should we have spent billions smashing protons together ?

[CapnG]

Given our primitive, violent race, what do you think we would do with it?

Probably nothing good but if we're talking practical applications, eliminating weightlessness on space craft would I think be an obvious first (assuming you could miniaturize the mechanism to a reasonable size).

 

[cmbezln]

i hate when people call our race primitive (even bietny)....you sound full of yourself when you call the race which YOU are a part of "primitive" as if you are above the rest of us.

for all we know, we ARE the most advanced civilization in the universe...nothing has been proven and you have absolutely no frame of reference except your own imagination

rabble rabble rabble

 

[mike]

i hate when people call our race primitive (even biedny)....you sound full of yourself when you call the race which YOU are a part of "primitive" as if you are above the rest of us.

for all we know, we ARE the most advanced civilization in the universe...nothing has been proven and you have absolutely no frame of reference except your own imagination

rabble rabble rabble

Thats the Spirit.

take any standard of primitive we have in our known reality, and this machine is NOT primitive, to my mind its the furthest from our human definition of primitive as you can get.

ive got nothing to say on 2012, but by golly i'll predict this machine will change the world and our knowledge base in our lifetimes in very significant ways.

one local media scientist is saying this thing might show us how to take the mass out of an aircraft carrier, put it into orbit then turn its mass back on...............

If, and i say If what he suggests is true then this machine could indeed be the next big step in our scientific grasp of the universe

 

[CapnG]

take any standard of primitive we have in our known reality, and this machine is NOT primitive, to my mind its the furthest from our human definition of primitive as you can get.

That's a matter of perspective. The number of human beings on earth that actually understand (I mean really understand) what this machine is and what it's supposed to do is a tiny fraction of a fraction of the total population. Based on that criterion alone, I find the judgement of humans to be primitive accurate.

 

[TClaeys]

i hate when people call our race primitive (even bietny

for all we know, we ARE the most advanced civilization in the universe...nothing has been proven and you have absolutely no frame of reference except your own imagination

rabble rabble rabble

Good God, if we are the most advanced civilization in the universe then I would be both amazed and sorely disappointed. There is nothing wrong with being primitive. It just means and accepts that we have lots to learn. What is so hard to understand about that???

We are nearly one lifetime away from not having modern medicine, an automobile, an airplane, computers, etc. And with machines like the LHC we can begin to hopefully accumulate more knowledge.

So, when our best source of energy is diggin up liquid goo and burning it don't you think we have something better ahead of us?? Wouldn't you guess that we have a bit more knowledge coming??

Saying we are primitive is like saying we are ignorant. It's often associated with negative feelings, but it really means that we just don't have the knowledge. There is nothing wrong with not knowing, unless you're stuck on the idea that we know everything. And we decidedly do not.

BTW the LHC has recently been turned off due to some mechanical problems. It will be at least 2 months before it is turned back on.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080920/tc_nm/science_cern_dc

 

[mike]

its all relative.........
there are small tribes of our species that can be classified as primitive

and one of the definitions is

- very simple in design: crudely simple in design or construction

so when you look at a papua new guinean tribe, and its "things", primitive most definatly fits.
and since they are part of the "we" then it could be said man is primitive, but there is nothing simple or crude about this tool.

primitive is how i describe the tools of these tribesmen, i cant say the same for this beastie, relatively speaking its at the other end of the spectrum for me.

an alien race thats been building this sort of tool for millenia might be able to call it primitive, but i cant, i havent seen anything more sophisticated

i sometimes wonder if the word primitive is used as a smokescreen to cover what we really mean to convey which is Ugly, Stupid and Destructive, and while these attributes can be ascribed to "primitives" they are not necessarily exclusive to it