Posts by Richard Howard2

Robert Cooper41 said:

.. and naturally: Santiago Segura: "Torrente 2: Mission in Miami"

😁 😁

Oh yes, I watched the sequel, and frankly, I found it somewhat underwhelming. It isn't bad, certainly not, but I find myself missing that gritty, raw texture from the first one; everything feels too polished now. It really should be so disgusting that you can practically smell the filth through the screen...
And they are quite lacking in the depravity department. There are certain bright spots—like when that retarded kid falls off a skyscraper and ends up dead, or when Torrente accidentally shoots a guy in the ear—but the absolute highlight for me is when he takes that half-witted primate and starts slamming him against the furniture...

Also, my favorite part remains the scene where his idiot friend slams the car into a utility pole and completely totals the vehicle after driving barely a single yard...

Of course, Segura’s charisma is such that I am practically doubling over just from the mere sight of him.

Segura rocks. If you haven't seen it, you absolutely must watch Beast Day!

Brenda Hughes3 said:Richard Howard2,

It is an interesting question.
"How can you possibly know our civilization is flawed or evil—if we are the only ones???"
Now, you might find this unsettling, but I suspect the most honest answer is this: Without religion, there is simply no way. We lack an indisputable point of reference.
A believer doesn't run into this particular wall, though. They believe a true, unshakeable reference exists—one that sits outside our civilization and our world, making it independent of us. Yet, it remains accessible because it has been revealed (or is perceivable).

Exactly. Religion relies on the existence of an external, absolute reference—God—who functions much like the origin point in a coordinate system.

In a coordinate system, you can only define where an object is located by referencing the origin, or at the very least, by using another object as a benchmark. It is the same analogy here.

If our civilization exists within a larger coordinate system, where is that origin point? Are we the origin ourselves?

Jose Palmer2 said:The human genome is fundamentally the same, which implies identical hereditary predispositions—though even that isn't strictly accurate. It’s a certainty that major epidemics, plagues, and wars acted as mechanisms of natural selection; for instance, the population of America was decimated by 66% following the Hundred Years' War. Regardless, people aren't identical. They differ in stature, for example. Greater height often correlates with a larger skull, and thus a greater brain volume. As for whether brain size actually scales with intelligence, we already had that debate on the old forum...

Yes, that holds water. Over time, the human being undergoes structural changes in both brain and body. A million years ago, humans possessed exactly what was biologically and evolutionarily necessary: massive jaws for hunting and masticating all sorts of food, paired with a relatively small brain.

That has shifted since then. We now possess larger brains and smaller jaws, less body hair for warmth, and our feet have lost that hand-like utility for climbing trees, among other things.

One could reasonably expect that in another million years, we will look exactly like the aliens described in modern sci-fi: massive heads perched atop fragile, weak bodies, because we simply won't need the rest. Some theories even suggest we are extraterrestrials from the future, sent back merely to observe ourselves.

However, my point remains: intelligence is a metric measured against one's contemporary environment, not in relation to where we were or where we will be in 2,000 years.

Furthermore, the intellectual nature of humanity is such that our cognitive capacity remains constant; it is civilization—the accumulated legacy left by countless generations before us—that enables progress. This is precisely how we diverge from the animal kingdom: through the ability to apply knowledge and utilize collective memory, ensuring we don't have to reinvent the wheel every single time.

Elizabeth Miller8 said:What about those ancient civilizations that just vanished? Take the Ando people, for instance. They were humans too, right? But their way of life was worlds apart from ours. They didn't have our modern tech or even basic metallurgy, yet they pulled off feats that we honestly struggle to replicate today, even with all our advanced machinery.

It’s quite curious how we tend to exclude these cultures from our historical narrative. It's almost as if we view them as some kind of extraterrestrials rather than our own ancestors.

I think you misunderstood my point. I was referring to the entirety of human civilization—everything involving humanity on this planet throughout history.

When people talk about "civilizations" in a strictly historical or regional sense, they mean one thing, and it's easy to get those terms tangled up. However, wasn't it fairly obvious from the context that I was speaking about humans in a much broader sense?

Nemruth Dagi said:The only civilization???

Perhaps, though I have my doubts.

However, I maintain a deep conviction regarding the various DIMENSIONS of our world. Human civilization is merely a cultural phenomenon—it only observes one single segment, specifically the part that remains visible and recognizable to us.

But what about the rest?

No, I was referring to that civilization which encompasses both the seen and the unseen.

AxMi-24 said:When I claim the human race is fundamentally stupid, it isn't just an insult. It is a projection based on our survival trajectory. We aren't exactly showing much intellectual brilliance lately. Just look at the world today—it seems like the more incompetent a person is, the more successful they become, and that isn't even limited to politics.

It is quite easy to observe, objectively speaking, that we have systematically dismantled the very conditions required for life to thrive. So, calling us a collection of geniuses is a stretch.

In my previous post, I laid out why expecting our civilization to actually survive is a massive gamble. This issue requires much deeper scrutiny. Things aren't nearly as straightforward as they appear on the surface.

adriatic said:😕
Of course we have it: THAT IS LIFE.
Our civilization is suicidal—it’s fundamentally anti-life.
Life in general, and human life specifically—that is the only framework I recognize. Everything else is secondary. 😉

That is true. But it also means you aren't quite right. Look, despite all the anti-life horrors human civilization has churned out, they haven't actually managed to destroy life yet. Sure, there's a possibility they could, and it's a speculation that seems disturbingly achievable if you ask me, but when you look at the mirror of history—even during those most uncomfortable moments where humanity was staring down the barrel of extinction—everything always turned out okay.

I’ve already made my point: human civilization, much like our planet, functions as an organism with its own built-in defense mechanisms. Any extreme excess will inevitably trigger a counter-effect. Take globalization, for instance—the negative side of it. The more aggressive it becomes, the stronger the anti-globalization movements will grow, eventually acting to push back against it as needed.

burn Blue Eyes said:Let's start with the whole concept of good versus evil...

Abstract notions like "good" and "evil" aren't physical phenomena, so they can't actually be materialized...

Unlike other semi-abstract concepts—take the color red or yellow, for instance, where the medium can somehow be manifested physically...

Just as those concepts are imagined, so is any given reference... everyone explains them however suits their own whims... subjectivity rules.😁

Now, regarding civilization...

I'm not quite sure what your definition of civilization even is.

There have been several distinct civilizations on this planet... so it isn't impossible to compare them... but if you are referring to a singular, global human civilization... one that we could only truly compare to an alien civilization... then I disagree. I will elaborate on that later.

Well, that is precisely the issue! My argument is that many people attempt to apply these abstract, relative concepts—which shift depending on the reference point—to concrete terms that lack any actual reference at all. This includes the discussion on civilization in my upcoming posts.

Ion cannons, AT-ST walkers, speeders, hyperspace drives, invincible shields, Star Destroyers, Super Star Destroyer, the Death Star and its planet-destroying beam, X-Winogovs, TIE Fighters, countless planets, the Force, Jedi, Lightsabers, New York City, Cloud City, Stormtroopers. Clone Trooper, Secret Service, battle-droids...

While Trek certainly has plenty of gadgets, Star Wars is just a vastly larger universe overall.

Then again, they aren't even in the same category: Star Wars is a fantasy world, whereas Trek is an imaginary one.

Fantasy: purely invented, impossible by nature.
Imagination: constructed from memories of what exists, and therefore entirely possible.

Star Wars should be compared to LOTR instead.

I mean, you lack any sort of baseline. How can you possibly claim to know anything? I see this all the time on Reddit—people just shouting, "we're trash," or "we're failures," or whatever other self-deprecating nonsense they can conjure up. They ought to stop and ask themselves if they actually possess a single shred of objective evidence to support such sweeping, baseless assertions.

How could one distinguish good from evil, assuming only one of those states exists?

How would anyone even recognize darkness as being dark, if light were the only thing that existed?

Jose Palmer2:

I maintain that the brain of an Eratosthenes clone from the 1900s would be different. It would almost certainly possess a higher synaptic density per unit of volume. Perhaps other structural discrepancies would also be evident. IQ is merely a metric—an indicator of the internal structural complexity of the brain. Its rise serves as evidence of biological shifts within the neurological system, conditioned by changing social environments. The brain is much like a lump of clay, a highly formable sphere.

Perhaps he might have had a higher density due to evolutionary differences spanning 2,000 years, but such differences would be negligible since evolution is not a particularly rapid process. For any evolutionary changes to actually manifest, my estimation is that at least 100,000 years would need to pass. A 2,000-year gap is insignificantly small.

Furthermore, IQ is not defined by synaptic density, but rather by the ability to navigate novel problems. I am not suggesting that IQ has no connection to that, but that isn't its definition.

Jesus.... if that were the case, intellectual evolution would depend entirely on a handful of social morons.

Perhaps I misstated myself somewhat: civilization does not rest upon super-intelligent individuals, but rather upon industrious and ambitious people. Another thing regarding super-intelligent people is that they often lack ambition. Intelligent people are plenty, yet there are very few who are both intelligent and ambitious. Try researching the lives and works of the great scientists and artists of history—you will be surprised by the superhuman strength they possessed to push through certain realizations.

Moreover, I did not say that super-intelligent people are necessarily social morons; nor did I say they are morons at all, really. They are simply maladapted. There is a distinction, you know?
To that, I would add not just maladaptation, but also being rejected by their obviously intellectually inferior surroundings. This is why, in the vast majority of cases, great figures are only truly understood long after their deaths...

The reason for a higher IQ lies in the structural differences of the neurological system. That was the essence of my previous post. Now we can philosophize about the social conditions that led to it.

As I stated:
the definition of IQ is not this: IQ is the amount of structural density of neural units in the brain, or something to that effect.

The actual definition of IQ is as follows: IQ, or intelligence quotient, is a number (a ratio) obtained when a person's measured ability to solve novel problems is divided by the average measured ability to solve novel problems for the general population of an equivalent age.

An IQ score essentially indicates how much greater or lesser an individual's ability to solve emerging problems is in comparison to their environment. It is well known that this even depends on one's nationality, as different national or cultural groups possess different average abilities.
Do you honestly believe some nation is, on average, more intelligent than another because of a higher neuron density?

DVDs and DivX ;-)

(Since I don't exactly have any VHS tapes lying around here in Washington, D.C., and honestly, who even finds it worth the money to buy them anymore? Everything on TV is just incredibly dull, so I rarely bother watching it.)

Sound & Fury said:Eratosthenes certainly wasn't outperforming today's top-tier scientists. He just happened to have the same genetic baseline. To put it bluntly, if Eratosthenes had been born in a modern, developed nation, he would likely be smarter than his own 2,000-year-old clone. Perhaps not by a massive margin, but still smarter.

Now, I suppose we need to define what you mean by "intelligence": are we talking about wisdom, raw cognitive ability, or simply an accumulation of education? If we are strictly discussing the volume of schooling, then yes, he’d be lagging behind modern people. But if we mean intelligence or wisdom, that isn't necessarily a foregone conclusion.

If we define intelligence as the ratio of one's ability to navigate new situations compared to the average capability of one's peers—which naturally factors in age—then a modern-day Eratosthenes would undoubtedly be more intelligent than his ancient counterpart. This is because, in a shorter span of time, he would absorb a wealth of knowledge that would have taken his ancient version a lifetime to acquire. And we all know that the faster a person acquires knowledge at a young age, the higher their perceived intelligence becomes.

In such a scenario, a much younger Eratosthenes would reach conclusions far sooner than his prehistoric clone ever could, simply because his environment serves up critical information on a silver platter.

I hope I haven't overcomplicated things too much...

Sound & Fury said:Absolutely not!

Intelligence isn't just about genetic predisposition; sociological factors play a massive role too.

There isn't just one way to be smart. What you're describing is social intelligence, and honestly, we shouldn't conflate that with standard IQ.

When people talk about "classic" IQ, they're usually referring to spatial reasoning, temporal awareness, and the capacity to tackle novel mental problems—tasks where there is no pre-existing template to follow.

An individual's overall cognitive profile might actually be an accumulation of various types of IQ, not just the traditional metric.

It's a well-documented phenomenon that those with exceptional IQ in one specific area often struggle significantly in others.

That’s why we see this pattern where geniuses tend to be highly introverted, socially awkward, or emotionally volatile; they simply lack that social IQ component.

The reason we see a slight uptick in average IQ compared to previous generations is because the challenges facing Americans today are inherently more complex than those faced by our ancestors. We are constantly building upon an accumulated foundation of knowledge.

In the old days, people had to start their intellectual journeys from scratch. Today, long before someone even enters the workforce, they've already been trained through childhood on concepts that modern civilization essentially handed to them on a silver platter.

Richard Howard2 said: Civilization is overflowing with inventions, massive amounts of knowledge, and constant progress, but how much does the average person actually understand or even have the capacity to replicate? Huh?

We aren't talking about the average Joe here; we are talking about the specific individuals who actually drive civilization forward.

To be clear:

The reality is that most of us won't ever create anything revolutionary—nothing that sticks in the minds of future generations who might build upon that knowledge. However, within our ranks, there will always be two or three people who possess that drive, and they are the ones who matter.
An average person might technically be capable of reproducing these advancements, but they simply lack the interest. Only the exceptional—those driven by genuine curiosity and intellect—will push the boundaries of what we know.

The system of our collective intellectual organism functions much like biological fertilization:

you have to release millions of sperm just to ensure a single egg gets fertilized.

Kali said:I don't think he would act the same way people do today. Back then, humans were guided by incredibly sharp instincts; they lived in much closer harmony with nature, which is something we can't say for ourselves anymore. We’ve become stunted. What drives most people nowadays has absolutely nothing to do with our true nature. Everything is artificial, calculated, unnatural, and just plain wrong. Change has certainly occurred, but not in any positive sense. This constant shifting of boundaries is merely a step further toward losing the very essence of what makes us human.

No. We haven't lost our instinct. It's simply dormant. It sleeps within us because, lately, we haven't had any need for it.

Gattaca!

And that is entirely plausible. The next step will, if it doesn't initiate the process outright, at least accelerate the individual. We are talking about true non-linearity then!

Thanks for correcting me on Blue Eyes.

Yes, such a shift would likely signify a transition from Homo sapiens to some entirely new iteration—a sort of "Homo superior" (X-Men).

But one has to wonder: what actually defines this superior form? How would they perceive our world, or even interact with it? Would their heightened intellect manifest as a physical imprint on the material realm, something akin to telepathy?

The absolute best (in my opinion, obviously):

1. Star Wars: Episode II - Attack Of The Clones
2. Monsters Inc.
3. Panic Room