Human hands

From	Hibou <vpaereru-unmonitored@yahoo.com.invalid>
Newsgroups	alt.usage.english
Subject	Human hands
Date	2026-07-04 14:54 +0100
Message-ID	<nashk3F2i6eU1@mid.individual.net> (permalink)

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"The birth and survival of the American nation under God is quite simply 
the best and most incredible thing ever to happen on this planet by 
human hands ever. That is ever, ever, ever" - Donald Trump, 2026-07-03.

As you know, I respect the President enormously, but I laughed when I 
heard this, and I think he may be away with the fairies.

What is the best thing to come from human hands? The wheel? Writing?

"Writing… changed all that. Plato and Caesar speak to us across the ages 
more clearly than most of our fellow men [more clearly than DJT, 
certainly]. And with the invention of the printing-press, the written 
word became virtually immortal. Manuscripts and scrolls and papyri are 
vulnerable and easily destroyed, but since the time of Gutenberg, very 
few works of permanent value can have vanished into oblivion" - Clarke, 
'Profiles of the Future', 1962.

Or what about language itself? Yes, I think that's an even better 
candidate. Without it, we should be a lesser kind of ape, reduced to 
gestures and grunts. It's language (verbal, mathematical, graphical…) 
that allows us to transmit knowledge, allows people to build upon the 
work of others, and that surely is what enables human achievement.

It's not enough to bang the rocks together. One has to be able to 
explain rock-banging to someone else.

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Human hands Hibou <vpaereru-unmonitored@yahoo.com.invalid> - 2026-07-04 14:54 +0100
  Re: Human hands Hibou <vpaereru-unmonitored@yahoo.com.invalid> - 2026-07-04 15:00 +0100
    Re: Human hands "Kerr-Mudd, John" <admin@127.0.0.1> - 2026-07-05 20:48 +0100
      Re: Human hands liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid (Liz Tuddenham) - 2026-07-06 09:16 +0100
      Re: Human hands nospam@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J. Lodder) - 2026-07-06 13:52 +0200
        Re: Human hands The True Melissa <thetruemelissa@gmail.com> - 2026-07-06 08:20 -0400
          Re: Human hands Radey Shouman <shouman@comcast.net> - 2026-07-06 11:36 -0400
        Re: Human hands Radey Shouman <shouman@comcast.net> - 2026-07-06 11:39 -0400
  Re: Human hands ... "American nation under God"? Theology? "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2026-07-04 22:51 +0800
  Re: Human hands Ross Clark <benlizro@ihug.co.nz> - 2026-07-05 09:19 +1200
    Re: Human hands nospam@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J. Lodder) - 2026-07-05 09:22 +0200
  Re: Human hands Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org> - 2026-07-05 17:03 +1000
    Re: Human hands Snidely <snidely.too@gmail.com> - 2026-07-05 00:22 -0700
      Re: Human hands athel.cb@gmail.com <user12588@newsgrouper.org.invalid> - 2026-07-05 08:38 +0000
    Re: Human hands occam <occam@nowhere.nix> - 2026-07-05 15:38 +0200

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