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Mal Education /shando/
10 years 1 month ago #6501
by Jim
Replied by Jim on topic Reply from
LB, If I knew the rules of nature I'd be smarter even than you. I agree with your observation-the word better is not the best choice here.
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10 years 1 month ago #22730
by Larry Burford
Replied by Larry Burford on topic Reply from Larry Burford
Nature is very cool in a lot of ways. But it has some obvious limits, and it's turned out to be possible, even easy in some cases, to do 'better'.
Mankind's social/cultural advancements have been the result of learning how to overcome the limits and defects of Nature. (E.G. the portion of the human male population that is actually civilized will ask a human female for permission before impregnating her. The remainder of the human male population, and all of the rest of Nature, do not even recognize that there is a problem, nor that it has a solution.)
Our material/technical advancements have a similar origin (improving on what Nature has achieved), but from time to time they cause us problems because we did not understand Nature as well as we thought we did. However, when this has happened (and we find out pretty fast because of the sometimes dire consequences) we either back off or we fix the problem in our prior technology. We adjust our technology to work better with Nature and still give us a much better outcome than Nature achieved without our input.
Mankind's social/cultural advancements have been the result of learning how to overcome the limits and defects of Nature. (E.G. the portion of the human male population that is actually civilized will ask a human female for permission before impregnating her. The remainder of the human male population, and all of the rest of Nature, do not even recognize that there is a problem, nor that it has a solution.)
Our material/technical advancements have a similar origin (improving on what Nature has achieved), but from time to time they cause us problems because we did not understand Nature as well as we thought we did. However, when this has happened (and we find out pretty fast because of the sometimes dire consequences) we either back off or we fix the problem in our prior technology. We adjust our technology to work better with Nature and still give us a much better outcome than Nature achieved without our input.
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10 years 1 month ago #22462
by Larry Burford
Replied by Larry Burford on topic Reply from Larry Burford
All of our advancements exist because we have done better, here and there, than Nature, so why would we want to 'go back'?
We still have much to learn from Nature of course, but as we do we will continue to snicker at the obvious improvements that She missed. This happens because we are 'intelligent' and Nature is not.
And we will make some mistakes as well. But we will blush, and try to pretend it didn't happen, and so on. And then fix it and move on to the next wonderful thing. Life will get better.
***
The rich will get richer, and the poor will get richer. Unless we allow the politicians to try to fix something.
***
Then some day a supernova or space aliens will get us.
The End
We still have much to learn from Nature of course, but as we do we will continue to snicker at the obvious improvements that She missed. This happens because we are 'intelligent' and Nature is not.
And we will make some mistakes as well. But we will blush, and try to pretend it didn't happen, and so on. And then fix it and move on to the next wonderful thing. Life will get better.
***
The rich will get richer, and the poor will get richer. Unless we allow the politicians to try to fix something.
***
Then some day a supernova or space aliens will get us.
The End
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