Why is it so easy to dog humanity, and condemn the species for all of its faults, including it's technology, and ignore the spectacular, technical phenomenon of the rescue of the Chilean miners?

I am sure there are some that will say this is the exception that proves the rule.

I have always believed in the greater good of mankind, and I think the balance is pretty balanced on the scales of good and evil.

Everything has it’s price and for every negative their is also a positive.

I keep imagining those miners taking their first shower tonight, having their first good meal in months…fucking STUPENDIOUS CELEBRATION!

@WestRiverrat But not you, right?

At work we’ve been all thinking how neat it is their President has been at the sight for all of the miner retrivals.

I have seen the worst mankind has come up with, and the best. I still have faith in mankind.

Some of the leaders can take a lesson from this.
It was primarily private sector businesses and workers that came up with the needed fixes. Not some government drone in an office in the capitol.

@Neizvestnaya He was the one guy (not the only guy, but the most visible) from the start that said it could be done. Totally unwaivering in his confidence that the goal could be achieved. The guy deserves an award.

Lilly already asked about the coal miners. As to your “question” – 1 Billion people are watching it right now – how is that “ignoring”?

I could not help but notice that part of the technology was painting the capsule the colors of their flag, and that some of the things they sent down the mine included a flag. i also noticed that they where healthy enough to hug and kiss everyone once they got out, but some how needed to be carried on a stretcher the last 10ft to the medical center. I also noticed the systematic chanting and applause.

Yes, 20 or 30 years ago they would have all been dead, and technology did save them. but my bullshit and propaganda alarms where sounding off the entire time. something tells me they where safer than they would have us believe.

@poisonedantidote
Re: The flag. Nothing wrong with national pride.
But, I guess some people are tough to impress.

@zen_ Nice try. The question is about ignoring the significance, not the event. For example, check out @poisonedantidote comment.

@josie oh, im impressed. just not fooled is all. lets face it, traveling 600 meters in to the ground is harder than 600 meters in to the sky, and flying is no triviality.

Just, its hard not to be synical. lets face it, the president was there because cameras where there. he was there just for the propaganda, and would sleep like a baby if the same 33 guys where to be killed in a crash 1 year from now.

despite the technological achievement, there was still more bullshit than genius going on. and that is why i condemn the species. now it will all be about book deals, chat shows, elections, and personal selfish greed. and the personal selfish greed will go on far longer than anyone spent on thinking how to get them out of the hole.

Well, thanks to you all for answering the question. Nice attitude.

@josie The President is there – practically hugging each one personally. 1 Billion eyes are on it – and every major network is covering it. You and I – from across the waters – are talking about it – and its “significance.”

In a real context – it’s a handful of people – compared to a Tsunami – when hundreds of thousands of people were killed.

But we all love drama – and we all love when others love drama even more.

I’m happy for the families – and the men, of course – and being a little claustro – the whole thing is quite chilling. But I’ve seen a rocket take out as many people in one fell swoop – and I mean from our side – not the enemy’s – so though I sympathize and empathize here – it really is just a bunch of trapped coalminers who were (thankfully) rescued – on a slow news day/week/mlast couple of months. A century ago – they wouldn’t have made more than local news.

What I thought was one of the “COOL” parts is NASA was tapped to designed the rescue capsule and they tackled that challenge of designing a safe effective vehicles to bring those miners up a 2,000 foot deep hole no bigger than a bicycle tire! Coolest event in a long long time!!

@Cruiser Exactly.

@zen_ I suppose it is OK to compare stories about the crummy things that we have seen. It just doesn’t seem to serve a huge purpose to argue which one of us wins the “I saw lots of good people get blown away” contest. Maybe you will win it. I doubt it, but who knows? Actually, better you than me. But what are you saying? That you are so hard core that you can not see what is affirmed by that rescue project. You have one life to live. Are you going to be sarcastic and cynical to the bitter end?
None of my business, but seriously…

They are projecting their own lack of moral character.They don’t expect themselves to do the right thing so they project this same likelihood on the rest of society.

@lucillelucillelucille I suspected from the beginning that I could love you :)

As I know my position on this will not be the most popular, I feel a strange urge to rant a little more to defend it.

Regarding the flag, and your comment that there is nothing wrong with a little national pride. the wrongs or lack of wrongs with national pride is for another debate. But, what the capsule painted like a flag says, is, we had time to let paint dry. we are so compassionate and so worried and concerned for you and your family, that we had time to make the decision to paint the capsule like a flag. it is a hint, at the underlying ugliness of mankind.

Now, let me be clear. I’m glad they are out, I’m glad they will get to sleep in a comfortable bed for the first time in months and enjoy a decent meal, and in no way regret that they are safe. But just because we had the technology to help them, and did help them, does not mean human beings are a kind and helpful species.

To quote Ernest Cline, “these monkeys are at once the ugliest and most beautiful creatures on the planet” The humans that saved these 33 guys are exactly the same as the humans who are members of the Taliban. You may think that’s and insane statement for me to make, but it’s true. If the Taliban or any other group of people had 33 of their kind trapped down a hole, and the same technology that was used to save the miners, they too would try to save them. Only the capsule would have been painted with different colors.

This flag says to me, look, we helped, we did something good. But don’t think we wont kill 33 people under the same flag. This flag just reminds me, that we are still primitive land mammals who will entertain the territorial notions of nations and empires.

Sure, celebrate that these 33 men will live, some celebration is in order here. But don’t go thinking that we are not a horrible and ugly species that deserves its fair share of condemnation. 33 lives saved does not make up for the millions that have been lost. One success does not make up for a thousand failures, and one act of compassion does not undo all the hate that there has been, is, and will be.

While the families where wishing for their loved ones to make it up safe, not too far away, there where news station bosses wishing that the cable would snap so they could make more money. There where arguments about who gets what, and contracts being signed because no one trusts no one to not screw them out of what they want.

So yes, the technology that saved them is amazing, staggering even, but not as staggering as human kind’s capacity for ugliness.

@poisonedantidote Trust me, they are not the same as the Taliban.

@josie I wrote: @josie The President is there – practically hugging each one personally. 1 Billion eyes are on it – and every major network is covering it. You and I – from across the waters – are talking about it – and its “significance.”

You said: Actually, better you than me. (THat’s probably why we rub each other the wrong way: we don’t like each other and enjoy saying so in different ways – like that ferinstance.

The OP was:and condemn the species for all of its faults, including it’s technology, and ignore the spectacular, technical phenomenon of the rescue of the Chilean miners?

How are we ignoring it was my answer, simply put.

Outta here.

ZEN OUT

@josie Bomb their country and kill their loved ones, and see how they behave. Humans like to demonize, but the truth is, we all have more in common with the Taliban than we would like to admit.

EDIT: maybe an older analogy then, say the german nazi party, would have sent down the capsule for their 33 fellow nazis, and the capsule would have had a nice big swastika on it.

@poisonedantidote NOW THAT WAS CYNICAL. – but the truth. See the difference Josie and the pussycats?

But to put (my own) fine point on what you said, and at the risk of sounding all mushy: the beauty of the Western world, and us only, is the fact that we will do anything to save a life – even a fucking taliban that is injured – hell, I’ve personally rescued Hamas after a gunfight, i.e., they shot at me – in my country – near my children – yet I helped them.

The West will cynically sign contracts and take out insurance as you said, but they will rescue them using amazing space technology. The non-western non-democracies would say fuck it – bulldoze over the mine and start over. How many times have the Arabs – including Iraq and Iran, used horrific methods of destruction – even on their own people – like chemical warfare?

We’ll spend millions saving people from a river flood, a cat from a tree and a fucking dog from a well.

That – is amazing. Sometimes stupid – but I prefer it to the alternative.

Cynical – nope. Just realistic.

I suppose I should have known. No big surprise here. Josie out.

@josie -Awwwww…:)

@poisonedantidote Not quite. To use your analogy. The British would have designed and built the escape capsule, the nazis would have painted it and used it for propoganda purposes, and Churchill would have condemned the mining company that designed the capsule as a greedy, uncaring, capitalistic corporation that only did it for the coal they could buy from the nazis.

@josie You do know your farts smell, too – right?

@zen_ you do raise a very good point indeed. but regarding the bulldozer, i wonder if they would use said bulldozer to cover the mine if they had to depend on elections to keep their power. and if we would not use the bulldozer if we did not have to.

@josie don’t let me get you down man, you will get a few answers shortly that will be more in line with your school of thought, I just cant help it, i am what i am. what is it they say about synical people? scratch a synic and you will find a disapointed optimist.

@WestRiverrat I would be inclined to agree, just keep in mind im talking very generally here and using heavy metaphors to try and give my opinion of a broader picture.

EDIT: *Cynical, not synical. excuse my crappy spelling. and thx zen for capitalizing that word, else i would have continued to spell it synical in future.

‘Explanatory Style’ Explained

‘Explanatory style’ or ‘attributional style’ refers to how people explain the events of their lives. There are three facets of how people can explain a situation. This can influence whether they lean toward being optimists or pessimists:

Stable vs. Unstable: Can time change things, or do things stay the same regardless of time?

Global vs. Local: Is a situation a reflection of just one part of your life, or your life as a whole?

Internal vs. External: Do you feel events are caused by you or by an outside force?

Realists see things relatively clearly, but most of us aren’t realists. Most of us, to a degree, attribute the events in our lives optimistically or pessimistically. The pattern looks like this:

Optimists

Optimists explain positive events as having happened because of them (internal). They also see them as evidence that more positive things will happen in the future (stable), and in other areas of their lives (global). Conversely, they see negative events as not being their fault (external). They also see them as being flukes (isolated) that have nothing to do with other areas of their lives or future events (local).

For example, if an optimist gets a promotion, she will likely believe it’s because she’s good at her job and will receive more benefits and promotion in the future. If she’s passed over for the promotion, it’s likely because she was having an off-month because of extenuating circumstances, but will do better in the future.

Pessimists

Pessimists think in the opposite way. They believe that negative events are caused by them (internal). They believe that one mistake means more will come (stable), and mistakes in other areas of life are inevitable (global), because they are the cause. They see positive events as flukes (local) that are caused by things outside their control (external) and probably won’t happen again (unstable).

A pessimist would see a promotion as a lucky event that probably won’t happen again, and may even worry that she’ll now be under more scrutiny. Being passed over for promotion would probably be explained as not being skilled enough. She’d therefore expect to be passed over again.

What This Means

Understandably, if you’re an optimist, this bodes well for your future. Negative events are more likely to roll off of your back, but positive events affirm your belief in yourself, your ability to make good things happen now and in the future, and in the goodness of life.

Fortunately for pessimists and realists, these patterns of thinking can be learned to a degree (though we tend to be mostly predisposed to our patterns of thinking.) Using a practice called ‘cognitive restructuring,’ you can help yourself and others become more optimistic by consciously challenging negative, self-limiting thinking and replacing it with more optimistic thought patterns.

“Between the optimist and the pessimist, the difference is droll. The optimist sees the doughnut; the pessimist the hole!”

Wilde.

;-)

Get it?

One final note, that i think helps explain my thinking here. I guess, in a way, im just disapointed that there are not more events like this.

Some times is 60 days of drilling to save lives, other times its 60 days of oil gushing in to the ocean from a drilled hole. and the species that did one did the other, and they did it with roughly the same technology.

I think it’s hilarious that people will condemn technology on the internet.

The Chilean miner rescue is amazing. I was thinking today that it reminded me a little of the Shackleton rescue from the South Pole.

@Rarebear just to point out, im bashing people and how they use technology, not technology its self, just in case you interpreted what i said the wrong way. (even though i suspect you did not)

It’s a copper and gold mine. They were in there in the first place because of our faults, our desire for more stuff. It’s not like they were just wandering along and suddenly fell into an abyss for no reason.

To congratulate mankind for its ability to get them out of the mine is analogous to thanking God for bringing rain after He created the fires that swept through your county causing deaths, destroying thousands of homes, and ravaging acres upon acres of land. I don’t see the sense in it.

No one can argue that successfully rescuing the Chilean miners with a combination of grit, determination and technology isn’t a wonderful thing. Of course it is! But…

Today, over 22,000 children died around the world

and they died, mostly, from poverty, hunger, malnutrition and preventable diseases.

And:

Preventable Diseases Claim 11 Million Children Each Year

33 Chilean miners’ lives have been saved, and each and every one of their lives matters. Of course they do. But millions of children die every year from diseases that we already have the “technology” and knowledge to prevent and treat. Each and every one of their lives matters too. As a species we need to care about them, each and every day, not just when they make the news. They need a flag, and a President, and film crew and enough people to give a shit about them too. At least we can start there, start with the children who die from diseases we already have the technology to prevent. 33 lives, 22,000 lives, 11 million lives? Either each and every one of those lives matters or they don’t. When we, as a species, care enough to save those children I will stop “dogging” us.

We’re very damnable, a fact that is presented to us daily. But we are not wholly degenerate. At least, most of us aren’t.

@lillycoyote To say nothing of the millions killed worldwide by their parents and doctors.

@poisonedantidote Actually, I wasn’t responding to you at all. In fact I only skimmed the other posts before I answered myself.

@Nullo Millions of children worldwide are killed by their parents and doctors?

@Sarcasm NOW THAT’S PURE CYNICISM AT ITS BEST. I completely disagree with you, much to josie’s dismay, I’m sure.

The miner’s – poor slobs that they are – are no less at fault than cherry pickers or busboys. How can you condemn them in one fell swoop with the greed of their masters? And I mean, masters.

It would be like condemning the Brazilians who are chopping down the rain-forest for timber and McDonald’s: would you have them drop their saw and protest? I don’t think that’s gonna happen. While you have time to volunteer here as a mod from the safety of your netbook on your lap while sitting on your couch, so to speak (or not – I can see you); they have little choice but to work as miners – stoking the machine.

We suck as a society. Big time. Gold is at 1200 bucks plus for an ounce. I remember it at 400 less than 15 years ago. I could’ve made a fortune as I’d invested in it, too.

But a life is a life is a life.

Mine or yours worth no more than a coalminers’, BP CEO, or the drug warlords of Columbia. If you, they or anyone else fell down a mine, lived in a mine or worked in a mine and got stuck – they need rescuing – period. Hell, I’d rescue a terrorist – then arrest and interrogate the shit out of him – but first save a life.

So – josie – who’s the cynic?

@lillycoyote Parents and doctors, yes. I’ve decided that both parties have a share in the blame, the parents for wanting an abortion, the doctors for actually performing it. “Parents” can also refer to the parents who didn’t raise their kids well, kids who now are or else already have discontinuing their own as-yet unborn children.

@Nullo O.K. Thanks for clarifying. I wasn’t sure what you were referring to. Got it now. But I’m not going to get into an abortion debate with you on this thread.

@lillycoyote It wasn’t my intention to derail the thread; I just like for the fact to be acknowledged.
I’m a bit surprised that I’ve had to clarify so much lately. I’d always thought that my positions were made clear enough that solutions were just an inferrance away. o_o

@Nullo I don’t understand what you’re saying.

@Nullo I’m o.k. with that. I didn’t think you were trying to derail the thread. And you may have made your positions clear but some times all of us have to make them clear again, on each thread. For me, your comment was obscure.

Good point. There have also been many other great things done by men and our technology.

Kind of reminds me on how some people say that they wish that animals would kill us all and regain their rightful place in nature and that th eplanet is better off without us, and that we’re insignificant in what we do and say besides destruction. Well, why should I listen to anybody, if that person is as insignificant as me? Their words and accusations matter no more than mine.
I’m sure they’d be singing a different tune if some pack of wolverines or a wolf was gettin’ down on their ass.

However I condemn and disapprove of humanity all the time, I admit this, and I bow my head in shame. Rescuers the miners was awesome, as is medical progress, for example.
I think the main beef is the way that knowledge and skill is often used. But you’re completely right; while bad crap happens, let’s not forget the good here.

Simple, why does Humanity need mines for? digging up stuff, in dangerous, dingy conditions no one really needs.

@mammal Mines, in case you didn’t know, are where we get metal from. Unless you want to live under paleolithic conditions, you’re going to need them.

It’s not only compassion that drives people to not let several people die trapped underground. It’s necessary for one’s sense of security to know that human life is valued somewhat in your community. For the mining company, there’s liability issues. For the authorities, there’s social stability issues.

I mean, acts of greater kindness are made every day, in people’s average lives. A person believing in someone who everyone else has given up on is more inspiring than this. I don’t see why you’re so moved. Not to belittle general human kindness, but this is such a basic thing. Did the news do an exceptionally emotional piece on it?

Demanding heavy investment in 100% robotic mining methods as a priority would show true collective human compassion, surrounding this issue specifically. But I don’t think people have the energy or confidence to do that. We may just have to wait for that tech to be commercially beneficial enough to be better applied.

@Nullo i know, according to historians, life before metal, was like, really nasty and stuff all the time, relentless nastiness, cold bitter and miserable.

@mammal and @Nullo. Yes, there are so many, many pesky little things and details involved in making modern life modern. Who knew that people all over the world risk their lives every day to wrestle the raw materials from the ground so that all those things that magically appear on the shelves of our local Walmart can magically appear on the shelves of our local Walmart?

@mammal I think that we as a species can do better than to create a world where high technology means that you’ve tied a femur to a stick.

@lillycoyote We risk our lives all the time for less. I once nearly plunged a thousand feet to my death because I thought that I could cross a bit of trail that had been washed out.

@Nullo I generally don’t have to risk my life at all, for the things I have. I’m not saying that I’m particularly proud of that, it’s just the truth. I just try to be grateful. So you are among those who risk their lives, all the the time, for less? Please clarify. Yes, it’s me asking. I’m the clarifying person, the person who asks you to be clear.

There’s a slight irony in this question, in that it implies a belief that people who assume that mankind is greedy, etc., have not incorporated such examples into their belief system. It’s, in a way, generalizing about a group the OP accuses of generalizing. It also implies that it’s easy to think this way…

…The problem is that, as @zen_ went into in detail, that when we make judgments about what mankind is, it’s not base on objective evidence so much as our interpretation of what’s going on. I don’t see the benefit in assuming good or bad intentions – we can only look at the effects as being harmful or beneficial. We shouldn’t raise people to the status of heroes for doing something beneficial, as it’s to be expected that’s what should happen. It’s also dangerous as, as seems to be indicated here, there’s no reason to think that there were truly good intentions in the rescue and rest on that. We need to look into the reasons why it happened in the first place, what negative reasons might have motivated the rescue, etc.

Judging behavior and motivations as good or bad because of the end effect is a dangerous thing. I’ll never say that mankind is inherently bad. I like to think we’re inherently good. What I fear is that we’re inherently uninformed, and that we’re doing more harm than good because of that.

@lillycoyote You risk your life every time that you get in the car. Every time that you go outside. Every time that you don’t go outside.
There are plenty of dangers out there. They just have different odds of happening.

Oh wow, a handful of people were saved! That totally outweighs the millions killed by rampant industrialism through debt repayment-induced starvation, machine-gunned indigenous who get in the way in Peru, rivers that traditional people depend on killed by damming and/or chemical contamination, villages of women gang-raped in organized fashions to procure coltan for everyone’s cell-phones, other villages wiped out by industrial chemicals in India, indigenous people poisoned by uranium, plutonium, and tar-sands, etc. etc..

On that note, I happen to agree it’s dumb to blame humanity as a whole. It’s really racist to blame it on the species. Not all humans are doing this. It’s mostly been a handful of cultures, and even then the shots are mostly called by a few. There have been and are plenty of cultures that consciously do not mess everything up.

Also, almost every paleolithic culture had much higher standards of living and health than even First Worlders today, so stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

@incendiary_dan That would be specist, sir. ‘Race’ refers to the unofficial, non-taxonomical subdivision of “species,” or else “subspecies,” on the basis of given phenotypical traits. Consider the dachshund and the Newfoundland, and how they are both specimens of Canis lupus familiaris.

Should you have the time, I’d like to see some sources on the health and wellness of those paleolithic cultures.

@Nullo I’m quite aware of those definitions, and I meant what I said. It’s racist (or more accurately, ethnocentric with highly racist subtexts) to apply the “sins” of some cultures of humans onto all because it quite specifically negates the experiences of the vast majority of humans, indeed ignoring those cultures viewed as “backwards” and implicitly equating all of humanity with the dominant culture (our culture).

For a quick read I suggest Marshall Sahlins “The Original Affluent Society”, and for a more thorough examination you can check out my friend Jason Godesky’s series of essays called “The Thirty Theses”. I can probably think of more when it isn’t my bed time and I’m not tired.

@Nullo Also, I just happen to be moving and therefore looking through a lot of my stuff for packing, and just found one I’m embarrassed I forgot: “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race” by Jared Diamond.