Let me tell you something about Hew-mons, Nephew. They're a wonderful, friendly people...

No, the original concept was to reverse the trend in science fiction where humanity is seen as a nominally weak baseline. Which is something a lot of oldschool settings like Star Trek or Ringworld legit do.

The point was that humanity is a pretty fucking weird outlier on our own planet. The basic example is the fact that we evolved to have a high average speed over long distances. Human endurance is much greater than that of most other animals, but because we see ourselves as the standard and most of us stopped running daily the moment civilization kicked in we generally don't realize stuff like this. But our weird naked skin evolved exactly to facilitate that, too. Which is why we're one of the few furless mammals.

Compared to other Earth life we are on the upper spectrum of size, the very top of endurance and long distance speed, and we're much more accurate with projectiles than other primates. Just the fact that you can toss your wad of paper into the waste basket from across the room is something that's completely alien to all other animals.

>Let me tell you something about Ferengi, son. They're a wonderful, friendly people, as long as their pockets are full and their negotiations are working. But take away their latinum, deprive them of the market, customers, unclothed wives, tax them over an extended period of time and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people... will become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon. You don't believe me? Look at those ears. Look in their teeth. Well? Aren't you going to say something?

One would hope that we'd be better than animals. But when pitted against other intelligent species in fiction, HFY isn't a subversion at all; it's par for the course. Humans are always treated as superior, often in blatantly silly ways. Writers have this weird idea that humans are unique in our will to live, our willingness to adapt when the alternative is death, and our willingness to attempt to fight against impossible odds when the alternative is death. In these respects we are exactly equal to animals and probably all forms of life.

I feel sorry for the 1950's Human Capitalists

nice

The point is, science fiction is still inherently about us. It comments on the human condition, so taking a different look at mankind can spur one on to have fresh commentary about the human condition. The starting commentary being that we're already unusual on our own world. And it's also something that would steer us away from this "plucky humanity" kind of reasoning, though that's all too often what shitty HFY threads turned into.

Then again, maybe there's so evolutionary example to seeing ourselves that way. We did outcompete a bunch of other homonids, after all.

Not to mention, by the time a human is old most everything that is not a turtle, a whale or a tree will be long dead.

this is what happens when you build a whole family of cultures off the martyrdom fetish of some prick on a stick and then let them rise above the suffering. They're left with the distinct impression that suffering is glamorous and yet nothing to suffer for, so they literally make shit up because they can not wrap their heads around the idea that they aren't victims.

I'm actually a big fan of the Uplift series, because while it kinda seems like "Earth, fuck yeah!" (With Humans, Uplifted Chimps, and Uplifted Dolphins all being main characters) especially in the first trilogy, in the second Trilogy you see that it was our origin as species that evolved sapience on our own and choosing our own path that gives us our strengths. In the second Uplift triolgy you see that when other species are allowed to make their own decisions, instead of having everything dictated by their patron species, are just a great as Humans.

Absolutely correct. Us humans can absolutely devolve into the mud drenched, eye gouging, sister raping screaming beast for which we sprang.

We evolved on a planet where the water was trying to kill us on a regular basis.
Drink from the wrong pond? Dead.
Eat the wrong plant, insect, or fish? Dead.
Didn't notice the 12 foot lizard that looks like a log waiting near the water? Dead.
Didn't notice the giant man eating cat sneaking up on you as you slept? Dead.
You weren't constantly vigilant against venomous spiders as you sat down to rest? Dead.
Stay out in the sun too long? Dead.

The list goes on and on. No scales or fur, no claws, no fangs. Not the best swimmer, climber, or runner.

So in order to survive we became the most vicious, conniving, bloodthirsty critters in our environment. If anything was even remotely a threat we went out and wounded it, then we tracked it back to its den and murdered it and its children. For good measure with skinned them and wore their faces as hats.

Some of us cannot get past our own instinct, and we have to lock these people up or institutionalize them, but the fact is that every single one of us is like them deep down.
Every single day we build up our civilization, we thicken the walls between us and that same murderous creature.

So before you take away our creature comforts remember. The largest creature on our planet is a 300,000 lb behemoth of meat. We used to kill them with pointed sticks and drain their fluids for lamp oil.
We built an entire industry out of murdering each other.

Please. Don't tear down our walls.

The Uplift series is often shamelessly HFY, but I did enjoy that, in the context of its extreme conservationist values (the whole thing about Galactic society valuing the preservation of planetary ecosystems, the destruction of planets being punishable by literal species-wide enslavement, etc), Brin didn't neglect to touch on humanity's destructive streak.

Like, I think it was whales? That were either rendered entirely or almost-entirely extinct due to human disregard (it's been a while since I've re-read the series). The destruction of an almost-sapient species (by definition, one capable of being "uplifted"--a very important distinction, as one might guess based on the title of the series) is a crime almost beyond measure. Humanity went through great pains to destroy records and hide the fact that they literally genocided not one but SEVERAL near-sapient species before they even hit the tech-level required to travel in space.

As a result, humanity as a species (due in part to the fact that it lacked any kind of galactic "parent-figure") is one of the most horrific mass-murderers in the universe.

That is only due to the advancement of technology to the point of having even some knowledge of medicine and hygiene. Prior to the late 19th century most humans that survived birth thru their early childhood only lived to their 40s or 50s due to how harsh a lifestyle we had to live.

It's only due to medicine and the birth of "white collar" jobs that we see humans hitting ages in the 70s and up.

Yes yes, Certainly an interesting thought.

You know, I read something fascinating just the other day. A team in France had found the remains of a neanderthal who, by all accounts, could easily have been the most unlucky man to ever live.

As a child, this man had a withered right arm, that even at at the end of his life had never grown to full length or strength. His joints also seem to have been swollen, indicating that he had arthritis. He was missing teeth, and there was evidence that he had been maimed in a fight with a wild animal. To cap it all off, the man died when the cave he was resting in collapsed during an earthquake.

But, without a doubt the most interesting thing about this man was his age: he died in his early 40s - quite old for a Neanderthal. Do you understand what that means?

This man could not have lived as long as he did alone. He lived in the most brutal, savage era of human history, yet there was someone who supported him his entire life. Someone helped him, someone shared their hard-earned food, someone tended his wounds.

Someone cared.

For painting mankind all with one brush, you are as foolish as those human supremacists you claim to be above. Human beings are complex creatures who can be saint or sinner in equal measure; both of these aspects are intrinsic to humanity and both deserve to bee explored.

...

There were still Whales, there are several mentions of whale song actually being one of Humanity's exports and there was K'tha-jon who had Orca genes and ends up going feral cannibal.

I think the only species specifically mentioned is Orangutans as being extinct, but yeah, our ecological damage was something we covered up.

And the same is true of every other creature on the planet.

Please die in a fire, HFY-fag.

Fine, then.

Earthlings, Fuck Yeah!

Earth, Fuck Yeah has some interesting applications if you take the deathworld trope and play it straight.
>gravity that brushes right up against the upper limits of the rocket equation, making Earthlings freakishly strong heavy worlders
>fungal spores are so omnipresent that we breathe them in and out, and our immune systems grew up constantly fighting them off - ET is mushroom food if his space suit cracks
>at least four cataclysmic impacts happened in Earth's past - one that melted the planet and formed the moon, one that caused an early extinction, one that killed the dinosaurs, and one in 10,800 BC that melted an ice sheet and killed off a bunch of Pleistocene fauna. Any ONE of these is rare.
>flight via air pressure hax has evolved five separate times, six if you count humans

That's not true at all. People regularly lived until their 70s or 80s in the ancient world as long as they weren't the serf or slave class in their society.

>endanger lives and suddenly they'll fight back
Wow.

I prefer HFY over EFY, because the former seems more realistic; we can compare ourselves to other lifeforms that already exist, and logically extrapolate for a space setting.

Which is why human resilience is such a good focus for the genre. A human can take injuries that other animals would die of shock if they received; this may be a trait that is unique to humans when compared to aliens.

>alien life we encounter in space is more likely to have things in common with the animals on Earth that didn't make it into space than the one species that did

Face it, we are either alone, or we aren't special.

The only thing unique about us is civilization and leaving the planet, and any other species we meet in space will have done the same.

I don't think you're considering just how different things could have been if conditions weren't exactly as they are now.

I read something the other day about what life on earth might have been like if Jupiter and/or Saturn didn't exist, and we were bombarded with a lot more radiation from the centre of the galaxy; how that would have affected plantlife, and the ripples that would have had.
Something as inconsequential as the gas-giant that's hundreds of millions of kilometers away had such a profound impact on us; how can we account for all the variables and say that it'll all be the same?

I think that all sentient species will have more differences than similarities with eachother. Humans probably won't be superior, but there's nothing to say that we aren't unique.

Fuck I need to read those books again.

And how many other species on our planet have come to start dealing with other species peacefully, save for human intervention?

Damned few, and nowhere near the level of humanity.

>fungal spores are so omnipresent that we breathe them in and out, and our immune systems grew up constantly fighting them off - ET is mushroom food if his space suit cracks
>Mushroom food
This is actually a strange fear that I have. I am incredibly wary of fungus, which is odd considering how I love to eat mushrooms.

The idea of watching someone die to fungal infection or having fungal growth in my lungs is something that makes my blood run cold.
Which sucked because the last house I lived in had black mold.

Keep your immune system strong and it'll all be fine.

They are going to need limbs that can manipulate tools. They are going to need access to the elements and resources necessary to construct space craft. They are going to need intelligence, and this favors an omnivorous, non-specialized diet (requires brainpower to identify food) and a social species (requires brainpower for social interaction; also required for civilization and space flight) as well as a K-strategy for young (required for increased brain size and survival with the slower development it brings).

There are a number of things that seem to be required for sapience. Any species that meets these requirements and makes it to space are going to have quite a few similarities to us.

This. What people don't understand about the '30 year average live span' is how much it was affected by two things.

First: childhood death. This was a large part of everything.

Second: death from injury. An injury in most parts of the world is still likely to cause you serious long-term problems. In more developed countries, though, you can have injuries that were death sentences and survive to a ripe old age. Cancer and heart disease are nothing new, cancer was named in Ancient Greece, but now people are living so much longer and majority cause of death is no longer shit like 'broke a bone and died of gangrene' or 'didn't eat enough' or 'died in childbirth', because we figured out how to deal with most of those problems.

I spent my formative years hunting and fishing in swamps. I'm good. I still have a fear of fungus and large underwater critters.

Which reminds me. For the purpose of worldbuilding in a HFY area, we have to take into account how many humans grow up in air conditioned urban settings that won't capitalize on their natural gifts.

You know what has inteligence, a social structure, manipulating limbs, and a K strategy? Monkeys.

You know what else has all of those things? Elephants.

You know what two animals are (basically) completely different from eachother? Monkeys and elephants.

>A human can take injuries that other animals would die of shock if they received
Why and how has this meme spread so quickly among HFY fans?

We simply don't have the data. As far as we can be sure, intelligent life has evolved once on this planet. We cannot look at any other intelligent life forms because we haven't found any. So we don't know if that is a Universal or parochial trait.

>K-strategy
Stop propagating outdated concepts.

You can lose an arm and still function. Not a lot of animals can do that in the wild, especially not 4 legged kind.

Horses I guess?

>not the best runner

but humans are hands down the best at endurance running. We can outrun horses, user. Horses. We're not the FASTEST but in Endurance Humans are at the top of the pile.

An elephant isn't going to be building a spaceship and launching it into space. Not just because of lack of intelligence, but because it is physically incapable of building a rocket and also physically incapable of launching its huge mass into space.

I only listed examples.

Weight is another issue. Planet size and atmosphere is another. Reliance on water (or potentially chlorine as a replacement, but this is only theoretical).

There are nearly infinite variables for possible species. But only an incredibly finite number of those options produce a species capable surviving long enough to invent and then build something to bring them into space. Even fewer possible options who can actually implement those ideas.

There is other intelligence life on Earth. We have tests for sapience that other animals have passed. They just haven't built cities or spaceships for one reason or another.

We have the data to make reasonable guesses.

But the vast majority of people DO die due to shock from losing a limb if they don't receive immediate medical attention.

The thing that allows humans to survive extraordinary injuries is the fact that they have access to modern medicine, not any intrinsic "betterness" to their systems that allows them to run on a broken bone or work their way up a spear shaft after the tip's been jammed in their shoulder.

We can outrun them over short distances, and on uneven terrain. But over long distances, horses will win if it's a single day, lose if it's a week, and it's the same horse.

Citation needed.

Stop mixing up sentience and sapience. Sentience is a dime a dozen while we are the only sapients on the planet.

There's a local business that's always advertising on the radio where I live called Quark Auto, and I'm like, nigga, I'm not buying used cars or car parts from a ferangi.

Preach, brotha

I suppose 'lose' was A bad term, broken or lost function would make more sense. Dogs / horses and most prey animals are a free meal if they break something, a human can limp, crawl or run his way back to safety or society after a break. There is no guarantee of a kill if you bleed a human to follow later. Were ridiculously good at surviving things that outright remove other animals from the game.

>Stop mixing up sentience and sapience.

I'm not. I'm talking sapience. I know the difference.

Sapience is generally defined as awareness of self, and the mirror test is the primary test for this.

The asian elephant, chimpanzee, bonobo, bornean orangutan, bottlenose dolphin, killer whale, and eurasian magpie have all passed this test.

Of course, the mirror test is under debate by some. There are other methods to test for consciousness. Look up 'animal consciousness' if you want. Some species of corvid, for example, are more intelligent than any ape.

The mirror test is nowhere near an indicator for sapience.

So what, exactly, allows humans to avoid bleeding to death when given a massive bleeding wound that most other animals lack? Because I'd say that all the dolphins and manatees I see with inches-deep gashes torn into their backs and neck have survived stuff that would kill humans either instantly or within the day.

You mean realism?

You mean, like, "We need to radically reinvent ourselves or we're going to destroy ourselves and go nowhere?" That's realism.

But, yes, that is what I preach as a liberal, and it is the opposite of HFY.

Corvids, then don't really have a K-strategy for their young, which seems to belie your earlier point, assuming that you are

Many scientists disagree with you, bruv.

Protip: climate models that assume CO2 causes significant warming have made no accurate predictions of note. Your entire world view is a lie.

Fucking nice user.
This fels like a quote.
Unless it is, then I feel stupid.

This.

But we can still dream. I think a lot of the horror we subject ourselves too is just self-fulfilling, we accept that war is inevitable so we make it happen. Maybe we'll make contact and find that the space-opera-peaceful-confederation is already out there and that our species is actually freakishly hostile and pessimistic for such an advanced intelligence. What if we're just assuming war is inevitable because we're assuming everyone else acts like humans?

Most birds are K-strategists, yes. They have a few eggs once a year and care for the hatchlings until they're ready to live on their own. Not as strongly K-selected as humans, but they're still a far cry from, like, flies or sea turtles.

I mean, they can't build rockets so I don't expect to see any bird-aliens, but there you go.

>pro-tip I can make up anything on the internet

ok brah, lemme know how much Exxon is giving you these days.

What evidence do you have to disprove most scientists' climate models?

I'm going to head off this argument right here and point out that he was talking about the opposite end of the wanky woo-woo shit sandwich while you're talking about the opposite of having a woo-woo shit sandwich at all.

I read it in his fucking voice. Good job, user.

>under debate by some
>many scientists
You couldn't be fuller of shit if it were dripping out of your ears. Self-awareness is not sapience or intelligence.

The burden of proof is on them. Until their models show accurate temperature predictions for a given set of inputs it's just LARPing. A decade ago people were claiming NYC would be underwater and Kilimanjaro ice free by now.

Get your climate shitposting out of my HFY shitposting.

The evidence is overwhelming and you are a tool. Go educate yourself.

Frankly, the evidence doesn't NEED to be overwhelming, it is a fact that the earth's climate is fragile, and it is a fact that we are significantly altering the chemistry of the atmosphere, and the bottom line is that *our oil economy isn't necessary*. It exists because oil and car companies chose to create a society that would consume oil. While you're brushing up on the geological timetable (and the numerous sudden climate changes which lead to mass extinction events), you should also read up on the history of American oil, and on all the ways that the automobile and oil industries has manipulated U.S. laws and infrastructure to the detriment of the average citizen.

You stupid authoritarian twit.

I think DS9, being the first Trek series to take place entirely without Roddenberry's input, presents an interesting divide between it and the series that came before, which in many ways led to it being as divisive as it is. OG and TNG are about exploration, idealism, the future, what humanity could be.

DS9 is about real politic, home, pragmatism, and what humanity IS.

If it had just had a more memorable cast I think it would be right up there, it's still my favorite though and in my opinion the last GOOD Star Trek we got. Even if it did blow it's "godlike space entities" load in the first fucking episode.

Don't take the bait, retard. If the first thing someone says to dispute a climate study is "the burden of proof is on them and I don't think their data is accurate", they're not interested in having their mind changed and there's no data you can show them that they'll accept.

Yes it is, what the fuck are you talking about.

It's not the ONLY thing that can be defined as sapience or intelligence, there are higher and lower and different places where someone could place the bar, if they were ranking it as a binary thing.

But, uh, yea, self-recognition is definitely a sapient/intelligent quality, some species have it and some don't, its a meaningful and interesting measure of intelligence.

Pigs still aren't self aware though right?

This actually comes nicely together with this user
Humans know they come from savagery, and spend every day trying to distance themselves from it because they know how far they have to fall.

Not only does this afford us creature comforts, but it makes us better beings. There is always the spark of good that ignites the warm fires of a caring civilization. But beyond the firelight lurks a dark beast, circling, waiting for the fire to go out.

I will swat at conservatives if and when I feel like it, thank you very much.

Personally, I like to enter a thread and see that I wasn't fast enough, they've already gotten told. I think the internet is learning to call out sophistry faster and more reliably, being a bullshitter is getting harder and harder.

Second, read it in his fucking voice

Non-human species exist which pass a (one (1)) test for a (one (1)) quality of intelligent life != non-human intelligent life exists on Earth.

>This fels like a quote
It's heavily inspired by the ending of Horrible History: Savage Stone-Age, by Terry Deary.

I can't tell if you're reverse double baiting because you sound smug as shit

And the internet is making being a bullshitter easier and easier because you can just shout out, ignore, or find fake information to undermine your opponent

Literally fuck off back to /pol/ if you're going to make an active habit of replying to bait. It doesn't matter if you're right because it's fucking bait.

this this this this this

>the data is overwhelming
But it's not.
nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2973.html
>In the early twenty-first century, satellite-derived tropospheric warming trends were generally smaller than trends estimated from a large multi-model ensemble.

The models haven't predicted shit this century.

Tolkien briefly talked about his 4th age and what things were like for Aragorn's son; a new age of glory and splendor, with evil vanquished, but that just means men start turning to evil practices (as they did in Numenor).

He didn't really follow up on the idea, possibly because he had told it before, but I hear a lot of truth in it.

We're at our best when our circumstances are worst. And then when things are best we sort of make our own demons, like, we aren't even designed for peace and plenty, we don't know how to handle it.

A reality thread.

This.

"Intelligent" is a very broad word and it sounds like you're struggling with that. It can be accurately used to mean a lot of different things. "There are other intelligent species on Earth" is a perfectly reasonable statement; "there are no other intelligent species on Earth" is also a reasonable statement.

It's more that human instinct to survive, hoarde, consume, and propogate is ALWAYS on, whereas our cooperation instincts tend to click on when things are bad.

As a result, we cooperate more when the chips are down, and compete more when we have plenty because we don't need to cooperate to ensure our survival.

Remember cooperation itself is a survival mechanism, as is empathy. We developed these traits because they're good and advantageous for us as a species. The Law of Reciprocation, as it were.

You know full well what everyone else means when we say "intelligent" in this discussion. Stop pretending you don't.

The guy at the top of the chain he's replying to was very clear that he was talking about species intelligent enough to develop cities or spaceships which haven't done so "for one reason or another." That's patently wrong, and your post is semantic in nature and irrelevant to that claim.

I have never and will never participate in that aspect of Veeky Forums culture and my life is a lot easier because it. If I feel like responding I will respond. I don't care if I'm being trolled, you're silly if that matters to you, just go do your thing and talk about what you want to talk about.

Veeky Forums isn't /b/, its a board with a topic, but you've already posted off-topic more than he and I did, and climate change is at least a TANGENT to Humanity Fuck Yea/Fault of Humanity, I'm not the one trying to police other users.

>climate change is at least a TANGENT to Humanity Fuck Yea/Fault of Humanity
It's fucking not. Take it to /pol/; take it to sci/; just stop replying to fucking bait posts.

...

Completely unrelated to your pseudo-intellectual political crap, but do you read what you say before you post? Like can you hear how much of a turbo-douche you are or does the constant buzzing of your vibrator block out all higher order processing?

Holy shit, it almost sounds like Planet Earth is an extremely complex system and is hard to predict. Clearly this means we should fuck it up as hard as possible just so a few evil fucks that most of us will never meet can make a few more dollars.

Republican Reasoning 101: Look through your opponents' entire body of evidence, find weakest piece of evidence, talk about this exclusively, offer no opposing evidence.

Nananananananana
That's all I have left to say to you.

So a good way to combat this is by artificially introducing conflict when times are plenty and peaceful.

Gladiator games, staged volunteer driven wars for glory and money
Searching for a new threat

Kira lookin' good. White streak was a nice touch.