Humans have devolved

Those attitudes have always existed. It just escalated nowadays because of astroturfing.

It’s much easier to influence people’s points of view when you have bots on social media either pushing it, or making a viewpoint look more popular than it actually is. That issue was nowhere near the current magnitude in the pre-Internet days. Turns out it’s much harder to pretend to be a person in real life, which made extremist material diffuse less within society.

Connectivity, social media, and the Internet in general… All are interesting deep dives.

 

I agree with you to a certain point. People have always been complex, drawn to the idea of the supernatural and have been passionate about ideas of how society should be. There are some things people can't let go of. But things have been worse and we are evolving.

Wars are mentioned in the OP but there was a time when kings would wage wars because it was expected of them. Really there was no reason given because it was expected of them. There were anti-war protests. As far as I know the first time there was an anti-war protest was during the Vietnam War before that no one questioned leaders waging war.

Modern medicine has been a great advancement. For most of human history, plasters haven't existed. For a long time, the solution for a cut finger was to cut the finger off. People would have long painful deaths because they weren't amputated or amputation wasn't possible. Basic hygiene wasn't practised by health workers and it wasn't until Florence Nightingale that they began taking hygiene seriously.

Our evolution may not be as fast as some people like it to be but we're not devolving. We don't have a war season and even those sceptical of certain aspects of modern medicine aren't against using plasters.

 

There could be a collective impulse that drives humanity down the spiral of consequence. Not a metaphysical force but rather physical, biological, evolutionary. Evolution does not need to agree with your individual expectations for humanity. What you consider bad is just as real as what you consider good. What you consider development is just as part of evolution as what you consider undevelopment.

 

Slight correction, it was just as risky then as it is now for a leader to engage in a long, costly and potentially unproductive war, anti-war protest during the vietnam war did not start until at least a decade into the war when all hope of a quick win were dashed and the initial patriotic fervor abated.

The ancients were a lot more similar to us than we give them credit for, for example the roman republic usually voted on wether to start a new war or not, right after the 2nd punic war the proposal about the Macedonian War was rejected at the first assembly by almost all the centuries. This was partly a spontaneous reaction of men who were tired of perils and hardships, but also a reaction of the plebs who had suffered disproportionally in the war; other example include the anti-war movement in Athens during the peloponnesian war which sabotaged their sicilians expeditions, alexander’s troops rebelling against him in the Indian subcontinent after more than a decade of warfare, caesar’s troops doing the same during the civil war , Carthage refusing to resupply Hannibal ect ect.

A more recent example is the october revolution which was possible mainly because they capitalized on the people disillusion with the war.

 

Maybe we evolve and devolve. The Romans seemed to be ahead of their time and so were the Greeks. When I made my post I was more thinking about English medieval times. It's interesting that when the Romans came to Britain they made some radical changes such as building roads and baths but when they left the British didn't maintain such things. Seems to me there are people who want change and then there are those who want to go back to the way things were.

 

For what it's worth we don't actually know that there are aliens more advanced then us, or even any at all. It's actually a somewhat scary thought...

Anyway most people are sheep, and I think we're just programmed to be like that. It would be hard to form a cohesive society if most people didn't just go with the flow of that society. Of course it's super easy to exploit that... Some people do end up on the fringe though and at least it's mostly safe to express that, whereas it wasn't in most places and times throughout history.

I feel like we're both going forwards and backwards at the same time right now. It might sound radical, but I think we are likely actually seeing the dyeing breaths of an old system right now. The history books will probably recognize the era we're in as a very awkward transition phase.

 

Those people on the fringe are more than likely following someone as well. It's why I get annoyed with people calling other people 'sheep' because they're probably just as much of a 'sheep'. Rarely is someone believing in or doing something that is truly unique.

 

Look up "iqpersonalitygenius mouse utopia", according to that guy: we are already doomed. He says we are at the end of a long process of dysgenics, instead of natural selection picking the fittest, it went the other way round.

 

I see a lot of failed systems in humanity and keep coming back to what many thinkers have mentioned - that while our technology has advanced incredibly, our brains are very much wired for an old landscape that largely does not exist (or we choose not to experience at least).

We're scared to oppose the group think and be different, in part because thousands of years ago the same action could have led to us being outcast from our small tribe (an almost certain death sentence via starvation/saber tooth).

We also appear to be trapped in illusions of productivity and pleasure. Hustle culture robs us of time from rest and recreation, while screen time replaces exercise and moments of boredom (where solutions to problems big and small are born!)

So yeah, I like to remind myself that we're doing the best we can, especially considering our evolutionary past that's not at all suited to our socially constructed present societies.

But maybe it's also heavily dependent on where we focus our attention?

Our ancestors would probably be disgusted by how millions of people stare at their phones for hours, and they'd also likely be astonished at the scientific breakthroughs. I think I'd rather live in the present and take control of what I can, turn off the bad news and (try) to not look at the phone so much!

 

The original post's idea is an ill-posed one.

There's no such thing as 'evolving' and 'devolving'. There's only evolution. Evolution means 'change over time'. There's only one direction in time.

One of the big misunderstandings in biological evolution is the concept that we're "evolving towards something". For example, you make the implicit notion that 'evolution' should increase our intelligence, but we're getting dumber. In reality, evolutionary forces are blind and "don't care" about our intelligence. The main principles behind evolutionary selection, appear to be the notions of reproduction and survival (at least to the point of reproduction). Anything else emerges as a function which, more or less, aims to support one of the two.

All animals are equally evolved and are great at what they do. Proof? They're here, after 4 billion years. Obviously, there are many different ways to be alive and to replicate. What we humans have, seems to be particularly unique and powerful. We have language, and reasoning, and we create stories that allow us to collaborate in great numbers. That's what makes us in control of the planet.

However, many of the things that we value today, such as democracy and human rights, are a product of cultural evolution. These are the ideas we spread (e.g. religions, laws, money, etc), the books we write, the teachings we teach children. Although we can think of such things as an extended part of our biology, we can't equate them with our biological evolution. Cultural evolution happens fast, and can drastically change even within few decades. Biological evolution on the other hand, is controlled by the very slow rates of reproduction and genes (through random mutation and sex, so far). This means that our basic biology is, for the most part, the same as the one we had thousands of years ago.

What does this practically mean? It means that our basic instincts are still governed by principles which may not seem desirable today. For example, aggression (and wars, by extension) is a common behavior across many animals, that favors survival. Selfishness favors replication. Sometimes, selfishness can also lead to altruism, when organisms cooperate for mutual benefit. Sometimes you observe animals being aggressive, and sometimes you observe animals cooperating. It's all determined by the possibilities of the environment in the end. It's game theory. (as a thought experiment, imagine if by a magical force, everyone on the planet was behaving kindly and altruistically. It would be reasonable to expect that the first aggressive 'mutant' society/nation could easily take over by brute force)

Of course, we humans are very malleable. Evolution has given us brains that are plastic, and can learn a vast amount of behaviors under appropriate training. Despite that, it's important to realize that what used to work in the past, may not work now or in the future. As our societies and technologies change, we follow by necessity. Whether nature will eventually favor intelligence, or kindness, or collectivism, or aggression, or idiots that don't know how to use condoms, nobody knows.

We can only observe our historical trends, and hope/work for the best future.

 

I genuinely believe people like Isaac Newton or savants with Asperger's are the next step in evolution. They're diligent. They can abandon petty concepts to reach their goals. They're attention to niche details can be uncanny. Imagine if people liked that collectively made a hydroponic farm or neutron bomb?

Now look at the crux of mammals with a developed neocortex. Obsessed with social hierarchy and appearances. Chase primitive needs over prolonged preservation. Tribalistic and troglodytic.
Nikola Tesla and Newton had no recorded heirs yet Ghengis Kahn and criminals today have many children. I don't think we've devolved but we could very well be stagnant.

 

To the OP, I totally agree with you. We’ve regressed in many ways but take heart, there’s many more of us that think alike!

 

I think your answer demonstrates very concisely why Newtons weren't and probably won't be a next step in human evolution. Newton was believed to have died a virgin. Genghis Khan left who knows how many children. Biological evolution will always favor the potential for reproduction. That's what it is.

Of course, that doesn't mean that as species we cannot progress or we're not progressing towards particular desired ideals. Our cultural evolution seems to be way more determinant in how we live, than our 'almost' stationary biology. Unfortunately, if we look at this historically, scientists like Newton and Tesla were valued in society solely to the degree that their scientific understanding contributed to the wealth of the nation, and especially with regards to possible technological advancements. That's why science thrived during wars. We use our intelligence to serve our deeper emotional truths. And this includes the social hierarchies and appearances. Because we're also mammals, with primitive needs.

Which of these attributes are features and which are bugs, is really hard to tell within a limited scope of our history.

 

Normies are gonna normie, whatever CNN says, they will do it.

 

I remember watching a Documentary in High School Freshman year and this girl from Iran spoke, our teacher wanted us to learn what was going on in the other side of our world. She spoke about governments, capitalists, etc, about the government. It just blew my mind to what they were teaching us in School. She had to of been 12 - 13. But the way she talked was so out spoken like an adult. It's like now when you ask an adult it's either a self centered view, modest, bashing someone else, or agreeing with media, hating on somebody else. I don't understand.... I don't get it... But I agree. But some adults are awake and know what's going on which I highly respect.


What really bothers is me is why we don't explore the sea and spend money to explore the Atlantic or Pacific. It's a vast area that we don't know what's underneath.

 

The stigmatization of eugenics from the middle of the 20th century to the present will have far-reaching consequences.