1. What does 'survival of the fittest' mean? 2. How has this definition changed over the ages? What does it involve now? 3. What implications does this notion have?
1) I believe it means that the strongest and most resourseful organism will live. 2) Some people change it to make it sound like that killing people for no reason is survival of the fittest. 3) This shows that some people in the world are VERY ignorant.
1. It means that the strongest and fittest of an organism (got that word from XCoheedX) will survive, and the weakest will die off.
2. The definition has not changed, but I do not really see it in effect today, since human beings have intelligent minds, and we try to keep all types of species from becoming extinct.
3. Only especially useful if you believe in evolution. I do not, so I do not see much use for it.
Survival of the Fittest means that over time the Fittest shall reign supreme and allmighty within its natural habitat over competition for food and resource becomes a neccesity. We find ourselfs doing that with people believed inferior today. After all, A black man makes less. So, Survival of the Fittest is a term that shouldn't be used by humans, were smarter than that, but some of us can't get past idiocracy to find that out. I think that nowadays all it means is that if you've got the power use it, waste it, abuse it, and have a fun time. Only an ignorant idiot would do this but alot of people are like this now Therefor, Survival of The Fittest is now primarily "hit a human your in jail, hit an animal you get it all". Which is why there are so many animal killings in the world for stored food. Also, some try to keep species becoming extinct, the other half works against that. the other half is winning, I'll add.
Finally, this notion only shows that if the words still exist were just as stupid as we were 9000 years ago. [I'm not even sure if we existed back then, but whatever]. Since if we can't realize thers a better term to life then surviving out of being fit then were screwed. Some people aren't primarily born with big arms.
I remember Megamickel said something about a fat guy getting laid.
Sorry to say it, but Survival of the Fittest in community is something I'm okay with, as long as the community is more than simple minded fools. xP
So it comes down to it as, SoTF was meant for animals, they don't see how to live. Its our job to guide ourselfs. If we want to live like animals, were going to have a HARD time doing it.
Yeah guys, you don't have to stick with the list either. It wouldn't work here.
Armed- the 'survival of the fittest' you prefer not to use is known as social Darwinism. It has, as Coheed points out, been often used as a rationale to tyranny.
I'm neutral on this because I'm of the opinion that this principle both works and changes in ways that most people are not aware of, because most people are not critically-minded of human behavior in itself.
That's right, I'm saying that most people don't see "how to live" either, for all our pretending that we actually do. The conditions that give rise to our behaviors still stem from the very same things as "animals in the wild". The difference, of course, is that they change, and the balance and conditions for what "fittest" actually means is shifting.
I also remember Mega said something about a fat guy getting laid. Even if this were true at some point, (it's not entirely), things change such that it's no longer true, and furthermore, we become aware that it wasn't that true in the first place.
It all started with Charles Darwin. He composed the Idea of Survival of the fittest and it led on to several other things.
Survival of the fittest is a much more extreme way that the Chinese live. They're ideal world is mostly fit and healthy people. Which I am not saying is bad it's just how much Chinese/Asians live.
One of the scarier incidents that came from survival of the fittest, was the Columbine Shootings. The Columbine Shooting was a horrible incident in US History. Two boys planned an elaborate scheme that was supposed to kill at least 400 Students at Columbine High School. They had a hit list and they killed basically anyone they didn't like.
The two boys were fervent supporters of the survival of the fittest ideology. They believed they were superior to everyone in their school so they decided to kill everyone.
They filled duffel bags with Pipe Bombs and planted them in the cafeteria. Thankfully they just ignited instead of exploding because if they did go off shrapnel would of went everywhere killing several and wounding hundreds.
Survival of the fittest dates back to ancient times, Sparta was an elite military colony. They killed any baby they decided was defective and trained their men to fight and nothing else. They were the elite fighting force of Greece and Saved the world from Persian Domination. (Most people know this from the movie 300 but meh, figured I'd mention this.)
So there are some good things from survival of the fittest along with the bad.
I'm digressing from my main point though.
Basically what I am saying is that Survival of the fittest was something created by Charles Darwin to display how things go on in nature. Animals follow the spartan way too. Baby Antelope will be abandoned if the child does not learn how to stand within thirty minutes to an hour.
Survival of the fittest isn't an evil or a good thing it's a term coined by Charles Darwin that has caused an imprint on the world and how we view things. The definition of it varies on how you perceive it, but jsut don't take it to seriously.
Ah, your last sentence, brigadier, I believe you meant don't reify the concept.
What I mean by that is that as you point out, "Survival of the fittest" is a concept. A method of describing a phenomenon. To reify something is to turn this into a concrete thing, in this case something that is an entity in itself, that does and means real things, beyond the scope of being a description.
Which is a very important thing to remember, so I'm glad you mentioned it.
N.B. reify comes from the Latin res, rei- "object".
Yes that is what I meant strop. I don't know very many fancy words though. I'll try to use reify when I can.
I'm glad you understood the purpose of my post as well. Most people see it as an object as you said (thus leading to incidents such as columbine as I mentioned before.) when it isn't.
Survival of the fittest no longer applies to humans as it should. It was meant to describe the evolution of animals over many generations. Thousands of yeas ago when man was still primative, it applied then. The ones that thought of ways to use thier eviroment around them lasted longer and produced the most offspring. Same with scars. Scars form because the wound heals so fast, there is not enough time for the cells to properly align themselves, thus leaving a scar. This was important back in the day, because the quicker a wound healed there was a smaller chance of getting a deadly infection.
These days, when a man thinks of something valuable that can aid the entire race he is often not the most amorous one around. Thus, his genes and traits are not passed on as much as they should. It seems that the least viable people have the most offspring. There are next to no new helpful genetic mutations that affect the lives of people these days. There is simply no need, for man can make or change almost anything to help himself. Thus, humans are at a gentic standstill. Nay, I say humans are slowly de-evolving into lesser beings.
Oh, and everything about actual survival of the fittest and such still applies to animals. Because they are pretty darn awesome.
Devoidless, I wouldn't say we're at an evolution stand still or that were devolving but instead that we are evolving at such a slow rate it is not noticeable.
In millions of years we will probably lose our little toe, because it is useless.
We are evolving just not at a rate we notice. Evolution doesn't happen overnight, It takes millions of years to evolve.
But look at the curret trends of people who are having the most children. A good part of those people do not have very desirable traits and the such. All the people that are the 'fittest' ted to have only a couple kids, or none at all. So instead of the prime choices being spread around, more and more of the genetic underdogs are prevalent.
I don't think survival of the fittest has to do with physical traits in humans anymore.
In humans, the smartest will survive longer than the most physically adapt.
And I don't think child birthing would have to do with survival of the fittest either. Just because children may not look like pop stars doesn't mean we are devolving.
I go with Devoidless, also, the smartest will reign supreme, thats why it doesn't apply. If I'm smarter than you, I'm probably richer if I went the right way in life, If I'm richer I can get to assasinate you. These Assasins are physically fit and were trained to kill quiet since the day they could. I probably couldn't, I'll admit I'm not the worlds next Mr. Universe. Therefor, everything goes in a pattern of dependence, whilst in nature everything is survival and competition. Thats why deers are abandoned if they can't stand, thats why species have to fight, thats why we don't need to. It seems, though, our social-ness is killing us off faster than still being primary apes [if we ever were] would have.
So, I think we are devolving, we have power in our hands and were snatching it right out of our hands and throwing it out. I hope some of us aren't. xP
I don't think 'devolving' is a good word for it. I would personally say that we don't need the SOTF ideal in our civilation becuase we have the capicity to help eac other. Back to devoliving, I think we're just being cariless with the power that was given us. If you want to say devolution fine I think its just foolishness.
