Posts by Sam Martinez9

bluepuma9 said:His goal ceases to exist, along with him, the second he uses nukes.

The China Development Bank is already starting to tighten the screws on raw material trade with Russia. Sorry, Putin, but the market is a cold mistress. 😁

Personally, I suspect he’d choose death over abandoning his mission. We aren't dealing with a rational actor here; we're dealing with a madman.

Douglas Davis4 said:So, what? You think you'll find some idiot among the Russians willing to pull that off?
They know perfectly well they'd all be wiped out in that madness
unless his inner circle removes him first... honestly, god help us, the man is insane.

There are plenty of them, don't worry. At the end of the day, a military exists to follow orders. That is its entire purpose. Besides, any soldier is prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice. Death is just a daily reality in wartime.

Think back to World War II. Millions of Germans followed Hitler blindly and died for his cause.

Nancy Gomez26 said:The nuclear arsenal doesn't actually factor into the tactical reality of this specific struggle. It would be sheer madness to deploy it against a neighboring state that shares a border with the very nation possessing that arsenal. Furthermore, other nations hold their own nuclear arsenals and follow doctrines that are common knowledge to all players involved. There is a clear understanding of the rules of engagement—you don't play games that result in mutual annihilation. Threats are one thing, but they usually remain just that: threats. Much like Biden, Putin would likely need to activate an entire command structure to authorize a nuclear strike. You don't just launch a missile on a whim. Even with conventional warheads, there is the risk that the enemy won't know your intent and might respond with a nuclear option immediately. This is why precautions are taken; even missile tests are announced beforehand to avoid any "we didn't realize" excuses. Only a fool in South Korea launches missiles without warning, and when things inevitably go sideways, the consequences could be catastrophic.

I have to disagree. Nuclear weapons come in all different yields and ranges, and Putin would likely use the more powerful ones to target European cities far from the Russian border. I'm thinking specifically of major cities in the United Kingdom and the European Union—essentially, cities within NATO member states.

In my view, only a madman would initiate a war like the one Putin has started, and a madman will certainly resort to nuclear weapons if he feels like it. To him, individual lives aren't the priority; his objectives are.

Michael Davis10 said:It’d be pretty interesting to see how NATO reacts if Putin, say, wiped out Amsterdam since the Dutch don't have nukes.
Would someone like Biden or Macron actually risk London or Paris by hitting back at Moscow?

If Putin actually went after New York City with nukes, the war would already be at a stage where a retaliatory strike on London or Paris would be practically inevitable.

In that scenario, we’re talking about a preemptive strike—basically NATO hitting Moscow with everything they've got.

Millions of Europeans would lose their lives, but honestly, life is cheap. People have been dying for ages; it’s just how things go.

restlessmason54 said:You seem to be forgetting that when all is said and done, the Americans are the only ones walking away with a profit here.

I’m honestly not convinced anyone actually wins here. The idea that war turns a profit is nothing more than a convenient illusion used to mislead people.

swiftjackal11 said:I don't get how you can be so dense. We're talking about two armies fighting on the exact same ground here. In the old conflict, there wasn't a single NATO soldier actually on the ground in Mexico.

There is a massive distinction between the wars fought on former American soil and what we are seeing now: the aggressor is Russia, and they possess nuclear weapons. That changes everything. During those earlier conflicts, the players involved could really only cause localized damage, whereas Russia has the capacity to inflict devastation on a global scale.

This is why NATO and the West have to tread carefully; they are dealing with a volatile actor capable of immense destruction. One shouldn't lose sight of the fact that Putin isn't going to back down until he hits his marks.

Carl Hughes said:I don't follow. What does "too many fleeting comforts" even mean? What kind of comfort, from what source, and how much is too much?

That is entirely subjective.

If you are talking about memories rather than actual events, it's because the brain files away pleasant memories neatly, whereas bad ones just linger and wander. Too many of those wandering thoughts, and you end up dealing with trauma.

Every success is temporary.

So change something. If you aren't sure where to start, go see a professional and figure it out together.

If you want that to change, ask yourself what parts of your own behavior you can adjust regarding the situation.

Through grit and hard work.

I agree. Though I’d go a step further—everything is transient. Even the ancient Greek philosophers understood this concept of constant flux. It’s a necessary cycle; the old has to make way so that something new can actually take its place.

Amy Howard18 said:Well, sure, regarding those currently living—but that doesn't necessarily apply to the fossils of those transitional hominid species we've uncovered from back when they actually roamed the earth.

The common ancestor for all humans can be traced back to Australopithecus afarensis. From that lineage, we see the emergence of Australopithecus africanus, which is widely regarded as the direct precursor to the Homo genus—specifically leading to Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo sapiens, and ultimately Homo sapiens sapiens.

ruggedraven36 said:I'm with you on the first sentence, but the second one? Not so much. Sure, evolution is a continuous process, but calling it *only* that is a stretch. And I don't buy the idea that species aren't objectively real or that they're just something humans made up. Look, humans didn't invent elephants or giraffes. They exist.

Still, it doesn't make sense to me—at least not logically—how one species could ever emerge from another if a species is defined as a group? If it's a closed loop of animals breeding within themselves to produce more of that same group, how does the "human group" even get started?

I think Engels hit the nail on the head. Labor is what actually made us.

I'm with you on that.

ruggedraven36 As requested:


It remains utterly baffling to me—if I’m being honest—how one species could possibly emerge from another if we are truly defining what a species actually is. It’s a bit of a collective effort, really.What constitutes a biological species? Essentially, it’s a group of organisms that can interbreed and produce fertile offspring that also belong to that same group. As for how the human lineage actually came to be—that's a much deeper question involving millions of years of evolutionary history.

I find myself leaning toward the idea that Engels hit the nail on the head. It’s a compelling thought—that labor is actually what shaped us into human beings.

I believe the process unfolds like this: we start with a specific species, let's call it type X. Over vast stretches of time, individual members of that species undergo gradual changes. Each successive generation becomes slightly more distinct from its parent, continuing this pattern until the descendants have drifted far enough apart to be classified as an entirely new species.

Generally speaking, this process kicks in when a single species splits into different groups—say, two distinct populations—that become geographically isolated from one another. As they settle into their separate territories, each generation begins to inherit specific traits that differ from those in the other group (or even third or fourth groups, if you follow the logic). This continues until those genetic differences accumulate to such an extent that they eventually coalesce into entirely new species.

It might be most effective to use species that share a clear lineage but have diverged significantly as our primary example. For instance, if we look at the feline family, we could trace their evolutionary trajectory from a single common ancestor to see how they branched out into the distinct varieties we recognize today.

I’m speaking from a position of total amateurism here, so I think it would be much wiser to head straight to the professional literature for some actual expertise.

Amy Howard18 said:I didn't get a chance to give you a proper answer earlier, so please go back and look at my previous post... that should clarify what I actually meant regarding the development of Native Americans.

Yes, I did.

Amy Howard18 said:Okay, so maybe using Native Americans in the context of "descending from trees" isn't the best way to frame this... let me try to put it this way instead. Based on various DNA analyses, there were populations in many other parts of the world—take Asia, for example—who developed independently from the original African ancestor, and this evolutionary path happened during almost the exact same timeframe. Later on, those lineages, which had evolved autonomously in Asia, eventually migrated to Australia, and it was from those groups that the aforementioned Native Americans descended.

The nuances of how Homo sapiens evolved and their subsequent migration across the world's continents are subjects best left to the actual experts in the field, given the sheer depth of knowledge required. For us laypeople, who have merely picked up bits and pieces here and there, we run the risk of spreading nothing but misinformation. Don't get me wrong—and I am absolutely including myself in this critique—but that is the reality.

Furthermore, one needs a profound understanding of paleoarchaeology and various excavation sites. Fossil remains are incredibly scarce; more often than not, researchers are working with mere fragments... and based on such limited evidence, one can only construct theories, and there are plenty of conflicting ones to choose from.

That said, as far as my own limited understanding goes, human ancestors descended from trees in Africa and then spread out from there to populate the globe. If memory serves, there is also a theory suggesting multiple waves of migration rather than just one single movement.

That is all I can offer; I lack the expertise to go further, and the subject is quite intricate. I still maintain my advice: stick to the books. Books are the ultimate authority.

Amy Howard18 said:Okay, so maybe using Native Americans in the context of "descending from trees" isn't the best way to frame this... let me try to put it this way instead. Based on various DNA analyses, there were populations in many other parts of the world—take Asia, for example—who developed independently from the original African ancestor, and this evolutionary path happened during almost the exact same timeframe. Later on, those lineages, which had evolved autonomously in Asia, eventually migrated to Australia, and it was from those groups that the aforementioned Native Americans descended.

Sure thing, here you go:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution

That being said, I'm not entirely sure how much clarity you'll get from a single entry; I have a feeling you might be starting from scratch here. That isn't a bad thing, though. You can find plenty of great books on the subject at any local library, and honestly, even I find myself flipping through high school biology textbooks when I need to brush up on the basics. I’d suggest some light reading if you want to dive deeper. It's a fascinating subject—you won't find it boring.

If you're interested in how the discovery of fire and cooking fundamentally shaped us as a species, I highly recommend "Catching Fire" by Steven Pinker:https://www.amazon.com/Catching-Fire-Cooking-Human-Evolution/dp/037427112X

Amy Howard18 said:But there has never been a period of truly uniform global climate change that hit every single continent identically—at least none that we have records of—and humans seem to have been present across all parts of the planet (obviously not in equal numbers) since the beginning.
The flaw in your logic becomes pretty obvious when I ask this:
How did one Native American ancestor "just know" to migrate at almost the exact same time as his colleague in Africa? You can't claim it happened because the climate conditions in Australia and Africa were identical, because the geological and climate records for those two continents don't support that at all.

In the event of a nuclear holocaust—which is really the only realistic scenario if we ever face another major global conflict—nobody survives. Or rather, any survival on an evolutionary level would likely be reduced to a primitive state, perhaps even down to the very beginnings of life itself... from which a being called *Homo sapiens* might not necessarily re-evolve through a similar process.

The idea that a Native American ancestor just happened to decide to climb down in the US is fundamentally incorrect. If you actually look up human evolution on Wikipedia, you'll see how the timeline really worked out.

To put it simply: all humans share a common ancestor, and that ancestor lived in Africa. That's where the transition from the trees happened. Many years later, that ancestor's descendants migrated across the globe, spreading to every continent, including North America.

Amy Howard18 said:What you’re saying hits home because I've always found this part of human evolution absolutely mind-blowing. If you look at the current timeline, it feels like it took us millions of years just to realize we should climb down from the trees and start living on the ground. Then, we spent another 190,000 years just figuring out how to write things down about ourselves... yet, in just ten thousand years since then, we've managed to master nuclear energy and launch ourselves into space. It honestly sounds completely unrealistic... there's definitely something broken in that timeline!

I agree, it really is fascinating. The prevailing theory suggests the answer lies in sheer numbers and cooperation. For hundreds of thousands of years, humans were few and far between, scattered across the landscape, which made it impossible to collaborate or exchange complex ideas. It wasn't until the population hit a certain critical mass that civilization became possible—leading to the division of labor, contact with other groups, the exchange of concepts, wars, and trade. It's likely no coincidence that we are seeing our greatest advancements right now, precisely because we are also at our most populous stage in history.

Thomas Thomas63 said:In terms of the core blueprint, sure. But I think it's more complicated than that.

There’s this relatively new, fast-growing field in science called epigenetics. It basically looks at how behavior and environment can trigger changes that affect how genes actually function. We aren't talking about changing the DNA sequence itself here; epigenetic changes are reversible and don't alter the underlying DNA code, but they can totally change how the body reads that sequence.
Because of that, transgenerational epigenetic inheritance can influence an offspring's traits without ever touching the actual DNA structure.

These variations can be endogenous (like cell-to-cell during early development) or exogenous (how cells react to environmental factors).
So, I guess there's a chance that multi-generational epigenetics could be another layer of evolution and adaptation. Some people even go as far as calling epigenetics a form of heredity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans...ic_inheritance

The real question is where we draw the line between what is truly inherited and what is simply a product of upbringing. In my view, whether something is passed down through genes or via epigenetics is actually secondary. Since we were discussing philosophy, I leaned toward saying it’s passed through genes because that’s a concept we all intuitively grasp. Determining exactly what is hereditary versus what is shaped by nurture is an incredibly complex issue, and as far as I am aware, there is no single, definitive scientific consensus on it.

Jessica Gonzalez said:Well, who's saying they couldn't? It wasn't because they lacked the intellectual or physical capacity; it was simply because the technology didn't exist yet. 😁 If you took a baby born today and dropped them on a deserted island where they were raised by some imaginary "Peterson," how would that child ever learn to use technology from, say, modern USA? Would that question even make sense?

I suppose there is a valid point in asking how humans, living as hunter-gatherers for hundreds of thousands of years, developed the intellect necessary to build today's high-tech societies. That’s a fair question, and it's essentially what I was getting at in my first post. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of years across various Homo species, and maybe 100-150 thousand years for Homo sapiens, during which countless generations lived all over the world. Since they survived and spread globally, it's safe to assume they understood their environment incredibly well. However, I think we tend to use a modern bias when we define "understanding the world," assuming that only our current knowledge counts as advanced. We have engineering, medicine, and various sciences that allow us to build machines, communication networks, and transport systems. But a society from, say, 75,000 years ago probably possessed an equally vast knowledge of nature and survival. The challenges facing an average person back then might have been just as intellectually demanding as ours, especially since the average person today doesn't actually understand most of the tech they use. Most people can drive a car, but they don't really know what's happening under the hood. They know a plane flies and the pilot has a bunch of buttons, but they don't grasp the intricate details that make a commercial jet work. If you break down the daily routine of a typical modern person, the tasks aren't necessarily incredibly complex. They might not be much more difficult than the life of someone 75,000 years ago who had to physically survive through hunting and battling the elements every single day. I guess I'm trying to say that surviving back then was a much harder task than it is now, when we have an entire society and a massive technological safety net to catch us. Back then, natural selection was relentless; those who were more skillful, healthier, and better at providing food and protecting their group were the ones who made it. Intelligence played a huge role in that.

But if you took that same baby, brought them back to the present day, and raised them in a typical 21st-century American household, wouldn't that child grow up speaking English, reading, writing, and navigating a smartphone just like the rest of us?

Jessica Gonzalez said:I think the perspective might be slightly off here. Your experiment seems to suggest that an ancient human could adapt to our modern world, whereas mine tries to flip that idea on its head. You want to see if a person from the past can function in our current society, while I want to place a modern person back into the setting where humans were actually biologically designed to live. Both ideas are interesting, though both are obviously impossible to test. But, I suppose humans were fundamentally built to be hunter-gatherers, and that’s our true default setting—even if it's a bit shocking to those of us who probably wouldn't last long in the woods without some tech to help us out.

This kind of reminds me of our discussion regarding OpenAI, which I believe we both touched upon. General OpenAI aims to decode the human brain to master things like chess or art, but at its core, that brain evolved to help humans survive as hunter-gatherers and pass on their genes. That's its primary purpose; being able to strategize over a chessboard is really just a byproduct of that evolution.

Fair enough. But how then do you account for modern humans navigating a high-tech society so seamlessly? What is the actual mechanism at play here? Why is today's individual capable of this when our ancestors weren't?

Kenneth Cruz67 said:I’m not so sure it would work quite like that, though. While you might be able to send a child back a couple thousand years without much trouble, I suspect the reverse wouldn't go so smoothly; a child brought from the ancient past into the modern US would likely succumb quite quickly to a disease we consider totally minor, simply because they might lack the specific genetic adaptations we've developed over time. 🤔

I agree with you there. It’s the same reason smallpox was so devastating to Native Americans. However, my point is specifically about cognitive capacity—about the brain and our reasoning abilities. We have largely neglected that aspect of the evolution.

Jessica Gonzalez said:I guess the hardest thing about these debates—something people tend to overlook without realizing it—is how difficult it is for our minds to actually grasp the sheer scale of biological or human eras on Earth. We understand the math behind the number 65 million, but it’s almost impossible to truly feel the weight of those 65 million years that have passed since the asteroid hit Florida. It feels much the same when we try to wrap our heads around 100,000 or 200,000 years and all the humans who lived through that span leading up to today. From that viewpoint, I suppose there isn't much difference between mentioning a billion years, 100 million, or 100 thousand. The numbers all feel equally abstract to us. Even the Middle Ages feel like a distant history that's hard to culturally connect with, let alone Ancient Greece, Egypt, or Mesopotamia. Those are periods and cultures we know somewhat well through architecture or written records, yet they still seem unimaginably far away and disconnected from our lives now. And that's only a few thousand years back. So, trying to mentally process 100,000 or 200,000 years ago is a huge stretch.

It’s also pretty tough being constantly bombarded with information today, where things like computers, the internet, airplanes, electricity, satellites, cars, schools, and office jobs are just taken for granted. Then you get hit with the fact that for 99% of human history, people didn't have any of that, nor could they have ever dreamed it might exist one day. Biologically speaking, I think we evolved as hunter-gatherers, with muscles, bones, teeth, speech, vision, smell, hearing, nervous systems, and digestion all fine-tuned for living in nature without clocks, calendars, or technology. Someone mentioned that hypothetically, we could take a baby from 100,000 years ago, bring them into the modern world, and successfully raise them. I think that's a bit of a skewed perspective; the more accurate way to look at it might be that we could take a baby born today and drop them 100,000 years into the past, and that world would be the "default" setting for them. Not this one. Or, maybe if we took a baby and pulled a random millennium out of a box containing 100,000 years, or even a random century out of a box of 1,000 centuries, in 99.5% of cases, that baby would end up in a world we’d consider quite primitive. In 99.9% of cases, it would be at least partially primitive. We also have to remember that most parts of the world were considered primitive by Western standards until just a few decades ago.

I'm curious about your reasoning there. Could you elaborate on that thought process?

My point was that a baby born 100,000 years ago could be raised just like any child born today. Why? Because they are still *Homo sapiens*. Genetically speaking, they are identical to us. They possess all the biological predispositions required to integrate into our modern society—to use smartphones, computers, and so on. In the exact same way, a child born today possesses every genetic predisposition needed to thrive in the world of *Homo sapiens* from 100,000 years ago.

It works the same way whether you take a child born 4,000 years ago, 2,000 years ago, or even just a century ago; we could raise them just like any modern infant born in an American hospital today.

The genetic blueprint remains the same. What a child ultimately becomes depends entirely on the environment in which they are raised.

Joseph Murphy10 said:Not me either. Spent my education training for one thing and ended up doing something else entirely—life’s funny like that—but hey, it's never too late to start reading. Sartre was a solid writer, a sharp thinker, and a total jerk, but his take on existentialism offers zero hope. Still, glad you read him; he’s essential for the canon. Personally, I dig Camus way more than that whole French existentialist vibe. I respect Sartre as a thinker, but I don't like him. Existence isn't necessarily what Sartre claims it is, and life doesn't have to be this bleak, dark, hopeless mess. Dostoevsky articulates that much better. Sartre couldn't even fathom Dostoevsky's lived experience because he was always the darling of the intellectual elite—a complete hypocrite, kind of like how Hemingway was just a big shot playing at being deep. Dostoevsky finds a glimmer of light in every ounce of despair, and honestly, that's how it should be. That's what actual life teaches you. What you wrote about (in)freedom is spot on. Check out some Jordan Peterson, Murray, Eagleton, Illich, or Baudrillard. They break down reality in pretty fascinating ways.
Read *The Origins of Totalitarianism* by Hannah Arendt and draw some parallels to what people usually call "the system." Doesn't matter which one—political, tech, accounting, software, whatever. Just look at "the system" as a massive simulacrum designed to screw over the little guy through the lens of Arendt's focus on totalitarianism, and you'll see things for what they really are. That's what the common man lacked back then. He didn't have a "system." He broke the natural order to build his own. This is the fallout. We have to tear down the system if we want to survive. We need to restore the balance between the individual and whatever the ultimate authority happens to be, and then things will be fine.

Sent from my SM-G973F using Reddit

I can't speak for all types of systems, but an accounting system is really just a way to document what is happening within a corporation. In other words, it tracks processes from raw material sourcing and manufacturing all the way through to the final sale.

The same fundamental accounting principles were utilized during the era of socialism and are used today under capitalism; the mechanics haven't changed. You could even apply them to the structures of feudalism, slavery, or even primitive communal societies. You could use them to map out the behavior of early humans, from the moment they crafted an arrow to when they traded that arrow for something else, like a seashell.

Megan Gray32 said:From every conceivable angle, early humans possessed far more freedom than we do today. It strikes me that as our collective consciousness evolved, we actually achieved the exact opposite—the individual expanded their own autonomy by encroaching upon the liberty of others.

Furthermore, if freedom is truly regarded as a core ideal within any serious, rational intellectual circle, why on earth haven't we developed a practical system to support it? Why does everyone continue to cluster together in these suffocating, smog-filled cities—places where you can barely find enough oxygen to breathe—while mindlessly chanting about "liberty" like some sort of hollow mantra?

Real freedom was an urgent necessity back when actual slavery existed, because under those conditions, true mental development was impossible. Today, we have every opportunity to cultivate our minds, yet we still exist within a different kind of bondage—the endless grind of the 9-to-5, where our entire mental capacity is consumed by the trivial task of managing pennies.

What does "freedom" even mean to people living like that? To them, it’s nothing more than empty rhetoric and hollow ideals. They tie it to notions of rights and equality, which ultimately serve as a smokescreen for the same old story: providing the perfect cover for more organized, more efficient tyrants than ever before.

A person can be enslaved by their own instincts, the environment they live in, or by other people.

I’m not entirely sure what you mean by "early man," but if you're referring to Homo erectus or our even older ancestors, they were arguably more slaves to instinct than Homo sapiens ever were. Then again, even a modern American isn't fully capable of mastering their own impulses.

Before technological progress took hold, humanity was at the mercy of nature. It dictated everything: how they lived, what they did, and when they died. If they couldn't find food, they simply didn't survive. They had very little leverage against the elements.

Even before formal slavery existed, people were subject to the whims of others or the dictates of their community. Tribal societies were governed by strict prohibitions and taboos; anyone who stepped out of line faced being killed or exiled, which was essentially a death sentence.
The social codes of those ancient societies were incredibly rigid, governing every single aspect of life from birth until death. There was precious little room for personal liberty back then.

Modern society certainly has its flaws and could improve immensely, but it is still an improvement over the structures that came before it. Overall, there is much more freedom available now.

Megan Gray32 said:That's obvious.

However, looking at your second point, I'd like to offer a slight correction—I would argue that it was precisely because of death that humans developed consciousness. Perhaps that's the fundamental trait that sets us apart from every other biological entity on the planet.

It seems we were truly on the verge of vanishing. Why do you think that happened, and how? Furthermore—and this is a bit of a heavy question—is it better that we survived, or would it have been better if the predators that once fed on us had remained in control?

I don't believe consciousness is exclusive to humans, nor do I think consciousness can exist without self-awareness, but that’s a conversation for another time.

Megan Gray32 said:That's obvious.

However, looking at your second point, I'd like to offer a slight correction—I would argue that it was precisely because of death that humans developed consciousness. Perhaps that's the fundamental trait that sets us apart from every other biological entity on the planet.

It seems we were truly on the verge of vanishing. Why do you think that happened, and how? Furthermore—and this is a bit of a heavy question—is it better that we survived, or would it have been better if the predators that once fed on us had remained in control?

The reasons are likely the same as any other species: food shortages, harsh shifts in the climate, environmental changes, or simply being hunted by predators too effectively.