Do you believe our lives are controlled by an advanced civilization who are in  competition with one another?
151201
No, I do not belive this.\nI think you just have a little too wild of an imagination (which is not necesarily a bad thing) judging from your other theories I have read.
742636
i do some times feel as though humans are a virus that started out in one spot and multiplied and spread using up every last resource  throwing waste every where. killing of everything that breaths trying destroy other viruses in an attempt to take over and have full control of the vessel.  is that what you mean. \n  sometimes it is like we are an alien science experiment.
379917
Yes, if we wish to, and only if we do not destroy ourselves first. human kind is capable of anything it wishes to accomplish with respect to any focused desires, however it is with direct respect to individuality, and delusions of grandeur by control freaks which keeps the human condition with in a constant state of war in one place or another upon this plants surface.\n\nI would say that we are upon a direct course which is totally unknown to us, however is completely orchestrated by us.
116208
I think y ou might have something there.  As you can see from the previous answers, we're thinking like rational Westerners, when we're dealing with people who are alien to us.  If it works, let's do it.
72673
I hope not! \n\nThere is many good things in this world and in our life that should not be ended. \nI think today we can control beginning and ending of many things, atleast in our private life...
1078429
i think it's a ways off, after we get to a point of superior technology among more countries and we first reach a point of peace, which then is breached will we be at a point of true chaos.  But here at home in the U.S due to our inbred prejudice and diverse background, we have already started our fight.
233615
There's an old science fiction book called "This Perfect Day" written by Ira Levin, that has such a society.  They no longer had individual differences, wants, desires, etc.  The people sacrificed their individual selves to the rule of a computer and drugs that made them submissive in order to maintain the Utopian society.  \n\nI think that if we today had such a society, we would have to surrender our individuality.
630642
No. I find their "concrete entities such as man and society" to be perhaps less concrete than the speculations they mention. Though I am sure there is a little bit of empiricist in any rational person.
73253
This is a question still under hot debate. Some people believe that there is no way that we can be the only intelligent life in the universe while others (as those who believe that aliens were brought to Area 51) believe that we have already been contacted by aliens on various occassions. Still others hold to the belief that we are the only planet to have either life or intelligent life.\n\nPersonally, I hold to the first belief that, with ALL of the planets in the universe, the odds of statistics are drastically against us being the only form of intelligent life. I believe that we have been checked up on from time to time by space-faring races. Basically, I feel that we have to reach a particular milestone - either in our evolution or in our technology - before we are contacted on a grand scale.\n\nDo I believe the stories about Area 51? I wouldn't put it past the government to try to cover something up if they messed up so badly as to have killed our first ambassadors from the stars, however, I also can't imagine that no one else of that race, were it to have happened, wouldn't have come looking for their lost patrol at some point in time.\n\nI don't believe us to be alone in this vast universe but I do believe that, technology-wise, we are still toddlers & must learn & grow more before we will be allowed to enter the same playground as the other intelligent beings of the universe.
737337
it is true. they control every aspect of our personal lives.
1176469
In an ideal world, that would be great.  Unfortunately, that kind of reality is probably thousands of years away.\n\nJust like in Star Trek, we probably won't see that until aliens land, and show us exactly how primitive and violent we really are.  As long as we think we are the only civilization in the universe, there is little likelihood for improvement.\n\nI believe society is moving that way, but again, that's going to take hundreds of generations for us to evolve further.\n\nAnd if the aliens land and give us a book, don't go with them, "It's a cookbook!"
5897
yes we humans are designed to be territorial and against the ones that are not our own. We can evite other conflicts by making sure everybody feels part of the human family.
376293
good question.. u seem to think like the wachowski bros : ) .\n\nMaybe we are.. everyone's stuck on ZION and our virtual lives are on plane earth!!
257419
Yes we are, but a different kind of. All other parasites only live on what is available but we human are blessed by the brain to think and that is why we make things available for us by hard working.
635929
It depends on how you are defining "civilized". If you are referring to things that we have and use to make our lives better/easier, then yes. Technology has brought us so very, very far in the past 50 years. We have so many things, that most of us take for granted, that were only pipe-dreams 50 years ago.\nOn the other hand, if you are referring to how we are, act, or behave, we have sadly declined. As others spoke of, it used to be that everyone left their doors unlocked - you knew everyone who lived around you, if not the entire town - you could walk next door and borrow a tool, even a tractor, of a neighbor, and as a whole, everyone was assured of the fact that anything that was borrowed, was always returned in a timely manner - in the same, or possibly better shape as when first borrowed - \nYou weren't bombarded with stories of murders, terrorists, and child-molesters, on the news EVERY night.\nI could go on and on...but do I really need to?\n\nSo, it really breaks down to what you really meant when you said, "civilization".\nJust pick which answer suits your opinion.\nThanks for the question...have a good day, now.
286820
I think humans are the universe's way of interpreting itself, a form of manifested self awareness in a celestial sense. Should this be the case than it is unlikely that we will every be fully eradicated, we would linger into the future in one form or another. Of course if this is incorrect than I'll go for the B.F. meteor whacking us upside the head after we've had a nuclear war and a herd thinning dose of pestilence.
845737
You mean the domination of another culture through means of superior weaponry in order to leech off of skills and resources that took to centuries to aquire? Yeah I've heard some things.