We have all this high technology but are still living in the Dark Ages.

Humankind developed science and reason but, when it comes to religion and other things, most people on this planet push evidence and reason aside in favor of faith! Faith is illogical, irrational.

We have people buying essential oils and vitamins to cure cancer. People are still superstitious.

Yep. Cognitive dissonance, greed, ignorance and pride get in the way of society progressing forward.
It is depressing.
I am close friends with a Baptist family.
Our debates are very few to keep the friendship tolerable.
I feel like a traitor to my LGBT+ friends for not cutting them loose.
I also get frustrated when I can't deal with their patriarchal thinking

I believe we are still very primitive. We exist at a point socially, that we haven't much built on in the last few millenia. Technology is this newfangled amazing tool, with unlimited capacity, yet we use it in ways that benefit the species RIGHT NOW, with hardly any foresight of the future. I imagine the species, today, as a four year old with a driver's license and a vehicle. We drive, and we smash and wreck the roadside around us, running over anything in our path. We have given ourselves the capacity to live beyond the past, but still lack the wisdom to move our species beyond the past.

I believe, another social evolution, like the cognitive or agricultural revolution, is needed before our species can mitigate the sectarian and cultural differences we inanely focus on now. I don't think this will be a good event. An incurable, fast spreading super disease, a global natural disaster, the unrampant effects of human causes climate change, will provide the impetus.

It seems our species always sits on the edge of a cliff, only creating balance when we are about to fall. I feel we need to fall. We need a kick in the ass, globally, to move beyond our current limitations socially, and start cooperating as a species, instead of using our longitude and latitudal differences to culturally separate.

We are very primitive and backsliding due to lack of natural selection. There is no process thinning our herd of the anti-social people in our midst.
To the contrary, in most of our cultures cruelty and ruthlessness is rewarded.

We will only move towards a civilized society when the qualities of civilized men and women are promoted at the expense of those who prey on people.

As a species, humans in general are not very intelligent (inasmuch as "average" is more of a legitimate measure than the extremes). Consider that the average (mode) I.Q. is only 100. If one converses with a person with an I.Q. of 100 one quickly gets the impression that one is talking to a box of rocks.

In short, you are expecting way too much from the human species...you cannot "civilize" feces throwing monkeys. It explains how Trump got elected doesn't it.

Modern humans have only existed for a couple hundred thousand years. Our common ancestor with apes dates back to about 8 million years ago. In between there were a number of lineages small populations that evolved in relative isolation, occasionally interbreeding, all except our own strand eventually going extinct. The biggest anatomical changes in these populations involved changes in brain size and cranial capacity. When one body part evolves faster than other parts this is sometimes called mosaic evolution. It was not the whole brain that changed. The cerebral cortex expanded the most, while the brain stem is essentially the same as it was in our early vertebrate ancestors. Some people refer to this primitive part as our "reptilian brain." Actually you could just as well call it our fish brain. It's this primitive part that drives deep-seated anxieties and knee-jerk reactions. Are we still a primitive species? You bet!

It's interesting to note that our technical progress has been awesome and extremely beneficial to us as a species. But our social progress is miserably lacking. Our focus has been on being the biggest, best, richest, most powerful etc and our evolutionary societal growth has been largely ignored. It's about time to turn that energy towards creating a world where we value our people more than we value our things!

Yes we are still a primitive species and we shall remain so until we evolve and learn to; a) put aside all of our petty differences, understand that we ARE ALL members of just ONE species b) evolve beyond the need for superstitious beliefs. such as religions, etc, and that, c) the Universe existed long, long before humans ever came into being, the Sun does NOT rise and set at our Behest, c) the Universe WILL continue on long after humans are nothing more than atoms and molecules of the elements that once made us. We MUST evolve and learn to live as ONE peoples or we shall end up going the same way as the innumerable species that preceded us millions of years before we existed.

I've seen enough evidence in my lifetime to conclude that we are still a primitive species competing for survival. The Judeo-Christian culture was in opposition to this natural dilemma, striking back with the aspirational notion of every human being made in the image of God and therefore carrying a spark of divinity in their spirits. The doctrines are proved nonsense and the history one of terrible hypocrisy but we need to carry on with the idea of all human life being equal in the sight of society if not of a god.

Yes , very ! The French have a saying the more it changes, the mire it stays the same. We are encoded with agression which remains in us in perpetuity.

As a guy with more than a touch of ADHD himself - yes there is hope for you. You just have to figure out a way to harness it, embrace it, and make it work. It's in our collective gene pool for an evolutionary reason. I got lucky and dumbed into a career that allows me to make it work most days. Would like to say I planed the path out, but that would be lying to myself.

And also yes - we are a somewhat primitive, and extremely tribal species. It's hard for a few millennia of civilization to undo millions of year of evolution and societal development.

We certainly have remnants of the genes. ADHD is one... think of how hyper chipmunks are - it was a survival mechanism. But humanity has reached the point where our heightened intellectualism can override our remnant instincts. Sometimes... some of us...

prim·i·tive adjective
relating to, denoting, or preserving the character of an early stage in the evolutionary or historical development of something.

I'm no evolutionary biologist, but I'd say without knowing the endpoint how can we relatively know how far we are from the beginning?

As a species we have gone beyond natural selection. Look at the most successful people in our society, the likes of Elon Musk or Bill Gates, and see how many children they leave behind? Are they prolific in passing on their genes, which used to be the evolutionary criterium for success? You’d have to say only moderately. Musk has 5 living children, Gates 3. My great-great grandfather was not wealthy or powerful but came fathered a family of 12 children.

But there are relatively few other pressures of natural selection which are driving the general population, either in the direction of a unified perspective on society or a specific form of genetics. It seems we have arrived at a period where there is some selection due to wealth and beauty, but there is a lot of chaos in the general population.

I don't think we are a "primitive" species however we still haven't and might never grow out of our base instincts because we are animals first and foremost.

Relative to our ancestors? No, but we still have primitive tendencies. We have advanced ages with our technology, but our mindset is still lacking in terms of social progress in my opinion. I think this might be true in general for humans, but more specifically with our "leaders" who seem to be further on the sliding scale of psychopathy.

I'd really recommend the book Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari.

You are right. We need to go beyond the self centered notion that we only help each other for personal gain. I've always known that we will never evolve if we allow greed to rule is like it does.

We apes, and cannot help the fact.

Humans are more primitive than you think.
Take it all away, everything and what do you have?
A dysfunctional human. Go ahead and make a argument out of this fact. We have relied on technology to the point of just knowing how to eat. In ,000 years from now we will still be where we are today. Our technology will be our destruction, because we have borders that separate us all. We will never be as one, because of our primitive aggression, and predatory instincts. I missed a entry on our destruction, it’s only if we don’t destroy ourselves in the process
of advancing to our next level.
Of course, everyone has a opinion, but what are the opinions going to change? Nothing...

The only thing is, the goal of the evolutionary rat race, having many children, has been taken away, and in its place has been substituted the goal of having lots of money, which has little to no influence on the future of the species.

Those things which do have influence on the future of the species now are the birth of memes. Look at all the people now talking about inequality, how many of them were doing so before Thomas Piketty’s book Capital in the 21st Century?

The most influential thinkers of recent times, who really influenced the course of human thought and human history, were likely Charles Darwin, Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche. They are likely the most successful people from a modern evolution of the species perspective. We are part of an evolving meme culture, and human individuality is an illusion.

Pretty much why I call myself Savage. Ever hear of the wayseer manifesto. I think it's for you.

Yes and no. The biggest diffrence between us and most other creatures is our use of tools, comunication and writing. Yet we still respond to threats or stress with violence. Many still adhere to tribalism(this site could be an example)
Also, we are not done evolving. Time will tell what becomes of humanity.

Miles away for sure and I can prove it. Chimpanzees fling poop at each other. Humans now have hand dryers that fling fecal matter up to 20 feet away.

Humans are just slightly more advanced poop throwers!