What Makes Humans Special
In this episode of Positively Pedestrian, we discuss various cultural and social artifacts that may be strong evidence for the idea human beings are "special" and not just another animal species. We discuss how technology enhances our capabilities, pushes the boundaries of what is possible, and how this is perhaps defining. Finally, we look at collective human intelligence, creativity, and imagination.
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Full Transcript
Yeah, there we go. So how's listening? Over. You know. So I screwed up the 20th. I guess I ended up in the 37 K file. Oh, okay. We'll make it work. We'll see. So the website lets you put on, like, what's called the bonus. Oh. So, like, maybe if we have, like, a fragmented day or something, we just throw it in as bonus or there's no reason why one can't be small.
Well, I don't know if there's nothing in it. Oh, okay. I don't know what happened. Whatever. Guess I thought it was the phone. Yeah, it's. You know, it's not a perfect system. Yeah, it was our best episode ever. Let's just leave it at that. Or keep everyone guessing that what that mystery content might have been. We'll never know either.
That's what I was just saying. My, my ancient and decrepit mind has completely forgotten what we talked about that day. Dude, I was listening over to the previous podcast, and you know how you, like, just naturally just don't like your own voice on recording? Oh, I mean, it is just. This is. Come on. It's kind of like how it is.
It's like you don't like your own picture sometimes. Yeah. It's cringing. Yeah. Or like, truthfully revealing, you know, who knows. Oh that's a that's a but, you know, thinking like half the shit that I say, it would probably be a lot more compelling if I didn't have this fucking voice. Know. You know, I feel that so much.
I was thinking that last night we played about 10s of me talking. I was like, oh, God, get me out of here. I was like, I was like, those words don't sound bad together. They just sound bad coming from my voice. Yeah. I was thinking that, like, you know, there's all this technology, you know, it's like they're fucking adults, you know?
It is. It is right. You can speak like Yoda. I'll speak like, I don't know. And all of a sudden, like, you know, people like, you're the best podcast I've ever heard, you know? And, you know, it's funny too. It's like, you know, the voice has to fit the the thing, like, fit the role, right? So true.
You know, if you're, like, a command sergeant major or whatever. Yeah, you probably want to have a commanding voice, or, you know, like a nice, nice, deep, gravelly. You smoked a cigar voice here, you know. You know, then you have like, other, other times where it just doesn't fit. But sometimes it's like, creepy, you know, like, you know, I have, like, Mike Tyson, for example, you know, where's the guy doing, like, the.
But my defense is impregnable and it's too hot. It's like, no, I don't think so, buddy. But then he does things. He punches you, right? Punches you or bites your ear off. Evander Holyfield. All right. And then next thing you know, like, maybe, that voice was the signal, and he's got that power somewhere else. Yeah, yeah, maybe it was just kind of God's joke to go ahead and give him that.
Give him that voice. So, like I said, I'm scared. Even, like, like spoofing this guy, like, you know, you guys fucking terrified he's going to show up with his face tattoo and rockets fucking. I could one punch my head off. He though. You know, and, you would probably not feel bad about it. I I've always wondered if he has any ability to think or process the world.
I bet. I mean, I think the guy's probably pretty fucking smart. You think so? Oh, dude. Did you watch that cartoon at, Cartoon Network and made of him? Yeah, it was great. It was a literary. That was so funny. One lariat dude. Oh my God. I still, I'll still cry thinking about that. That's just cry laughing right there.
Yeah. So, like, who knows? Maybe the guy's a fucking genius with a great sense of humor. And like, all it's part of one big, you know? Yeah, we're talking about him. Yeah. I don't know. His name's in our mouths. Don King is his bitch. Dude, there's a my girlfriend's, neighbor. He had a lot of weight on him for a little while.
He's like a this guy's like, a multiple time judo champion. Cool. UFC fighter. Well, he looked a lot like. Like I used to call him Mike Tyson's understudy. Okay. And, they looked a lot alike. They sounded nothing alike. Thank God. But, you stripped a bunch of weight off and started training again. Looks nothing like to do now.
That's not cool. Good for him. I love it. And well, up here in our success story, man, he's this guy. Yes. He owns a freaking vodka distillery. He owns, like, all kinds of crazy stuff. Cool. It's like, are you living in this apartment building? Don't buy his vodka. They kick your ass. Yeah. It's crazy. It's crazy. It sells by intimidating.
I mean, but he's, He had found out that, you know, Gavin was into wrestling, so he used to do wrestling as well. He was, he showed up to the school to challenge him. No, no, he showed up at the school, got cleared to, you know, attend the practices and helped coach the kids. Oh, okay. Torts and stuff.
And. Yeah, for about two weeks off. Came in every day and was teaching them judo grappling moves. Was teaching them wrestling moves. It was awesome. I mean, cool. Yeah. Sounds like a pretty decent guy all the way around. That's nice. Definitely. Definitely is a good dude. He's also a DJ. Okay. Why not? Why not? Right. You just explained why the apartment.
He's got 50 grand in deejay equipment with. No. With no gigs booked. Right? Right. Just kidding. It's very fine. He has, like, a, He has a security business where, you know, all kinds of stuff. So he's doing something. Well, insecure people with security doesn't. Right.
Good morning, sir.
So, you know, imagine if Tyson's boys actually, like, get the fucking the body and, you know, the the brutality. Yeah. He sound like fucking Batman.
My defense is pretty cool. You know, like some kind of, like, fucking devil's, like, right there. His eyes are on fire. You. Like, just I we're evil personified. So imagine, like, you know, that, if the voice did match, if that, like, intimidated people. Even more like when he was at its peak, you know, he won so many fights and intimidation action.
What? The voice. No. Like, no. Yeah. The dog at the door and everybody standing there or. What was that? Oh, I know, I didn't know this morning. Yeah, that was coincidental. Okay. Definitely. But, you know, you can imagine, like, so. So, you know, other boxers were scared of facing, you know, like he'd won so many boxing matches because of the factor of, like, going out and just instantly destroying somebody.
Oh, yeah. You know. Understandable. Yeah. And, you know, until he started losing, his confidence was like, incredible, you know, like so I don't know if it was genuine, but it sure look that way. I mean, it sure as hell did, you know? I mean, here's his record shows. God, he was at the top of his game, right? Yeah.
So, you know, switch second warm up this other hand. Oh, okay. Yeah. Like, what's going on? What was he doing? Yeah. Like, my defense is important for sure. Yeah. Your heart? Yeah. I mean, the dude. But I wonder so many aspects of him. He loves pigeons. You know. Oh. He did? Yeah, he actually did. Not just on Mike Tyson.
Oh, okay. So that's what that's like. Okay, I got I got it. Okay. Okay. Why not. Okay. Yeah. And he would like to race pigeons and win. Right. It feed them so they slow, you know, slow them down. Well no, he would race them. Pigeons would race other pigeons. Pigeons that he owned would race. Oh, okay. Okay. Interesting.
You know more about him than I do. I mean, I haven't heard much about him lately, but anyway. So I wonder, though, if, like a voice did he, if he had, like, this kind of fucking evil, you know, demon voice. If that would have even helped them even wait a few more, you know, like it probably would have even further bolstered both of the confidence you probably would have, but it also would have.
No, I mean. I yeah, I think that would have been neat. That would have been neat to hear him with like the absolute evil voice. Yeah. Yeah, yeah yeah. Dude, I have a fucking bonus. It's like this beautiful sliver moon out this morning, right? Oh, shit. Yeah. And, like, you know, my astigmatism makes me enjoy it twice. Once we enjoy it twice.
Yeah, look at it. There's a fucking after image. So it's like, oh, we have two months people waking up looking at all the wrong young wook. That's so awesome. Fucking stupid. Like. And, you know, they can't fix it. You know, try to get glasses. There's, like, no real. Yeah. Yeah, it's. It's one of those things they just haven't been able to do anything about.
Whatever. I hope I yeah, I know that there's really only one moon, so therefore I can overcome this disability. And the after image is, you know, it's like you can sort of ignore it. Maybe we'll have, like, some kind of savant eye doctor is one of our listeners, and we'll hear it like I can help him. I get a phone call if my wife changes.
It's like, actually, that's gonna solve a problem for a couple of years in research. In the research? Yeah. Yeah. You don't need to live with that deficiency anyway. I love you. I'll be there tomorrow. Yeah, exactly. Oh, wait. Do you have insurance? Whoa. I'm not sure how far I can go. I can maybe, like, take the after image halfway.
Yeah, exactly. I agree on this, but. Oh, wait, I'm doing this for free. Yeah. Right. Or I don't pay for deliveries. Oh, yeah? What was that shit? That was funny. So, for a topic today, I wanted to talk about, humanity. Like, whether or not we're actually whether human beings are animals or not, right? Like, quote unquote animals.
And, you know, like the the quick short answer is yes. Right. Biologically speaking. Yeah. I mean, yeah, but, I think there's like a way to say no to that. You know, so I wanted to kind of talk about that for. Okay. I guess it's a matter of whether or not you consider the term animal to be an overloaded pejorative or further.
Right. First and foremost, that's just a word. It's like anything else. So you'd have to get some definition around it. Right, right. We'd have to put connotations around it. Are we? And it seems like we're tending toward negative connotation here. Low brow, in our culture. Is that right? Like so. You know, Adam names the animals type thing.
So. Right. In our Christian rooted culture, animals have a pejorative. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Noah had to save all those dumb beasts. Yes. You know, God, not only was I a caretaker of them, but I mean, yeah, we name them and then then decide which ones lived during the flood. Because there's no way, no matter how big that boat was, every fucking species was on that boat, right?
You have, you can have, like, fucking 6 million cubits. And I did hear a great reply about. Oh, boy, here we go. Yeah. You know, so somebody was like, well, what if they feed the lions and they're like, oh, the floating bodies of dead sinners would be some. Yeah, right. But, you know, the population on earth wasn't quite the same, so you probably wouldn't come across a dead center very often, wouldn't happen all that often.
And then, you know, all the all the fish species would just have had a feeding frenzy. So, you know, and you have to consider that they'd have to, you know, lions might be a little short supply of all the all the, sharks and whatever. If you go by some of the other crackpot theories, some of the mega Dylans that were still there, right?
I mean, those things sort of made some short work. If you, agree that humans and, Yeah, this was were contemporaneous. Yeah. If they weren't. Exactly, exactly. And so, well, you know, they were. Yeah, it depends on who you ask. If you ask me, you know, I think the geological record is pretty clear that they weren't right.
But, you know. Hey, belief is, all over the place. Yep. And and that's it. Today we are terribly damp. It smells awful. That's like street sulfur. It does smell like gas. Yeah, some of you don't like to fucking back into that place. Jesus. Oh, no one's dead. Yeah, it looks like it's under construction. The dead, bloated person.
Check the fucking police scanner later and see or see if there was an explosion. And she's in North Davidson area. Charlotte. That was a lot. I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure. I'm definitely going to call someone if I live near there. So, Yeah, this idea of, like, you know, are we animals? I guess the first definition, like, if you go by taxonomy, you know, we kind of create like this, tree of life, you know, common ancestor things.
Purely biological taxonomy. Yeah. If you go by the science of classifying species. Right, then, sure. You could just one person. Yeah. Okay. I just love that the guy who came up with that, changed his name to fit it. Oh, nice. Okay. I didn't know that. Did you tell him this? Linnaeus, I think, is what he changed his name to.
Let me get. What what what what the dude that came up with the idea of classifying. What the what the system that we use currently. Okay, okay. Got it. Well, so anyway, you have this, like, from a from a taxonomy or scientific classification purposes. It's undeniable that humans are, you know, great ape as far as you know.
We're in the same family as gorillas, orangutans, etc.. And, so, you know, if you want to make the counter argument that we're not, quote unquote animals from a non-tax taxonomic, if that's a word, point of view, you have to start grasping at straws. If you say, oh, well, you know, what about what about, you know, our spirit, right?
Yeah. So you can take that. That's one. There's one angle you can go. You say, oh, well, we have a triple helix. We have the you know, we have the act and G, you know, DNA strand. But then the third, the third rung of the helix running through our DNA is our consciousness and our soul. Right? And so humans are imbued with a special made in God's image.
You know, mana that then separates us from all the other beasts? Yeah. And you say, well, why is this so confusing? Then why don't we have heart, kidney, liver, brain? Yeah, right. And, like, why are we bound by the same limitations as every other animal? Yeah, right. And then, of course, the counter argument is we're not, you know, we have an internal soul.
They don't. Yes. So transcend the physical. You you say Chris. No, I'm not saying. I'm saying some some some say right. Some say, sorry. I just wanted to hilariously put those words in your mouth. Well, you know, I could I could probably be creative enough to to find a way to make a case for it, but I don't want to because I don't believe in that.
I think that's that's a belief that leads to a lot of problems. I mean, it does, you know, anything that is going to, Narrow the scope of information that you can take in as humanity learns more? Is a problematic belief. Yeah. So I think that the other I think the believing that human beings are quote unquote, just another animal, like you said in the generative sense.
Yeah. Leads to a series of problems as well. So it's one conversation that I want to try to find a way to get away from that. Right. That we that we have that in a way we have transcended that, that we are something, you know, maybe for biological purposes. Yeah, an animal. But for other classifications, we we are something else.
We are more than tool using monkeys. We are. Yeah. So then you get into some of these specificities that like are slippery slopes or thin ice, you know, pretty quick right. Like you get to this idea of, you know, oh if you go with like, oh, we're imbued with this all, let's just stick with that for a second.
Sure. You know, you go with that and then you, you automatically you're on thin ice because. Okay, well, where is it? You know. Yeah. Oh, it's like it's writing in the pineal gland. Okay. You know, so if 100 people die, and they're on a scale when they died, do they automatically, like, have less weight? You know, just because the,
Does the corporeal soul have something? Oh, no. You got to start making up more and more shit, right? Right. Yes. And some people claim there is a slight deficit when someone dies. You know, they quantify all of the trace elements. A human being is created. Or from. And, you know, there's this tiny little bit of mass missing when they die.
And that's the soul. But I think, like you said, oh, well, if it has mass and we can find it, measure it. Right. So this but but I would, you know, argue that that's probably just some fucking fairy tale. It is, it is. And, you know, ultimately it doesn't matter, does it? It has no soul. It well, I'm saying it has no bearing on what I do right now because I don't know, man.
If I had, like, irrefutable empirical evidence, there's a soul would like this. At least I think that would have some kind of impact on my life. Yeah, I think I do the same thing. I think I would have a pretty significant impact on me. Yeah. I mean, I see what you're saying, that, you know, you well, some part of you that you cannot necessarily.
Interact with on the daily. Right. You guys. Yeah. Yeah. I think you change a few things from my ideology, but, unfortunately it's something negative. But anyway, you know, this, like, this idea that I'm going with the idea that there isn't. But then what is there? What can we grab on to you? So they're not just hedonistic.
Hedonistic. Yeah. It's like assholes. I love it. Hedonistic assholes. Yes. That, you know, are smart enough to say, oh, well, moral morality is just moral relativity, so. Right. Well, reality shifts. There's no real concrete morality and blah, blah, blah. Yeah. And I'm just a fucking beast animal anyway, so I should just go about my own pleasure. And there's nothing else that matters in life, right?
Which is awful. Yeah. So that leaves us hanging right? What gives us a platform to build on, even if we aren't greater? What gives us an ability to stand on this platform, see greater things, become greater things. You know what gives us the ability to say, I want to grasp for more. I want to understand more. I want to bring it into the collective human experience.
I want to have this knowledge and understanding make its mark upon humanity. Yeah. All that. Right. So I think the answer, the only thing that I've been able to come up with at least, is technology. So, you know, here we go. Wait. We're going to talk about technology. Yeah. It's such a rare thing. Yeah, I know right.
So. So, you know, think about this. Is that, like, you know, our technology has unlocked all of human potential, you know, like, well, there's more to come, but, I mean, with longevity, we've own lot. Yeah. And and you and if you look at capability of of any given species. Right. And you start classifying species based on capability rather than anatomy and, and, DNA, I have to be an asshole with no one touches.
It's not even close, right? We wouldn't. We would. We would need our own sharp. You know, we need we would need our own scale for human achievement. You know what? We need our own scale. So, I don't know how we ended up on this busy road. How?
I don't even know why I wrote it. So busy in the morning, everyone's driving to do their morning Walk podcast. That's it. That's it. You know, we've got negatively pedestrian podcast. You've just passed us. We've just we just seen our competition. We we need to start in at 530. So we're. Yeah. Oh, shit. We're the early worm grinders.
Birds. I love it. So, you know, you start, like, folding and tying back into our previous. But yeah, that's how sophisticated this podcast. Please listen to that first episode. Now to understand anything that we're talking about, listen to all of our other videos. So anyway, so really self-aware self-referential. So we're trying to make this case okay. So if we if we classify by capability, right now some animals have some animals and insect species have collectives that, you know, the some of the, what they can do collectively is incredible.
Like ants, for example. Yeah. Like an ant can ants can make, like a flotilla and go across a stream. You know, they have like the collection of the organisms, not any given ant is, you know, pretty interesting, right? But not very capable. Right. But you throw the collective effect of the ants together and you have they work together on a scale that fucking impressive.
Yeah. Right. And they can actually have a big impact on their local environment. You know, answer the biomass to this day of ants is fucking crazy, right? So, I this isn't really a podcast about ants, but you get it. And so if you look at their capability, you have to not just say the capability of individual ant.
Right, right. Because you're looking at capability of individual human. Not that impressive. Same thing. It falls. An individual human would fall short if that was, you know, you're analytic on what the capacity of a human being is. But we've accidentally built systems that go beyond the capability of a human being. Right. And so then some people say, oh, humans are special because they can use tools.
Sure. Right. Then someone says, oh, well, look at this chimpanzee using a stick and the termite mound. Yeah, yeah, well, that's not the same as a human being capturing the natural phenomena about them. Like we are beginning to crack the code surrounding quantum computing, right? It's like, okay, fucking chimp Google motherfucker. Yeah, yeah, no shit or whatever, you know?
Right? Right. Anything you want to pick? Yeah. You know, do something that does not involve grabbing something that came off of a tree to get some food. Yeah. Let's see you drive to the fucking supermarket, bitch, and swipe your credit card. Well. Oh, that's right, you stay in the fucking tree, motherfucker. But anyway. Well, it's like you act up.
I'm about to have some bush meat. Yeah. So let's look at classification. Okay? Push me. Love it. That's got something like sexual joke connotation to it as well. But I'm not going to go there. Yeah yeah yeah.
We need to clean up this podcast. Oh, damn. So I'm sad okay. So let's look at classification in terms of, you know, specifically in terms of not just a single member of the species, but the species as a whole. Yeah. Okay. So now let's use that classification system to measure mankind versus every other beast slash animal on the planet.
And we have a completely different, unique thing here. Right. So you know, I have this thing that I have this like philosophy, you know, technology finds me but also this idea of like technical technology driven humanism. Okay. Which you know, it ties into technology, philanthropy. That's the whole idea using technology for the betterment of all mankind. Yeah, yeah.
But also there's like this form of technical humanism where we can, you know, embrace the uniqueness of human beings as far as our collective capability and use that as a way not to worship humans at all, but a way to appreciate that we're something different than the rest of the species on the planet. And I think that's permissible.
I think that and an appreciation and recognition rather than. Rather than trying to get to the other side, you. Oh, sorry. It's okay. Yeah. Walking is difficult. So that's why we have cars got there rather than bicycles and some kind of. Yeah, exactly. All these methods of conveyance that human beings have built. Yeah. And here we are, primitively talking about technology, primitively striding around with, like, animals that live with their own with a tandem bike.
Yeah, right. Like a toolbox of boom bikes with extended bike, big flags up, like, you know, reflective flags up now broadcasting. Oh, they're now broadcasting positively pedestrians in the way. So fucking confused. It's like. But they're not on cue feet. Oh. Cognitive dissonance. Yeah, they think they are. Yeah. God damn, that must be some stupid shit. Let me check this podcast.
It's just like the audio audio version of jackass. Oh, yeah. Oh, we'd be so lucky. The audio version of jackass. Yeah. Oh, have that kind of success. Yeah. Yeah. Put yourself in situations that, you know, subjected to some type of pain or disgust and have a bunch of other people around laughing at you. And you have a multi-million dollar show.
Yeah, I have to give those guys if they realize they didn't have any of this shit. Okay. All right. But they said, all right, I have a high tolerance for pain. I'm a dumb ass. Let me go make some money. Fair enough. And and, So I guess the only common thread is that, you know, we understand that we're jackasses, too.
So, like, you know, we're we're dumbasses to, you know, as we've talked about it being imbued in the name. Right? It's this way we understand that we're pedestrian at best. So, so therefore we have a shot in the world. Yes. Because we're, we're we're that much further ahead than most of us do. We have that extra little tiny bit of introspection and understanding.
Right. And that's enough for the predication of a podcast. Yeah. Yeah. In 2022. Right. Might not have been enough in 1883. Yeah. I found like 3 or 4 techniques to declutter my house. That's enough for a podcast. So why not having the micro introspection that we're probably not that smart being the predication for a podcast as well? Yeah.
Yeah. Done. Dun. And I can and I have enough, like, financial prowess to buy a, you know, recording device off the internet, right? Oh, no. Oh, and use a website, use a few websites to get the podcast podcast posted and a little bit of post editing. Oh, right. Okay. It's been this takes some skill. It's been thoroughly propagated and you've developed and honed skills.
There we go. So maybe there's more to it or maybe not. Yeah. Actually that's that's the the question we're sitting at right now. You know, the very question. How much more is there to the sum of all we've done is all we've done all for not. And what a tiny little note, you know, just maybe do a footnote in the history of even the art.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You know, is is our is our command over this with a sphere? To some extent, like we've been able to aggregate certain certain materials together and put them, put them into certain forms. Right. We call those buildings, and we have our name and our own internal nomenclature for everything. Right? Right. And so like we're self we're self absorbed into, you know, being of our own capabilities that we that we miss out that we're, that we are primal.
We are our own God. And that was actually another piece of this whole conversation that I wanted to raise is that I say some extent there's a there is an element there because we are the only species, as far as I know, that have a chance at least at becoming sort of in control of our own fate.
So, you know, like the dinosaurs, you know, the asteroid strikes and, you know, it's like, just wait to die. Yeah. Yeah. It's either you're close enough to the epicenter of the impact where you're dead, or the sky changes colors to fire, to fire. And, you know, you're just waiting for the radiation and heat to kill you.
Radiation, heat. You know, if somehow you're small enough that you survive some of that. You got an underground burrow, right? Yeah. You got an underground burrow. You know, you're 12ft down. Whatever. And, you know, you're going to hit all the food sources. You are about to die, right? Or, you know, you hope you have enough stored work and you can scavenge enough to propagate and live through the duration of the atmosphere, returning to somewhat normal.
Right. And so yeah, that's why it's supposedly like the mammals then took over. Right, right. So you know that you have this idea of like this kind of early warning system, you know, we have, what we want to call it, like, you know, enough of a sensor grid to where we can sort of detect now, you know, incoming asteroids and maybe, maybe intervene, you know, write some sci fi about on that.
But but with all the shit we've been able to put in space, it's becoming more and more probable, right? Yep. And then you have, like, other things, you know, can we control a disease vector. You know, can we control, you know, maybe right now kind of half assed in the future? Maybe. Yes, in a couple situations. I mean, we have eradicated a couple of diseases.
Absolutely. Right. Which is that's pretty awesome. Yeah. And the whole gain of function research and whatnot. Right. Like to where we're predicting the future course of natural progression, of evolution of certain, you know, viral and bacterial species. Right, right. We're basically playing it preemptively, making countermeasures. Yeah. So to some extent, there's there's another thing you could say, that separates humans from the other animals, and that would be our our ability to somewhat control our own destiny or our own fate.
Right. You know, you could say we are doing maybe inadvertently, but we are doing things like terraforming. We are humans bearing. Oh, absolutely. That's right. We are controlling our environment. And on purpose or not for purpose. What is in that environment? You know, I mean, there's a zoning board, so it's on purpose. Yeah. Yeah. And so the ability, you know, from what I understand, humans, augment the surface of the lithosphere more easier than nature.
You know, here we go. So, you know, human activity is basically altering the face of the earth more than nature. Yeah. You know, now, I think they're that way since the 90s, altering nature. Oh, absolutely. They're by altering nature. Right? I mean, first, it's just climate change, right? Which I know some people would not believe, but. Come on.
It's like the. Yeah, just like the geologic, the fossil record. There's overwhelming evidence that, climate change is happening. Oh, I think the evidence is definitely overwhelming. You can. One could choose to believe whatever they want. But. But they suffer the consequences they're in. Yeah, yeah. Go ahead and Lou and, you know, and, not be swallowed up by the ocean if you hear.
Yeah, I can have. Yeah. And believe that the ocean is not rising and say like as it as it keeps creeping up, creeping up. Continue to believe. No, it's not creeping up. Yeah. You are just. It's just all your imagination. And I mean, like, you're, you know, you're you're a really good swimmer. The Italian government is if you advisories about think terror.
It's the five islands. They're like yeah they're about to go into the fucking ocean, basically. Wow. That, you know, that isn't necessarily anecdotal evidence because the whole island can be eroding from within. Underneath. Right. There could be a groundswell or ground depression. I mean, islands are transitory on the geological scale anyway. Yeah. There's a lot of erosion happening above and at the surface.
Right? I mean, below that what you say it's, you know, that could definitely erase the islands. Yeah. But still, you know, quite remains so. Oh my God, we have to, like, map out a fucking route that's like anti driving and just run our hamster wheel every day. Maybe. I mean, we maybe for the better for the podcast and less distracting for us.
Right? Right. Because like, big sounds or like fringe kind of thing. And and it crowds our attention. Yeah. What you're talking about. Yeah. Well, now I remember we're talking about humanity. What makes Manatee special. And, you know, if we're not animals. Why? Right. Yeah. So I mentioned this idea of, like, this invisible, you know, kind of like, inter dimensionality, you know, other dimension thread that's running through our DNA, which would be our consciousness, the Holy Spirit, whatever you want to call it.
That's from the biblical, you know, kind of perspective. Like, they don't say anything about DNA because the people that wrote the Bible knew nothing. God did. Right. So if there were shit in the Bible about DNA, that would be pretty fucking impressive. So if you look, at least in modern day translations of Sumerian myths. Yeah. Okay. There we feel a lot of the things that really do sound like allusions to DNA and, genetic modification by aliens.
Okay. But I mean, I'm not looking for some kind of metaphorical stretch of applying modern understanding science and technology to ancient text. And it's really it it's it's, I'm not playing that game. We're projecting our own capabilities and understanding upon the past. Yeah. I mean, I'm not into that, man. When really all this we're trying to do is explain why they were where they were and and, why their society exists the way it did.
Right. And, you know, they practically went extinct because of, diseases that came through cannibalism and not understanding crop rotation. So fuck that. They didn't know shit about DNA. Right. But but anyway, maybe maybe the, maybe the aliens that created them did, but not them directly. Yeah. There you go. So, this other idea here of there's a there's a there is a implied or imaginary, thread running through human DNA and that is technology.
So if we put technology in and so like I have this piece of artwork that I imagine. Right. Like I'll describe it. So it's a, it's a lotus flower. And you know how like lotus flower can like come out of mud. And it's hydrophobic enough to like when the flower blooms it's like perfectly clean. Yeah. So like you have this like cesspool.
Right. And this beauty arises. Yeah. This right. This crazy beautiful flower comes out of the cesspool and it's pristine, right? Yeah. And like I love that symbolic for humanity because, like, technology has enabled us to transcend a lot of natural things that just we just there to to make suffering and misery for us. Right. And have for eons.
Yeah, yeah. And half for eons. And then put us on this whole new trajectory. So I imagine, like, this kind of lotus flower and micro printed in the veins of the, of the of the petals of the flower down at the bottom right, or all of these, like, things like species and different things that are in nature.
Right. Like taxonomy. Right. And then the stem of the flower is this triple helix. Right. One is the double helix of of 80 kg. Right. DNA. Right. And then running through it is another helix which is zero and 101. Right. To imply that that our technology combined with our DNA, special, special things about our DNA, like working together in groups, things that are impeding us in our, in our nature, which make us fascinating.
Right? Yeah. Our propensity to have culture and civilization and all these kind of things, the technological feedback that has enabled our brains to be what they are today. Right. All working in concert to create this beautiful flower at the top and inside the veins of the flower petals are human technologies. Like the printing press and, you know, the internet and all these crazy things that have made humans the thing that we are right, that which has extended our reach and, you know, created, I mean, hey, you know, as we've talked about before, more than likely created another species over top of or alongside of, Homo sapiens.
Right. And so the visualization of humans being this unique thing, due to these reasons and having the the platform which elevated us to the status that we have today, separating us from the from the rest, right, from the other beasts, if you will, of the planet, is this unique affinity for technology that we have? Right. And it really lets you I can read you hang that in your in your place.
Yeah. Yeah. You've described it to you for it. Oh, sorry. I'm like I'm getting old. So like yeah, you'll hear the same story. I didn't think I did the same thing, but what I'm trying to say is, I admired it. You know, you only you only mentioned it in context because of certain things. Like you were talking about an art auction and you were saying, I'd like to make this thing.
I'd like to commission it. Right. You know, and that is awesome. It's a great idea. And you know, it. It really does. There's a lot of hope, a lot of metaphor there. And I think those are the things that we need to drive us to the next level. We need to be able to have faith in something. We need to be able to feel like, you know, because I don't know, my argument is besides, all these things that we've already pointed to has been especially human quality.
We can. Yeah, animals can be driven by the motivation of survival, but we can be driven, we can be energized. We can be brought, you know, have reached beyond our normal daily capabilities just by being inspired by a set of ideas. And that's an inspirational and aspirational idea. So, so, so, you know, to kind of help people along in their, in their, in their thought process and the idea that, you know, there's, there's kind of some despair, baked into the idea that, human beings are just another great ape species.
Right? So therefore, like, everything that we've achieved just gets marginalized. We're just another species. We're subject to the same, you know, instinctual brain stem wins of these other species, you see, and it's just we have this, like, a little bit of extra gray matter in our cerebral cortex that makes us think we're something we're not. And we classify these different, this different gray matter as an over brain.
Yeah. You know, but you know, this, this, this idea of, like, falling back to this idea that we just have an animal nature and that's it. We're just we're just we're just fooling ourselves to think that that's not really the majority of the guiding forces of mankind. I reject that idea because I think mankind truly is more than that.
Well, I think to become more than that and consistently be more than that, we have to believe we're more than that. Great point. Great point. You know, I think that, like I agree, as a kid, I used to really be into the occult and reading about all sorts of different things and my different belief systems, different whatever. And my dad was like, hey, you know, I'm 13 years old.
He's like, what? Why are you reading that stuff? I was like, to me, what it does is I basically told him it gives me a chance to believe in something greater than me. It gives me a chance to go out there and explore and, you know, grab onto other ideas and, and other things. It, it it gives me a platform to build on.
Maybe these things aren't true. And I said, you know, thanks to science, a lot of the closely held tenets of, you know, I was saying the past, basically have been erased as being false. I was like, you know, and and this helps me kind of embrace that, that what I know might not be true, but I can have belief, that belief I can have faith that I can be more and human beings could be more.
Yeah. It's a nice a nice way to put that into perspective. Yeah. Like that. And so I was, I was reading bullshit. But it was to me opening up the world. Yeah. So that's how I cope with this idea of like all these different civilizations that are past, present, you know, coming up with its own mythology and their own, like, you know, a metaphysical ideas and explanations for the world.
The way I overcome that, and I don't want to say dismiss it because that's kind of, arrogant. But the way that I classify it in my own mind to make it make sense, because otherwise it doesn't make sense, is to put it all under the umbrella of human creativity. Yeah. You know, which is just another, artifact of human capability.
Right? And creative human creativity begets some of the things we have before us. I mean, so like, informs or begets some of the technological innovation. Yes, because it expands the imagination. Yeah. It's either form or function that creativity plays it. Right. Yeah. So you kind of have like this core path of humanity, but then you have on the periphery, like the people that are, you know, doing drugs, folding back weird ideas and people that are, that are that really accentuate a discipline of academia, enfolding things, people that push the boundaries of human physical capabilities that athletes and Olympic athletes, and so folding that back into humanity.
So it's almost like bread being kneaded like, you know, folded back in upon itself, you know? So we're making the, the, the world's finest multilayered lobster tail of a pastry. Yeah. We're the, lobster thermidor of, you know, of the future. You like these people that push the boundaries, you know, the artist, the the, you know, and everything.
The scientists that are coming up with the breakthroughs and everybody is like folding that capability back in on humanity. And, you know, some some of that leads to misery for some people, like people that get obsessed or people that get drug addicted or people that get, you know, all these dashed dreams, right? You know, but at the same time, they might be adding something to the overall capability and collective capability of humanity.
See what I'm saying? Yes. So so at the end of the day, necessary, right. Like an important component, one could absolutely argue, just in a way, to have something to contrast with and something to measure. You need that misery as a backdrop or possibly a foundation to really have the awesomeness that is humanity. But I still think we're better off if we use all those capabilities, all those skills, all that knowledge to tamp down the misery like we have already.
Because like you said, I think that's never what it does. You you know, this is what I'm talking about. The lobster tail pastry. Oh, wow. Multilayered. And it's like all these thin layers of dough and they keep folding it only. So I wasn't hungry until now. Yeah. If that was pretty. Pretty fucking delicious. Yeah. How do wish you get some.
Yeah. So I can I can afford the recording device and the, the monthly fee to have a podcast. I don't know if I can afford that that that, the. I got you on lobster tails. Yeah. All right. Good. Gotta lean on each other. So another, you know, incredible global collectivism has to be another candidate for what separates humans from the rest, right?
Yeah. Is that like, look what we're doing globally, you know, global global collectivism of trade and of manufacturing and production and to some extent knowledge with the internet. Right. You so globalization and grand scale collectivism. And I'm not gonna say the singularity that's stupid. But, you know, this kind of I mean, I think it's a concept to talk about and it puts a lot of things under an umbrella that we're trying to unpack.
True. So, you know, by taking all mythology, all kind of like claims of, you know, this God or this spirit, this entity, this metaphysical thing taking all that and just tucking that under the umbrella of human creativity. It's how I cognitively handle that. Dang. And so, yes, I understand to some extent that makes me dismissive of the thing.
And to some extent closed minded. But my focus is different, and I kind of need a bit of close minded to that, because if I were to try to unpack that whole world, that would become my whole life. There we go. There's so much content in theology and mythology and religion and quote unquote, spirituality. There's so much human content there that that could become like a lifetime focus and never and hardly scratched the surface.
I think that's the key. It's it's voluminous, human created content. Yeah. And so I've made people angry in the past by foot, by by saying this for thoughtfully, you know, saying, hey, look, your belief system is just, a figment of some somebody who's probably was probably stoned or on some kind of LSD imagination. Right? Yeah. Or woke from a dream and tried to.
And then was a very extroverted person that was very compelling. I was like, yes, absolutely. Right. That's that's most likely the source of your belief system. It is, it is. And how do you feel? Yeah, to me, when I realized that I felt empowered. Okay. Well good. You're taking the you're taking the better. Okay. The reason the reason I felt empowered.
I felt like I was then free to take the things I liked from it. I see and built my own philosophy. Morning. Morning. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, right. Like, take the gems from the various, you know, religions and and and metaphysical thinkings philosopher philosophers. At least the ones I could understand. Okay. All right. No, that's that's I like that is valid.
So. And then I felt like I could move freely. Yeah, right. Move. But I could move into it, and I could participate in it. I could move out of it. Okay. Participate in it. Yeah. That's. You said it more eloquently than me, but that's what I'm doing, too. I'm doing the same kind of thing. Like, because when someone, if someone explains to me, like some kind of inner tenet of Buddhism.
Right. That you like it and I like it with you. Yeah, I like it. I'm free to like, not, like, automatically believe in all of Buddhism. No, but, but I'm then allowed to, like, take that piece and, you know, put it into the fabric of my imagination and benefit from it. Right? Yes. And in fact, I have done that with, this idea of self-compassion.
Like, that's a that's a tenet of Buddhism someone introduced me to at one point. And I'm like, wait a minute. That's so true. Yeah. I'm not gracious to myself. And if you're not like I am sure other people, how can you? If you're gracious to yourself, you open up being even more gracious to others? Yeah, that's that's a huge thing.
And it's still something I battle with. Because like I just said earlier, I don't like to sound of my own voice. Oh, shame. Right? I would if I hurt and punishing myself. Yeah, but if I heard another podcast or like, if I heard someone's podcast and that person had my exact voice, I wouldn't judge it so negatively. Right.
So, like, I'm gracious to the stranger but can't find a way to, like, really make that same graciousness towards myself. And so if I could overcome that, you're totally right. That would open up another, you know, next level power of of mine, you know, in my life and enable some things. And so there again there's the value. There's a gem that you can pull out from this, you know, plug it in from the shit like you talk about.
Yeah. Yeah. Hydrophobic lotus flower in the muck. That's it man. So I think that's the perfect metaphor for the the adequate way to classify through metaphor. Human capability. Is that idea that, hey, you know, there's a lot of shit there, but there's a lot of gems. There really is. There really are. And, you know, if we can start to do that, it's like, not celebrate or worship humanity, but embrace it.
You know, a lot, a lot more and, you know, okay, not not celebrate not not well, I mean, okay, maybe some celebrate to some degree, but not GFI it, right? Not become ego theists. Exactly. Not become our own gods, but rather introspection, understanding and careful. You know, direct direction of of those things. Absolutely. And then and then, appreciate it more and be less likely to dismiss it or destroy it as well.
Yeah. Well, whenever I was a kid, and I would pray to God. Right. I would pray for, well, yeah, but I guess what I'm saying is I would pray for these same three things for humanity as a whole. If I were to be pray, wisdom, truth seeking, seeking, truth seeking, wisdom and understanding. Great. You know. Yeah, yeah.
Okay. And I think that's what we need. We we need greater understanding of ourselves, our impact upon the world, the universe, all of it. And we need to seek the truth in that. Like you said, not to glorify and deify ourselves because it's easy. Right, right, right. But do you understand what our shortcomings are? And we need wisdom.
We need to live long enough to have perspective. Yeah, I yeah, I totally agree with you. And I think that there's a certain element there too, where you have to have some, some reason, some, some rational justification, not just, you know, some some person or road telling you, but some rational justification for, for making humanity a special thing.
Right? Because you, you goddamn, you got to get up out of a bed in the morning. Yeah, right. You gotta have some motivator. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so that and what you got here. Oh, I was just going to go back to. You were saying do tell. What was the guy's name? Carolus Linnaeus. That changed his name.
Who created binomial nomenclature? Okay. His name was Carl von Wynn. No shit. Why did you change it to that other name? It's not because he was using binomial nomenclature on himself. Oh my God.
I mean, that's funny. Shit. Why did I change my name to. I don't know. Enlightened, dumbass. Yeah, exactly.
That's the name. You're in a class. Yeah. Is, enlightened here. And that's the thing. That's your first name. You. That way the teacher has to say that. That. Oh, dumb ass is the first name like this enlightened dumb ass. The first name I see. So they. Okay. Okay. Right? Right. So they can't get away with just saying.
Is enlightened here. Yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You don't want people to mistake where you're going with this. You don't want to be like I am an enlightened being of like, oh fuck yeah. And then my middle name is void. And my last name is no, because I'm fucking has a database. Oh, yeah. Yes. And I'll be, I'll be part of that xkcd comic.
I'll be a little Bobby tables. Oh, I'll be short drop tables. Or drop table. John. Drop table. Okay. So drop select star from star. Yeah yeah yeah. That's that's my that's my full legal name. It's like not a database in the fucking world is safe. Oh, no SQL injection for the win. SQL is a name that's predicated around, mockery of humanity and database.
Fuck up. Right? I love that in my enlightened dumb ass void. No. Yeah, yeah yeah, that's got to do some damage somewhere. Come on, you, I don't think you're getting counted in the aggregate over last name. Like, you know, count, count star from last name. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that it might miss that one. Name fucking off.
That's so beautiful. You know, and just getting it into a web form. Yeah. Dude, you're like, make this, like, snarky thing where you record your calls to different IT departments. That is my legal name. I should have the right to use this publicly available website. How can you not like. Yeah, I'm David, I'm. I'm a snowflake. I'm you unique.
I'm offended. Yeah. My parents name me this unique. Sorry. We see that you change your name three years ago. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. Fuck you. Google. You're smarter than me. That's why I feel like I'm in the way, brother. Yes. Exactly. I was I need to perm. I like my whiny voice. That's that's better than my regular voice.
I should just stick with that. That's my new. That's my new podcast. You. Yeah. It's like, oh, my God, are you ready? John, what do you think about humanity? You sound like you sound like Mickey Mouse with balls in a vise. Nice. Fucking amazing. I love it. Those really rings will stay on.
It's too much fun. Oh, Jesus. Jesus, Jesus. So have we solved it? And we found a way to, like, have people, create, like, at least a, empirical, a rational belief. Oh, you know that, there is something unique about humanity. I know we have to make a good argument. Or is this, like, so easy to shoot down that, you know, it's it's so paper thin that, you know, do we need to have do you need to bolster it before we end this podcast?
I think we need to bolster it, but I'm not sure how to bolster it. I've contemplated this much myself. Movies have to, you know, Blade runner 2049. I happened to be watching it last night. Oh, cool. And they were talking about. So this guy had, the replicant, had kind of, another personality inside of him.
Just kind of conscience. Okay. Yeah. And, so this conscience is telling him, look, you're special. You're imbued with more than just a TCG. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. And he replies with, oh, yeah, ones and zeros as well. Far more elegant. Oh, it's people. People are getting it. People are catching on this. This isn't my novel idea. Fuck, I thought I had something special.
I mean, you may have for a time. Dammit. I always get beat to the punch, I'll tell you. Oh, no, you didn't get beat. I tell you, I thought of rollerblades before anybody did. I don't think you got beat. I think people have just, you know, also seen what you've seen. And you probably thought, well, I'm guaranteeing you've been talking about this before.
Blade runner 2049 came out true. They stole from me.
But I guess I wouldn't mind being part of the fucking trucks. I wouldn't mind being part of the group that made it would have been fucking right. Jesus would be cool. My dream. Be part of the cutting edge technological advancement, solving real world problems or making mindless entertainment, you know? I mean, they're kind of one of the same, clever.
Oh, okay. I think good point was to bolster the conversation. Language. Language. Come on. Oh, yeah. Why would just definitely a technology writing and language had so such far reaching effects on humanity. And we have to include in that because yes, I understand there's some like dolphins and shit that click there like thousand different words for fish and all the credible fucking vocab language that we still can't understand.
Okay, great. But, you know, but they're not really do matter. Yeah, but they're not recording shit in fucking archives. No, but they can replay. One can replay to another. Hey, I just saw this fish in the shipwreck. Here's where it is. Okay, so scratch that. Language of accounting. No, no, no, it does though, right? I mean, but it's they can't they can't create archives.
They can create memories and replay them. Cool. And so in that capability has it probably be the ability to, take the replay of one dolphin's memory to another and then that dolphin that just got the memory, but not the actual experience. Can you say that to another? Yeah. Is that probably possible? Probably. Yeah. So, you know dolphins have perfected it and they have access to the brain because of the high diet of fish and the fats and stuff.
So they can develop the kind of, you know, sophisticated brain like humans understand because they have the dietary but opposable thumbs, motherfucker. Yeah, yeah. Land motherfuker. Yeah. Exactly. Staying dry. Yeah. That's it. And they might say like, oh my God, you know, you're so unsophisticated saying dry 70% of your bits, right? Right. Our domain is 70% of the Earth.
Fuck you. Yeah. What are you talking about? But it's really not because, you know, their domain has to include with this fish, right? So much of the ocean is void of fish. And we have arguably created synthetic food. Yeah, yeah. So technology enable another like reason technology is so paramount here is that, we started cooking our food.
Yeah. Which is version of pre digestion. Right. So it allows us to take, you know, a large amount of food and condense it down to a small, very nutrient dense, you know, product. So more efficient consumption. Yes. And supply of our big brains with what they need. Correct. And thereby, enabling us to have more spare time as well, and also enabling us to support a much higher nutrient rich because we layered upon that preservation techniques which said, hey, you can prep stuff in advance.
And so that is like a predecessor technology to then unlocking like a stair step of an ever increasing technology that brought us in modern times. Yeah. We still have fucking flying cars. No, we just rock. Well, going back to the movies, like airplane! Let's call an airplane. Hey, I'm gonna put my entertainment in the category of we remake the world with our own stories.
I don't know who said that. Somebody, anything to justify a fucking cat video. You damn right. Or me watching, back to the future to see flying cars again. Yeah. So it's not that we can't create flying cars. We have the wisdom to not try. Because. Right. Because, you know, we see how people that are grounded drive.
Yeah. You know, do we need to see, like I said, the fender bender. You see the occasional fucking fireball over your head. And you know, if if you let people drive in the sky now, right. Fireball raining death, you know. Yeah. You just like the day, every morning you'd have all this, like, sound of, like, yeah, we can talk about garbage trucks.
Imagine that shit. Yeah, when it hits a semi in the sky. Oh, shit. Now it rains down like fucking, you know, discarded products, banana peel on your fucking face. Yeah, whatever. Banana peel. And, you know, there'd be a spectacle. Oh, my gosh, that'd be kind of neat just to watch the sky. I'd be, like, watching for watching for shooting stars at night.
Yeah, yeah, we'd be doing that. We'd be laying on our back and like, you know, look at pattern of cars over there. What does that look like to you? It looks like an arrow being shot by a warrior. Right. Going back to our boom fireball. Yeah, yeah. Did you make a wish? Yeah. Okay. I wish that I'd never get in a flying car.
Now, numerous companies have made, flying car driving car hybrids, but they've just never got off. Got on? Yeah. I mean, come on, there's there's a reason for that. Yeah. It's like, you know, in theory, a personal airplane that you can also drive on the street. Sounds good, but it's a dumb idea. It's it's not. We're not there yet.
We need to solve the automated driving. Yeah. Automated driving first because these things have to have a fucking autopilot. Oh, yeah. And there's no way we can let, like, you know, the stone to a oven. That's, to bring it all full circle. You know, up in the up in the air dam being the sky. Yeah. And the first Uber driver, like, not fucking.
But the birds ever collide, like, you know, I want to go probably. Dude. Right. You think they'd have to. I've never seen that. I've never seen a, like unintended bird collision maybe. And that's. It was like a peregrine falcon, you know. Right. Eating right. And then that's very much intentional from right. Right. Right, right. I've never witnessed from what seemed like an unintentional bird collision.
Maybe it doesn't happen. Maybe there's just, you know, I mean, there there really well built to it for their niche. I mean, maybe they just don't screw up like that. So now I have to rethink the whole conversation. Birds are, in fact, the most sophisticated birds and dolphins. The bird is now in the in the in this dumb metaphor.
Painting is now above the lotus. Wow. Yeah, yeah. The bird dominates the air with a snarky fucking look on his face and a worm in its mouth.