Idiots, all of us

[ApeTheDog]

Recently, it has come again to my attention that we are all idiots. Still are. All of us. The only intelligence we truly posess is a limited one which, I think, is still not much more advanced than the one the people who lived thousands of years ago posessed. But that is not the point.

What we are really good at is structure. This is our real intelligence. We know what a hammer is. We know what a nail is. We know that to hit a nail on the hammer will pound it in. We know a lot of these things that somebody else before us came up with them, and we remember the structure.

However, I see a problem here, in that when we go too far into a structure we lose the perspective that brought us the sollution in the first place. For example, let's look at movies. Why do we no longer have a new Hitchcock, who does revolutionary things for the medium? I think it's because everybody who came after Hitchcock just used his ideas. They took them as their own. They did not understand how he came to his ideas, they don't have his insights - which surely came from somewhere, perhaps a deep understanding of human psychology - instead they just took over his structure and moved on.

We seem to always go with the first thing we find that works, move on, and forget all the data we/the inventor of the innovation used to come to that idea.

This leads me to believe we have a limited intelligence, but we can continue to improve on the structure we have already made by focusing all of it on improvements. We can't be questioning the truth of things, rather we must use our limited potential to make leaps ahead.

And this is the stupid thing. We're only capable of making slight improvements. We make tiny jumps, tiny improvements. Nothing has any real impact. That's also why we do such stupid things like sawing down rainforests and polluting the world. Our excuse: we're morons. Had ecology existed for 3000 years, had there been many books written about the subject and had there been a knowledge that went back a long, long time with many intelligent men contributing to it, we might not be so stupid. But this is a fresh thing. Pollution is new, and we're all still morons when it comes to it.

Mind you, this goes for all new things, I believe. We're morons when it comes to every new thing. And the most stupid thing of all, according to me, is that we genuinely think we're smart because we've stolen all those structures other people came up with. We're not. If we understood them, came to the same conclusions they did and truly mastered the knowledge, we'd be smart. But what we're doing now is taking the escalator to the top of the mountain and pretending we're mountaineers.

Em. This is probably more of a rant, or a blog entry or something. I just wanted to talk about it so I could crystalise my thoughts about it. I'm also probably motivated by narcism because I love spreading my thoughts. Anyway. What are your thoughts?

[cuspuser]

i think idiots, most of us ... some things seem to plug along fine once we have someone set out a few rules for us to follow, such as the scientific method, that allows us to explore things in a certain way for an extended peroid of time ...

but that there are some very special people who come along every so often and bring things together, and these are the people who set out the ways of thinking that society tries to explore and catch up to them over the next hundred years or so until it becomes apart of a social consciousness, in so far as we can teach/explain it well enough so that it doesn't take others a lifetime to "get it" ... with creativity ... like a hitchcock or something like that, we seem for the most part to be getting even farther away, i mean when you look at what michelanglo did in his lifetime and compare that with the artists of today - or edison and current inventors - it looks like we've been slacking horribly ... the sheer volume of work that people used to create was uncanny, and now that we have computers you'd think that people would be able to create works faster, but this doesn't seem to be the case.

but then you look at the advances of mediums like computers and see how far this has come in such a short time, and think about how cars and planes are relatively new, and all those advances, you start thinking twice about calling ourselves idiots ... i'd guess for the most part anyone living in a specific time period thinks that they are idiots because they only hear of the great accomplishments of the past ...

neways, i should prolly say more, but i'll end with ... it seems to me that the advances currently are advances in the relayers of the medium itself (the technology) rather than the messages and art ... this most likely goes in stages, when we reach a point where the technology isn't progressing as quickly i'd look for people to head back to the arts, until then we'll have to live with this somewhat colder environment. Even now we are finding ways for more people to have their voices heard, learning how to use this technology to put out unique perspectives and ideas, hopefully this is a positive trend, and not just all people who like to hear the sound of their own voice, like me :D

[ApeTheDog]

No, my man. I mean all the great things we've invented are side-effects of the structure we follow, and I mourn for all the brilliant inventions we don't have just because we opted, in the past, to go this way rather than another.

For example, we once, a long time ago, decided that cars should have 4 wheels. All our industry relies on this. Parts are available for cars with four wheels. Blueprints have been drawn. Suspension is available, all of it for 4 wheeled cars.

If somebody were to want to develop an entirely new form of transportation, based not on 4 wheels but rather, for example, or 3 wheels, or five hundred wheels, that would be impossible because he would have to re-invent everything. There would not be a blueprint for his type of car. There would not be ABS for him. He would have to come up with all these things, all by himself, and all the time his car would have to compete with the blueprints for 4-wheeled ones that had been fine-tuned over the ages. It's become quite impossible to make cars another way.

That doesn't mean that a 500-wheeled car can't exist, or wouldn't have been far superior than a 4 wheeled one. Just that, because the person who first invented the automobile decided to go for 4 wheels, we're stuck with that.

This is what I mean. All our great inventions are all part of this structure we've set up - they're side-effects of choices made in the past that have been set in stone.

Take away all that we know, literally wipe it out of our minds, and we're still as stupid as the early cavemen. It'd probably still take us a long time to discover that we can kill animals with a pointy stick.

Our intelligence is almost ALL based on the structure we've set up. We cannot go outside of it. We cannot invent an all new car, 6 wheeled, structure and all. We'd need to cooperate to do it, and we'd need a lot of time - the way 4 wheeled cars were invented. No one person is smart enough to do it. We *need* stuctures. Without them we're dumb as an ass.

I apologise for being so erratic, but if I try to explain things in detail I lose sight of the big picture I want to talk about. Add to that that English is not my first language and I suck at using it fluently, and you probably get a very complicated sentencecocktail. For which I apologise.

[MacGuffin]

We are not idiots. Idiots are those that DON'T learn from the past. It is not structure, it is progress. The structure flows from the choices made, not the other way around.


That doesn't mean that a 500-wheeled car can't exist, or wouldn't have been far superior than a 4 wheeled one. Just that, because the person who first invented the automobile decided to go for 4 wheels, we're stuck with that.

You seem to think that things are the way they are because someone made an arbitrary decision. Cars have 4 wheels because that is the most stable yet efficient way of doing things. It is the laws of physics. I have seen concept cars that have 3 wheels or 5. They don't go anywhere because they aren't stable (3) or efficient (5) compared to 4 wheel cars.

We are intelligent because we learn and pass on that knowledge. Animals, on the other hand, use instinct.

A single man living like a caveman cannot invent fire, written alphabets, metalworking, mathematics, etc. and go on to walk on the moon in his lifetime.

"If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" - Isaac Newton (1676).

[waxwing]

I tend to think of discoveries and inventions more as part of an evolutionary process. In terms of intelligence, don't we almost have to think in terms of collective intelligence? And the idea that sometimes it is necessary for advancement (however small the advancement may be) to play leapfrog? I mean, ancient philosophers and scientists made brilliant discoveries and shared a depth of insight that we may never fully grasp. Of course, we can't get into their heads or understand their cultural boundaries. Still, isn't that only natural? That throughout time we'd experience a sort of volleying of ideas and brilliance not by leaps and bounds, but perhaps in spurts? Take historical examples of different eras actually named for what was discovered or what happened with people intellectually, socially, religiously....even if these eras are named by general trends perhaps propelled by a few influential human beings, aren't there always those whose contributions fall outside the box and who go unrecognized? It's complicated because cultural context plays a huge role, I think.

Ah, anyway. Thought-provoking. Thanks for sharing.

[Clara]

Take away all that we know, literally wipe it out of our minds, and we're still as stupid as the early cavemen. It'd probably still take us a long time to discover that we can kill animals with a pointy stick.

Some time ago, Groty postulated that it's one of the typical traits, of INTPs, to be able to mentally set aside previous structures, and imagine how all the assorted elements might get put together (possibly: in a different way).

I think it's important to discern at times, what is "adequate" (e.g. some existing structures may not be "perfect," but aren't important enough to change... or, by their lack of appeal, help encourage the creative process - this is vague, I know.) I do believe that the ability to imagine, and find expression... and the actions of doing such things, are more important than "ideal" situations/ practices/ artifacts.

I have to assume, ApeTheDog, that you were referring to frustrations at reaching for words in a second language... and not at the result, the expression you found, for what you meant to say. *holymoly, and blink*

[floid]

It is easier and safer to travel down already worn ruts than ride roughshod over the landscape and wear new ones.

Idiots is only a third of it.

We're lazy, timid idiots.

[Clara]

Edit : :rofl: , floid


We are not idiots. Idiots are those that DON'T learn from the past. It is not structure, it is progress. The structure flows from the choices made, not the other way around.

"If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" - Isaac Newton (1676).I love this topic. I'm tending to agree more with Isaac Newton, though, and with the brother of another guy... who said that we drink from the well that dug by others.

(When we can take as "givens" work done by others - more things may be possible... I agree that if we become so lazy-minded that we'd be at a loss of how to use a pointy stick :blink : - See, Manu, it's not about which language.)

[mgb]

I see what you mean ape. But I think you might be off target calling mankind idiots. I think you could more aptly call man lazy and greedy.

There are two problems. First necessity is the mother of invention. Once you have met your needs, you don't keep inventing to explore all potential avenues of what you could have done. You take that invention out and make some money (or whatever) on it because you probably have some other needs to meet. Like MacGuffin said, we try and find the "best" solution, not all of them. In that way it's kind of like a chess game, when you are playing it, you try and choose the path of least resistance to victory, not all paths to victory, one will do.

What makes us not stupid is that we do find better solutions. Ok, some of us are out there trying to find better solutions maybe not everyone, but that is a rant for a different thread.

[Aryan]

"If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" - Isaac Newton (1676).
"If i havent seen farther it is because of standing behind those Giants"
--- what an SJ should tell

Learning from experience is intelligence otherwise its idiocy.

Nature has given all animals a protection mechanism, but humans were made the weakest of all. If it hadnt been for "learn from experience" then we have had been long extinct. :D

[Johnny]

Recently, it has come again to my attention that we are all idiots. Still are. All of us. The only intelligence we truly posess is a limited one which, I think, is still not much more advanced than the one the people who lived thousands of years ago posessed. But that is not the point.

What we are really good at is structure. This is our real intelligence.

...What are your thoughts?What a stupid thing to say!

*LOL...just kidding and having fun at the risk of calling myself stupid...*

:sombrero:

[CreativeChaos]

Idiot:

"One deficient in judgment and good sense: ass, fool, imbecile, jackass, mooncalf, moron, nincompoop, ninny, nitwit, simple, simpleton, softhead, tomfool, dope, EZ, gander, goose, cretin, ding-dong, dip, goof, jerk, nerd, schmo, schmuck, turkey."

Idiotic:

"So senseless as to be laughable: absurd, foolish, harebrained, imbecilic, insane, lunitic, mad, moronic, nonsensical, preposterous, silly, softheaded, tomfool, unearthy, Zedo, cockeyed, crazy, loony, loopy, balmy, dippy, dopey, jerky, sappy, wackey.

[ApeTheDog]

mgbradsh: True, necessity is the mother of invention. But if anything, I think that proves that we're incapable of inventing things on our own. Hence, not particularily bright. Would a truly intelligent species not be able to invent things that are incredibly useful to society, but without society having to give us hints?

If we were as intelligent as we think we are, we would be able to invent airplanes out of thin air. We'd be able to invent stuff, rather than stumble on it, or be being forced into it by standing on the shoulders of giants.

And I agree that, yes, 4 wheels instead of 5 or 3 is not an arbitrary decision. It's a well weighted decision, and I must have said something wrong if it came out like that, or maybe I omitted to say that wasn't how I meanth it, anyway... foresight is sketchy at best.

Just look at the law. It's horrible complicated and there are many sections in it that could be far better. Or politics. Democracy. Many, many things in society could be done far better, but since back when they were put in place we weren't able to predict the future, and didn't see the problems they would cause in this day and age, these things were left in the law/constitution/whatever. You can't foresee the future, and yet - paradoxally, your decisions will end up shaping it.

I'm not trying to prove that we're all morons in the literal sense. As far as I can tell, only Johnny above me here qualifies. (just kidding LOL). I just wanted to say that it's my opinion that we, as a society, are severely overrating our own intelligence.

[cuspuser]

in reply to u're first reply: ah, ok, i didn't realize you were talking about paradigms ... but i do think i addressed it ...

but mind you we do have cars that have less wheels and more wheels, we just call them motorcycles and trucks

our paradigms will slowly shift ... but it is also the fact that if we make any new car it will have to work on the current roads, which is pretty much the limitation for any new car design ... and i'm kinda thankful for this, can you imagine how wide they would've made the hummer otherwise?

also, as it relates to politics these things change really slowly - and i figure that alot of this is because the people who are in power don't want to fundamentally change the system that got them there ... unless of course they get into power by saying that they'll change the system fundamentally.

as for things being created out of thin air - i'm not exactly sure what you mean by this - i think the really special people who i was talking about before will smash the old ways of thinking and create new ones, so i guess thats why i went with most of us ... as we are idiots in relation to these folks.

[mgb]

mgbradsh: True, necessity is the mother of invention. But if anything, I think that proves that we're incapable of inventing things on our own. Hence, not particularily bright. Would a truly intelligent species not be able to invent things that are incredibly useful to society, but without society having to give us hints?

If we were as intelligent as we think we are, we would be able to invent airplanes out of thin air. We'd be able to invent stuff, rather than stumble on it, or be being forced into it by standing on the shoulders of giants.

And I agree that, yes, 4 wheels instead of 5 or 3 is not an arbitrary decision. It's a well weighted decision, and I must have said something wrong if it came out like that, or maybe I omitted to say that wasn't how I meanth it, anyway... foresight is sketchy at best.

Just look at the law. It's horrible complicated and there are many sections in it that could be far better. Or politics. Democracy. Many, many things in society could be done far better, but since back when they were put in place we weren't able to predict the future, and didn't see the problems they would cause in this day and age, these things were left in the law/constitution/whatever. You can't foresee the future, and yet - paradoxally, your decisions will end up shaping it.

I'm not trying to prove that we're all morons in the literal sense. As far as I can tell, only Johnny above me here qualifies. (just kidding LOL). I just wanted to say that it's my opinion that we, as a society, are severely overrating our own intelligence.

If you existed in a vacuum by yourself I don't think you would have the need to build a plane. Nor would you have the resourses by yourself (and arguably the ability the resources to discover, mine and develop the resources).

In reality, as the personalities show, we aren't immaculate as individuals. It's when you put humans in a group that stuff gets done. We all have strengths and weaknesses as individuals, but as a group we are better at using our strengths.

The reason that airplanes did not get invented until the last century is because they weren't really needed. When a need for a better airplane come up, someone will meet that. I don't think that we are overrating our intelligence, we just use it when we need to.

[Clara]

*thinking of the nuance between "idiots" and "stupids" - it's not the words, themselves, it's what we understand from them*

[jimkopelli]

Ever heard this quote?


If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

We don't have to make giant leaps, little steps are fine as long as they're in the right direction, and we don't backslide.

I agree partly, though... A large portion of people are idiots.

[Sackanaka]

Heh, poor Isaac's ghost has been conjured thrice this thread.
I think there are some who aren't idiots, unless it is part of the definition of being a modern-day, thinking, limited human being, in which case the definition would be pretty obtuse for its inability to define.
However, I consider myself an idiot mainly for this reason: I see the potentials, I see my options, yet I do not act upon them until it becomes painfully necessary.

[jimkopelli]

That's what we get for not reading all of the posts...
maybe we are all idiots... nah, just lazy.

[avidApathy]

i think one reason progress can be slow is because the majority of our society lives by the saying:
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it"

Once we realize something doesnt work/doesnt work well enough to meet the demand of society, then people with great ingenuity take up the task of making something new.

Or/And some people fix things even when they work, and so advancing society by making everything more efficient.

Just thought i would introduce a new quote to get some pressure off poor old Isaac.

[mgb]

I think the "problem" with NTs is we notice things are broken before they need fixing.

[indie]

If somebody were to want to develop an entirely new form of transportation, based not on 4 wheels but rather, for example, or 3 wheels, or five hundred wheels, that would be impossible because he would have to re-invent everything. There would not be a blueprint for his type of car. There would not be ABS for him. He would have to come up with all these things, all by himself, and all the time his car would have to compete with the blueprints for 4-wheeled ones that had been fine-tuned over the ages. It's become quite impossible to make cars another way.



I wouldn't say "impossible" :)


Prius Schmius (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.02/start.html?pg=4)

[CreativeChaos]

Idiot:

"One deficient in judgment and good sense: ass, fool, imbecile, jackass, mooncalf, moron, nincompoop, ninny, nitwit, simple, simpleton, softhead, tomfool, dope, EZ, gander, goose, cretin, ding-dong, dip, goof, jerk, nerd, schmo, schmuck, turkey."

Idiotic:

"So senseless as to be laughable: absurd, foolish, harebrained, imbecilic, insane, lunitic, mad, moronic, nonsensical, preposterous, silly, softheaded, tomfool, unearthy, Zedo, cockeyed, crazy, loony, loopy, balmy, dippy, dopey, jerky, sappy, wackey.

Oh Rats! At first I didn't care if no one caught this, but now I'm feeling dissapointed. :( So I've highlighted my hidden message.

[nBT]

i disagree on the group abilities. we combine our strenghts as a group but also give up some individuality. conformity is the main enemy of greatness. an absent mind comes in handy ignoring all the comformity as it is thrown to you.
to relief Isaac some more: 'to achieve the impossible, you must try the absurd' einstein.


inventorial advencement is limited by the weakest link. this can be social structures, inadequate material, lack of funds, a headache.

humans are too easily accepting existing solutions for their half precieved problem. precieving a problem is the first step to big leaps.

another factor is the 'invention anexity'. you may have a great idea, but hant told anyone about it. doing so exposes it to critisicm. wich would presumably destroy the idea.

NT's are capable of abstract thought, and abstract inventions. realying them is the first hurdle to take, creating them the second. they have to conform rules of physics and so on. and idoit proof. if the idiots cant work with it, regardless of the idea, its not gonna happen.

you would ideally want some unlimited funding. a huge shed and eyewide space, so you can try safely without harm, the future.

[CreativeChaos]

Blah!!! EZ!!!! Where are you?? :cry:

(me thinks he's doing the absence makes the heart grow fonder thing and it's working) :cry:

*CC feels like doing some creepy stalking but will resist temptation*

[euterpenc]

If we were such idiots, would we be able to discuss our idiocy?

[QrioCT]

it's relative, like einstein's theory thing. depends on what/who you compare our intelligence to.

[Miss Anthropic]

You are trying to reinvent the wheel...which in itself is moronic. Take education for example, in trying to improve it they mess it up by completely changing methods instead of tweaking what is working and in place. The pendulum swings back and forth radically in changes that don't really need to be made in all sorts of fields, just so somebody can make their mark as different. If you look at the big picture we have made great strides in science and technology and theories in both with little and great advancements made on past achievements. Don't give me the preservationist bullshit because pollution has been occurring since Europe started agriculture in the feudal times...burning forests for fuel, coal for fuel and planting the areas that were cleared. They over-hunted the deer and had to increase herds of domesticated cattle to feed the nobles which introduced anthrax into the mix around the same time as the bubonic plague in the 1300s-1600s or so. The industrial revolution there made it worse. 3000 years ago the only reason pollution didn't occur is because they didn't have the population or the technology. I agree the rain forests are being raped today---they need to be managed instead, but its impossible to leave them as they were. The "good old days" didn't exist. Life is improving all the time, but it can't all be perfect.

And has it occurred to you that we have transportation with 4 wheels because it is the most efficient? If you can come up with a reason for a car with more or fewer wheels I'd love to hear it....and don't say 3 because they would be more prone to tipping over, just like 3 wheel ATVs and tricycles. That just translates to many questions of 'why are things the way they are?' Because what was invented turned out to be the most efficient. And if it wasn't the most efficient, somebody improved upon it...just like the car companies do every year. If we were still driving model Ts then you might have an argument.

If we were truly the idiots you believe us to be we would still be an agrarian society wrapped up in the daily routine of finding and cultivating food, making clothing and shelter. (which might not be so bad, because it would keep everybody busy trying to survive instead of killing one another. No, wait, we still killed one another even when survival was a daily activity) In that respect of violence against one another we have stayed barbarians, but in the realm of technology I believe that the evolution of ideas is not idiocy, it is practicality---and intelligence.

[ApeTheDog]

We have a very intelligent structure, but we, the human beings ourselves, are stupid. Now you could say that they're the same thing, but I disagree. Termites are terribly stupid beings, yet they are able to set up a structure that is so complex architects would have trouble coming up with, in the nests they build for themselves, and they do it all intuitively.

Pollution has been around a very long time, indeed. But has anybody ever really tried to work it out? It hasn't been a problem until perhaps 50 years ago. Sure, some indians polluted a river, but that wasn't a big deal. Other forms of pollution that happened back then also weren't alarming enough to merit a response. I believe that, if it had been a problem 2000 years ago, we would have a far better way of dealing with it now, because we would have, with the entire human race, worked on a structure to deal with it by now.

I agree with QrioCT: Indeed, everything is relative. We are intelligent compared to chimps. We are idiots compared to how smart we generally seem to think we are.

I mean, when you see the structure for what it is, you also see the flaws in it. We are masters of all that which is a part of the structure, and idiots to all that falls outside of it.

For example, about the car with 4 wheels, You won't hear me saying that giving the car 4 wheels is a stupid decision. I'm saying that there may be a possibility further down the road, a terribly clever invention that unfortunately requires a car to have 6 wheels, which we will never find out about, because we chose a 4 wheeled car over the 6 wheeled one. If it had not been for this structure, which hardly anyone acknowledged exists and makes us smart, but at the same time keeps us stupid, we would not have these limiting factors.

Take Charles Babbage. He is credited for being the father of the computer. He did it when trying to make a calculator. He never intented for his invention to turn into the PC we all use today, but there was something about his machine that, when tweaked and improved through the ages, turned into the pc we all use today. And the PC is a terribly intelligent invention, don't get me wrong, but had charles babbage decided to go with an improved version of the abbacus, rather than his electronic calculator, we might never have had the pc.

For a known example of being able to miss inventions like this, take the aztecs, who had a really advanced society, but they did not have the wheel. They didn't need it, because they used water to transport things. And they did not see a problem in that. It was the best decision for them, at the time, I guess. But because they never invented the wheel, they never wound up inventing carriages either. And even further, who knows if they would have ever invented the automobile had they gone on to survive as a society?

It was inevitable for societies that had invented the wheel that, some day, somebody would make the connection between the existing wheel and the existing horse to invent a cart. It's a natural descendant of the structure that is our intelligence.

How many things have we not invented, because somebody in the past decided to go another way? What kind of carriaged have we overlooked because we didn't invent the wheel? Who knows?

We are capable of inventing intelligent things, but we are not as intelligent as these things we are capable of inventing. Our structure is highly intelligent, but also very much specialised. And the higher we climb with this structure, the more specialised things get, and the harder it becomes to do the same things differently.

[Lee]

Intelligence?

This subject is very difficult to discuss unless we can come to a consensus on what this word actually means.

edit: and therefore by association what idiot means.

[ApeTheDog]

I think of it as being a scale. At the bottom is brainless, where you're incapable of changing your situation, even if everything around you indicates you should. Even plants are more intelligent than this, because sunflowers can change their direction towards the sun. At the top is the notion of God. He can create at will, do all things he wants. Nothing, ever, exists that can bug God, because if it did, he would change it. That's the top of the scale to me.

That's just my personal defenition. It's entirely arbitrary, but then aren't all definitions?

[Lee]

Well if thats the definition you are working from we really are all idiots.

[euterpenc]

You are trying to reinvent the wheel...which in itself is moronic. Take education for example, in trying to improve it they mess it up by completely changing methods instead of tweaking what is working and in place. The pendulum swings back and forth radically in changes that don't really need to be made in all sorts of fields, just so somebody can make their mark as different. If you look at the big picture we have made great strides in science and technology and theories in both with little and great advancements made on past achievements. Don't give me the preservationist bullshit because pollution has been occurring since Europe started agriculture in the feudal times...burning forests for fuel, coal for fuel and planting the areas that were cleared. They over-hunted the deer and had to increase herds of domesticated cattle to feed the nobles which introduced anthrax into the mix around the same time as the bubonic plague in the 1300s-1600s or so. The industrial revolution there made it worse. 3000 years ago the only reason pollution didn't occur is because they didn't have the population or the technology. I agree the rain forests are being raped today---they need to be managed instead, but its impossible to leave them as they were. The "good old days" didn't exist. Life is improving all the time, but it can't all be perfect.

And has it occurred to you that we have transportation with 4 wheels because it is the most efficient? If you can come up with a reason for a car with more or fewer wheels I'd love to hear it....and don't say 3 because they would be more prone to tipping over, just like 3 wheel ATVs and tricycles. That just translates to many questions of 'why are things the way they are?' Because what was invented turned out to be the most efficient. And if it wasn't the most efficient, somebody improved upon it...just like the car companies do every year. If we were still driving model Ts then you might have an argument.

If we were truly the idiots you believe us to be we would still be an agrarian society wrapped up in the daily routine of finding and cultivating food, making clothing and shelter. (which might not be so bad, because it would keep everybody busy trying to survive instead of killing one another. No, wait, we still killed one another even when survival was a daily activity) In that respect of violence against one another we have stayed barbarians, but in the realm of technology I believe that the evolution of ideas is not idiocy, it is practicality---and intelligence.

This may not be relevant but "Man did not create the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. What he does to the web, he does to himself."