/edu/ - Education

There is none. We are not special.

From the point of view of the universe itself, to which all places are equally here and all times are equally now, we don't stand out. But consider how if we weren't here, no one would be asking all those questions, nor acting in accordance with them.

Humans asking these questions and altering the world in their bewildered search actually has effects on the reality around them. We're introducing a tiny sliver of extra indeterminism into the world through our imperfect and confused actions. Humans are a part of reality like all else, but because we do not fit very neatly into it, we're an open question to the universe itself as well as ourselves. We're not "special" or "different". If anything, we're an embodiment of the chaos inherent to all, in which nothing is really special or different. Rejoice in it.

>>503
If humans aren’t special, why should communism exist?

>>507
why would communism require humans to be special?

>>508
Because otherwise our suffering is unimportant

>>509
if humans consider humans to be important, then humans are important to humans. why should we care if some other organism finds us to be important?

>>509
It's important because I said so.

>>510
Humans don’t give a damn about each other

Have you read the Rafiq post on this that was posted in the thread on /leftypol/? If not, it answers all your questions. I have attached the pdf.

>>517
Now I have attached it.

Did you read the Zapffe essay from that other thread?

>>517
>>518
So I read that semi-autistic rant about how emotions aren’t real and you should slaughter your pets for materialism and burn every forest for, fuck all, who knows; and all it really convinced me is that the writer should be tortured to death alongside the whole human race.
Tf was I supposed to glean from that shit beyond that the writer is completely disconnected from reality? Is this who leftypol worships so much? This edgy faggot?

Not gonna lie, Rafiq is the sort of faggot that would destroy our human race with his edgy destructive bullshit. Killing all of Nature? Really? In the middle of the Sixth fucking Mass Extinction, at that? He should be fucking shot for making a suggestion that threatens the existence of mankind and posits any opposition to wanton destruction as “reactionary”. This fucking scum would find decent Allies in the bourgeoisie, and considering his violent speech I happily reply that he should be bludgeoned.
He should count himself lucky he lacks relevance beyond a meaningless Internet forum, if he ever came anywhere near power sensible comrades would put a bullet in his head to stop such insanity.

>>518
Btw faggot shit like this is probably where you should stop pretending like your own insane conception of communism makes any damn sense and is useful and read any fucking book about geochemistry to realize destroying all of the Natural organisms of Earth would completely devastate our atmosphere and the chemicals we need to live; your faggot dogma won’t override geochemistry and biochemistry, Life is the only reason that the Earth has chemical properties that even allows us to live, the vast majority of our technology comes from Nature, and beyond that nobody can or wants to live in a dead world.
What a fucking moron, that genuinely angered me.

I think humans are special compared to other speces because we are the only one with the power to consciuosly destroy our own species or elevate to a higher evolutional level. There is anyone in the planet that can exterminate itself, and even less decide it.

>>521
>>522
>>523
That's not what he is saying at all. His rhetoric and style of writing is hard to get through. But if you actually read with understanding you'll see that what he's saying makes sense.

He doesn't want to destroy nature, he's saying there is no such thing as "nature" to destroy. Nature that exists, that is nature that exists to us (because that is all the nature we know), is already human-created and therefore not sacred and doesn't have to be worshipped or protected. We created it, therefore we can destroy it, so as to build anew.

Think about it. Nothing around you, not even the parks in your city, or the meadows out in the country are "natural". They have been shaped and reshaped by human labour for hundreds if not thousands of years. Europe used to be covered in forests, now they're gone, what is "natural" in Europe? Why should it be "preserved"? Do you know what you preserve? Dead things. Living things are a process of death and rebirth. Every cell in our body dies and is replaced.

It is actually ironic that those who wish to "preserve life" are actually killing it.

The things that make us human are not found in "nature", but in the relationships to other humans, and to our means of production. We can appreciate the beauty that is found in the world around us precisely because we, or should I say our consciousnesses, are not a part of that world, and one of the ways they are not part of the world is shown in the fact that we are able to have and understand the concept of "beauty".

>>527
>The things that make us human are not found in "nature", but in the relationships to other humans, and to our means of production.
And also should say here that what makes us human is something only our species possesses, some Subject that we can't really talk about because it is the thing that is not reducible to any physiological process or part of our brain or body. It's something that emerges from this particular configuration of matter. The social relationships and relationships to nature, i.e. to the means by which we shape nature, are what shapes us as people. This is why people are different, and not some evolutionary psychology or genetic shit.

This is why Rafiq was getting so pissed. Because if you accept the premises of what he calls "pop science" and NatGeo shit then the logical conclusion of that is that some races of people are superior to others. This nature and genetics stuff is where these "academic racists" (we call them "racial realists now") get their justification from. That's why "logical" "intellectuals" like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins advocate are racists and practically advocate for eugenics.

Therefore, you have to reject the idealist ideology that claims that some "pure, untouched nature exists and that humans, as animals, are part of this wondrous landscape. Look as the helicopter spews black smog and we fill the air with noise as we film this "untouched" nature. Look at how our cameraman has to sit, nonthreatening in a bush until the animal he tries to film gets used to him. Now behold as he films this "unspoiled" piece of nature. And Rafiq is right, it's fucking stupid and ridiculous. Sure, enjoy the films of nature, I do, but don't pretend like you're witnessing some sort of wonder. It's call human-created.

An example I can think of is how we revere the past and preserve every little bit from the past we can find. We build new buildings around old buildings specifically to protect the old buildings? People in the past used to destroy old buildings and palaces and used the material to build other things, things that were needed in that moment, when the old palace fulfilled its role. And what do we do about these old symbols of oppression? We talk about how wonderful they are to have withstood the test of time, and we talk about the people who owned it, who are not people to us really, just some figures and representations of people, but we do not talk of the very real labour that went into building it. Every single stone in one of these "amazing", enduring buildings, was chiseled by the hand of a human, a worker.

Same with nature, we talk about it as if it were something that exists without us, yet we do not talk about the human touch that went into every single thing that we see as nature. When we look out at nature, we see ourselves reflected.

So what’s that dirty fucking retard Rafiq’s take on this, hmm???
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/08/wildlife-destruction-not-a-slippery-slope-but-a-series-of-cliff-edges
Because my take would be to shoot him in the spine so he never walks again for daring to make such inane rantings and ravings.
Maybe he can be forced to eat maggots and dirt until he dies like we’ll all have to.

>>502
They aren't special. And they must be eradicated.

>>507
Because I said so. Communism is good regardless of human beings.

>>544
I have explained what Rafiq is trying to say here: >>527, >>528. No reason for you to continue saying things which are not true.

>>546
No, fuck that, I don’t care what a nobody said based off philosophical ramblings pulled from his own ass, I’m talking actual scientific reality in the here and now. If I shot someone in the head, can they realize in fact the bullet isn’t real and they can use dialectical materialism to halt the bullet? No, they would die. I don’t give half a shit about some worthless Internet forum poster’s philosophy, talk to me about physical reality goddammit!!!!

Hot take: we are actually not very special. To the truly intelligent lifeforms of the universe we are on par with bugs.

>>550
Philosophy is a relationship to the understanding of physical reality's nature, you idiot.

>>624
Except Rafiq does not know science nor reality, that’s just the problem, he doesn’t know biochem or geochemistry, he doesn’t get that an Earth where every last forest has burnt and every last animal is executed is an Earth that lacks even a breathable atmosphere.
He’s more an ally of Nick Land than a socialist, a technofascist psychopath that would sacrifice every last human on Earth to AI and rant like an autist while doing so

Are humans just animals?

>>1006
humans are animals. we have many unique traits, but animals is exactly what we are.

>>1006
Yes. Dolphins are more evolved beings tbh.

>>1009
the ayys have further advanced productive relations than humans, I agree with Posadas on that, but what sort of productive relations do dolphins even have?

>>1009
So are crocodiles what's your point?

>>502
We are able to understand the universe, we are special because we may very well be the most intelligent live in the galaxy if not the universe, modern day science seems to show that the odds of intelligent life forming is incredibly small, it requires shit like the moon and the sun being the same size in our sky and shit.

>>1009
And they have a fina nose for the booty.

Why doesn't lefypol care about other animals or nature?

Well, an example I like to use is celibacy. You will never see a nonhuman personally choose its entire life not to mate when it is perfectly able to. Voluntary celibacy is unique to humans.

>>1416
animals don't make videogames OR give good head. literally what is the point of them?

>>1012
Haven't crocodiles been around for longer than us?

>>1416
Who says we don't?

>>1416
I've posted it before and I'll post it again. Read this all, gotta be a little patient though

>>502
My dear friend, the answer lies in material conditions and a philosophy. Please give it a read will ya'? I swear, I hate people who have existential crisis when they have learned that their higher being (or what many people call soul) is attached to material and will die once your body dies.

We labor, which then forms our inner monolog culminating in our consciousness. Animals don't labor.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1876/part-played-labour/index.htm

Specieses are an abstracion to make biology easier to apply to things like medicine. Humans aren't real. You should focus on what you want to do next rather than trying to find some higher power to be a pawn for.

>>7413
>Humans aren't real
You mean the category is not the same as the material thing it describes.

There are some attempts in biology to define life in terms of procedural matter pattern replicators, to escape the static categorization trap. These are not easy to grasp, it's unlikely it'll become the common descriptor.