In another forum some teenage guy asked the question: Why is the human race so corrupt? Why is it that we're so messed up as a species? By corruption, I'm talking about everything from terrorism to discrimination to rejection to even bullying. Why the heck can't we all just take chill pills () and accept one another. After all, we're all human. We are a very homogeneous species. My DNA is over 99% identical to, say, the prime minister of Canada. If you are of European origin, Your DNA is identical to, say, a farmer in the middle east. I know it sounds weird, but it's true. I really wish the concept of race never came to be as well. We are technically one race, the human race. The concept of race and ethnicity has made the blood of many people boil. Racism is just one issue for humans, but it shouldn't be one to be truthful. Why can't we accept one another? Why can't we live in peace? Why is everyone a jackass? J/K Several responses were generated to this nice question. The responses were: 1. Certain norms and bullying at an adult age of sorts I suppose. Ignorace too 2. Maybe because we where made by Microsoft. But seriously its becuase of Darwin's theory of evolution, where everything is based on natural selection (some call it survival of the fittest). We have traits that are required for our species to survive. 3. Because the majority of people have mental problems 4. Society has become too complex as well as too stressful. Also, humans are too smart for their own good, we are a self-destructive species. 5. You could say the same about any social species. 6. And yet the ants go to war with each other, the lions go to war with each other, and the chimps go to war with each other. Instead of feeling bad about the fact that we fight each other, you should feel GOOD about the fact that we're civilized enough to feel bad about how we fight each other. 7. Because people wanna be on top at all costs 8. I guess it is because we see ourselves as creatures of free will, we were taught this all our lives, and still the human race can not escape the fact that we are animals, and as all other animals we have the same basic instincts and desires. Sadly we are also able to think of ways to get to what we desire. Morals and ethics are taught by the place we stem from in the world, but they do not replace our basic instincts, when these collide morals and ethics have a high chance of getting the boot. Oh on top of that we have to remember genetic imperfections like insanity and personality disorderes. These are usually partly genetic (to say the least). ALOT of people have mental problems, these come in a wide array and are rarely purely negative tho. Last but not least... Humans are far from as intelligent as they think they are. If you try to study them, and their behavior it shows quite fast, the Human mind, is lacking, it can not comprehend alot of "wrongs", it has rarely foresight. Humans are stupid by nature, they really are. 9. I don't think that humans are inherently self-destructive. But I would see SOME possible merit in the idea that we're "too smart for our own good". More specifically, in the idea that our technological development has so immensely exceeded any changes to US. Humans have changed very little over the many thousands of years. We're essentially the same as the people who hunted woolly mammoths and wrote on ancient cave walls. But the way we innovate technologically and utilize the stored knowledge of past generations has recently led to an INSANE amount of technological innovation that has drastically changed the way people live. And the result is this kind of disconnect between what we are, and the world in which we have built for ourselves. Many of us still think as if we were living in early history, except that instead of spears and rocks we have AK-47s and atomic bombs. Luckily we are a highly adaptable species, so we adapted to live as things changed at an insanely fast rate. But adapting to a new environment doesn't really make us different people. I think that today's racist is someone who (in a long gone time) may have been praised by his tribe for mercilessly defending the tribe against outsiders. But the same attitudes that worked thousands of years ago in a small tribal setting may not work so well in a huge society such as the ones we have today. The racist is exercising a totally natural need to hate "the other guy". He simply has just failed to adapt his concept of "the other guy" to fit in with modern society. Have you ever read David Wong's article about "The Monkeysphere"? Well, I think that a lot of that is going on. We simply were not mentally designed to live in societies consisting of millions of people. Or god forbid, a global society of six billion people. We're still slaves to our biology, and our biology sort of directs us to seek out small groups. Once we have to start dealing with thousands of strangers on a daily basis, we sort of just go a little bit insane. It's just that some people handle this insanity better than others. Some people get stressed out and relieve their stress by shooting people in a videogame, while others dress up in hoods and go out to kill blacks and gays. 10. Many other animals fight against animals of their species. We aren't any different. The only difference is we have guns and knives and nukes... 11. As within, so without. Until people learn to have inner peace, they will always be corrupt. 12. The human race has always been greedy... people created society to make life easier and organised, but it has just caused more problems. People who live in non-western countries and regions seem to have better values and views towards people. 13. It is in our nature to destroy ourselves. 14. Were not messed up as a species as the TC said, we are simply acting in our own self interest. 15. Because of the money and the power that every one are trying to get it and that happens when you go far from your religion and your believes 16. We are a SOCIAL animal. The very key to our survival is allocating different tasks to different members of society. It is NOT in our nature to destroy "ourselves". It is in our nature to destroy "THEM", not "ourselves" because "THEY" represent a threat to "ourselves". Take a convicted murderer in prison for life, and more often than not, that person is going to identify with HIS prison group while seeing everyone else as the enemy. His protection in a hostile environment depends upon finding a community which is receptive to him. It's NOT a matter of "us vs us", it is a matter of "us vs them". And this is the same reason why people join gangs, why liberals hate conservatives and vice-versa, and why this particular forum is so often filled with conflicts between the atheists and the theists. It is ABSOLUTELY not in our nature to "destroy ourselves", it is in our nature to destroy "THOSE GUYS". These are two VERY different things. But destroying "ourselves"? Uh...no. We IDENTIFY with "ourselves", we NEED "ourselves". This is how doomsday cults manage to recruit people: by appealing to a sense of belonging and importance in people's weakest and most vulnerable moments. Dude, fuck Terminator 2. That movie isn't even worth a single thought when it comes to human nature. It's a stupid movie because of the sentiments expressed in it and they make even less sense than the movie. "It's in our nature to destroy ourselves." Uh...yeah. Is that how we got from eating snails in the woods, to basically dominating the entire planet? Did we reach a global population of almost SEVEN BILLION PEOPLE by "destroying ourselves"? No. That'd be silly. We SAVE ourselves, and then go and destroy THAT GUY. 17. It is because that human beings are fueled by ambition and greed, and to reach that goal we disregard others for our own benefit. We chose to have democratic governments because a single person is more prone to corruption while a panel of politicians are still prone to corruption but has a variety of opinions therefor making a more neutral opinion compared to a single ruler. 18. I think its power. We humans arn't capable of coping with power. Each and everyone of us can deal with a certain amount of power, but if this power grows bigger then your capabality to deal with it, you will do crazy things. This bar is different for each and everyone of us. Some go crazy after having power over 10 man, some after 100 , some even only after millions, but in the end, power makes a man go nuts. Theres a lot of examples of power making humans do crazy things, just open a history book. Some examples: Mao Zedong, Russian leaders like Putin and Stalin, Greece/Italian old rulers (nero if I remember correctly), egyptian pharaos, etc etc. And even to this date examples can be found (Adolf Hitler Castro , etc) There are others who are capable of coping with great amounts of power (Nelson Mandela comes to mind) and although this man has enjoyed great amounts of power, the question is, how much more did he need before losing his mind. (Im not saying he therefore is a bad man, Nelson Mandela is my idol and one of the most incredible man in recent history, im only trying to show that at a certain amount of power people will change) 19. I think it's not that we DESTROY ourselves...we destroy those we deem a threat to our existence... But saying it's in our nature to destroy OURSELVES..is somewhat misleading..because we don't really destroy ourselves...we destroy others...for reasons either good or bad.. 20. No matter what we try 2 do..people will always be selfish- its the human nature. and it keeps us alive. i can start a huge discussion about everything that ruins our society-war, primitive beliefs (racism, sexism, discrimination...), mentel illnesses, pride...the point is no matter what u do people r all selfish. we all care about ourselves more than about others. WE ALL RUIN OUR SOCIETY 21. Humans are driven by self interest, and when that self interest conflicts with another, that's when conflicts happen. 22. There are alot of nice people out there.. human race isnt as messed as you think. We generalize the human species as malevolent unfairly. We are susceptible because we have the freedom to run by choice and interest rather than instinct. Above all, there are many who defy self interest 23. We have unlimited greed but the earth we live on is limited... 24. I imagine it is to counter all the beautiful things we do. I'd guess for every 100,000 small acts of kindness, one large and horrible thing occurs. Humanity is very balanced, for better or worse. 25. Every living thing in this world is corrupt in some form or another, it's just that we're advanced enough to have a sense of right and wrong. Animals kill their own kind all the time. 26. We are still evolving. That's the reason why you still find mistakes.
well, comparatively speaking we are the smartest creatures on the planet. this is both good and bad. so i ask, is there a mental blockage delimiting humans from being closer to what we can envision as perfection?
The correct answer to your question is that we engage in negative behaviors because they aren't forbidden by reality. It's a rule of quantum mechanics, what isn't forbidden will happen.
forbidden? NO, you mean possible. negative behaviors, depending on HOW negative are forbidden and they still happen.
I'm really no expert on this field but I don't think we will ever reach physical or mental perfection. We will never be Supermen. But humanity is becoming more and more ethical and our morals are improving but I believe we are still slaves to our biology and to the quite hostile or impersonal universe we find ourselves in.
I mean forbidden... and I mean forbidden by reality itself. Humans can't forbid behavior (they are not the totality of reality). They can punish and reward behavior but that's where it ends.
I think you hit the nail on the head several times, pluto. I think the next step in thought ought to be to ponder what the future holds for corruption. I mean, when you say we will never be Supermen, I suppose you mean we will never be Angels. That's definitely true, but we may yet become supermen thanks to technology. It could make us live longer, and perhaps more importantly, communicate on a level we have yet to truely understand. You've stated we are becoming more ethical and moral as time goes on, and I'm guessing a major cause of this is telecommunication. A more and more prevalent globalization of goods and, more importantly, information has opened our minds more then people a hundred years ago, let alone a thousand years ago, could have even dreamed! Where will this technology trend go? Will there be a day when we have internet connectivity wired straight to our cerebellum and, hence, we'd all have a live feed to the lives of just about anyone else, allowing for the most direct stimulation of sympathy possible? Could this severely hinder corruption at the expense of true individual thought? Not that I'm cheering for that kind of techno-future, you just kinda made me think about it. It's an exciting, yet scary time we're about to enter, where the very definition of humanity may come into question within our lifetimes, and God only knows what the consequences will be.
Humans are corrupt because we have been changing our environment faster than evolution can change our psychology to adapt to it. We are a pack-social species, with the instinct to trust and care for a couple of dozen people we've known since birth, and very occasionally one who marries in from another tribe as chlorine in the gene pool. The Agricultural Revolution eleven thousand years ago generated the first food surplus in history, making life quite a bit more pleasant, so the entire human race rather quickly accepted it. But this acceptance was the result of reasoning and learning, not instinct. The problem with agriculture is that it requires us to congregate in larger communities for efficiency and to settle down in one place where the plants are cultivated and the animals are raised. Our instincts rebel against this unnatural living, in harmony and cooperation with strangers, and occasionally our instincts gain control and cause us to do something uncivilized. It's as simple as that. The caveman deep inside us versus the civilized person who earns a living doing something that has nothing to do with food and spends much of his life in the company of anonymous strangers. That caveman absolutely does not care about the effect of what he does on those anonymous strangers. When you look at it that way, it's a miracle that we are able to maintain as much order as we do. It's a tribute to our skill at reasoning and learning, and it's what makes us human.
No, it's not a miracle, Fraggle, it's due to the hundreds of gazillions of laws and rules ...plus the threat of harsh punishments if we violate those rules. Get rid of those laws and the law enforcement, and we'd all be at each others' throats in the blink of an eye. Yeah, skill and learning, all right ....skill at crafting gazillions of rules, and skill at organizing police to enforce all those rules and laws. Oh, yeah, and the skill at building prisons to house those who violate those rules! Baron Max
We are corrupt because survival is tough; it is an art, it is a skill and you have to be able to dodge all the pitfalls. Therefore, we become artful, skilful dodgers, which means that we don't play by the rules designed by ever more artful, skilful dodgers than we are. How stupidly simplistic is that? Don't listen to me, if you really want to know why we are corrupt, just get in the queue, it's only a million long but, if you want a quicker response there's this guy I know who'll give you all the answers straight away for 500 bucks.
