#Humans Are Humans

[spyglassrealms]

What is the purpose of the human species?

Think about it: what are the two things that have defined our entire genus for two million years?

Learn everything and care for each other.

It's been twelve thousand years since the beginning of civilization on Earth. In that time, humankind has invented dogs, the wheel, economics, the steam engine, capitalism, and the nuclear bomb. We're as much of a mess as we've always been; probably even more so. It can be kind of hard to see us for what we really are these days. But whenever someone mentions Sputnik, or Vostok 1, or the Apollo program, or the ISS, you know what they say?

"We did that."

That's why space exploration is important. That's why it's important to me. Not just because it instills hope, but… because it's the root of us, all over again.

Cooperation and curiosity are the bedrock of space exploration. You just can't go out there without the intersection of both. And lucky for us, they're the same two traits that got us from flint to fission over the past two million years. Another sophont species of different ancestry would balk at the unbelievable array of challenges inherent in spaceflight and probably decide it's not worthwhile. We do it anyways, because two million years of wanderlust sing in the bones of every one of us from the day we're born to the day we die.

We have to KNOW, you see? We have to KNOW, we have to EXPERIENCE, and we have to do it TOGETHER! When we go, we are becoming ourselves again. We are wandering together. That's what we were made to do.

"Drink this water of the spring, and rest here a while. We have a long way yet to go, and I can't go without you."

[boopernatural]

what I love about the last of us pt.2 (and pt.1) is how in depth and interactive the set is

[a-small-writer-in-a-big-world]

Here to scream about humans always being humans and that we’ve always loved and cried and complained and created and learned. It doesn’t matter how long ago, someone lived and loved the same way we do, someone had friends and lovers and their favorite toys and their favorite books or songs. Humanity has always been a constant

[gwydionmisha]

Sometimes when other Olds are complaining about young people and their phones, I think about the Student Union at my first college in the days just before email happened to ordinary people.

It was a very small school and the student union was basically a very large basement, with an eatery, a mail room, and a bunch of seating areas. The mail room was central and four times a day they delivered mail. You might ask, "How was there enough mail to deliver four times a day, when the post office delivers once a day?" Most of it was junk. You got the real mail once a day and the rest was fliers and things for activities, messages from Profs or other students, that sort of think. Most of it went right into the conveniently placed recycling bins.

I admit, like everyone else, I'd turn up for the big distribution of outside mail as you had to catch package delivery when the window was open, and given the poor taste and nutritional value of the crap in the cafeteria, something edible from home was a Big Deal.

Four times a day though, the students would gather if they weren't in class in the seating areas closest to the mail boxes. Some benighted souls would hover, hover, right in front of their boxes, listening excitedly for the squeak of the sort cart and the rustle of the student workers on the other side, eyes fixed on the tiny box window.

These people knew perfectly well that the other three deliveries were 80-90% junk mail. They sat or stood, desperate as baby birds waiting for the worm anyway.

People haven't changed, they are just waiting for a ping instead of a squeak and rustle.

Human nature is human nature. I think a lot of people from before email and texts are forgetting that they too have run to the mailbox when they saw the USPS truck or mail person put stuff in, or dove for the letters lot hoping for something good, or hovered by a campus mail slot knowing odds were it was all or mostly trash. I try not to forget that, even though I stopped hovering after a week or so, even though if I check my email more than once a day it's a lot, even though I don't text. Who the fuck are we too judge? We've all done the analog version even if we aren't currently doing the digital and I feel like a lot of people who were email users but not frequent texters are pretending we all didn't refresh email like 8 times a day in the '90's.

[ramblingsofatransboy]

Your Parents Don't Own You

I'll say it again: Your Parents Don't Own You.

There's many people on this planet who wish to hold the rights to control others. For some reason, these people are allowed to have kids. They wish so badly to control something, they spawn some poor fleshy creature that, for the first 8 to 12 years of having it, hold no free will.

They dress these flesh sacks up in clothes they like and make them compete in hobbies they enjoy. And then these little fleshy sacks of energy experience something that made the Angels in the Bible jealous: Free Will.

And God forbid they use it. "Sorry, I don't want to wear that, I don't want to do this anymore." Words of the Devil. These flesh bags now resemble something human, and like hell these people will let that slide.

They put us on leashes, decorate them with pretty things and call it "parenting". We're trained like dogs: sit, stay, shake, lay. They take us to the groomers, train us daily.

But the thing about humans is we are not dogs. A shocking fact, I know. But these people so desperately want us to be, because they need control, they need power.

You can buy dogs, you can own them. But last time I checked, birth is not the purchase of a child. And owning a human? Well, we all know what that's called.

You do not owe your parents for making you.

You do not owe your parents for raising you.

And you do not serve your parents, because they do not own you.

[pillofmoonlight]

I have been told a gazillion times by a gazillion people on the internet and in real life, to be careful with people, to use my brain with people. How do I explain that I CANNOT??? And above all I DO NOT wish to use my brain to understand people because I want to understand them by my heart. I want to read into their souls and pour into them. Yes it will empty me, eventually and it often does but I'll refill my cup. My brain is meant for literature, complex machines, science, mathematics. If I have to use my brain to know people, I'd rather know none.

[cynicalclassicist]

We are all human.

David Shrigley

[texaschainsawmascara]

links to the donations mentioned

https://unrwa.org/

https://www.instagram.com/gazamutualaid

https://campusbailfunds.com

[valtsv]

been thinking about fantasy/scifi rule systems and free will

[yeepof]

I understand that tall men are our POV characters, but surely being like a foot taller than everyone around them would have some occasional consequences

[spyglassrealms]

Two million years ago in Dmanisi, Georgia, there was a small group of early Homo erectus. One member of this group was an old man with just a single tooth left. It's not easy to feed oneself with one tooth, and yet, based on the fact that his jaw healed over the missing teeth, he lived for many years with that one tooth... because someone else was helping him eat. Someone cared for him. Maybe someone even loved him. 80000 generations ago.

These hominids did not have huts. They did not have clothing. They did not have fire. They (probably) did not have language. They barely had stone tools. They lived in an environment that was cold and unfamiliar and hostile. These people were not even humans yet. And all the same, they cared for their elderly companion for years.

Because that is what we do. That's what we evolved to do. Caring for each other is the most fundamental, universal trait of humankind.

It's literally in our bones.

You ever think about how unified humanity is by just everyday experiences? Tudor peasants had hangnails, nobles in the Qin dynasty had favorite foods, workers in the 1700s liked seeing flowers growing in pavement cracks, a cook in medieval Iran teared up cutting onions, a mom in 1300 told her son not to get grass stains on his clothes, some girl in the past loved staying up late to see the sun rise.

[inthereellife]

YALL! Our favorite Tumblr runner DID IT! He won gold!

If yall need a reminder Noah Lyles is this wonderful nerd

Noah Lyles won GOLD!

Noah Lyles is the Fastest Man!!!

[emerald-dragonflame]

I had a vision

[dreamdropsystem]

ya'll who's up for group meowing

[worldweaverofmediocrity]

I once stumbled across a post where a guy had an egg carton but couldn’t find the chicken so he asked “where mother”

Watching my toddler figure out how to language is fascinating. Yesterday we were stumped when he kept insisting there was a “Lego winner” behind his bookshelf - it turned out to be a little Lego trophy cup. Not knowing the word for “trophy”, he’d extrapolated a word for “thing you can win”. And then, just now, he held up his empty milk container and said, “Mummy? It’s not rubbish. It’s allowed to be a bottle.” - meaning, effectively, “I want this. Don’t throw it away.” But to an adult ear, there’s something quite lovely about “it’s allowed to be a bottle,” as if we’re acknowledging that the object is entitled to keep its title even in the absence of the original function.