Human race will 'split into two different species'

[Brant Gaede]

In a sense very different from that being discussed in this thread, I sometimes think, in a rare down mood, that what we term the human race already consists of at least two species. I see the spectacle of mothers proudly sending off their children to blow themselves up in obedience to some bloodthirsty supernatural being; I see men gleefully chopping of the heads of other living men; I see college students randomly shooting total strangers to death; I see pedophiles burying small children alive; I see men dragging another man to an agonizing death behind a moving car because his skin is a different color than theirs -- and I think of Michelangelo's Moses and Wagner's Tristan and Isolde and the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning; I think of Jonas Salk conquering polio and of the men and women who give years of their lives to moving one day closer the elimination from the earth of cancer; I think of the inventors of the electric light and the airplane and the telephone and the computer; I think of cars as beautiful as any work of art moving off assembly lines and buildings of glass and steel shooting up to the skies; I think of carefree children laughing and scholars eagerly poring over books and lovers swearing eternal fealty; I think of a teacher placing his body between his students and a killer and of a writer spending fourteen years creating a hymn to the human potential -- and I think that it is not possible that we who inhabit this planet are all members of a single species.

Barbara

You are describing the very top and the very bottom. The in between are not generally bad people and there are billions of them. They are better than what surrounds them. You are making the same mistake Ayn Rand made, if she did: focusing on good people and bad people obscuring the inherent capacity in any free-willed creature for either. We celebrate the virtuous individual because we know that the essence of virtue is right action even in the face of the temptation to do otherwise. It is the lack of intelligence I worry most about. I think that explains a lot of the horrible things. I'm not talking about raw brains so much as how people use them. Next stop: the role of right philosophy.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

You are describing the very top and the very bottom. The in between are not generally bad people and there are billions of them. They are better than what surrounds them. You are making the same mistake Ayn Rand made, if she did: focusing on good people and bad people obscuring the inherent capacity in any free-willed creature for either. We celebrate the virtuous individual because we know that the essence of virtue is right action even in the face of the temptation to do otherwise. It is the lack of intelligence I worry most about. I think that explains a lot of the horrible things. I'm not talking about raw brains so much as how people use them. Next stop: the role of right philosophy.

--Brant

A good base line would be -The Nichomachean Ethics- by Aristotle. Aristotle does a remarkably good job of drilling down to some essential modalities and motivations for human behavior. Aristotle was very, very much better at psychology than he was at physics (which is dreadful). Considering that A. did not have modern scientific aids to understand how we operate physically, he was remarkably shrewd in formulating and boxing in what we DO know about human behavior and thinking in the context of unaided observation. Aristotle gives a very good piece of advance, to wit, not to demand any more precision than is possible given what we know and how we know it (1094b 20-25)*. (One may have reservations about A's physics and metaphysics but his "feel" for the human animal is rather good.

Ba'al Chatzaf

*Becker Numbering Scheme for referring to Aristotle's writings.

Edited October 30, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here are the photos and captions given in the article:

The report claims that after they reach their peak around the year 3000

humans will begin to regress.

H G Wells' Science Fiction novel The Time Machine (which was later adapted into two films -

this picture is from the 2002 version) the human race has evolved into two species, the highly

intelligent and wealthy Eloi...

...and the frightening, animalistic Morlock (as seen in the 1960 film version of the classic book)

Michael

[Dragonfly]

H G Wells' Science Fiction novel The Time Machine (which was later adapted into two films -

this picture is from the 2002 version) the human race has evolved into two species, the highly

intelligent and wealthy Eloi...

This film is obviously very different from the book.

[Ellen Stuttle]

H G Wells' Science Fiction novel The Time Machine (which was later adapted into two films -

this picture is from the 2002 version) the human race has evolved into two species, the highly

intelligent and wealthy Eloi...

This film is obviously very different from the book.

But even in the 1960 version the Eloi aren't "highly intelligent." They're like vapid (and Aryan type; they're all fair of skin and hair) flower children, and the Morlocks farm them for food. The Eloi are "conditioned" -- or maybe it's a genetic response -- to go into a somnambulistic daze when an air-raid alarm goes off, at which time the Morlocks emerge and haul some of the Eloi off to the underworld to be eaten.

The Eloi are smarter in the 2002 version (also, all of them are mulatto in coloring), but the Time Traveler has some work cut out for him trying to arouse their willingness to fight the Morlocks.

Ellen

___

[Barbara Branden]

You are describing the very top and the very bottom. The in between are not generally bad people and there are billions of them. They are better than what surrounds them. You are making the same mistake Ayn Rand made, if she did: focusing on good people and bad people obscuring the inherent capacity in any free-willed creature for either. We celebrate the virtuous individual because we know that the essence of virtue is right action even in the face of the temptation to do otherwise. It is the lack of intelligence I worry most about. I think that explains a lot of the horrible things. I'm not talking about raw brains so much as how people use them. Next stop: the role of right philosophy.

--Brant

Brant, I agree that the "in between" people probably number in the billions, and that many or most of them are better than what surrounds them. But I'm not convinced that we all are capable of taking the sort of evil actions I referred to, despite free will. The fact that I don't understamd what makes such actions possible is why I sometimes wonder if humanity truly is a single species with a similarly evolved brain and emotional capacity. But I realize that my wondering is not evidence that such is the case.

Barbara

[Brant Gaede]

You are describing the very top and the very bottom. The in between are not generally bad people and there are billions of them. They are better than what surrounds them. You are making the same mistake Ayn Rand made, if she did: focusing on good people and bad people obscuring the inherent capacity in any free-willed creature for either. We celebrate the virtuous individual because we know that the essence of virtue is right action even in the face of the temptation to do otherwise. It is the lack of intelligence I worry most about. I think that explains a lot of the horrible things. I'm not talking about raw brains so much as how people use them. Next stop: the role of right philosophy.

--Brant

Brant, I agree that the "in between" people probably number in the billions, and that many or most of them are better than what surrounds them. But I'm not convinced that we all are capable of taking the sort of evil actions I referred to, despite free will. The fact that I don't understamd what makes such actions possible is why I sometimes wonder if humanity truly is a single species with a similarly evolved brain and emotional capacity. But I realize that my wondering is not evidence that such is the case.

Barbara

Just because one has the capacity doesn't mean one has the capability. The real question is why are some people sociopaths? Nature or nurture? I also think that criminal thinking leads to criminal actions, which I believe Robert B. wrote a book about, and that with practice criminality leads to more criminality along with a lessening of the moral sense. It also means a great deal what kind of friends one has for criminality can go tribal as with the Thugs. Etc. Lastly, speaking biologically if a male and female can produce fertile offspring they are the same species.

--Brant

[Matus1976]

Is this junk science or what? This was highlighted on Drudge. From the article:

The human race will one day split into two separate species, an attractive, intelligent ruling elite and an underclass of dim-witted, ugly goblin-like creatures, according to a top scientist.

100,000 years into the future, sexual selection could mean that two distinct breeds of human will have developed.

Any speculation into what humans will be like in 100,000 years is completely and utterly absurd.

[Selene]

You are describing the very top and the very bottom. The in between are not generally bad people and there are billions of them. They are better than what surrounds them. You are making the same mistake Ayn Rand made, if she did: focusing on good people and bad people obscuring the inherent capacity in any free-willed creature for either. We celebrate the virtuous individual because we know that the essence of virtue is right action even in the face of the temptation to do otherwise. It is the lack of intelligence I worry most about. I think that explains a lot of the horrible things. I'm not talking about raw brains so much as how people use them. Next stop: the role of right philosophy.

--Brant

Brant, I agree that the "in between" people probably number in the billions, and that many or most of them are better than what surrounds them. But I'm not convinced that we all are capable of taking the sort of evil actions I referred to, despite free will. The fact that I don't understamd what makes such actions possible is why I sometimes wonder if humanity truly is a single species with a similarly evolved brain and emotional capacity. But I realize that my wondering is not evidence that such is the case.

Barbara

Just because one has the capacity doesn't mean one has the capability. The real question is why are some people sociopaths? Nature or nurture? I also think that criminal thinking leads to criminal actions, which I believe Robert B. wrote a book about, and that with practice criminality leads to more criminality along with a lessening of the moral sense. It also means a great deal what kind of friends one has for criminality can go tribal as with the Thugs. Etc. Lastly, speaking biologically if a male and female can produce fertile offspring they are the same species.

--Brant

Good points Brant. I question the "criminality" statement. Criminality can be defined by the group or what is known to be "humanly criminal" [i'm stretching the language here, by that I mean what all moral, ethical people know to be wrong, e.g. "malum in se" which means "a wrong in itself; an act or case involving illegality from the very nature of the transaction, upon principles of natural, moral, and public law." Black's Law Dictionary; 5th Ed.

In other words a person who grows marijuana is a "criminal" which I believe is insane.

[Brant Gaede]

Is this junk science or what? This was highlighted on Drudge. From the article:

The human race will one day split into two separate species, an attractive, intelligent ruling elite and an underclass of dim-witted, ugly goblin-like creatures, according to a top scientist.

100,000 years into the future, sexual selection could mean that two distinct breeds of human will have developed.

Any speculation into what humans will be like in 100,000 years is completely and utterly absurd.

And fun!

--Brant

[Barbara Branden]

I ...think that criminal thinking leads to criminal actions, which I believe Robert B. wrote a book about, and that with practice criminality leads to more criminality along with a lessening of the moral sense. It also means a great deal what kind of friends one has for criminality can go tribal as with the Thugs. Etc.

--Brant

Yes, in many cases criminal thinking leads to criminal actions, which can then escalate. It's also true, however, that in many cases it appears as if the criminals did not have to develop their behavior, but for all practical purposes began life without a moral sense. But I haven't been talking about garden variety criminals, not bank robbers or forgers or scam artists, but about the truly evil people to whom the fact that other people are real has no meaning or significance. I don't believe that a bank robber necessarily can graduate to burying a child alive; there is an important difference beween those who are capable of such actions and those who are not.

Did you read Sophie's Choice? Sophie, with her two children, was taken to a concentration camp where she was forced to decide which of her children would be killed; if she did not choose, both children would be killed. She made her choice -- and was insane from that moment on, longing only for her own death. But the concentration camp doctor who amused himself by forcing that choice on her was not insane by all our usual standards, and did not suffer remorse. That's the type of evil I have in mind.

Barbara

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

But the concentration camp doctor who amused himself by forcing that choice on her was not insane by all our usual standards, and did not suffer remorse. That's the type of evil I have in mind.

Barbara,

I have looked more deeply inside my soul than people normally do (trying to figure out what went wrong with the addictions) and I have seen clearly that I do not feel anything at the thought of exterminating such a monster, even if he were brutally tortured, other than what one feels at killing a fly or a rat. I know emotional indifference to suffering and death. If I am capable of feeling that about another human being, maybe that monstrous human being has some kind of similar emotional mechanism, except he feels indifference for all of humanity, not just the evil ones. And maybe that stems from resentment at being alive on a very deep level. I speculate, but this sounds right from some really evil people I have known.

Michael

[Dragonfly]

Characteristic for such evil people is their lack of empathy, which is linked to deviations in their brain. See for example here or here

[Brant Gaede]

I ...think that criminal thinking leads to criminal actions, which I believe Robert B. wrote a book about, and that with practice criminality leads to more criminality along with a lessening of the moral sense. It also means a great deal what kind of friends one has for criminality can go tribal as with the Thugs. Etc.

--Brant

Yes, in many cases criminal thinking leads to criminal actions, which can then escalate. It's also true, however, that in many cases it appears as if the criminals did not have to develop their behavior, but for all practical purposes began life without a moral sense. But I haven't been talking about garden variety criminals, not bank robbers or forgers or scam artists, but about the truly evil people to whom the fact that other people are real has no meaning or significance. I don't believe that a bank robber necessarily can graduate to burying a child alive; there is an important difference beween those who are capable of such actions and those who are not.

Did you read Sophie's Choice? Sophie, with her two children, was taken to a concentration camp where she was forced to decide which of her children would be killed; if she did not choose, both children would be killed. She made her choice -- and was insane from that moment on, longing only for her own death. But the concentration camp doctor who amused himself by forcing that choice on her was not insane by all our usual standards, and did not suffer remorse. That's the type of evil I have in mind.

Barbara

I have to object to reference here to a novel. A novel is fiction. The doctor as depicted is EVIL, but a different type of evil than Eichmann described as representative of "the banality of evil." Barbara, the evils you have been describing so far are quantitatively small time. But the quantitatively monstrous represent a different psychology altogether. These monsters go along to get along--"obedience to authority." There is also obedience to an ideology and getting obedience to a dictator's rule. It goes on and on. There is a hard-wired predisposition in people to be tribal and that is where the quantitative evil comes from. The evil of disgusting people who do those horrible, criminal things that makes you wonder about "two species" is not the evil of the mass murderers. Hitler would never have buried a little girl alive but he murdered countless little girls. Stalin said one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic.

--Brant

[John Dailey]

~ Ellen is really right on re her impressions of Well's story. The Eloi were the Earth's-surface 'flower-children', sort of herded/harvested (definitely supported/care-taked) by the underground-living Morlocks.

~ Had read the book long ago (including the famous 'Classics Illustrated' comic...which really set my pov when I later actually read the book), saw the movie which depicted both 'species' in cinematic 'extremes', and appreciated both for what they seemed to be worth (apart from Well's obvious sympathy/acceptance of Marxian-analysis of 'class' probs.) Superficially, his story was copied by a ST:TOS episode: pampered 'sky-city' elites living off the work of the lower 'surface'-dwellers (shades of METROPOLIS); fundamentally, 2 'species' symbiotically needing each other's way of living for them to coninue existing...yet contemptinging each other (one predates, the other fears) because of their mutually accepted need for each to continue living that way.

2Bcont

LLAP

J:D

Edited November 1, 2007 by John Dailey

[BaalChatzaf]

Characteristic for such evil people is their lack of empathy, which is linked to deviations in their brain. See for example here or here

I concur (somewhat) with the conclusions in these pieces. I know first hand what being "other brained" is. I have Asberger's Syndrome since my childhood. That puts me, somewhat, at odds with "normal" folks. I have compensated by learning social skills that make me functional and at ease in the company of "normals". Unlike sociopaths, I do not have the urge to slay my fellow humans when the Moon is Full or stuff like that. On the other hand, my capacity for compassion and empathy is lower than that of "normals". I am able to be empathetic to my own family members and little kids (I like little kids, but I won't feed any but Mine). For adult strangers, I have less compassion and empathy than "normals". I also indulge in schadenfreude with respect to my enemies (those who threaten or harm Me and Mine). I would have no hesitation to push a button that would wipe out a billion enemies. I would do it (if I could) and sleep soundly afterward. Fortunately for the world, I have not the means. I have learned to be sociable in a manner similar to painting by the numbers. If you do it long enough and well enough, no one can tell that one is not "normal". I do a very good imitation of a human being. Think of me like being Dexter (in the ShoTime series) but without the urge to be a serial slayer. Dexter does a very skillful imitation of being human. I am able to do the imitation even though I do not have a mind or a soul (I have a brain that functions rather well). When I look deep down inside myself, I don't see much. So it goes. That is why introspection is a waste of time for me.

I find people who hurt other people for no good reason rather annoying and I will gladly co-operate with those agencies in society that put such folk down. I detest child abuse and child abusers, but I have no particular urge to feed hungry children who are not Mine. Let someone else do it, I won't interfere. But when I see the promo for the Christian Children's Fund on T.V., you may be sure I change the station quickly.

I am sure there are physical differences between my brain and the brain's of "normals". Fortunately for me and other Asberger Folk, there is the computer business and abstract mathematics. Such folk can function grandly in these endeavors. It has been estimated that forty percent of the people in the computer business are Asberger types. They are made for computers and computers and made for them.

I have come to the conclusion that the main difference between me and the Nazis is that I have no particular urge to do violence to the people I live among nor do I have any particular urge to tear down society and rebuild it from the foundations. I do not have any sure fire alternatives to offer other folks, so why bother wrecking the place? In other respects I am like them. I lack a general capacity for empathy and compassion. Furthermore I am -glad- I lack these things because I consider them impediments and weaknesses.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[John Dailey]

~ Uh, a side point: that 'coninue' and 'contemptinging', please regard as 'continue' and 'contempting' (couldn't 'edit' them.)

~ Re Barbara's point: I think Rand once implicitly showed this as being *her own* perspective on humanity-in-general, no? Indeed, I'm a bit surprised that so many 'detractors' of Rand HADN'T stressed this perspective on humanity of hers: there have-been/are some (too many?) 'adults' who really don't measure up to acting as being 'human' (and, I ain't just talkin' thugs, here.) --- Shades of a 'Nietzchian' view, huh?

~ Rand did say (I believe according to NB) that the world seems full of 'children', no? (Dare I add, for the most part in history...'spoiled' ones?)

LLAP

J:D

Edited November 1, 2007 by John Dailey

[John Dailey]

Brant:

~ Responding to Barbara, you say...

There is a hard-wired predisposition in people to be tribal and that is where the quantitative evil comes from.

False...impression...you have, I must say. To be tribal-oriented is 'acquired'...by choice...by all, within their life circumstances, developing from 'family-living' being wanted, or avoided; nowadays, within '1st-world' countries, there's no...'human'...excuse for accepting this way of living, Jim Jones' (or Jane Fonda's) ilk's followers nwst.

~ Rand made a point in Galt's speech about 'tendencies' affecting volition that I guess you disagree with. --- We each may have 'pre-dispositions' re desires towards one thing or another (certainly not the same ones for ALL of us), but existence of them...for some of us...implies nothing about our necessarily being 'motivated' by them, anymore than our desire for...verbal interaction.

LLAP

J:D