Israel - Palestine Discussion | Post Respectfully | Discuss more, tweet less

langster said:
What is it with the arrogance and hubris of our species?
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Impossible without being very intelligent I'm afraid.
langster said:
mI will reiterate, we cannot call ourselves intelligent all the time we are killing each other, killing every species on earth, many to extinction, and destroying the very planet and all the natural resources that gave us life.
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I afraid you very much can.
langster said:
We especially cannot call ourselves intelligent if out of all 8 billion of us, the one with the most money has used some of that to gain control of the government of the most powerful country on Earth and he being the one that is looking towards other planets for us to move to knowing full well we won't save the one we are on.
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Intelligence is an emergent trait as a result of evolution. It isn't inherently good or bad.

It enables us to solve problems by reasoning , innovation and creativity. However, as we are the result of evolution this can favour short term gains which can be selfish, manipulative and sometimes favor competition over cooperation.

This means that humans are far better equipped to deal with immediate risks, needs and/or desires and (at least partly) why we are poor at solving long term problems like global warming and international conflicts/wars.
langster said:
As I said, you all have a fecking low bar or a warped view on what you call intelligent.
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I think you are wishing/hoping for intelligence to mean something it doesn't. Sadly.
langster said:
Intelligence comes in many forms. Emotional intelligence being a form that many look down upon as weakness. Yet those with money or power are looked upon as being Uber intelligent.
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You are talking about aspects of intelligence - they aren't separate things.
langster said:
We have it all it's just as a species we are too selfish, greedy, arrogant or weak to do the right things about it.
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Life is complex and intelligence is far from the whole picture with cultural and societal factors (good and bad), interacting with our ability to rationalise (good), hold biases (bad), use moral reasoning (mixed), and empathise (good) - and loads more - contributing to human behaviour.

There are lots of aspects of intelligence that can counter the bad stuff but you can't pretend both parts exist.
langster said:
Also, we have humour, and irony. The peak of both being an Aussie telling us all how collectively smart we are.
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I think the emotional bit is taking over when you start impuning an entire nation because you don't understand what intelligence is or that it doesn't automatically mean everyone (or society) is good. I'm also British now living in AU - for what that is worth.
 
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Kaos said:
Would that even be safe or responsible? I'd imagine those observatories are within firing distance of rocket fire, not sure as a school I'd want my kids to be within potential earshot of some mortar volleys or a stray katyusha.
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Yesterday the warhead of a missile fired from Yemen fell in a school right next to Tel Aviv. So nowhere is absolutely safe, but people do try to get on with lives.

There's very little rocket/mortar fire coming out of Gaza nowadays so I think the risk is negligible.
 
Wibble said:
Impossible without being very intelligent I'm afraid.

I afraid you very much can.

Intelligence is an emergent trait as a result of evolution. It isn't inherently good or bad.

It enables us to solve problems by reasoning , innovation and creativity. However, as we are the result of evolution this can favour short term gains which can be selfish, manipulative and sometimes favor competition over cooperation.

This means that humans are far better equipped to deal with immediate risks, needs and/or desires and (at least partly) why we are poor at solving long term problems like global warming and international conflicts/wars.

I think you are wishing/hoping for intelligence to mean something it doesn't. Sadly.

You are talking about aspects of intelligence - they aren't separate things.

Life is complex and intelligence is far from the whole picture with cultural and societal factors (good and bad), interacting with our ability to rationalise (good), hold biases (bad), use moral reasoning (mixed), and empathise (good) - and loads more - contributing to human behaviour.

There are lots of aspects of intelligence that can counter the bad stuff but you can't pretend both parts exist.

I think the emotional bit is taking over when you start impuning an entire nation because you don't understand what intelligence is or that it doesn't automatically mean everyone (or society) is good. I'm also British now living in AU - for what that is worth.
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Well we can agree to disagree then because I believe you're talking absolute bollocks
 
langster said:
Well we can agree to disagree then because I believe you're talking absolute bollocks
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All well established I'm afraid. I'm not saying anything controversial.

I guess my point is that the problem isn't a lack of intelligence. It is an application of it that doesn't prioritise empathy or morality or ethical behaviour. That gives me at least some hope that (very) eventually this despicable shit will stop. It will never be soon enough though - very sadly.
 
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Tarrou said:
the reply was well grounded in evolutionary biology

I'm not an expert but there is a lot of evidence for that viewpoint
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Maybe so, but sounds like a bunch of excuses for humans being assholes.
 
Lemoor said:
Evolutionary biology is very rarely into making verifiable predictions.
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Good job nobody was making specific predictions that needed fact checking then.

The point is that intelligence or any lack thereof isn't the problem.
 
Lemoor said:
Evolutionary biology is very rarely into making verifiable predictions.
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I know. It does a pretty good job of explaining why humans have evolved to be both inherently good and bad, though. And why it is unlikely and unrealistic we'll become mostly good anytime soon.
 
Amir said:
Yes, I'd assume that kids are helped to get a better view. What's wrong with that? Like I said, it's a ten-year old 360 degree observatory that allows to see a whole lot more than Gaza. That 'help' would have existed prior to the war.

Now, have some of the visitors in the last year enjoyed especially watching Gaza and what's happening there, or even came especially for that? Yeah, I'd assume so. And it it's terrible.

But I don't know about schools bringing kids there in order to see what's happening in Gaza. It would be common for school trips to go to such observatories, whether there's a view to Gaza or not.
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Mate, they're having field trips to an observatory from where it's possible to watch an ongoing genocide. There is nothing normal about that.
 
77 killed and 174 injured in the last 24 hours.

At least 45,206 have been killed and 107,512 injured since the beginning of the genocide.
 
maniak said:
Mate, they're having field trips to an observatory from where it's possible to watch an ongoing genocide. There is nothing normal about that.
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It's hardly as if they can literally watch a genocide.

What's happening in Gaza is not normal. The observatory is hardly the issue.
 
Amir said:
It's hardly as if they can literally watch a genocide.

What's happening in Gaza is not normal. The observatory is hardly the issue.
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If smoke is rising, someone died and there's a 95% chance it was someone innocent. Something is very wrong if the schools take children to even have a chance of a view of that destruction. Trust me it's not normal.
 
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vultures have been circling the hospital for a few days, and have attacked it a few times, now they're going in to feast on the remains.
 
Denis79 said:
If smoke is rising, someone died and there's a 95% chance it was someone innocent. Something is very wrong if the schools take children to even have a chance of a view of that destruction. Trust me it's not normal.
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What others would consider normal has been thrown out of the window a long time ago here, for those children as well.
 
Amir said:
What others would consider normal has been thrown out of the window a long time ago here, for those children as well.
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I get your point but as adults, we have the responsibility to choose what we expose our children to. We can decide whether to take them to a place where they can observe death and destruction through binoculars, or we don't.

But I think that so many lines have been crossed that something like this seems trivial.
 
Denis79 said:
I get your point but as adults, we have the responsibility to choose what we expose our children to. We can decide whether to take them to a place where they can observe death and destruction through binoculars, or we don't.
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Whatever they can see on social media is a lot worse, and with actual close ups.
 
Amir said:
Whatever they can see on social media is a lot worse, and with actual close ups.
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Without a doubt, but that doesn’t have anything to do with these type of field-trips being a part of an educational curriculum.
 
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