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Comment by heresie-dabord | Hacker News Reader

> Laughter is yet another trait some might see as typically human

In humans, humour is a debugging process, which is fundamentally rational. The very fact that a statement can be correct or erroneous is the basis of language and therefore education and social evolution.

> there are hardly any fundamental differences between humans and other animals

Evolution is true. But... the ESA and NASA have sent a space telescope to a stable position at Lagrange point 2, and the PRC has a rover exploring the dark side of the Moon.

Humans do have greatness.

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Is there any fundamental difference between poor people and rich people other than their privilege and riches? Could poor people send a space telescope to space?

Human animals have very similar tools to those of other social animals. We're just privileged to somehow be able to stack up our experiences to create science and technology. But isolated tribes in the amazon could never send telescopes to space.

So we're only special due to our circunstance. Our bodies are barely fit to stand and walk all day, we're pushing the limits of where we're supposed to live, and our diets are all wrong. But we make it work because our ancestors developed knowledge sharing to a global level.

Were just very lucky priviledged apes.

> In humans, humour is a debugging process

I always find it amusing that we evolved brains, developed computers to crudely mimics our brain, created words to describe said computers and we now use these words on us as if we were computers ourselves... it's almost insulting, we're not computers. Your memory has nothing to do with ram/ssds, your brain isn't a cpu, these are all one way over simplified analogies

> I always find it amusing that [...]

Egg zachary. You are amused by something, you explained where you think you see an error.

You can choose a different verb to avoid "debug", but you just provided a suitable illustration of humour as an application[1] of reason.

[1] tech pun not intended, but fitting

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