I've been thinking too negatively about people latley, so I though I'd start a thread pointing out all the great things humans have done. So let's say that humans were to become exctinct, and some other intelligent species have come to our planet to study us. What do you think would stick out the most to them about us? I'd say the Internet. The fact that I can connect to anyone in the world instantly just blows my mind. So what other things do you guys think humans have done that are major accomplishments?
lol yeah definitely easy to get down about human beings. But go watch people are amazing on Youtube, that definitely cheered me up about our race. People being able to fly using those suits is absolutely incredible, but I really love seeing humans who have mastered any skill. Devoted time, energy and love into mastering something and becoming great at it, very inspiring.
This is a shitty version of the video but when I watched this high I thought that it was a summary of mankind's greatest achievements. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6580meV8TQ]Dogs Herd Sheep To Spell Words 100% Real Border Collie Dog Herding Sheep - YouTube[/ame] Sheep and dogs are both domesticated animals. Early man achieved such superiority over the natural world that we controlled the course of evolution for these species, forming them into new animals. Now we have such control over them that we can command one animal to herd the other animals into written symbols. Writing is itself one of man's greatest achievements. It allows us to retain information over generations, enabling humans to learn from people we have never met and to communicate with future people we will never meet. By storing our knowledge outside our own memories in a way that does not degrade or change over time, writing paved the way for all human civilization. And the message the sheep spelled out was E=mc^2, a concise but pivotal truth about the relationship between matter and energy. It's one of the most fundamental secrets of the universe, revealed to us by one of the smarter members of our species, and now everyone alive and who will ever live will benefit from the scientific advances ushered forward by that discovery. Plus the video itself is incredible when you think about it: moving images and sounds were recorded, from a flying machine judging by the height and angle of the shots, and then uploaded to the internet so that any almost person on the planet can access this information for free.
Reading and Writing Language in general is pretty increadible in fact the fact you can read what im typing and communicate with me hundreds if not thousands of miles away in the blink of an eye is a great accomplishment of the human race.
Now that I think about it. In a way, the internet connects all human brains together. Creating one big brain. The internet is the physical manifestation of collective human knowledge?
I think media will generally be the most interesting subject if we were to be wiped out and replaced by a new species
Funny. First thing I thought when I read the thread title was: 'Human beings have not accomplished anything great..' Then I read the first sentance of your post, I lol'd. And to be very honest about it, I don't even concider Speech and Language and Writing to be an accomplishment at all. I'm pretty sure we didn't even consciously tried to evolve these things, they just happened. I know that sounds weird but I'm not gonna elaborate on that in this post. Lets just say there are too many "missing links" in "human evolution" to make it plausible we went from primates to human just like that. Anyway, some alright accomplishments we've had.. I'd measure it in the form of people like Bob Marley. Or in the form of the will of the people lately to wanna know the truth about everything and standing up to these corrupt people who are 'leading' us. Those are accomplishments, the internet is ofcourse also something to look at but, as long as we do not have the "spiritual/emotional/integral maturity" I think the internet does us more harm than good. Thats just my opinion though... feel free to disagree or critique it.
Aliens wouldn't think too highly of our technology if they were advanced enough to make it here onto our planet. Chances are that they'd examine our technology as a means to classify and trace the level of civilization we reached. Our technological lineage would be a common ground for them to start their studies on. They might see parallels between our artificial inventions and their natural counterparts (on this planet, and elsewhere). Either way, I don't think they would be too impressed. I'd like to think that these aliens would look towards the peoples involved in the great cultural/social/political/scientific revolutions for these 'great accomplishments'. I think these aspects of humanity would be the most foreign to them, and therefore probably the most intriguing. But hey who knows what they'd be like. They might find something as obscure as a self-sealing stem-bolt the most mind blowing thing in the whole universe.
I think our achievements require some context. 50,000 years, on a planet that was formed over 4 billion years ago. The Wright brothers are credited with inventing the first successful airplane in 1903. 66 years later we landed on the fucking moon. 70 years later, we have access to the entire internet from a device that can literally fit in our pockets. In the background of this picture is "magnetic-core memory, used until the 1970s, that holds eight-bytes using 64 cores." In the foreground is an 8GB micro SD card that can hold a billion times more data. I think we've come a long way in an incredibly short period of time.
The internet...? free...? I don't know what you talking bout, but what I have I pay for And I would also agree that there wouldnt be to much for them to find to be overly impressed with if they are indeed capable of doing what they are doing. That being said, they would probably find the psychology of an average human to be the most interesting thing. That and the sociological aspect of humans as whole in particular earth... because perhaps their ways of life and understanding of families and culture are different and we can better them through example
I think that public sanitation and clean water distribution is a commonly overlooked but still very important achievement.
Burning weed and inhaling the fumes... Whoever first did that is a fuckin' genius! Seriously though, I'll say space exploration. Mainly because the other things I'd say have been said, but the research and knowledge it must have taken to get an inhabitable space station up there is pretty fucking epic. It's also something I see rapidly advancing in the not-so-distant future. i.e epic gets even more epic.
lol that is some trippy shit about people who first tried drugs.. you know it was some dumb guy goin around smokin anything.. I dont know though its crazy because you have to dry the buds off the plant.. how the fuck does one come to that conclusion lol. That really is an epic discovery. Must have been hilarious for the first guy to eat shrooms too haha.. wtf is happening to me??!! And whats this about indians inventing the airplane.. Id like to hear more about that, is the Wright bros another lie? lol, covering up history for a white man to get credit?