Something I always wondered...?

Question

What happened to humans?

How did we become the power hungry, technology centered things we are today? What encouraged us to sit down and try to reveal every little, unimportant mystery of life. There is no reason to do this.

If we had not noticed a difference between animals and ourselves and had to study it, if we had not realized that we were naked and tried to cover it up, if we had not thought so much and kept our bond with nature and our animal instincts, would we not be 10x's happier as a human race than we are now?

You may say you couldn't live without your ipods, electric appliances and such to keep you entertained and livng comfortably, but if we didn't have any of it EVER you sure wouldn't miss it. You would be content living with nothing but the music of nature and playing tag.

We don't need money, electricity or material items of any sort. So... where did all this come from? Why do we need it? I don't know. Neither do you.

Who agrees/disagrees? Why?

Please make it a valid answer and don't insult me.

Answer 1

I understand your line of thinking but you are idealistic in your conclusion! We have always sought to upgrade and improve, thats what makes us Human. This quest for advancement makes us unique as a species, would we be happier without these things? Maybe. .Maybe Not! - I for one, dont relish the idea of smallpox or TB though!

Answer 2

It's good that you are thinking about such things, and I'm sure you'd be a much more interesting conversation than 90% of the drooling bores addicted to their ipods and cell fones.
BUT....
our lifestyles , busy and frivolous as they are, at least keeps us alive longer than the 25 or 30 years we'd expect to live in the world you describe. And it was actually primitive cultures that did the most environmental damage in many ways. I can guarentee that if there were 5 billion people all living like Tarzan, there would be more pollution and destruction of the earth than there is now. All of the mega-mammals of North america and Siberia became extinct from over hunting for meat and skins. Without looms and cotton machines, we'd have to kill an animal for its fur every time we wanted to stay warm. Slash and burn agriculture is decimating forests. Easter Island had no electricity or Ipods, but now they have no trees. I would not be happy if i was full of parasites and disease and a broken leg or deep cut would mean a slow painful death.
What we really need is to enjoy a simple and inconspicuous lifestyle on our own, if we so choose, and enjoy the technology when it can save our lives or keep us from having to spear a buffalo.

Answer 3

Basically people are like sheep, when they see their neighbour has something they want the same, not because they actually really want or need it but simply because someone else has it. They travel to the same places their neighbours visit, maybe they feel secure with things they know but where is the fun in not going into the unknown ? They live a totally blinkered existence, lack imagination, drive and in my opinion these people are not truly happy or contented and never will be. I never want what others have, I don't have an ipod, I make furniture from cardboard, I could survive in the wild and I own the most amazing possession possible ( and it was free ) the best computer on Earth - my brain.

Answer 4

Nice thoughts, you're a very deep thinker. There should be more people like you in this world.
(I sometimes ask questions like this to my friends...but they just look at me funny lol)

Anyways yeah the world would be way easier if we didn't discover all this, but if we didn't, what would we do for the next million years.We would sit around doing the same thing over and over again. We "need" to discover/reveal mysteries to help make our lives easier. Like the simplest discoveries are still used today like fire.By discovering and knowing more, we are able to invent things which lead us to technology like the wheel, electricity,etc.What would life be like without those things...

Without more knowledge from discovery humans wouldn't evolve, we would still look like cavemen (harry,no language,drawing on walls)
If we were like you said naked not knowing clothes, we would still use leaves or something to cover ourselves up when the weather gets cold.So eventually clothes has to be made.From leaves it would transform to curtain-like-covers like the Roman/Greek people in the olden days, then women- like-clothes and wigs like the George Washington/Shake Spear days, and now it's shirts and jeans.We learned from the past mistakes and improved our lives with the help of all these discoveries.

There are still mysteries and cures we still haven't found yet, so we still have to ask questions and search for the answer.
Without all these discoveries the world wouldn't go on, think about it, if we were like you said then we would never know what was on the other side of the world because we never sailed and we never had a map to guide us. We didn't know math/reading so we can't discover gold which was the start of money, it goes on and on. I guess life would be more simple if we didn't have all this, but because we do it has improved our lives so much.

Discovering,inventing, and knowing all this does make our lives more complex, but that's life, we are humans and we grow and learn.

We have come a long way-from ape people who didn't know a single thing to human beings with all this knowledge to past down to the next generation.

Answer 5

i really dont know but if i had to say: our bond with nature i think in present day society might be alil psychotic, 10x's happier, maybe, but then we would just be an ignorant pack of wild hyena wandering the savannah screwin each other out of food and water. oh wait that is how some are, cept we have technolog y and somewhat of an order to keep most of that from happening. ya know what they say ignorance is bliss, til you find yourself sittin in the wilderness with no human upgrades face to face with a short face bear. i also do say that i could live without all the complicated technological junk i could... IF I HAD TO. but if i had to choose it'd be no contest.

Answer 6

its called evolution,were evolving every single day,trying to make life better not worse,otherwise how would we be able to respond to you're question,wherever you are in the world.on a computer you're using that apparently ,you don't need? i think you will find that with no electric,gas fires that turn on at flick of a switch etc wed still be in the Victorian times,infested with diseases,plagues and gosh knows what? give it a whirl...throw away your mobile,get rid of the computer,dig a hole in the garden for your lavvy,don't use gas or electric,wash your clothes by hand,don't use no shampoo,or any other products like this at all? do it for a month or so,and then come back and,re-issue your question? i think you might have a slightly different view? bye for now..see you in a month?

Answer 7

'Tis actually a really good question! I have to say I had never thought about it that way...

Hmm, 'tis a tough one. I guess its' a combination of evolution and the drive to better than everyone else around us, plus the society we live in.

As has been said, because of the "little" things like fire and electricity, we became what we are.

Ultimately from what I can tell, we (like everything else) aspire for the best life we can within our capacity to exist. Alpha male lions ruling over the lionesses, making them do all the hunting and then eating the best food for themselves is a good example. Now all other animals seem to have selected a paricular "leader" within their group, based upon their size and strength, etc.

Like pretty much all animals do, they tend to teach their young what to eat/what not to eat, who to fight/who not to fight, etc. We as primitive "humans" somehow managed to discover fire, then the wheel, then electiricity (along with all the different ways to extract metal from rocks, etc). Each generation ultimately passes down what they know onto their kin in an effort to survive and thrive, to continue their gene-pool.

It's just for some not entirely known reason we seemed to evolve a tiny bit faster. For some reason we as humans seem to feel the need to surround us in luxuries, to make ourselves feel pampered and cared for. Admittedly some things we need - medicine, edible foods, etc.

And for some reason, as a species in the global community, we think we've "lost" the pack society construct (the Alpha Male, the mediator or 2nd in command almost, the runts, etc). We constantly push more than everything else to show just "how big our penis is" (sorry if I offend anyone).

And look at society, when we're growing up told that (in most cases) "We can be whatever we want to be if we just try", or that "we are one in a million" when quite clearly we are not. We're pushed more and more to achieve a better status than we have, the more material possessions we have, the better the education we have and the more money we have play a massive factor in our lives.

I think we create idle things to think about to occupy our brains. We've lost most of the hunter/gatherer instincts over a period of time, our lives are pampered for (in a lot of cases), so why would we need to worry about where the next source of food is or anything like that? Especially with so many convenience stores around, etc. We live in the life of luxury, so we surround ourselves in our possessions and gorge ourselves - often even when we are not hungry.

A lot of "issues" we also have these days are actually more unneccesary than we think. Scientists believe we have 3 "real" phobias - needles, blood and spiders, but that the rest is more learned behaviour.

Having said that, I think there are some things in our existence we couldn't live without. Clothes for one - we evolved without a warm covering of hair, so we have to insulate our body heat somehow. I think we need telephones and things that allow us to communicate more. I also think things like transport of any sorts could also be more of a neccesity nowadays.

But the rest is just another fancier way of asserting our own identity and supposed independance. We dress the way we do to appeal to wgatever social group we want to, graffiti our names and pictures on walls to show how dominant we are. Our choice of music is no different to, same with X-Boxes...in fact, pretty much everything you can think of.

At least that's my theory. Sorry for being so long winded!

Toodles

Answer 8

I agree, there's no reason for a lot of the things we have. All we're doing is destroying the world. I don't know why, but I believe everything happens for a reason. I do wish we were more like animals, it sounds weird, but they take only what they need. I hope this doesn't sound dumb to anyone.

Answer 9

I don't know if your into religion, but if you read the Bible properly, you will see that all of this is listed into it. It tells you that in the last days, that things like this will happen, such as:
People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.
They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these men oppose the truth—men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.

You can even do a search on Yahoo answers on "The last days"

Answer 10

i totally agree with you. i know this might sound old fashioned, but take for instance, when i was growing up (i am 23 now)... i rode around on my bike with my friends and played basketball and went swimming in the summertime. alot of kids nowadays stay inside and play games on their x-box or stay on the internet all day. and i think to myself 'how many memories can a child create for itself by being on the internet 24/7??' its like everyone is becoming robots.