Zachary Mendoza2 said:I will attempt to trace the development of a hammer without relying on creativity. Essentially, a person holds a stone in their hand, carrying it around just to crack walnuts. Fifty thousand years pass before they realize they don't need to hold the stone directly; they can hang it from a necklace to crack them. Then, twenty thousand years later, someone playing around realizes they don't have to take off the necklace, squat down, and smash nuts like an idiot; they can simply unclip the necklace and swing it like a yo-yo while standing tall like a gentleman. After another twenty-five thousand years, someone plays with the detached necklace by threading a stick through the loop, discovering that using a stick allows them to crack nuts while lying on the ground. Finally, fifty-two thousand years later, someone notices that if the stick is thick enough to fit perfectly through the hole, it creates a rigid body with the stone—essentially, a handle. And there we have it... This is a story about the evolution of the hammer, but also about a complete lack of creativity in humanity. 😠
Can we truly say that humans are this way? That we lack the capacity for original thought—the ability to imagine a better hammer without first utilizing a better hammer? 😵
I find such a conclusion difficult to accept. As an engineer, I must be creative. If you give me something to improve, I will improve it. If you give me a problem to solve, I will solve it. I employ various methods to gain insight into a solution, moving from a vague understanding at the start to a fully realized solution. It is true that I often solve problems that have already been solved because I lack the time to search for the existing answer, finding it faster to develop my own. While the mental processes I use are learned engineering techniques, I believe original thought must be present in that process; otherwise, progressing from a problem to a solution would be nearly impossible. These cavemen spent centuries developing a hammer. 😬
Furthermore, I have experienced several "eureka" moments. They feel exactly how Archimedes is described when he jumped out of his bathtub—a moment of incredible luck, pride, and pure exhilaration from gaining new insight. This wasn't merely absorbing taught information; it was the creation of insight.
I assume you're familiar with the concept of reverse engineering?? 🙂 It’s easy for us to look back and trace the development of the hammer, but being on the other side of that timeline... Man, the wheel—people saw round rocks rolling downhill and went, "Hey, that's useful." Fire? Lightning hit a tree somewhere and boom. The spear? Some guy was running from a predator and tripped onto a sharp branch... But being at the very start of that process—to see, to conclude, to experience that moment where a revolutionary concept suddenly crystallizes in your mind... that is almost incomprehensible, especially when hunger is your constant companion and death is a frequent visitor.
Look, I’m not trying to take a shot at anyone here, this isn't some targeted attack; I'm just laying out my own personal take on the matter, plain and simple. But yeah, you're right, this topic really doesn't belong on an alternative politics forum like this one.
Look, to be perfectly honest, the question itself might just be rhetorical, and if that’s the case, then I suppose the answer is entirely dependent on how you choose to look at it.
The process is already moving along, so I’m going to ask everyone to please remember that this is a technical discussion about PKZ, not some pageant for Miss Universe, so let’s cut out the debates over specific models or service providers
Zachary Mendoza2 said:hollowtrucker77, that sounds reasonable and makes sense. I would agree that once the local bears and lions disappeared, the evolutionary pressure vanished, leading to a degradation of our genetic base; essentially, we have become more foolish and ill-equipped, and there is no one left to correct us. However, this implies that primitive survival in the wild maintained a high level of human creativity. This contradicts the fact that humans lived exposed to predators like bears and lions for millions of years without developing any effective means of protection. Human creativity during that era could not have been high; once the concepts of tools, weapons, or fire were discovered, they spread rapidly because they were so useful. The fact that we survived for millions of years without them suggests those ideas simply did not occur to people.🤷 To me, it seems that creativity cannot be a genetic trait—if it were, we would have to find evidence of it in the ancestors from whom we inherited it.
Creativity depends heavily on having actual free time on your hands, along with seeing examples and getting inspiration from your surroundings. So, honestly, it isn't exactly realistic to expect major breakthroughs in an environment where you spend half your time lounging in a meadow and the other half sprinting away from something with claws and teeth. And besides, who’s to say we’re even the best equipped version of ourselves when it comes to utilizing our environment? Besides, aren't we significantly better protected than our ancestors ever were? When you really sit down and think about it, the leap from discovering the wheel, blades, or fire was probably a much bigger jump for them than space travel is for us.
Look, maybe I’m misreading the situation here, but my understanding was that they were just suspended, not actually fired or permanently replaced by new hires. And honestly, there is a massive, night and day difference between those two things. I actually found myself on the receiving end of a suspension once, and looking back, all I could really do was thank the decent folks at the company who basically handed me a little extra paid vacation out of it. At the end of the day, being suspended doesn't mean you've been proven guilty of anything.
but they just won't, because if other people had actually bothered to step up and weigh in on this topic 🙂 you aren't alone, and frankly, you aren't the center of the universe either
Gregory Chavez said:Look, as part of a minority group here in the States, I honestly think the Football section deserves a moderator like myself, someone whose primary gig would basically just be keeping the Big Five leagues threads from descending into total chaos.
I’ve got the full Inter Miami crew backing me up, along with my buddy Vicky, both of whom have been relentlessly nudging me to step up and take on this incredibly demanding role for a while now.
Your pal, Bat ☕
Once we actually find ourselves with a second minority group to represent, we'll be sure to come looking for you guys. In the meantime, please, stop calling us and—honestly—just hold your breath.
feralgardener36 said:The request for moderation is officially under review.
I’ll be laying out my full platform next week, but I can already promise you this: I am prepared to work like a dog, putting in 20-hour days if that’s what it takes. My approach will be rooted in integrity and a genuine sense of duty, always aiming to serve the best interests of every single user on this site—whether they’ve been here since the early days or are just joining us with specific needs.
As an added bonus to my CV, I happen to enjoy a great rapport with our favorite moderator, L. Nimoy, and I maintain a level of mutual respect with most of the community here.
I kindly ask the administration to weigh in on my candidacy.
Submit to:
- the forum administration - the manager - L. Nimoy personally
Your request has been noted, and we’ll get back to you when we start looking for more workhorses.
Throughout history, badgers have mostly been taken care of by bears, lions, and the rest of the crew responsible for cleaning up the gene pool It wasn't until we actually started protecting them that the honey badgers really began to surge and establish themselves as a legitimate force in society
Sandra Morgan2 said:I don't follow, hollowtrucker77. I just repeated what I heard. The little girl is kept under close supervision at home, and they have daily family meetings where the mom tries to "heal" her through conversation. Apparently, the girl knows exactly when to say she isn't interested anymore so they'll gradually leave her alone, but she's such an intensely honest soul that she simply can't bring herself to lie.
Now, you can say you don't believe it—which is fair... maybe her girlfriend is making it up, or maybe the girl herself is making things up to get out of the relationship. So you're right; we should be cautious before jumping to conclusions since this is all second-hand information.
But you can't deny the weight of Anne Dragicevic's story, nor can you deny that gay people in America, especially men (I'll leave women out of this for now), face massive struggles with primitive homophobes and heterosexists. And it's not just them—it's the traditionalists, the puritans, and the small-minded folks in the environments where they live and work...
I wouldn't say I disbelieve it, because I've seen enough weirdness in my time to know that, unfortunately, almost anything is possible among human beings. Yeah, sadly, this scenario is entirely plausible, and it’s a disgrace for all of us, not just those specific parents. The point I'm trying to make is that we need to be careful not to pin everything on a single cause, and we shouldn't start attributing every single thing that happens to someone's sexual orientation without actually trying to get a more objective picture of the situation.
Anna was admitted to the facility due to drug addiction, and we'd really need to look into the specifics of the therapy she was receiving before we could claim to know exactly what was going down.
What I'm attempting to highlight is the need for a bit of caution to maintain credibility, lest we end up falling victim to a sort of "Boy Who Cried Wolf" syndrome. It’s similar to how I hear people claiming nowadays that everything happening to someone in America is purely because they happen to be Black.
I’m trying my best here to separate the signal from the noise so we don't descend into pure sensationalism please, just please don't take this as me having some sort of personal vendetta against the gay community 🙂 the reality is that people can be pretty much anything, and frankly, they’re often far more primitive and dim-witted than any of us care to admit but... for instance, I can easily picture parents dragging their kids into some clinic demanding a "cure" for homosexuality, though I have to say, I struggle to find much faith in doctors who would actually entertain such a thing they should at least be aware of the fallout for their own reputations, if not for all the other reasons involved (though, knowing my luck, I’ll probably just end up disappointed by the collective IQ of the medical establishment yet again)
on the flip side, we really need to get our facts straight before we start throwing stones at anyone or anything—and I'm talking about that other example here the thing is, we don't actually know maybe the girl told her parents she was just playing around or experimenting? maybe she was pressured into trying something out? maybe she just had a rough patch with her grades at school? there are probably several different versions of this story and multiple ways to view the situation, so I don't think it's particularly wise to immediately start screaming that it happened because the girl is gay now, look, that is absolutely a very plausible version of events, even if it isn't the only one but then again, parents have historically applied similar tactics to almost every group of kids, especially when those kids didn't fit the standard mold or march perfectly in line with the mainstream
Sandra Morgan2 said:Fair enough... that stands. Maybe what my girlfriend told me is the truth, or maybe it isn't....
But you have to admit that prejudices exist, along with both active and passive aggression toward gay people. For example, I don't know a single gay guy (and I know about ten) who hasn't dealt with some idiot trying to mess with him because of it.
Every one of them has some sad story—a history of verbal abuse, harassment, or even physical attacks because of their sexual orientation.
You could argue again that these are second-hand stories, but if you look just a little bit, you'll see that contempt for homosexuals is a widespread issue across America.
I recently read this. A really touching story from a young gay man's perspective.
And of course, nobody ever hears about parents banning a straight kid from hanging out with certain people or groups they deem a "bad influence," right? I don't think anyone's ever had their phone or internet access stripped away and been monitored constantly on their way to and from school just because they aren't gay.
We really need to be careful with this kind of sensationalism; leaning too hard into it is going to cause a massive backfire, and it'll end up hurting the people who are actually struggling.
bio , I took a look—I think you guys are blowing things way out of proportion here. Good grief, what a mess; someone somehow managed to double-post the exact same thing in two different spots. 🙂
Do I really need to spell out why it’s such a bad look to take a massive, sweeping swipe at an entire group of people? Or am I supposed to explain the fundamental difference between offering actual constructive feedback and just being a jerk for the sake of it? The reality is pretty simple: you lost your access for the exact same reason you were granted it in the first place.
Look, if enough people actually show up and take an interest, there might be a fighting chance but if we’re talking about just you spinning your usual yarns with maybe two other guys nodding along in the comments—yeah, forget about it, no way in hell For heaven's sake, does it really sound like that's asking for too much?
It’s usually a much smarter move to just kick things off within a relevant sub-forum first, and then, once we actually see enough people biting and showing some real interest, we can look into spinning up a dedicated sub-forum of our own
wirednomad42 said:Look, I can just let the kid loose in the backyard to play while I catch up on some reading in the other room. Just toss her out there with a bucket and a shovel—let her figure out the fun on her own. Or, I could actually go out there and show her the ropes—teach her how to build stuff in the sand or what kind of treasures we can stash in that bucket. Once I’m done reading, I could just rinse off some canned beans for a quick lunch. Or, if I'm feeling ambitious, I could whip up a proper beef and veggie stew. 🤷 Am I not obligated to give it my all?
Giving a kid the space to play and exercise their imagination is obviously a good thing.
But leaving a child completely unsupervised is straight-up neglect.
As for food, you should be serving everything from hearty stews to beans—whatever keeps them healthy and gives them a decent variety of flavors and textures to get used to.
🙂
Obligated?? That really depends on how someone defines that word. For one person, it’s a genuine desire; for another, it’s just a chore they're too lazy to do. If it's something you actually want to do, it doesn't feel like work, and you'll actually find joy in it.