I begin what? Pointing out the obvious flaws?

If progress makes things worse for humanity why is it that population so drastically increases with technology?
600 years ago there were ~400m people
200 years ago there were ~1b people
100 years ago there were ~2b people
Now there are ~7b people

You're right, staying dumb and reproducing is clearly the only way to survive. Just look at the numbers above...

Edited 8/10/2015 03:03:17

Well Richard if you are in a position to insult "my school system" then you would know that populations grow exponentially while our ability to feed ourselves is more linear. More people does not imply better life.

Who has a better life, one of the quadrillion-ish ants or 100 million-ish dogs?

@Genghis We are either alone in the universe and going to die or not alone in the universe and going to spread, but probably not conquer the universe :P

Edited 8/10/2015 03:07:01

You go ahead and remove governments. See how much better your life becomes without electricity, clean water or easy access to safe food.

The problem is not food. It's distribution.

Also, Richard has the right idea (but he's a little harsh about it). Plague causes the most deaths, not war or society. And because of society, we can work to cure plagues.

You go ahead and keep governments. Have fun in World War 3.

Also those things do not need to be provided by governments. Do you know how traditional economy works? A company gives you electricity, clean water and easy access to safe food in exchange for safety or something.

@Genghis You are correct, but society is also allowing plague to spread by living in dense populations I guess. The whole point of the thread was the original question: Is Intelligence a dead end?

Edited 8/10/2015 03:14:35

Traditional economies rely on money. Said money is provided through a central government of some sort. No government, no money and thus no resources. Only what you can generate yourself and then trade/barter for which would be very little. Far less than what you have access to with the current arrangement.

Traditional economies rely on money

Ok

Richard instead of pointing out flaws out of other peoples arguments (Which you are god at doing that)

Why don't you come up a solution?

It's easy to judge

Edited 8/10/2015 03:22:03

The more people exposed to a plague, the more people who will now have children better resistant of that plague.

Money is the way to go. It's ludicrous to think that your grains are worth my sword i just made under a barter system. And without government whose to stop that armed person from killing you and keeping their grains?

And without government whose to stop that armed person from killing you and keeping their grains?

Are you serious? An armed person doesn't rob/attack another armed person.

Edited 8/10/2015 03:27:39

Okay. You'd rather have people scavenge in the woods for basic necessities, or we could all have a Democracy, share our resources and have a system of trading with set prices and then some government provided things. Tough choice.

In regards to your ridicule of a man killing another armed man -

Thomas Hobbes - "People are inherently selfish and" (paraphrase here) murderers/thieves. Only with a sovereign can we prevent such activity or work to enforce its prevention.

Humanity will bring about its own destruction before we can ever hope to meeting intelligent life, due to our advancements in technology through the Mother of Invention, War.

I don't really buy into the whole WW3 scenario. If humanity is going to go out, it won't be through war. Nobody will ever use nukes due to MAD, and we aren't THAT stupid as to shoot ourselves into extinction.

In my opinion the three real threats to human survival are: (In no particular order)
1. Climate Change: It works subtly enough for many to not notice what's happening, unlike a war scenario where we'd quickly see the damage being caused and stop.

2. Asteroid Impact: Our technological development regarding space is absolutely pathetic compared to other fields. If an Asteroid was going to smack into us we probably wouldn't have that many good ways to protect ourselves. This problem is compacted by many people thinking that investing in space research is somehow a waste of time when in reality it could be key to our future survival.

3. Sentient AI: We're getting closer to reaching this all the time. We continue to put more and more control in the hands of machines, and while that's good in some areas in presents a huge problem if we continue onward like this. If robots do everything than humanity has absolutely zero control. We need to make machines to make man's job easier, not replace the man all together. (I.E: Continue advancing plane technology, but keep the need for a human pilot)

Edited 8/10/2015 16:04:56

Richard instead of pointing out flaws out of other peoples arguments (Which you are god at doing that)

Why don't you come up a solution?

Glad to see you consider me to be a deity but I'd say that's a bit exaggerated.
As for coming up with a solution, why do so when I don't agree with the initial problem statement? Rather pointless to come up with a solution for a non-existent problem...

The most notable dead end of intellegence is:

Electricity -> Fossil Fuels -> Climate Change

It isn`t even certain that fossil fuels or humans cause climate change. So there is a small chance that we are able to change the climate (using fossil fuels) in such a way that we go extinct

toilet ---> flush

First off, I read all of the Sharpe books and is one of my top 10 favorite book series.

This is how I see the world.

hunger->tools->more food->more people->hunger->farming->more people->towns->cities->government->expansion->more land-> more food-> hunger->mass production->new tools->more stuff->richer people-> healthier people->more people->more industry->monopolies->power over food-> expensive food->less food->poor people-> unhealthy people->hunger->desperate people-> expensive food-> unhealthy poor people->exploitation->euphemisms for exploitation->cynicism->crazy ideas->racism->oppressed people->unhappy people-> the .1%

It sounds a little communist, but that's the way I see it

I second Richard Sharpe, that there are many mistakes made within the hypothesis of the thread.

first of all, I can hardly find a connection between your headline and the following explaination. what has intelligence in common with those causalities? would you mind to elaborate on that?
I have the impression, that there are two topics oddly mixed up with eachother.
Intelligence might be a dead end for the personal evolution. It might get in conflict with the instinct, which may cause destructive behaviour.

Agriculture -> Jobs -> Poverty

Logic -> Computers -> AI -> Enslavement of Humanity

Electricity -> Fossil Fuels -> Climate Change

how do jobs cause poverty?
I strongly doubt that enslavement of humanity will be caused by AI. even though hollywood propagades a different view, for obvious reasons.
Electricity can also be provided by solar energy etc. and the effect of CO2 on the climate is still controversial.

Climate Change: It works subtly enough for many to not notice what's happening, unlike a war scenario where we'd quickly see the damage being caused and stop.

*subtly [..] to not notice what's happening* - cause there is barely happening anything at all. climate change takes at least more than centuries. so no worries. Furthermore we still live in a glacial.
anyways, I doubt that climate change will lead to the extinction of humanity. maybe to the reduction of population in bangladesh.

War -> Society. Without war, there is no society because society is built on the principles of war. Without society, there cannot be war.

even if without society, there cannot be war, why should society be built on the principles of war? I would rather say it is built on the principles of economics.

At least, the evolution of population numbers shows that humanity isnt going to extinct very soon ...

Jobs -> Poverty because all jobs are fundamentally not equal, a fundamental principle of capitalism. If all jobs were equal (Communism), poverty does not exist. But communism brings about its own problems, like lack of resources.