[tauwauwau]

Its not special even in earth let alone in universe. You are measuring humans by our achievements and not by what we actually are. We are not fittest in our environment, we are not even 10th fastest, we cant fly, we cant breathe underwater, forget about bacteria we don't have protection against even bugs and mosquitoes. We are not the most efficient societies, ants and bees would beat us there. Statistically we we are selfish and will sacrifice all for one which is against the basic tenants of evolution and survival of a species. When given a chance at a prosperous life we choose to become lazy, obese and degrade our most prominent feature, that is our brain and mind. Elephants and chimpanzees have better memory, octopi have 8-9 light cones in eyes. We are not special or superior, we just won a lottery of mutation giving us efficient brain. Any species on Earth can replace us given same lottery.

[arwineap]

> We are not special or superior, we just won a lottery of mutation giving us efficient brain.

Isn't this exactly what makes us special?

That, opposable thumbs, magic wireless communication, and space travel

[ang_cire]

Those are your own standards of achievement you are applying.

Other species may look at us and think we're wasting our lives and potential making a bunch of people rich at our collective expense, and ruining the environment as we do it.

We are only "special" in the sense of "different" (and we may not be that on any universal scale), not necessarily in the sense of "better", and very possibly we're not better, and may very well Great Filter ourselves out of existence in short order.

Other animals aren't so "special" as to have a Doomsday Clock sitting at 11:58:45.

[lukan]

"Its not special even in earth let alone in universe. "

What alien species you have in mind, that is more capable/consciouss about the universe and how to shape it?

"Any species on Earth can replace us given same lottery."

But they did not. We "won" so we are special. We don't just build tools, we build tools that build tools, that build tools, ..

My issue with debasing humanity is, it gives argument to devalueing human life to artificial life. Meaning people with feelings and emotions might suffer, in favour of GPU's with electricity.

On the other hand a good point to reevaluate how we treat other sentient life.

[tauwauwau]

"What alien species you have in mind, that is more capable/consciouss about the universe and how to shape it?"

Claim was that we are special in the "universe", it's not that I'm aware of alien life, it's that poster is pretending to know that we are alone.

"But they did not. We "won" so we are special."

Congratulations, if winning a lottery makes you better, I guess top 1% of 1% are the best we have to offer.

"it gives argument to devalueing human life to artificial life"

We have proven time and time again that we are not better than other animals and statistically, we are very similar to animals if not worse. I wasn't even talking about artificial life, which is sure to be superior as it's being created with accelerated evolution processes, just like bacterial generational evolution, it will learn to do everything it's environment rewards it for.

"Meaning people with feelings and emotions might suffer, in favour of GPU's with electricity"

I agree with you and I am in the camp that wants it to be done better. But alas, recent events have unveiled the ugly truth of the society, societies follow the whims of the ones who won the lottery, and everyone else is just mute observer. We could on any day collectively decide as consumers to not use Amazon, Netflix, ChatGPT to save our collective selves, but we won't because we are not "one for all species".

I don't know what face we have to call ourselves better organism given our history. Sure we can point to few people who are better, but on average we are better?

[lukan]

"We could on any day collectively decide as consumers to not use Amazon, Netflix, ChatGPT to save our collective selves"

I don't use betflix nor amazon, but ChatGPT(or rather Claude) is useful to me. Makes me more productive and also knowledgable. Things that would have taken me quite long (so long that I would not have done it) are now easy, like some shell script to do a specific thing. I can verify what it does quickly and .. see that it works. In other words, you won't be able to convince people to give up on AI if people find it useful. I don't enjoy troubleshooting in outdated documentation. I enjoy getting things done. And if I get things done, my fate of survival gets higher.