When it comes to intelligence humans are special, its silly to say we aren't.
By definition been the single most intelligent species on the planet makes us special.
We get excited when other species display intelligence at a level we'd expect to see in a toddler because its fascinating to us, hell the fact that we systematically study other species itself puts us in another category.
Think about how dumb the average human is and then realize half of them are dumber than that.
Humans have become the dominant species for two reasons:
1. Our ability to reason
2. Our technological superiority
Many animals can rival or exceed the intelligence of the average human, but due to the fact that they're seen as "just animals" and that they can't communicate with us in a matter we understand (nor care about doing it) makes humans think they are superior in every way.
Then, whenever scientific progression proves that animals aren't as dumb as they look, humans have to come up with new arguments to separate themselves from other species.
It's the typical arrogant and limited view of the common homo sapiens.
Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer
> Many animals can rival or exceed the intelligence of the average human.
That is an absurd assertion, the 'average' human being can use language at a level far beyond what any other species that demonstrates language can, complex tools, create even more complex tools from those already complex tools, write down the things they have learnt and gain knowledge from the things other humans have learnt and written down, create sophisticated predictive models of the world and test them refining the models as they go.
Do animals have intelligence, absolutely, is it in the same realm as the average human, not even close.
The difference in vast, there were other species with intelligence comparable to our own, they went extinct (and it's arguable that we are the reason why) I refer of course to the other species in the Genus Homo, the neanderthal's and others.
We had competition from other species and we eliminated it not intentionally we just out-competed them (and interbred with them but since we where more numerous the end result was the same though their genes are still present).
What you are describing is called education and technological superiority. Take one of those away and see what happens.
And whether the extinction of neanderthals and other species close to ours is due to intelligence or other influences can't be reliably proven. It's just the way nature evolved and it could have gone any other way as well.
Tempting, but no; we've tried raising primates like human children, and teaching them sign language. Childrearing went fine until age... 3 or 5, I forget, and then they hit a wall and stopped getting smarter. ASL went alright but still falls short of human levels.
Trying to teach them human inventions that are developed by and for humans and then calling them inferior when they don't succeed in using them to the fullest extent is pretty short-sighted. You can't teach every human every invention we ever made either. Some people suck at math, others excel at it. Are the people that suck at it now intellectually inferior to those that excel at math?
I also wrote taking it away, implying humans, not giving it to animals. Educate a dolphin all you want, I don't think you're going to get very far.
Education is a function of intelligence otherwise there would be nothing to educate people on.
Technological superiority is a function of intelligence as well or to put it the other way - systematic education and systematic technological superiority are a result of the exact intelligence superiority you claim we don't have.
We took ourselves out of the food chain, You have to be astronomically unlucky or really try at getting eaten anymore.
I'm actually going to stop answering you now because I see no way we can reach any kind of satisfactory conclusion given that you throw out statements like "animals are smarter than the average human" and that education and technological superiority aren't dependent on intelligence.
The average person is consuming, not inventing. Human superiority is based on collective intelligence, inventions made by a few exceptional people, e.g. the top 2%. The other 98% are just riding along, not adding anything useful. Take a look at the state of the earth and tell me that's how a supposedly intelligent species acts. The one fighting wars against itself to impose domination, the one justifying most cruel acts with the will of some higher power that is just another invention of mankind's mind. I could go on and on.
It's human nature to think they are superior to anyone and anything.
It used to be that the difference between humans and animals was one is self-aware, the other is not. Then science has proven that to be untrue and humans craved for other reasons to distinct themselves from their animal origin, which one by one are disproved as well.
Claiming something that hasn't been proven beyond a doubt to be true doesn't make it true. It's a thesis that could work out either way. There are plenty of humans that think with a firm believe that earth is the only planet in the universe with life on it. Then there are scientists that think living organisms need water to exist, despite there being organisms on this very planet for which that does not hold true. Water is required for life the way we know it to develop. Outright dismissing it as the only option is a sign of ignorance, not intelligence. The first counter-example would be Artificial General Intelligence, which is estimated to arrive within the next three decades.
Dismissing the possibility of something outright because it doesn't fit into ones thesis or world-view is a sign of ignorance, not intelligence.
It is impossible to transmit speech electrically. The 'telephone' is as mythical as the unicorn.
Professor Johann Christian Poggendorrf, Germany physicist and chemist, 1860
"Many animals can rival or exceed the intelligence of the average human"
Huh?
The only animal on Earth known to be capable of exceeding the intelligence of the average human is the above-average human. Octopuses, dolphins, chimps, crows, and elephants are all extremely intelligent, but let's not get carried away.
I suggest you read the book 'Sapiens' by Yuval Noah Harari - humans are quite unique not only among animals but among our closest relatives (Neanderthals, Denisovans, and who knows how many other close relatives we likely wiped out). The difference is not necessarily a glorious one but a concrete and obvious. The difference is our capacity to hold unreal things as concrete which allows us to coordinate our life through thousands and millions of individuals ( and not just in small troops where everyone knows everyone else).
Eagleson's Law:
Any code of your own that you haven't looked at for six or more months, might as well have been written by someone else. (Eagleson is an optimist, the real number is more like three weeks.)
Writing documentation isn't so much a "how" problem, but a "why" problem. Most people writing code in their own time can't be bothered also writing documentation for it.
Writing code is fun (mostly). Writing documentation is not.
Wow, I don't agree with that "law" at all. A couple times in my career I've worked for 5+ years in a codebase that I started, and it's always easier to read my old code than to read someone else's. Like, waay easier (unless the other person's code is super duper clean).
Those two views aren't necessarily opposites. Your old code can be hard to read, and other people's code can simply be even more difficult to understand than that.
Their own ads of course fit the "standards" that they themselves designed.
Any other way and they'd only harm their own business model. This is a defensive move against full-scale ad-blockers, nothing more.
There are other ways to monetize without (intrusive) ads.
Produce quality content and people will be happy to support it. If your entire business model only revolves around ad-driven revenue and it doesn't work any other way, then perhaps that business model simply offers nothing of value.
> If you mean humans, we don't destroy our habitat.
Right, we only extinguish species after species living on this planet along with us. Mass genocide of hundreds of billions of living beings.
And why? Because there are only few humans that are comfortable with the idea that other species may be as important and capable as they are.
As important/capable, I don't agree on that. But I object removing nature/animals/habitat because of a lack of those. Not as important are capable does not mean we should act this way. Slippery slope fallacy: you might as well remove all non-important/capable humans.
Stop making more humans, we really don't need more humans on this planet, in my opinion more humans are making things worse, not better. And if you need more humans for your pension (or other financial/workforce/... requirements), your system is flawed, and it will break when the planet can no-longer support your exponential system. And then you have 2 problem: the planet and your pension.
Yes, but the number of species extinctions skyrocketed due to human behavior. Natural habitats are being chopped down, nature is being forcefully controlled and developed in certain ways and global problems like man-made climate change are threatening a vast amount of species on this planet.
Humans aren't the only species destroying other animals' habitats for their own goals, but they're the most destructive one by a great margin. To make matters worse, humans possess the means and should have the common intelligence to find a better way. But instead of working together and saving the planet with all living creatures on it, humans are too busy fighting wars in an attempt at imposing domination on others.
> What if most jobs are automated and people everywhere turn to violence to keep themselves occupied?
This will be a slow, step-by-step process where the media will be working against the general population.
Truckers are going to be among the first ones to be replaced with self-driving vehicles.
Quoted from The Second Intelligent Species: How Humans Will Become as Irrelevant as Cockroaches (Marshall Brain)
In addition, the mainstream media outlets will not cover the protests of truckers, or the force used against them, to any great extent. To the general, TV-watching public, any attempt at a trucker riot will be largely invisible, or will be marginalized as a nuisance. And any truck drivers who do appear in the media will tend to be selected to be the loudest, most extreme people possible. Therefore, when the general public looks at these extremists, teamsters will appear to be crazy. All truck drivers will be stereotyped with this “crazy” label, and the truckers will lose public support.
This is going to repeat itself until there are almost no human jobs left, if any. The rich will get richer and the poor will be stowed away, out of sight.
I see where you're coming from, but the current media situation says that any attempt to do this would be a terrible idea and backfire horribly on them.
I mean, we're already in a world where a large percentage do not trust anything the media is saying. Where 'CNN is fake news' is basically a meme and 'alternative' news publications have taken a large bite out of the older ones' markets.
If they try and paint the trucker actions as all negative or crazy, it could go about as well as painting Trump crazy did prior to the 2016 election. Or pleading for Britain to stay in the EU pre Brexit.
And something similar also led to GamerGate becoming such a catastrophe.
If the media try anything like this against the general population, they'll soon notice that:
1. Trust in them will decline even further
2. Alternative news sites and YouTube influencers will take full advantage of the situation and cover the other side extensively.
3. They'll turn social media sites into even more of a war zone than they already are.
So unless they want Breitbart (or the next Breitbart equivalent) to gain a few thousand times more traffic from people who feel like 'the media' is lying to them, I doubt they'll continue this sort of path.
I think you're wildly overestimating the intelligence and awareness of the general population.
The media is and has been doing this for decades. If they do it in a totally obvious and outright manner, then yeah, everyone's going to notice, but if they do it in a more subtle way and push their agenda over a longer timeframe, most people won't notice that, or they'll only notice it when it's too late.
It's not about brainwashing everyone. All you need is a critical mass and once you're there, you've basically won.
Most people lack critical thinking abilities and they're rather contend with having other people think for them. You don't notice this here on HN because the readers and commenters here are far smarter than the average person is.
Does that mean the average person has good critical thinking skills? No, not really. A lot of people's distrust comes as much down to feeling like their views/tribe are under personal attack rather than an actual analysis of how the media covers them.
But if they distrust mainstream media sources about stuff like Trump and his policies, then the likelyhood they'll trust them about how others in their own situation are 'crazy' could be even lower.
I mean, they're already used to seeing themselves painted as 'deplorables' here.
It's also likely people outside the larger outlets will write and heavily promote articles that counter any 'narrative' they detect in more mainstream sources.
End of the day, humans aren't anything special. They're just another part of nature.