I say, what worth is any of this "abstraction," "culture" "desire," "language" or "empathy" in the face of the eternal salvation and omnipotence of He, the LORD. Have we fallen so far as to believe that it is we, humans, who have built the world in front of us rather than we by the grace of Him?

Have we not sinned against not only each other, but the LORD using our "intelligence" and "desire" twisted by Satan? Engaging in unforgiveable crimes such as murder, which sacrifices our minds to the devil, transgenderism, which sacrifices our souls to the devil, homosexuality, which sacrifices marriage and family to the devil, abortion, which sacrifices our children to the devil, and blasphemy, the total renunciation of what connects us to Him? And yet the LORD awaits, having died on the cross in exchange for the world's sins.

What is the "worth" or "ability" of mortal life when stacked against the eternal life that He promises through salvation, through the Holy Orthodox Church.

What does “inverted anxiety” mean here? ( @GtothaM )

@KimberlyWilberLIgt I think it's 'invented' i.e. due to social structures we've created

(Copy-pasted comment from other market)

I think it's hard to deny that the positive tail end of humanity has shown at least an order of magnitude higher capacity for empathy and moral circle expansion than any other species, and that this has allowed some of us to do the most ethically impressive actions in world history

I think adaptability is downstream from other things on the list despite being bet up in that market. We can switch niches because we have the ability to abstract problems into a mental space where we can apply our ingenuity. Then we can share solutions through abstract symbolism attached to sounds so the inguinuty of one human can build on the sum knowledge and problem solving of great humans before us. Plenty of other animals have some adaptability, and some can take multiple niches. Arguably, it’s a bigger deal that we don't just adapt to new environments; we change them to suit us.

@LiamZ Adaptability encapsulates what distinguishes humans from our nearest relatives. We have evolved other abilities in service of adaptability. It is the higher order capacity which allowed us to differentiate. The human niche IS niche-switching.

@GraemeStuart I actually don't buy that we evolved anything “in service” to anything besides survival. I currently subscribe to the view that the cognitive revolution was probably a happy accident where evolutionary pressure to be able to model the world around us to predict the actions of other people, predators and prey gave us a generalized break through in abstract modeling and ingenuity to use those models of everything to predict, test, and solve. In my view that’s also why humans like to anthropomorphize things so much.

@LiamZ those groups and individuals able to switch niches were most successful at surviving and reproducing.

@GraemeStuart how much niche switching were we doing before the cognitive revolution though? I don’t think that specific pressure makes sense.

@LiamZ ok, you do you.