Evolution of Intelligence, Technology, and the Human Condition
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Yes, along with vast improvement in the field of technology and medicine and health and hygeine, we as a species also have improved greatly in morality and altruism. In other words.....we are overall less violent and more peaceful now than ever before in the history of our planet. This claim will no doubt surprise many. Why? Because mainly due to the media. We now are almost instantly privy to ANY sort of notable or significant violence. Even if it occurs half a world away. Say, a car bomb kills 23 people in Baghdad. Thanks to electronic media, a perosn living in Detroit can become aware of this tragedy in a matter of moments. Not that long ago, say, only five or six generations, like back in the mid-1800s, chances are you would NEVER know about such a thing. Maybe not even know about a full-fledged WAR that was taking place in another country. And of course do to the tacit media mantra, "If it bleeds, it leads"....they are far more apt to give the bad and violent stuff far more attention that the other 99% of the news in which no violence occurred. We as a species ARE evolving to become more altruistic and less violent. Although of course violence will always be present. Homo sapiens discovered long ago, even back in our hunter-gatherer days, that it indeed behooved us to sometimes help others. Even those outside of our tribes. We learned this shortly after our minds evolved past the stage of self--awareness and the ability to look at "the big picture." The Grand Scheme of Things, so to speak. Nash's "Law of Equilibrium" plays a large part in this. Although that Law is primarily used in Economics, it has proven to be useful in many other fields, such as sociology and Global Relations. So...YES! Despair not! The World is getting better. Not just technologically speaking, but also as far as our collective morals and compassion are concerned. Check out this link for more.............. http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-09-29/ Your statement is false. More people have actually become violent because of the media. For example, ISIS using the media for political warfare. With the existence of the media, it makes it much more easier to spread hate. Hate is the primary breeder of violence. Also, we aren't less violent it just seems that way because we direct it towards different activities, e.g football, rugby, hockey, UFC among other things. The armed forces! There is much violence here. Don't forget verbal violence. The word has taken place of the sword. Also, the same reasoning could be applied to the more peaceful side of the past, it only seemed more violent because not much of the peacefulness is mentioned. There wasn't any social media to report most of the good things happening. 1
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I concur with your assessment that we are not the mental giants we make ourselves out to be. It is true we have moved ahead in advances regarding our technology but if we look back in the past our progress is no different from the progress of years past where people go along and someone develop something new and society moves forward this process hasn't changed for modern man it just simply moves faster. With each new improvement in technology we must focus on protecting that technology from those who Will exploit it and use it against people (this sounds like the same old human beings). The technology has allowed businesses, company, agencies to collect information, private, personal on the majority of people and therefore people are monitored more so than they have ever been since the existence of man. The technology allows businesses, companies are whomever to begin controlling people for example have you been searching for something online and your search engine says you have reached your destination only a pop up advertisement slaps you in the face, get rid of that one there's another one to take its place. Have you ever wanted to figure out an equation, see a formula well you're gonna have to keep searching because they don't give you the formulas right off the top you simply put your information in and they'll calculated for you. We are so focused on technology will looking at our smart phones as we're crossing the street and the signal light has changed so now we're in jeopardy of being hit by a car. When it comes to data can anyone say overwhelmed so when ever you sign up with a new website, a new business online, we seem to always have these legal agreements that we have to read which go on for page, after page, after page. |
