Racism alive and well

I know it's not easy to let the imagination run loose, but I'm trying to get across the point that there won't be "a union like ours" in existence even in the next 1,000 years. You have to remember what you know of paleontologic history and imagine what day-to-day life was like for humans 15,000 years ago, then list as many things as you can that are different on the basic level today. Then try to imagine what changes can occur over the next 15,000 years.

Can you even fathom that 150,000 years from now any humans that are in existence, should they travel back in time, may or may not even be able to breed with us because we have become different species? What traits might they have that we don't? What traits/abilities have been lost over time?

When you are considering such big picture questions, the notions of our short-term, arbitrary governing systems, our cultures, our way of life are going to be vastly different. Perhaps we won't even be living on earth anymore at that point! So to say that there will "always" be poor and starving children is to impose today's standards of living, culture, attitudes, and way of life onto a society that hasn't come to be yet. It's like saying that 15,000 years ago we'd always die of smallpox, or that HIV will never exist. Always and never are terms that evolution and time care nothing about.

PrintSmith wrote: "Imagine" a utopia - it's easy if you try, right? Evolution is about survival SC. The modern day human is much more susceptible to infection and disease than his predecessor was as a result of the "progress" we have made courtesy of science.

I think I might be misunderstanding what you are saying here, because I absolutely disagree that we are more susceptible to infection and disease, and I certainly wasn't referring to any utopia in the future, I was just saying that things will be vastly different. We are just as susceptible, no more, no less, because our immune systems have adapted and evolved alongside the various pathogens that infect us - it's a constant game of back and forth between us and them. We are more likely to survive those infections and diseases due to our improvements in drugs and medicine, but that doesn't necessarily mean that at the molecular level that we are any weaker due to under-use. Just that what we are susceptible to is different than what are ancestors were exposed to and susceptible to.

That progress is what allows so many of us to inhabit the planet because our intellect has given us the ability to provide what we need rather than simply seek it out. At some point, that ability won't be sufficient to sustain the growth in the number of us that populate the planet. At that point in time, true to form and nature, we will do that which is necessary for our survival even if it results in the destruction of everyone else.

I agree. If you look at the other species in the animal kingdom, they too go through cycles of population growth and crashes, we are not living outside of those evolutionary forces. That's what makes global warming such an insidious problem - it's a hard to discern, slow change that once momentum is built up in the system, we are hosed, and it's directly related to our population size and careless consumption of precious resources. At some point, global warming as a problem won't matter because we will have been decimated by disease due to overcrowding and lowered sanitary conditions, and over wars fought over dwindling resources will restrict our smaller population to habitable areas. Will you still blame the disease, or the underlying problem of the global warming?

Day to day life 15K years ago was about survival - it's the same today and will be the same 150K years from now. Some will be more successful than others at obtaining that which is necessary for survival. Those that secure the resources will be "rich" and those that don't will be "poor" - same as it was in yesteryear, same as it is today, same as it ever was and always will be.

So you don't think that we've learned anything over our 200,000 years? We've gone from primitive, non-speaking, foraging animal to genetically manipulating our food, performing microsurgeries on fetuses, and curing some cancers. I may be completely wrong, but it seems like we war a whole lot less now than we did in the past, and we've got a bigger quantity of people to kill now who are different than us. Yes, I do believe that we learn, as bailey bud said, some people have consciously chose their thoughts and words - isn't it possible that we could evolve to a point where the majority of people are like that and respect for one another is the norm? So that when a family is in need, there isn't any need for legislation to force the general population to provide for them, rather it just automatically happens from neighbors, friends, family, etc? If we can get to the point where some in the population can do it, then it means that everyone in the population has the capabiity, and society as a whole can get there someday. Doens't mean we will, it just means we can. My point was that regardless of how I'd like it to go, it's an undisputed fact that 15,000 years from now our society will NOT function as it does now - we don't function as we did 15,000 years ago. Our infrastructure is completely different, we've evolved to be less war-like, we've discovered incredible knowledge, and things will continue to change. They won't always be for the better, and they won't always be for the worse, and our survival is not guaranteed. But you cannot assume that racism will always remain - it's already changed thanks to our increased understanding of genetics, evolution, and shared knowledge/understanding of cultures. If we can learn that women can make rational decisions because they aren't influenced by their uterus migrating to their throat and causing hysterics, than I think we can eventually learn that we are just as capable engineers and physicists and someday that train of thought will be natural, just as we now think it's ridiculous that hysterics are caused by internal organs moving around in the body.

Same mechanism, individuals and society as a whole will disagree as to which are worse than others based on what's happening in our communities and nation at that moment.

As for people on this board using them and "being allowed to remain", you know it's our policy to not ban people and to star out the commonly accepted classical racist terms. What they write is a reflection on themselves. What we tolerate is a reflection on ourselves. The N-word has always been starred out here, as has a few other racist terms. As for teabagger and salad tosser, since I'm guessing that's what you're getting at, they have sexual connotations about specific actions one does, not traits one has like skin color or gender. Splitting hairs, maybe, but in my personal opinion their use is juvenile and reflects more poorly on the poster using them than anything - if the best defense one has is to be offensive and try to piss others off as much as you've let them piss you off, it's a weak position. If everyone wants to vote in a poll to start starring them, fine by me. I'd prefer personal responsibility, restraint, not taking things personally, and a certain level of decorum myself because you get back what you give. Otherwise, we start down a slippery slope of what term is next to be used by a poster one doesn't like after their favorite is put on a list, until we turn into a "I need to be protected from myself and everyone else because I'm a victim" political correctness mentality. :Censored :Sick: