The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #50442 Message #765180
Posted By: Amos
14-Aug-02 - 12:09 PM
Thread Name: A Mudcat's Mind at Work
Subject: RE: A Mudcat's Mind at Work
True, Bill -- but they don't extinguish grass fires, re-route rivers, install plumbing, or use hydro power to build roads and shelters that last for centuries. They adapt to their environment. Nor, as far as I know, do they create beauty gratis beauty. Humans do. Humans also tend to wreak change int he environment to adapt it to their presumed needs. In my opinion, the problem in human rationality is not the engineering skills we have brought to bear as such, but the badly misassessed defintion of human needs. We substitute market potential for a genuine needs assessment, which is terribly democratic, sure, but does tend to reinforce the screaming stupidity of the larger numbers south of the median who can be influenced by marketing efforts to a ridiculous degree.
As for skulls, I know I have one -- I can see or feel it anytime. As to the data-flow diagram described by Jen, I am glad that is not the whole story by a good measure. I do think that if we had taken a chlorophyllic turn way back, and had somehow acheived some sort of dominance through social sequoiaity, which is a charming idea, we would probably be much more empathetic and much more competent at the kind of engineering that enhances rather than disrupts organic balances in the environment. We'd probably use roots and tendrils in place of opposable thumbs, and everything would take much longer, but be much better thought-out. There was a great society on a distant planet that was built on some of these principles in the "Mudcat Enterprise" thread -- cosmic battles between treehuggers and Disneyoids -- a great tale.