Draugnar, Darwin's titling is not with reference to the selection of species, but rather upon the phenomenon of speciation by which new species arise from common ancestors.

Strictly speaking evolution acts at a genetic level upon each individual "gene" by altering allele frequencies in a gene pool. Group selection (including species selection) does not really occur to any appreciable degree except under very specific circumstances such that it's unlikely that such forces have played any significant role in the evolution of life on Earth. This has been proven with mathematical rigour.

Each species is well adapted it it's ecological niche. Darwinism as a science makes no value judgements as to whether it's better to have technology and music, or whether it's better to dig burrows in the ground and eat worms. Species are incomparable in this sense.

All of you make good points but my original point stands: Humanity will die out whether or not we go back to being hunter-gatherers. If we're hunter-gatherers, then eventually a natural disaster will kill us all. If we leave it like it is we may run out of resources, in which case a small number will revert to hunting and gathering... so there's no problem with that... and the last option is that civilization gets so massive that it somehow kills off every last human. So what? Wasn't that going to happen anyway when the sun turned into red giant and engulfed the earth along with all the happy little hunter-gatherers who oscillate between having civilizations and returning to their roots over the millions of years? Why not just do it right and follow progress to its maximum possibility? If only for the sheer reason that as many humans can live and enjoy the miracle that is life as possible, then so be it. I see the primitivist wish to live with a sparse number of foragers on an empty earth as selfish. Would you, Sicarius, be willing to be one of those who starves because the "unsustainable" giant farms are burned?

Oh wait... there is actually a fourth option, laughable though you may find it. Civilization advances SO far that humanity is able to dodge extinction completely. There's a thought. You're not going to have even the chance of that if you're just hunting and gathering but you at least have a shot of it if you have an advanced civilization.

"what right do YOU have to destroy the earth? "

Who says there is such a right? Is the Earth some kind of being that has wishes? Do you believe in Gaia or an earth-goddess... or is Earth just a ball of rock? I don't want to see Earth destroyed at all... but the only reason no one has the right to destroy it is because people live here, and their homes would be destroyed. The prospect of destroying the planet itself is not somehow morally detestable.

Oh... when I said "my original point stands" I meant this:

We produce great art and passion, as humans. We have contributed that to the universe. Perhaps, if we are to die, we should shoot it out into space and duly die. Then maybe some aliens can see it. I'd rather that than a few dubiously happy hunter-gatherers. I'm just not sold on sustainability. Why is that the best thing? Lingering on and on.... for what?

@Draugnar. I couldn't live a hunter gatherer lifestyle either. I don't think we can go back either. I'll modify the first premise.

1. Humans were just as happy living a hunter gatherer lifestyle.

Furthermore, for much of history the transition from hunter gatherer to farmer often meant a drop in the standard of living. Farming may have meant that humans could breed faster and support a higher population, but on average individuals were less healthy, worked harder, had a high rate of disease and generally experienced greater suffering. It might be that in the first world we are finally reaping the benefits of this transition, but much of the world still lives in appalling poverty and misery.

@Chrispinis. We have super stimulus - granted. I don't think equates to greater happiness though. We have more but also take it for granted. Hunter gatherers also experience stimuli that we don't get to experience, such as the thrill of the hunt. And the satisfaction of hunting food (not just for sport) knowing that you truly were supporting your family.

@Draugnur I can't absolutely prove premise 2 but I think a strong case can be made for this. (Not necessarily by me though, but I'll give it a stab)

Since humans became civillized the rate of species extinction has increased dramatically. We are rapildy altering the ecosytem in ways that we may not completely understand, and thus find ourselves victim to the law of unintended consequences. Human caused global warming may be one symptom of this.
The world population is continuing to rise and our technology is also. While this technology can me improved efficiency it also means that we can consume more. The world has finite resources that are necessary for life. These will not last forever. Civillization and progress means that we are using these resources at ever increasing rates. Thus reducing the time that life on Earth will be sustainable.

typo... while this technology can *mean improved efficiency

@Spyman - You said life on Earth would last longer. That implies ALL life on earth. There is plenty of life in the depths of the oceans that would continue even if we decimated the surface with nuclear weapons for millenia to come. Life on earth will last the same length whether we screw up the parts of the environment we affect the most or not.

You're probably right Draugnar.

I wonder how many species went extinct since my last post.

hope blackberrys billboards and burger king are worth it

Species went extinct before humans existed

@DingleberryJones:
yes species did go extinct before humans. However the rate of extinctions caused by humans cannot be considered 'natural'.

"We have super stimulus - granted. I don't think equates to greater happiness though. We have more but also take it for granted. Hunter gatherers also experience stimuli that we don't get to experience, such as the thrill of the hunt. And the satisfaction of hunting food (not just for sport) knowing that you truly were supporting your family."

Well, I'm pretty sure the human mind is flexible enough that we don't have to physically act out a replica hunt just to get the same pleasures as hunter gatherers. I have no doubt that the modern world is more pleasurable than the primitive one. I'm of the mind that under most any conditions that are relatively static, people have a pretty genetically determined level of happiness. Lottery winners and people who are in a crippling accident return to their baseline happiness a year after each event. The human mind has demonstrated enormous capacity to keep us happy even in the face of adversity.

And it's true that humans have caused extinctions to occur at a faster rate than "natural". It is our fault. It's very sad, but I don't see it as a very strong argument for taking away civilization and reducing us to primitive means again. Humanity has been causing "unnatural" extinctions since they left Africa. The extinction of most major mammals in other continents coincides with the arrival of humans in that area. The hunting techniques we developed in Africa proved extremely effective on large game in areas that had never evolved alongside humans and were not prepared for the sudden threat of extinction. It's fair to point out that it is not at the same scale as that of today's rate of extinction, but I don't see it as an argument for any arbitrary level of technology versus another. There's just no point at which you can say, this level of technology and this level of unnatural extinction is ok.

"I have no doubt that the modern world is more pleasurable than the primitive one."

in what way?

"Lottery winners and people who are in a crippling accident return to their baseline happiness a year after each event."
you use this alot. what do you have to support it?

"There's just no point at which you can say, this level of technology and this level of unnatural extinction is ok."
none? really? no point at all?
theres no rate of extinction when you will think 'ok, this is too much'?

We can't go back to a primitive state, regardless of whether is a good way to live. There are too many people in the world. How could we possibly return to such a state? Impossible.
The reality is we live in an advanced technological world. That is *our* natural state.

"However the rate of extinctions caused by humans cannot be considered 'natural'. "

Bullshit. We are a product of this planet and all our actions are natural. Everythin we make is natural. Just like a bird's nest. If the lions hunt a grazing animal to extinction, then the extinction is natural. If frogs make spiders extinct because they overcompete and take away their food source, the extinction is natural. If elephants move their habitat to a new savannah and destroy some rodent's habitat, making them extinct, the extinction is natural. If humans build a city in a forest and a bird's habitat is destroyed as a result, making them extinct, the extinction is natural. That's just the way it is. It might be regrettable, preventable, whatever, but it is anything but unnatural. Who said humans are unnatural?

theres no rate of extinction when you will think 'ok, this is too much'?

What is it for you, Sicarius? Quantify it. Don't just say the level it is today is too much, what extinction rate, specifically, is unacceptable? Looking for a number...

"We can't go back to a primitive state, regardless of whether is a good way to live. There are too many people in the world. How could we possibly return to such a state? Impossible."

we do it voluntarily or involuntarily.
it will happen either way.


I dont need a number thucy.
its too much already.

Sicarius, if you read my previous post, I was talking about the prolific presence of super stimulus in the modern world. I mean that it's more pleasurable in the hedonistic measurable sense of the word. The direct reward of your brain's pleasure centres. It's not exactly happiness, but as a measurable quantity, it is definitely greater now than before. I was saying that contrary to spyman's claim that primitivists feel that we are less happy now, I was saying that no, I think many of them are reacting negatively to the massive indulgence around them, and that rather, people might be too "happy".

As to my example, see Dan Gilbert.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html

Concerning a rate of unnatural extinction... my point was that any level that you pick is arbitrary. At what point is it acceptable or unacceptable? You can say in a vague sense that the current rate is unacceptable, and that the primitive rate is acceptable, but where along the way does that change? Does it magically happen at the dawn of agriculture, perhaps the Middle Ages, perhaps the Industrial Revolution? Maybe we haven't actually hit that unacceptable rate yet... I'm not saying we shouldn't be environmentally conscious and try to reduce the rate of extinctions... what I am saying is that the fact that humans cause extinctions is no argument for primitivism versus the modern world. It's a valid point, but not for that argument.

@sicarius "we do it volunatarily or involuntarily". It will happen either way.
By involunatarily I am guessing you mean some type of cataclsym will befall us. I can conceive some type of devastating disaster which could disrupt the world as we know it, but I can't imagine how this would lead us to back to a hunter gatherer existence. Even if we couldn' use electrictiy and we ran out of petrol surely we would still return to an agrarian existence - not hunter gatherer.
How would we do this voluntarily? Even if we wanted to there are too many people to feed with this method. We would have to reduce the world population to under 100 million people (based on a study where I tossed around a few numbers until one of them sounded about right).

Sicarius - How would we get rid of all the extra people?
How do we get the remaining people to adopt the new "idealic" lifestyle. How would you get everyone to agree? How would we learn the necessary skills?

Question: "How do we get rid of all the extra people?"
Answer: Soylent Green

@ Thucydides. I'm pretty sure I didn't mention humans being unnatural. only that the rate of extinction currently going on in the world is caused by unnatural causes. And because you are going to ask me to justify this; yes I think that 'civilisation' has moved into a rather unnatural arrangement in regards to how we go about retrieving our resources.

Hilarious: people using expensive, advanced computers on a massive global-infrastructure network to argue that the modern world is bad. Shouldn't you be carving your screed into a stone tablet somewhere?

Nothing about civilization is unnatural. Nothing int he world is unnatural. We are products of nature, therefore any and EVERY thing we do is natural. It may be harmful and destructive but it is still natural.

Agreed, Draugnar. I thought no one shared that viewpoint of mine.


Look, we are an intelligent species, so we are capable of doing things other animals never can, so yes I think it is up to us not to allow ourselves to destroy the planet. But don't for one second think that a nuclear holocaust or anything else manmade would be unnatural.

@kaner, you claim that the way we retrieve resources is unnatural. How so? Just because it is different from every other animal? Other animals go to strange lengths to do similar things, have you ever had your yard "ruined" by a mole who dug wholes all through it in a single night, presumable looking for food?

can someone define natural?
because if anything that any species can ever possibly do is natural, why does the word exist at all

I think we're getting far off the argument with this whole natural/unnatural debate. Unnatural is generally agreed to mean that it's "artificially" induced by humanity. You can argue that since there is no real divide between humans and other organisms that unnatural should not exist as a word. I would say this doesn't change our responsibility to preserve the world in which we live. It's human arrogance to think that we can't live without the complex ecosystem's around us, and extinctions are very much something we should worry about. It doesn't even matter if it's our fault or not. As conscious beings with the means to help out, we should, if only because it's in the interests of our own self preservation. Watch what happens if bees go extinct.

The point I was making is that this argument doesn't matter to the debate at hand. Namely, that primitivism is better than civilization. Humans have always caused extinctions, which are by definition unnatural, even as hunter gatherers. It's not a valid argument against civilization because it precludes the assumption of some level of unnatural extinction which is acceptable, but by nature, must be arbitrary. It's not a valid argument in this debate.

I agree with you Chris, and I also hold that indeed the word unnatural should only exist as an aristic sort of thing, or in other uses such as "he landed in an unnatural position."

I agree with Chrisp and Thucy. Unnatural could better be described as abnormal or excessive in this case and we do have a responsibility to the Earth and it's ecosystem.