Has the human race devolved?

Soldato
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Abundance.

Abundance has made us lazy, fat and ignorant/arrogant.

We complain about life being difficult yet most of us in the "developed world" have central heating, running water, medical care, a wide selection of nutrition (most of which we ignore for fast food, grease and chemicals) and a general peace.

It's saddening, we're walking a very dangerous path. We're controlled by greed and consumption, instead of working to better ourselves, bettering ourselves is an occasional byproduct of working. We're trapped in a cycle of propagating a flawed society. We're chained by the ignorant arrogance of religion and power-hungry corporations and governments. We're enslaved by media, controlling what we think we want and what we think we want to do.

Abundance has left our bodies soft and our minds weak. And who is to blame? Governments? The corporations? The religious authorities?

No, we are. We've created this mess.

We have to dig ourselves out of it. Let's hope we're not too far gone to do so.
 

AMG

AMG

Soldato
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I think we have grown *lazy* not evolved, some of us specialises in one thing while others another.. humans learn and adapt too fast sometimes this kinda proves that

if we don't need to do something as someone else or thing does it for us we just don't bother
 
Soldato
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At one time we humans were fully self sufficient and responsible for our own lives and those of our families, cultivated/hunted our own food, made our own clothes, built our own houses etc and lived happily ever after.

Today, we like to think that we're much more evolved compared to our ancestors but many of us couldn't even cook a meal without the use of a microwave meal, let alone survive in the world without a paying job.

Technology aside in what way have we as a species evolved? if Darwin is correct about natural selection then shouldn't 99.9% of us be extinct already? we basically live our entire lives in serfdom (employment) with our masters (government) taking care of us, if governments collapsed tomorrow the majority of us would starve to death.

Society has changed and become more complex, larger populations. People can no longer live this way, the world is to vast and not everyone can do everything which is why we need to help each other.
 
Soldato
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Abundance.

Abundance has made us lazy, fat and ignorant/arrogant.

We complain about life being difficult yet most of us in the "developed world" have central heating, running water, medical care, a wide selection of nutrition (most of which we ignore for fast food, grease and chemicals) and a general peace.

Until tonight I didn't have *reliable* access to the first one, and as for medical care...debatable. Nutrition usually depends on you either having access to money or land\water. No, I think the big issue is we take things for granted, including for other people here domestically. Not everyone here has abundance, its the fact that the minority on the top of the pyramid doesn't want to share things (mainly land, but now there's a credit problem as well) that causes a knock-on effect.
 
Man of Honour
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At one time we humans were fully self sufficient and responsible for our own lives and those of our families, cultivated/hunted our own food, made our own clothes, built our own houses etc and lived happily ever after.[..]

Only in silly films. In reality, it was very hard going and you'd be lucky to live to 40. If you lived that long, you'd see many of your children die in infancy, you'd see friends and family die of disease, animal attacks, infection of even minor wounds (although you wouldn't know what infection was) or childbirth. Assuming they didn't starve to death in a hard winter.

Although no doubt many people were happy fairly often anyway, because people are like that.

The exception would be the relatively small parts of the world with an abundance of food in sufficient variety for good health. Anywhere else and you were in for a very hard time.

Humans haven't been truly self-sufficient for a very long time, if ever. Society is one of the strong points of our species (and is currently thought the most likely reason why homo sapiens replaced neanderthal). Even if you go back to hunter-gatherer societies, people lived in tribes rather than as individuals. Still do, for those few people who still live that way.
 
Caporegime
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At one time we humans were fully self sufficient and responsible for our own lives and those of our families, cultivated/hunted our own food, made our own clothes, built our own houses etc and lived happily ever after.

And died at the age of 30 because everyone was too busy making their own clothes and growing their own food to develop penicillin.


Technology aside
in what way have we as a species evolved? if Darwin is correct about natural selection then shouldn't 99.9% of us be extinct already? .

You failed right there, that's like saying "running quickly aside, in what way has the cheetah evolved" our ability to create things is basically our version of claws and pointy teeth.


we basically live our entire lives in serfdom (employment) with our masters (government) taking care of us, if governments collapsed tomorrow the majority of us would starve to death


And if all the ants decided to stop working together they'd all die out too, being able to live entirely independently of your species is not a massively beneficial trait for an organism.

Now being able to work together and become more than a simple hunter gather out for your self, that is a truly beneficial trait, and a great step in "evolution*"




*Please don't kill me nitefly.
 
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Caporegime
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At one time we humans were fully self sufficient and responsible for our own lives and those of our families, cultivated/hunted our own food, made our own clothes, built our own houses etc and lived happily ever after.

Today, we like to think that we're much more evolved compared to our ancestors but many of us couldn't even cook a meal without the use of a microwave meal, let alone survive in the world without a paying job.

Technology aside in what way have we as a species evolved? if Darwin is correct about natural selection then shouldn't 99.9% of us be extinct already? we basically live our entire lives in serfdom (employment) with our masters (government) taking care of us, if governments collapsed tomorrow the majority of us would starve to death.

There is no such thing as devolution.
 
Soldato
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If by devolution you mean being less fit for purpose and define purpose as being able to live off the land then yes, we have.

If you look at those qualities that allow success (where success is successful passing on of genes and number of offspring) then it is frightning this implies that:

The long term unemployed, who squeeze out a load of kids and live on the state are the most successful and will slowly become more prevalent. But that is what the environment we all live in rewards so that is the evolutional trend.
 
Man of Honour
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I saw the thread title and my face looked like I had just taken a bite from a lemon.

As has already been pointed out, there is no such thing as devolution - evolution just describes the change in our gene pool over time, for 'better' or 'worse'.

Despite the thread title, I believe what the OP is actually asking is 'could we survive now as hunter gatherers?', to which I would reply that it would be like asking a bird to act like a dinosaur (the two are ancestrally related). Nevertheless, we have the brains and physique to sustain ourselves should society (inexplicably) fall.

Oh, and I'm glad that my disapproval was voiced before I saw the thread :D
 
Soldato
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In a sense actually i think the human race has become split. Those that make the most of themselves, stay fit and have good jobs. And those that are lowest common denominator. Travelling people, chavs, arse end of society etc
 
Soldato
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In a sense actually i think the human race has become split. Those that make the most of themselves, stay fit and have good jobs. And those that are lowest common denominator. Travelling people, chavs, arse end of society etc

Thats cultural, not biological.


What you imply by that statement is that a child born to say a couple in a council estate on benefits is inherantly "less" than say a child born of two exectutives.
 
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Caporegime
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In a sense actually i think the human race has become split. Those that make the most of themselves, stay fit and have good jobs. And those that are lowest common denominator. Travelling people, chavs, arse end of society etc

more often than not though the people with "good jobs" are less fit than the "arse end of society" as while a small number pay for the gym etc the rest get fat off decadent food and don't live as active a lifestyle.

I've seen more fat guys in suits than fat guys in caravans.
 
Soldato
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more often than not though the people with "good jobs" are less fit than the "arse end of society" as while a small number pay for the gym etc the rest get fat off decadent food and don't live as active a lifestyle.

I've seen more fat guys in suits than fat guys in caravans.

Your probably right, i think i am probably referring to the alpha humans. The people at the top of there game. Mostly the ones that live and work in affluent areas of inner cities.

You can't deny that evolution as reached a dead end. Survival of the fittest is no longer a rule in the western world. Even the white trash fatties of the deep south breed. So we're getting all types in the human race
 
Man of Honour
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You can't deny that evolution as reached a dead end. Survival of the fittest is no longer a rule in the western world. Even the white trash fatties of the deep south breed. So we're getting all types in the human race

Evolution doesn't have a dead end, it is just a descriptive word used to observe selection in a population.

'Survival of the fittest' is a throwaway descriptive phrase that, ultimately, means nothing. Evolution is certainly not only 'survival of the fittest', by any stretch. Why do women find tall men attractive? Why do men generally find larger breasts desirable on females? Why is blonde hair becoming increasingly common? All are a result of sexual selection that is ongoing in our society today. Evolution does not just regard viability, but the ability to find a mate too :)
 
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