except perhaps the barbaric USA) denies it.

Name me any period in history that is close to the present in terms of both technological or ethical development. You cannot, because there is no other period.

And for this reason, your analogies with the past are total bullshit.
For every human action, there is a rationalisation and a reason. Only sometimes do they coincide.

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