The Human Thirst for Knowledge - Blessing or Curse?

[Joel]

Throughout history, Humans have had a thirst for knowledge, and development. From the very beginning of humankind, the discoveries made by our race have shaped our futures forever. We have always wanted to know why things happen, and we always want to push the boundaries of what's possible. This has lead to some of the greatest discoveries by man. the discovery of geologic oil and it's use in internal combustion engines is perhaps the most significant human development ever. It allows for travel across continents in a few hours. Me travelling from Canada to Europe takes only a few hours, (and a couple of dollars ). All because of the internal combustion engine, and man's thirst for knowledge. I would call that a blessing, but some may bring up the emissions we create, and call it a curse (I don't want this to turn into global warming part 2).


Taking the example of Nuclear Science, through the discovery of Nuclear fission, and fusion, we now have nuclear power, nuclear submarines, medical isotopes, and many other developments. However, we also have Nuclear weapons, which are definitely the curse side of the argument.

We have pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, etc. All of which aid in the production of food for us. Then, we look at the negative effects of them.


What is your take on this subject?

 

[Keef]

I think pretty much everything works out to a 50/50 between good and bad. We humans also have the crazy ability to block out the bad stuff we don't want to hear, so many people seem to think that everything is just good through and through. That's not the case.

There's a reason they have the saying "Ignorance is bliss".

 

[niky]

It's never knowledge itself that causes problems. It's in the practical application of the knowledge, which isn't always in the control of those who dedicate their lives to furthering our understanding of the world around us.

It's the demands of society, in general... and of individuals given this power without the understanding of how its done and how to use it properly... that causes problems.

 

[Famine]

There's also a flipside - people might turn other research into weapons, but people also turn weapons research into other things. Without Hitler's love of ballistics (which, ironically, was the brainchild of a Brit) we wouldn't have space exploration.

 

[Duke]

It's absolutely a blessing (except I don't believe in literal "blessings"). Although it can be misused, knowledge and technology are the reason we've gone from a 50% (or worse) infant mortality rate and a life expectancy of 35 years to our current standards.

 

[Danoff]

Considering the mudhole human beings have come from, I don't see how anyone could see human innovation as anything but good. Without it we'd literally be monkeys flinging poo at each other in the forest.

The reason you don't have to worry about being eaten is because we have a thirst for innovation. The reason you'll probably get to mate and produce offspring is because we have a thirst for innovation. The reason you don't have to live as a nomad, that you have a life expectancy longer than 20 years, or that you enjoy the comforts of modern medicine (pain killers anyone?), or that never once in your life have you worried about starvation is all due to the human desire to innovate.

The human capability for innovation is our single greatest attribute, and represents one of the most important steps in the history of biological life on this planet (with the possible exception of the existence of biological life to start with). The fact that human beings innovate most likely represents an important milestone in the universe, but we won't know the significance of it for sure until we start exploring the universe.

I think that puts it on the proper scale. Not only is the human brain more good than bad, it's a development who's significance is on par with just about anything else we can think of.

 

[Keef]

Without it we'd literally be monkeys flinging poo at each other in the forest.

But we wouldn't know any better.

The reason you don't have to worry about being eaten is because we have a thirst for innovation.

Lion < drunk driver

The reason you'll probably get to mate and produce offspring is because we have a thirst for innovation.

There's all sorts of social anxieties out there that probably makes the chance of finding a make drastically less for some, and unnaturally high for others.

The reason you don't have to live as a nomad

At least there's no house payment.

that you have a life expectancy longer than 20 years

So we can look forward to paying all sorts of bills that much longer.

or that you enjoy the comforts of modern medicine (pain killers anyone?)

You must be forgetting about dealing with health insurance companies.

or that never once in your life have you worried about starvation

Nowadays we die because we eat too much, and of the wrong stuff.

For everything good, there's something bad. The fact that somebody came up with money, and therefore none of our innovations are free of charge is the main one. We have to commit our lives to work just to pay the water bill, whereas if we were still monkeys we would simply piss in the woods. Nowadays you'll get a ticket for that. For being completely natural.

 

[Danoff]

Lion < drunk driver

Uh... what? You'd rather get eaten than die in a car accident? Even assuming that those are equally likely (which they are NOT), can you possibly tell me that you'd rather get eaten alive than die in a car accident?

There's all sorts of social anxieties out there that probably makes the chance of finding a make drastically less for some, and unnaturally high for others.

In the civilized world we enjoy an amazing probability for being able to find a mate. If you lived in the animal world, you'd have to kill someone to be able to mate. Usually one male has several female mates - which means most males go without. It also means the females don't necessarily get any selection in the matter.

Are you telling me that you think a little social awkwardness is worse than going your entire life without ever finding someone? Or worse, finding someone and having her taken from you by a stronger male? Or worse, being the female who gets no choice in the matter. Even if you're the alpha male you're gonna get killed by a younger version of yourself soon.

At least there's no house payment.

There's no HOUSE! The reason we invented the HOUSE is because being a nomad seriously limits your comfort level. You don't have to carry your house (tepee) on your back for miles a day because you have the ability to enjoy the comforts of domesticated livestock.

So we can look forward to paying all sorts of bills that much longer.

Uh.... ok. So you'd rather die than pay bills. Why don't you kill yourself now then? If you seriously would rather cut your life short than pay bills (say... to about 18 years or so) then you should commit suicide as soon as your parents cut you loose. You can have the lifestyle you want. You want an 18 year lifespan with no responsbilities - done. Poof... I have magically transported you to a world where you are in complete control of that. So if you really believe that you're better off dead than paying bills, that's up to you.

You must be forgetting about dealing with health insurance companies.

I'd rather deal with a health insurance company for a few minutes of my cushy existence then die in agony from any of the thousands of diseases that would claim me. If you really want to avoid dealing with health insurance, next time you get sick - just don't go to the doctor. Again, this is entirely within your control. You don't have to participate in modern medicine. Feel free to die of pneumonia on your own.

Nowadays we die because we eat too much, and of the wrong stuff.

Who's choice is that? Is that being forced on us by anyone?

For everything good, there's something bad.

...I know you don't agree with this. The choices you have made contradict it.

The fact that somebody came up with money, and therefore none of our innovations are free of charge is the main one.

Money is a GOOD thing. I'm gonna say that again, money is a good thing. It enables division of labor and specialization. Without it you'd be a farmer, and so would I. And don't dare respond by saying that you'd rather be a farmer - that's up to you.

We have to commit our lives to work just to pay the water bill

Feel free to go live in the woods. That's your call. The amazon awaits you. When you die of malaria or get eaten alive by a jaguar, just think to yourself "Danoff told me so".

 

[Duke]

:golfclap:

 

[Joel]

I have to say I have always been more on the "blessing" (Duke, I don't believe in "blessings" from God side of the argument, but I do notice that a lot of our technologies have the potential to turn out very bad. Our technologies have made our lives much much easier, and longer. I would like to use a Call Of Duty 4 death quote here "I think all technologies are morally neutral until we apply them".

There's also a flipside - people might turn other research into weapons, but people also turn weapons research into other things. Without Hitler's love of ballistics (which, ironically, was the brainchild of a Brit) we wouldn't have space exploration.

And again, we wouldn't have Nuclear power without the Manhattan Project.

 

[Keef]

Feel free to go live in the woods. That's your call. The amazon awaits you. When you die of malaria or get eaten alive by a jaguar, just think to yourself "Danoff told me so".

I'm not trying to say that human innovation is a bad thing. My point is that it's good--but every good thing has a bad side to it. That's all I was trying to illustrate. Perhaps we're seeing our differences in personality. While I'm not a pure pessimist, I like to give the bad just as much consideration as the good.

Actually, something happened this morning that I think illustrates my point clearly:

Fresh bodywork be damned. That never would have happened if I was hanging from a tree picking bugs off your scalp. But obviously while a monkey doesn't have to stress over bodywork he can't afford (again), he does have to worry about the tiger waiting for him at the bottom.

Much of the time the good trumps the bad, but sometimes the bad is just such a pain in the ass I'd gladly forego the good.

 

[Duke]

Much of the time the good trumps the bad, but sometimes the bad is just such a pain in the ass I'd gladly forego the good.

I'd suggest you try that for 90 days and see how it works out for you.

 

[Danoff]

but sometimes the bad is just such a pain in the ass I'd gladly forego the good.

When?

 

[Joel]

Much of the time the good trumps the bad, but sometimes the bad is just such a pain in the ass I'd gladly forego the good.

So you'd rather not have a car than have a dent on the side? I am hoping that this is not true, so please give an example other than a ding on your car.

 

[Keef]

I'd suggest you try that for 90 days and see how it works out for you.

When?

So you'd rather not have a car than have a dent on the side? I am hoping that this is not true, so please give an example other than a ding on your car.

I realized the car thing was a terrible example. I wouldn't give up having a car even if it had a purposely rusted hood.

I'm not so sure that I would even give up having a lawn if I was to move out on my own. But that's a decent example, because many people willingly forego maintenance on a house by moving into an apartment. They sacrifice space and privacy to avoid many possible annoyances, like replacing the top-of-the-line water heater that inevitably goes bad after 6 years. Some people also go out of their way to live in the middle of nowhere to avoid noise, pollution, traffic, and all that big-city stuff that we deal with every day, though their devil wears badly knitted sweaters instead of Prada. Most people do prefer the conveniences of the city.

I'll concede a bit of my 50/50 argument and say that there is more good than bad, but I have evidence that it's not all good. Say, 75% good and 25% bad. I'm sure some in-depth surveys could be done in order to judge a more accurate view of good versus bad.

 

[Joel]

I realized the car thing was a terrible example. I wouldn't give up having a car even if it had a purposely rusted hood.

I'm not so sure that I would even give up having a lawn if I was to move out on my own. But that's a decent example, because many people willingly forego maintenance on a house by moving into an apartment. They sacrifice space and privacy to avoid many possible annoyances, like replacing the top-of-the-line water heater that inevitably goes bad after 6 years. Some people also go out of their way to live in the middle of nowhere to avoid noise, pollution, traffic, and all that big-city stuff that we deal with every day, though their devil wears badly knitted sweaters instead of Prada. Most people do prefer the conveniences of the city.

I'll concede a bit of my 50/50 argument and say that there is more good than bad, but I have evidence that it's not all good. Say, 75% good and 25% bad. I'm sure some in-depth surveys could be done in order to judge a more accurate view of good versus bad.

I don't know of anyone that would rather live in an apartment than a house. The real reason is that they don't have the money for a house...

 

[FoolKiller]

I'll concede a bit of my 50/50 argument and say that there is more good than bad, but I have evidence that it's not all good. Say, 75% good and 25% bad. I'm sure some in-depth surveys could be done in order to judge a more accurate view of good versus bad.

Here is the problem with your point though. So, even with a 25% bad, it is a net positive. Your 25% bad is still a much better option than the crap that the good replaced. I am 30 years old, married, and hopefully soon to be a father, with a heart condition that should have killed me when I was 6.

I will take repeated medical tests and procedures, dealing with insurance, money, and Life over death any day. Every single modern hassle I deal with combined is better than the alternative.

Plus, the difference between a modern hassle, like bills, and primitive hassles, like being hunted by lions, is that I can choose my modern hassles based on a cost/benefit ratio. If the cost of paying for a house is better than wandering from town to town with a tent on my back is worth it, then I can choose to do so. If the cost of gas and car repair is not worth being able to choose three times the jobs or just seeing more of the world than I could otherwise, I don't buy a car. In contrast, I would not get to choose if the lioness wants to feed my liver to her cubs, while I watch as I slowly bleed to death.

I don't know of anyone that would rather live in an apartment than a house. The real reason is that they don't have the money for a house...

Really? I know all kinds. People who don't like yard work and building maintenance, people that don't care about outdoor stuff but love being able to walk five minutes to anything they need, or people who prefer to put the money difference into savings for retirement, etc.

 

[Keef]

Freedom of choice is something I didn't consider. That's reason enough to come up with more stuff, just so the option is there for anyone who wants it.

 

[Joey D]

It's all a double edged sword, without knowledge we are nothing but with knowledge someone is going to exploit it for purposes that are detrimental to society. It's like the car, ya it made traveling much easier, but it also caused more people to die, the planet to be paved over, and a great amount of pollution in the air. There is both good and bad in that.

I think at the end of the day though I think I'll take the bad with the good.

 

[Danoff]

It's like the car, ya it made traveling much easier, but it also caused more people to die

...horses never killed anyone? They've never kicked someone in the head or bucked someone off and broke their neck?

What about other aspects of horse-based transportation - like having to survive the trek. I'd like to see you make the trip from the Atlantic to the Pacific on a horse without getting killed. Lots of people died that way.

There's also the secondary effect of cars helping to spur other technological advances by increasing specialization and division of labor. I'd venture to say that cars may have saved more lives than they've killed - but that's impossible to determine.

 

[FoolKiller]

What about other aspects of horse-based transportation - like having to survive the trek. I'd like to see you make the trip from the Atlantic to the Pacific on a horse without getting killed. Lots of people died that way.

Videogames - educational tools.

 

[Joel]

...horses never killed anyone? They've never kicked someone in the head or bucked someone off and broke their neck?

What about other aspects of horse-based transportation - like having to survive the trek. I'd like to see you make the trip from the Atlantic to the Pacific on a horse without getting killed. Lots of people died that way.

There's also the secondary effect of cars helping to spur other technological advances by increasing specialization and division of labor. I'd venture to say that cars may have saved more lives than they've killed - but that's impossible to determine.

Not to mention the fact that a car is an enclosed shield of metal, whereas a horse carriage is open (usually) and made of something less structurally sound.

 

[Joey D]

Wow, over analysis. It was just an example to illustrate that human knowledge has good and bad effects.

 

[niky]

Cars are probably one of the greatest innovations in terms of personal and/or public transportation.

Even though the speed and efficiency of modern transport means that accidents can be gruesome when they happen... they happen a lot less nowadays than before... especially considering we cover a hell of a lot of miles every day.

Yes, you can die spectacularly in a car crash (a one-in-a-million chance), but you won't die of starvation, get bitten by mosquitoes while trudging through an undeveloped rain forest and die of dengue fever or malaria, get kicked by a mule, eaten by a lion... etcetera... etcetera... etcetera...

You can die in a plane crash or a cruise liner sinking (an even lower statistical chance), but you could also gamble on 50:50 chances (or less) of actually finishing a sea voyage back in the days before steam.

-

And best of all... yes, it's a pain in the ass to work a six-day work week of 8-10 hour working days with another 2-4 hours of commuting thrown in, but it beats hunting, gathering and walking for sixteen hours a day of back-breaking labor, non-stop, no vacation, no sick leave, for your entire life. Hell, being poor has never been easier. You can eat healthier from begging on the street than you can from foraging in the rainforest.

That's not to say that being poor is easy... but it's a mark of how rich a civilization is by how many beggars it supports.

 

[Dotini]

I'd hazard that we don't yet know the end of this story.

If it turns out that human-induced global warming metastasizes into a runaway greenhouse effect which turns Earth into something like Venus where metals run liquid and no life exists, then knowledge, technology and development will likely come to be seen in a somewhat different light.

If the proliferation of nuclear weapons results in global conflagration which leaves survivors sick, impoverished and depressed, then ditto.

If human population gets to the point where resource wars, desertification, famine, drought etc. require an authoritarian global government to manage all aspects of life and its civilization, then once again there could come to be a reconsideration of the knowledge, technology and development that will have brought us to such a desperate end.

 

[Famine]

If human population gets to the point where resource wars, desertification, famine, drought etc. require an authoritarian global government to manage all aspects of life and its civilization, then once again there could come to be a reconsideration of the knowledge, technology and development that will have brought us to such a desperate end.

Thanks a bunch.

 

[Sureboss]

Pfft, we have a wife to control you! Don't need no government.

 

[Exorcet]

I see it as a great blessing. Most negatives are dealt with eventually. I don't think anyone can truly enjoy reverting back to man's "natural" state (which doesn't make sense, as building sky scrapers is as natural for a human as making bee hives is natural for bees).

Taking the example of Nuclear Science, through the discovery of Nuclear fission, and fusion, we now have nuclear power, nuclear submarines, medical isotopes, and many other developments. However, we also have Nuclear weapons, which are definitely the curse side of the argument.

Nuclear weapons are not good or bad. Nuking innocent people is the bad part. Nukes overall have probably made the world more stable since WWII since war between nuclear powers pretty much equates to suicide.

 

[niky]

Thanks a bunch.

I always liked War better. At least it's an exciting way to die.

-

Quite a stretch to suggest we can turn the Earth into Venus... we're too far away from the Sun for that. A nice, sweltering 40 degrees centigrade I can believe, but not as face-meltingly hot as Venus.

And if we reach the point of total war and resource depletion, there's not going to be enough economic resources to create a totalitarian world regime. We'll most likely fall into anarchy and/or back to the level of tribal states and small empires run by militias. Economic/ecological disaster usually destroys large empires, it doesn't create them.

It won't be "1982"... it'll be more like Darfur... or worse... L.A.

-

I'm still holding out for the Large Hardy-har-har Collider's eventual replacement to create a micro-Big Bang and annihilate us in the creation of a new cosmos.

 

[Pupik]

If human population gets to the point where resource wars, desertification, famine, drought etc. require an authoritarian global government to manage all aspects of life and its civilization, then once again there could come to be a reconsideration of the knowledge, technology and development that will have brought us to such a desperate end.

Thanks a bunch.

That is to say, it is virtually impossible to know all possible outcomes of our decisions. However, I believe our thirst for knowledge, and our pursuit of answers, and our potential for a life-long quest to learn and discover things &#8212; coupled with our ability to construct language, find more ways and opportunities to communicate, and permit others to do so freely &#8212; combining these things gives us a much greater chance of a better and improved life than if we'd idly sat by and stared at the clouds all day.