Very true. That sound advice of course includes human beings such as the hapless African Bongos, the equally hapless Haitians and the so called Muslim refugees who head towards Europe in endless droves reminiscent the great herds of wildebeest sweeping across the Serengeti planes as they migrate in search of the lush grazing pastures.
If gnus can look after themselves, how come Bongos and Muslims rely on Europe and white Americans?
Though I can see the relevance of the analogy, food stamps are served as a means for those who are in horrific economic conditions to be able to find a means of which to survive. So comparing humans feeding animals as a means of just pure entertainment to the government attempting to make sure U.S. citizens don't starve to death isn't entirely right (though it does, in turn, lead to some extent for some to be dependent on government intervention in their lives).
Nature isn't meant to be ethical, but efficient. For that, there aren't really much laws except for the rule of the powerful.
If we are to talk about that, then everyone who gets old enough to retire should be disposed, and all those who aren't fit enough (any longer) for any contribution or survival. There are no accumulated earnings from past in nature.
But, just so you know, our evolution wasn't guided that way. Because we're 'weak' in the animal kingdom. Ideally, our weak ancestors should have died when it began.
Your idea of evolution is, through ignorance and your inability to interpret the available information correctly, completely cockeyed.
It is difficult to dispel deep seated ignorance in one fell swoop, but do try to read and comprehend what most people already know about evolution.
Evolution is the process of natural selection.
More individuals are produced each generation that can survive.
Phenotypic variation exists among individuals and the variation is heritable.
Those individuals with traits better suited to the environment in which they live will survive.
The evolutionary process of elimination of the weak, less suited to survive in a changing world, either physically or intellectually, is played out over millions of years. Just as neanderthal man was replaced by modern humankind.
In the animal world subtle changes occur within all species and those where the evolutionary ''modifications'' are superior to the original design will, in the fullness of time reign supreme.
In mankind it is the intelligent, talented and capable who are at the top ''food chain'', figuratively speaking.
In time the genetically superior humans will become dominant and eventually completely replace the lower orders, again as was the case of the slower thinking less able neanderthal man was eclipsed by modern humankind.
Today we see those intelligent, forward thinking people at the top of the tree enjoying what appears to the intellectually challenged, an unfair and privileged lifestyle.
Whilst these ''superior'' people command their lofty positions within the 'pecking order'' of life they will also have had the foresight to make provision for their twilight years and have contingencies in place for the eventuality of any unforeseen disasters.
As a result of their prudence they will be able to draw on sufficient funds in their senior years to ensure that those on the lower rungs of the ladder work slavishly to keep them in the manner to which they have, through merit and their ''natural'' superiority , become accustomed.
Feeding the lower orders who are incapable of providing for themselves is a costly and futile exercise.
Right. I guess you didn't really understand what I said. I do understand what it takes for a species to evolve in any method, and especially when the results are not optimum. Here is one case of that.
I claim that due to the same reason of efficiency, anyone who is no longer sufficient should be disposed. Instead of declining just the ethics, I'm also declining private property. That when one is not efficient enough, he can not hold his position. Just like it used to work in the jungle - no ethics, no accumulated properties that you are no longer fit enough to hold.
Though those who are still intellectually fit and are contributing pass.
The difference exists between killing and letting die only to prevent too much dissonance in those 'morals' you're expected to follow. Saving lower beings from dying comes as part of the same package of inefficiency as not disposing those who are no longer fit.
(I do support your result, but from a different line of arguments. It'd still be in the same side of debate I am in - that you are just wasting resources by having them survive, and they possibly can't do anything by just surviving, so these are just empty goals. The kind choice will be to finish them off and end their misery. You can't expect someone who isn't even educated enough to make any difference even if we manage to make them survive.) (So, it's the reasoning that you have to defend, that puts you on that side of the debate)
I interpreted your initial remarks to be in agreement with my opinion on evolution and then felt you changed tack and became hostile towards my slant on the issue with comments tinged with a certain aloofness.
However, and with all due respect I feel I have made my position clear and therefore do not consider that there is any necessity for further clarification.
But, by way of exemplifying the thrust of my argument I would refer to the recent hurricanes in Haiti when the flimsy constructions were blown into the upper stratosphere, an occurrence which has been taking place once or twice each year for decades. Of course the Haitians immediately replaced their homes with constructions of corrugated iron and cardboard held together with chewing gum and elastic bands.
Were any lessons learned about the unsuitability of such buildings from their most recent traumatic experience as well as all the previous ones?;- naw, that would have involved thinking and holding reasoned debates about how best to prepare for the inevitability of future natural catastrophes .
Do these people, and those from similar backgrounds prepare for future hurricanes by establishing emergency stores of food, shelter and medical supplies ?;- naw, let the U.N. and the Yanks do that.
Would such people still exist if it wasn't for them being kept alive artificially?
I'm tempted to argue about the nature of inductive reasoning, but well...
Have you read any of Ayn Rand's works? (If not, you can find Anthem well in public domain.) We could create such a system with them so that they might contribute to the benefit of the world. (Basically, it is about collectively raising all children together without any records about parents.) Though their activists won't agree to it, I don't like populations being wasted. At least they will be more worthy to have participated in the experiment.
Killing off populations is never a good idea. I'd say, preserve their DNA, and conduct large-scale experiments. (Without torture. I hate torture.) If, that is, things are as you say. Anyone deemed worthy can be given chance of ascension, while he will have 'died' for those inside. Or anything appropriate.
For knowledge lies above anything else. We haven't risen to the top of the food chain by luck, and shall not rise higher in the universe by it. Not to mention that using them is more efficient than killing them. (Of course, the ethical activists might have problems with it.)
Your proposals and references to Ayn Rand's works are indeed genuinely most interesting, but to my mind complicates what is quite a simple subject, let nature run it's course as intended and the outcome will be the best possible.
Throughout history mankind has always been a territorial/tribal animal and the concept of collectively raising children without their natural parents is really no more than a cruel fanciful notion.
Did you ever witness Jewish mothers trying to cling to their babies and children while the German guards beat them off by smashing their skulls with their rifle butts?
To deny children the love of their parents, the sort of love only parents can give would be inhuman.
To deny the parents the joy of rearing their family and guiding them through their vulnerable years would be a horrific thought, especially for the dubious purpose of satisfying the curiosity of some Don Quixote type academic.
People's territorial instincts can be observed in the unlikely settings of large offices.
For quite some time psychologists have argued that large open spaces with everyone, including managers all in the one zone without walled divisions would be conducive to promoting a team spirit and a more harmonious working environment.
Did it, do I hear you asking? Did it hell.
As soon as this ''experiment'' started people immediately began positioning filing cabinets and large plants around their desks in an effort of marking out their territory and in the process providing them with a degree of privacy.
The only way is nature's way.
I'm certainly not advocating killing anyone, or anything absolutely not. All I'm suggesting is let individuals and nations be left to their own devices to either sink or swim.
The holocaust was about torturing people. As I said, I hate subjects being physically tortured in any way without their explicit consent. (Or, as you can say, volunteering. Because some experiments might involve a bit of pain.) So, without any physical torture, I doubt those conditions to repeat.
It is upto the powerful to choose whether they want to oppress the weak - it would be their right either way. Because, well, the powerful are more fit for survival, and they could oppress by force if they want to. That is enough for classifying something as a right.
Many of our monkey cousins do have their children raised collectively by many males - but they aren't exactly monogamous.
The other things have a simple solution - brainwashing. It has worked well almost universally throughout history. People can be convinced that it is a good thing, and we can find out whether it really is.
After all, disposing them is always an option. But I doubt we would need to.
(Don Quixote is on my list, but its size terrifies me. I wonder whether it should - it isn't long in comparison to many other books on the list.)
The reference to the Holocaust was used exclusively to illustrate the bond between the mother and her child.
There undoubtedly are instances in nature when the off spring of certain species are raised collectively, but in the vast majority of cases they are brought up within a family group with the mother taking the main responsibility for the infant.
Try taking a lion or bear cub from their mother and see how quickly you would become mincemeat.
Even appear menacing towards the calf of a domesticated cow and it will attack you, as was the cause of two deaths in Northern Ireland within the past two weeks.
Many people labour under the misapprehension that evolution claims we evolved from monkeys/apes.
Evolution teaches us that human primates and nonhuman primates such as monkeys and chimpanzee's diverged from a common ancestor between 6 and 10 million years ago.
Although there is only a small difference between the D.N.A. of a human and a chimpanzee, I think as little as 1 or 2 %, I don't consider myself to have any ''monkey cousins''.
The are the ruthless rich and powerful and the intelligent rich and powerful.
The latter 'exploit' the lower orders and manipulate them so they behave in a manner which promotes the well being of their superior masters.
Don Quixote was used as an analogy to Ayn Rand as they both are academics with outlandish and fanciful notions.
In the case of Quixote he attacked windmills in the misguided notion that they were giants and Rand's equally ridiculous fantasy that children could, or should be separated and reared away from their natural parents.
Anyway, I think we've exhausted this line of discussion so I'll sign off here and wish you good luck.
No, actually, Rand portrayed what would happen in a society with no private properties or even identities. It is equality at its purest. Anthem doesn't really have a happy ending, and Atlas Shrugged is on my list to read. But people were successfully brainwashed into believing that all those are good things. And producing children was a planned activity by the state. It was forbidden to prefer anyone over someone else.
I wonder whether such a thing can really happen. (I would have called monkeys ancestors rather than cousins if I thought we came from them.)
The question arises, do you care enough about populations that you are advocating to be killed (or let die, the slower option) to want that they not be part of various large-scale experiments? (As I said, no involuntary physical torture is involved.) (Also, that way, we can see who among them can think for themselves, and save them.) Why?
Sure. I noticed just now that we're talking on different pages - I probably misinterpretated something you said, as is evident from the last line of my previous argument.
You said that they won't be alive any longer if we stop helping them. So, how is letting them die any different than killing them quickly? Except in the time duration, of course.
Actually, that's exactly what I am saying, whilst trying to be as politically correct as I can with such a realistically harsh message, and I make no apology whatsoever for doing so.
Every now and then some people will hit hard times and the strong and capable will provide a temporary safety net for such occurrences.
However, those people who, perhaps through geographical isolation or religious dogma, have missed out on the distribution of superior genes will need to be fed and cared for indefinitely.
We can witness this ''inferiority'' in numerous countries where the inhabitants require to be provided with food, shelter and medical care for generation after generation.
They never learn from their experiences of disasters nor are they capable of reasoning and understanding the world in which they live and what makes it tick, and they never will.
The learning process and survival instincts can be observed in animals such as the lowly wildebeest as they cross great distances to reach the rich grazing lands which they need for survival.
Many of the lower orders of mankind cannot even make this fundamental observation that radical decisions, such as moving on will be necessary to survive.
They have come to expect handouts as their God given right and become indignant if the bounty which is being provided by the hardworking ''superior'' taxpayers of the world is, in their opinion, too slow in coming.
They should be left to perish so the earth's finite resources can be utilized to support the proliferation of superior humankind just as nature intended.
