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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Well, Rox, I'm not sure that I totally understand. You are talking about dominant species....the one that no other species could challenge.
T.Rex was that species, once. From the standpoint of strength.
Some of the progenitors of man seemed to be that species, once. From the standpoint of intelligence.
They are gone.
What our species seems to often suffer from is an adequate lack of humility.
All that has to happen is the right GENETIC CHANGE in ebola or something we don't even know, and it will be cockroaches at the top of the food chain.
For perspective, I strongly recommend "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston NOT a ficton book, which describes how the best brains in America almost caused a massive epidemic of ebola in America. (actually, they did, but it turned out to be a benign variety). It still gives me nightmares.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Ok, done with being polite. You don't know enough about the subject you are talking about. You haven't bothered to study it. You are wrong. Just wrong.
We've already seen it WITH HUMANS. Take Easter Island. There are MANY examples.
Humans are not materially more intelligent now.
The rules of biological systems are not suspended, because you would like them to be, anymore than physical laws will be.
We will grow as a species. And if we outgrow our resources, we will follow the examples that we've seen many many many many many many many times. War over scarce resources will follow. Food water energy. ISN"T THAT WHAT IS HAPPENING? Who will prevail?
THE T-REX!
What happens if the war is bad enough? What happens if the resources are damaged badly enough? The species will cease to exist.
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WBraun
climber
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Ken you're just guessing.
Behind every machine there is an operator.
Rocky got it right ........
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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You express a lot of interesting opinions, many of them very familiar to me. I am not trying to contest much of this.
I'm trying to express an observation that clever manipulation is not always guided wisely. Accordingly the term 'intelligence' can be seriously misunderstood.
It is much easier to destroy something than to create it. This is particularly true for the complex systems web of life.
We have cleverly generated the ability to dominate and manipulate our environment. In the process we have destroyed the balance upon which our existence depends.
The large organizations that were the most successful at these actions of dominating the world; now seem to carry on obsessively in their actions without adapting to the circumstances that have been created by such actions. That is unwise.
Not only do we not understand the balanced matrix of living systems, we destroy that which we depend upon for life without knowing how to make effective repairs or create replacements.
The large organizations that successfully centralized power don't know how to adapt. I have spent much of my professional career being asked to manage projects to help large organizations adapt to changing circumstances.
These organizations are often managed by very wise and responsible people, and sometimes they try very responsibly to implement what is required.
The inertia in large organizations has to be experienced to be believed. I could write a book of stories from personal experience.
One of my good friends has built a successful consulting business in D.C.based upon the observation that boards of directors composed of some of the most intelligent people around; will tend collectively as a team to generate unimaginably foolish decisions for the management of the organization. He has developed a great talent for getting people to set aside their differences and work together.
And we are not the only intelligent species around. We fool ourselves about that and are chronically guilty of hubris. Our clever ability to destroy other species does not make us more intelligent. In fact acting destructively tends in the general nature of things to reduce ones intelligence.
There is an old mountain lion living in my remote neighborhood who could probably wipe out most of my sillycon valley genius neighbors and get away Scott free. But he's wise enough to sit unobtrusively on top of the water company tank and keep an eye on everything, and rather quietly keep the deer population in check. (Although he did tear into one particularly obnoxious big barking dog and chase it back into the house for a trip to the vet).
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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The planet is a balloon and mankind is holding the needle...rj
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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"she is lying sociopath, with a narcissistic personality that she pumps up her sense of self worth up with
and she has no other redeeming personality qualities other than being a snarky, condescending bitch/cunt"
oh, the irony
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Douglas Rhiner
Mountain climber
Truckee , CA
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oh, the irony ... that worms live in shitty dirt?
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Jingy
climber
Somewhere out there
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Bob "Jingy wrote: Rox - this is no debate.. LEY is "A CONSERVATIVE NON CLIMBER EDITED: "TROLL" on a "Climbers" Forum..."
Don't try to educated the fool...his cup "runneth over"."
Understood...
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Good post, TomCochrane...
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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How uninformed is Lois...can't figure out where Dr.F is from even through she posted to this forum 18,000 times?
She also hammers Obama for the illegal aliens situation when he has done more to correct the situation than any modern president.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/25/AR2010072501790.html
Bookworm, SUAP, TGT and rest of republicans on site who constantly whine about the illegal alien crisis should be heaping praise on Obama.
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Lois wrote: Well,AC, one thing it "ain't" is protecting the border and/or promoting public lands. What is one of is pets? Well, maybe football or ESPN. Maybe it is "exploring energy alternatives" for a football stadium and then speaking out on behalf of a scumbag dog torturer.
Really...how dumb is Lois, Kookworm, SUAP and the like.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/30/AR2009033003283.html
Dr.F...Idaho...LOL
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Bob, I thought you were from Florida....weird.
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Obama, like Bush and McCain, funds and backs our unending and unwinnable wars. He does nothing to halt the accumulation of the largest deficits in human history. The drones murder thousands of civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as they did under Bush and would have done under McCain. The private military contractors, along with the predatory banks and investment houses, suck trillions out of the U.S. Treasury as efficiently under Obama. Civil liberties, including habeas corpus, have not been restored. The public option is dead. The continuation of the Bush tax cuts, adding some $900 billion to the deficit, along with the reduction of individual contributions to Social Security, furthers a debt peonage that will be the excuse to privatize Social Security, slash social services and break the back of public service unions. Obama does not intercede as tens of millions of impoverished Americans face foreclosures and bankruptcies. The Democrats provide better cover. But the corporate assault is the same.
Vote Green.
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Dr. F, you are right, well worth the read:
"They are afraid of the right-wing because the right-wing bellows, and they have become right-wing," Nader said of the commercial press. "They have become fascinated by the bias of Fox. And they publicize what Fox is biased on. The coverage of O'Reilly and Beck and their fights is insane. In the heyday of coverage in the 1960s of what we were doing, it was always less than it should have been, but now it is almost zero. Why do we take this? Why do we accept this? Why isn't Chris Hedges three times a year in the Op-Ed? Why is it always Paul Wolfowitz and Elliott Abrams and all these homicidal maniacs? Why are they there? Why is John Bolton constantly published in The Washington Post and The New York Times? Where is Andrew Bacevich? Bacevich told me he has had five straight Op-Eds rejected by the Post and the Times in the last two years. And he said he is not inclined to send anymore. How many times do you hear Hoover Institution? American Enterprise Institute? Manhattan Institute. These goddamned newspapers should be picketed."
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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I expect Ralph Nader to call everyone with whom he disagrees right-wing. I should not be surprised that many on this forum believe him, but that doesn't stop my disappointment in that fact.
Ralph Nader has built a plaintiffs' bar empire of his own, with a Gordian network of organizations purporting to be in the public interest, but acting in the interest of exceedingly well-paid extortionists posing as trial lawyers. If you want to see the real party of the rich, follow Nader.
John
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Comrad Fattrad, is the convention open to......anyone.......
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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John,
Maybe you can be specific about the points Nadar makes that which you disagree. Otherwise, you're just blowin' wind.
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Ron, That's because they doused the Public Option. But also might be the gouge before the act goes into force. But I am not surprised, we all knew they were raising the rates by 30%, even before the Health Care Act was passed.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Rox:
T-REX???
HAH! THATS a JOKE, right?
You give me an Abrams Tank, and a Ma Duece and I would LOVE to chase T-Rex around. And lots of other guys would see that as a sporting event.
Look up "concrete thinking".
WE are the T-REX.
There is NOTHING that would suggest that we are more intelligent than the Easter Islanders. What we have is more technology....or, a more advanced civilization. AND THAT IS THE TRAP.
The more advanced civilization ALWAYS thinks it is the more intelligent. It is why whites thought they were more intelligent than black slaves. It is why Americans think they are more intelligent than A-rabs.
One has nothing to do with the other.
Hell, we don't know, whales may be more intelligent than we are, they just don't have opposable thumbs.
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