First DarkMon, Dec 17, 2007 Humanity as a whole is potentially superior to all other animals on this planet insofar as it has the greatest capacity to think and act. I stress the word "potentially" because humans have abused this capacity and now stand inferior to all other life forms. There is no other creature on Earth which has proved itself more savage and regressive than the human.
Since the dawn of civilization, most humans have decided to live in this world, not as caretakers and progressive intellectuals, but as barbaric megalomaniacs with little or no concern for the natural environment; spreading around the planet like a virus, infecting everything it can touch. Those who have attempted to reverse this flow of aggressive exploitation have been outcast, silenced, and/or exterminated. There have been a few waves of progress, but ultimately most of our species remains exactly the same; greedy, self-centered, irrational, and devoid of long-term thinking.
I am an optimist, however. Technologies such as the Internet now allow the caretakers, intellectuals, and progressive individuals to connect with each other, share ideas, and take action. Space Collective strikes me as a perfect example of what gives me hope that we still have the opportunity to reverse the mistakes of those who came before us (and many who still surround us).
But time is certainly running out.
I kind of went on a ranting tangent there, so I'd like to get back to the point I was going to make.
Personally, I feel that this "superiority" should be judged within the context of the current state of the world. Whichever life forms have the most positive, sustaining effect on the planet are the most superior (perhaps some sort of plant or bacteria? or maybe a human-killing virus?) while inferiority belongs to those who are causing the most destruction (of course, humans have a monopoly on this side of the spectrum).
Humanity as a whole is potentially superior to all other animals on this planet insofar as it has the greatest capacity to think and act. I stress the word "potentially" because humans have abused this capacity and now stand inferior to all other life forms. There is no other creature on Earth which has proved itself more savage and regressive than the human.
Since the dawn of civilization, most humans have decided to live in this world, not as caretakers and progressive intellectuals, but as barbaric megalomaniacs with little or no concern for the natural environment; spreading around the planet like a virus, infecting everything it can touch. Those who have attempted to reverse this flow of aggressive exploitation have been outcast, silenced, and/or exterminated. There have been a few waves of progress, but ultimately most of our species remains exactly the same; greedy, self-centered, irrational, and devoid of long-term thinking.
I am an optimist, however. Technologies such as the Internet now allow the caretakers, intellectuals, and progressive individuals to connect with each other, share ideas, and take action. Space Collective strikes me as a perfect example of what gives me hope that we still have the opportunity to reverse the mistakes of those who came before us (and many who still surround us).
But time is certainly running out.
I kind of went on a ranting tangent there, so I'd like to get back to the point I was going to make.
Personally, I feel that this "superiority" should be judged within the context of the current state of the world. Whichever life forms have the most positive, sustaining effect on the planet are the most superior (perhaps some sort of plant or bacteria? or maybe a human-killing virus?) while inferiority belongs to those who are causing the most destruction (of course, humans have a monopoly on this side of the spectrum).