first -- humans do NOT care for another nearly as much as they should. while americans claim they really love each other, it's a crock of shit. we're at war over in iraq spending millions on another country's people. we failed at helping nearly 2,00 survive katrina. i walk past hundreds of poor people on the side of the road in new york city everyday.

in no way do i think iraqi people do NOT deserve to be helped. however, the american government, if responsible for anything, is responsible for helping it's citizens. we don't do that.

i mean, fuck, animals in the wild care for each other more than we care for each other -- and we have an advanced brain. and we've failed.

second -- speaking of an advanced brain...yea, we've really done well with that. how many wars have there been in our history? why the fuck are there such things as atomic weapons? why are there wars? failure of human beings. we are not advanced. we are animalistic. we have failed as advanced creatures.

i get more and more sick of it everyday. i see the vice president saying something like this:

"Of course, Senator Kerry said he was just making a joke, and he botched it up. I guess we didn't get the nuance. Actually, he was for the joke before he was against it," Cheney said.

THAT'S REAL FUCKING VICE-PRESIDENTIAL OF YOU PAL.

it's unreal how much hatred there is in this society. there's no peace love and understanding. it's all one-upping and non-caring and lack of communication.

we have failed.

i'm sorta pissed off right now and i'm sure i left something out, so feel free to attack me, praise me, point out further.

jesus man, we've just fucking failed. i was sitting there talking to a friend the other day about how we've failed after reading a story about how a guy called up mcdonalds and claimed he was police. he convinced a manager to take this young girl who worked there in the back room and strip her, do all this sexual stuff to her because he claimed she stole something or whatever. i was just like 'man, how can humans claim they're so smart?' he replied with a bunch of things, one of them being nuclear weapons.

hey, pal, i replied, nuclear weapons are a failure of humans. we're not nearly as advanced as we'd like to think we are.

Atomic weapons arent evil by themselves, thanks to them the Cold War could be "cold"

Relax c_b, if you read a little bit of History, you will easily see how fucked up life was in the past compared to what it is now.

well we've failed in basically every category across the board. in the way we live, the way we eat, the way we treat others. we've actually lost the way of live that kept the system in check for so long. and we've fucked it all up.

Shut up, you idiot douchebag.

ha.

seriously, all we've done in our existence is destroy the earth we live on. good job, human beings.

i can't wait for someone to come into this thread and say how i'm just calling out for attention and how i don't do anything to change the world so i should just shut up.

So... what makes us different than any other animals then? Do any species show concern over their environment, or do they just do what best promotes their own survival?

yes. most species show concern over their environment. otherwise they'd be extinct. humans, for all their mental capacity, do not show concern over their environment.

Good job I'm not human.

I haven't seen any evidence that any species other than humans have the mental capacity to consider what consequences their actions have years down the road.

c_b, i'm on board with you.

i work with disabled adults as a guardian. i had a client who was about 35, but had the brain of a 2 year old. she had had THREE abortions in her life...if she got pregnant 3 times, how many times did she get raped and not get pregnant?

i am currently going to trial to make a statement for one of my ladies who had $$ stolen from her...allegedly by the manager of the group home.

i have a file cabinet full of horrible abuses that my clients have suffered over the years at the hands of people who were supposed to be taking care of them.

my litmas test for society is how well we treat those who cannot care for themselves: the disabled, the elderly, and children. and let me tell you, the disabled are the lowest priority in the human serivces budgets.

we have one leg up on animals...we take care of our disabled offspring, animals leave them to die. but other than that, i can't think of any other way humans may be better at populating this earth than animals.

Based on the rest of your post, we don't really take care of our disabled offspring, which is sad.

One of my favorite lines from the Matrix:

Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with its surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply, and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.

Gonna have to disagree with you on that one. It is a fairy tale that living things "live in harmony" with the earth. No animal would show concern over a plant. No plant would show concern over the soil. No tree would show concern for a microbe that helps its nitrogen uptake. etc etc.

They don't need to. You're right, it isn't a conscious thought, but there is a balance. They don't do things that destroy their surrounding beyond recognition for generations to come. They do what their basic instincts tell them too, which generally is just fine for the environment.

are humans extinct?

and i note the ironicness of your avatar when you babble on about this

We should all really read Ishmael again.

what a piece of dung!!

What about invasive species that destroy crops and/or wipe out other populations of species? What about letting farmed salmon into the wild?

If a species can propogate in size and location, it will. Their basic instincts tell them "multiply". And they will regardless of what it does to their surroundings. They don't think about "generations to come" the same way we do... they think about it in terms of their genes.