Have we devolved?

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The above picture is a perfect example.. We now live in a world where we'd basically be doomed without electricity.
The majority of us can't live in the wilderness, if you put basic tools in front of us and threw us in the wild without any clothes / food / electricity. We would most likely die.

So do you think that we have devolved in a sense? Would we survive if there was a global black-out?

I personally think no, kids these days are so glued to their "xbox" they haven't learned basic survival skills.
I never hear of "Scouts or Girl scouts" or anything anymore..


The world has been materialized and we'd most likely be doomed if anything were to happen.

 

Then only the strong survive. If anything were to happen to this world(which probably won't happen) but if it did, then it all comes back to natural selection.

 

In my opinion, the people who wanted to get smarter got smarter. (ex: scientists, mathmeticians, etc)
And people who couldn't bother to "devolved," and cannot survive without electricity, as your thread states. (ex: video game nerds, etc)

 

I haven't seen a kid now a days that doesn't play video games for the majority of their time, other than school.
Meaning our future is pretty much screwed, their brains rot. It isn't opinion when I say video games rot your mind. Because they do, aswell as T.v.

We're going to have a generation of brain dead fatties basically.

 

Have we actually devolved? No. Our environment has changed, and thus we have changed along with.

Are these changes, overall, for the worse? Yes. However, not all children are "video game nerds" as you describe them.

 

Technology has helped us come a long way. When you think about it, without certain technological advancements we wouldn't be able to cure some diseases that are around now. The only way technology can hurt humans as a whole is using it for the wrong things, such as porn, certain entertainment, sitting on the computer all day while not learning anything, etc.

We as people are able to use technology for the right things, some of us just choose not to. Technology is one of the greatest wonders of this world, and like the humans we are, we tend to mess it up some how. Not saying it hasn't done great wonders for us, cause it has. It all depends on how the person uses it to their advantage, and then we can flourish by having technology.

 

A vast majority of them are.

I agree that technology is good, but that's not what I'm discussing.
I'm discussing the fact that people are misusing it - examples being like you said, porn / video games all of that.

There are so few people that will actually do good for the world in their future lives. Most kids now a days are suburban spoiled brats who get everything (Canada / Uk / U.S). That's not a world I want to live in, and I'm sure no one does.

I hate the fact that everything has become so simple, which makes people lazy & not want to do anything for themselves. Stop making stuff to make things easier, and work on things that are actually important.

 

No we have not. Our intelligence has or is close to reaching a certain point where we can choose how we evolve.

 

Humans live by reason, animals live by force.

We are not devolving at all, just because the capacity of our reason has enabled us to live less by force and the need for physical ability does not mean we are devolving.

Also, if hypothetically your scenario did happen ,the human species probably wouldn't become extinct. Humans operate by reason and it is this that gives us a distinct advantage over other animals that operate by force. You seem to neglect that only a tad over 50 million xBox 360's have been sold worldwide in a world population well over 6 billion. If your scenario did happen, the fittest and humans that could adapt to their new environment would survive, and the others would not. You could then emulate what would happen, tribes would form, humans would hunt food, humans would learn how to create huts, etc. etc. More importantly however, your hypothetical is entirely unrealistic.

In present human life, the smartest tend to flourish, but consequently the smartest tend to be the least physically fit. The not so smart tend not to do so well however are more physically fit. For example, a Doctor is more or less smart, financially well-off, but probably not that physically in-shape. A brick layer is more or less 'dumb' but tends to be far more physically fit. Should your scenario take place the roles would simply be reversed.

 

Can we survive without electricity though? Most likely not. If your power went out for a week I bet you'd go insane.

We could survive just fine without electricity before it existed, now we've evolved so much as we HAVE to have electricity.
Meaning we devolved in a sense, we can't live without it. Only a few thousand out of the few billion on the planet would be able to survive.

 

People can live without electricity. However, without electricity we would lose a big chunk of our population. That is not really devolving. We would just have to live by the concept of natural selection again.

 

You probably have a different definition of 'devolve'. What is your definition of devolve?

I'm assuming it's the opposite of evolve?

 

Yes, I'm not sure if I used the correct word though.

 

You hate that things are so simple now? :huh: This point in time for humans was inevitable, ever since the first radio, even since electricity was discovered. This time was bound to come. We are smarter then ever before. There are hard workers all over the world, and they still have the same privileges we have, granted a very few don't.

There are more than a few people who do good in their lives, and for this world. While still using technology. You seem to be categorising a lot of people in this spoiled brats, or lazy catagory which is not the case. If people don't want to do anything with their lives, fine. It will allow others to flourish and give us more of an opportunity. This is where natural selection comes in to play.

No, we have not devolved. Humans are on top for a reason.

 

I think you mean that humans have become less physically capable/active. In which case, the answer is yes, but the response is so what?

 

That is not true at all. People will push themselves to be as athletically capable as possible. However, it is not a certain action we must take to survive anymore.

 

If you find the mean activity level of humans now, and compare them to humans thousands of years ago I bet you'll find a huge difference. Also, people will only push themselves when they need to; fight or flight. If a tiger is chasing you, be running extremely fast, however that is not a good representative of how physically capable you are as you cannot run that fast forever. You will slow down and get eaten. If however you were strong, and fast you may evade the tiger and perhaps turn around and kill it. People of the modern age, if they had a knife would probably be dinner to the tigers cubs, but the Mongols would probably have a nice feast.

Compare the Mongols and the Romans to the Americans. Who's more physically able?

 

They are all evenly physically able. Give a Roman, Mongol, and an American a knife to fight a tiger and they would all be dead (unless said person had skill in knife fighting but even then it is a fight against a tiger). It would depend on the actual person.

 

You are saying that the average American would be as physically able as the average mongol horse rider or Roman Legionary? That's ridiculous.

That's like saying you're just as physically able as someone from the SAS.

No, the Mongols / Romans would be far stronger than us, they would be far more conditioned than us, most of them would be war veterans whereas most of us are couch potatoes. Do you think you could carry 40kg of equipment and march, for hours, and hours every day?

 

You don't understand. They would all be physically capable of doing the same thing. Condition an average American like a Roman or Mongol Soldier and what would you have? Now compare the Roman and Mongol military to the American military and you would have the same thing. Take away all the weapons from the Mongols and Romans then have them fight an unarmed American Soldier. The American soldier would win.