Parasites

That's deadly interesting, forms myriad of behavioural patterns. Say, Crash the movie, when they feel sexually aroused by speed and fear of death. Or necrophilia. I would say the human is on the top of an animal pyramid because we have such a destructive potential towards viruses and bacterias, we're the biggest challenge to these real hosts of a planet.

  On 4/3/2014 at 6:32 PM, baph said:

toxoplasmosis is just a myth perpetuated by anti-feline bigots

 

edit:

 

:looks down:

 

:slowly realizes he's been eating cat poop like popcorn:

 

oh god

lol

  On 4/3/2014 at 12:57 PM, Lewps said:

Embarked on a Sapolski lecture series binge thanks

Oh god that series of his lectures was truly amazing. An elegant glimpse of mankind from nearly every angle imaginable.

Think I'll watch it all again.

seriously though, Sapolsky is a great speaker/teacher

  On 4/3/2014 at 8:27 PM, LimpyLoo said:

 

  On 4/3/2014 at 12:57 PM, Lewps said:

Embarked on a Sapolski lecture series binge thanks

 

Oh god that series of his lectures was truly amazing. An elegant glimpse of mankind from nearly every angle imaginable.

 

Think I'll watch it all again.

 

I agree. I love how accessible these lectures are, they're a fantastic starting point for a complete newbie like myself. I will have to check out the rest of Stanford University's youtube catalogue soon.

  On 4/4/2014 at 4:25 AM, sneaksta303 said:

ideas can be parasites as well.

think of how many memes have been propagated through religion/education/advertising that control non-lucid chunks of the human race right now (aka the IRL ppl the zombie metaphors refer to).

no different than how toxoplasmosis/cordyceps affects other species, really.

  On 4/7/2014 at 5:20 PM, autopilot said:

ideas can be parasites as well.

 

think of how many memes have been propagated through religion/education/advertising that control non-lucid chunks of the human race right now (aka the IRL ppl the zombie metaphors refer to).

 

no different than how toxoplasmosis/cordyceps affects other species, really.

Check W. Burroughs' The Electronic Revolution essay collection, he speculates that human was created by a virus which attacked monkeys' throat before killing them off, and children of infected pregnant monkeys possibly were born with mutations to their throat which evolved into a speech and then written language. He gives some arguable scientific references. Basically, language as a virus.

I will definitely check that out. Thanks for the recommendation.

Reminds me of McKenna's "stoned ape" theory, that chimps ate psylo mushrooms and that catapulted them into the next stage of evolution. His theory was based on how humans seem to gravitate towards psychedelic substances/art in an almost symbiotic fashion because we've been symbiotic with em since day one. The scientific backing was based on how monkeys lift up cow pies to find grubs underneath and shrooms naturally grow out of said pies. (which also fuels a few theories why Indians worship cows as well)