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Lilithiana

Humanity's Future

What will happen to humanity?  

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I understood perfectly.

 

Pretty simple statement, which I answered as best as I could in that short of a post. I definitely read properly, thanks for checking though.

Nah, Lilith has it right. Capitalism is unique among economic philosophies in that it actively encourages the exploitation of the weak. A capitalist society is one in which your worth as a person is calculated by the dollar value of your possessions less the value of your debts, and thus is perceived your usefulness to society. Considering how many educated people are quite deep in student loan debt at the moment due to the economic situation, something is clearly very wrong with the idealistic earn-your-worth ideology, in that those who have the power to fix things are very, very unwilling to do so. Because it impacts their bank account and thus their "worth".

 

In other words, in the current application of capitalist society, being helpful makes you less of a person, economically. Morals are set aside in favor of the almighty dollar.

 

I'd go so far as to suggest that Joe Schmuck sitting there unemployed on his couch with an alcohol problem is a rather telling symptom of this problem. How's he supposed to work and contribute to society when no one's hiring? Not even the minimum wage get-treated-like-garbage-for-almost-no-pay-but-at-least-it's-something jobs are hiring much these days. The uprising that threatens on the horizon will not be a clean one, mark my words.

Edited by Lythiaren

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http://subdude-site.com/WebPics/WebPicsEar...s_1024x1024.gif demonstrates quite handily that it isn't just capitalists in power that abuse it, and horribly.

 

We can see where capitalism is wrong and fix it; this doesn't mean we have in all cases, but in the US at least, there is more than a little fascism taking root. Fascism isn't capitalism, so if you are pointing to the US or to some places in Europe as "capitalism in practice", know there is collectivism afoot and therefor you have no real example to point to anymore. We have not found how to fix what is wrong with more collectivist systems that leads to the abuses people suffer under them nor to their eventual economic collapse. Partly because the abuses people suffer are "for their own good and the good of others", not, as in capitalist abuse, to feed the robber baron's already fat wallet.

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Nah, Lilith has it right. Capitalism is unique among economic philosophies in that it actively encourages the exploitation of the weak. A capitalist society is one in which your worth as a person is calculated by the dollar value of your possessions less the value of your debts, and thus is perceived your usefulness to society. Considering how many educated people are quite deep in student loan debt at the moment due to the economic situation, something is clearly very wrong with the idealistic earn-your-worth ideology, in that those who have the power to fix things are very, very unwilling to do so. Because it impacts their bank account and thus their "worth".

 

In other words, in the current application of capitalist society, being helpful makes you less of a person, economically. Morals are set aside in favor of the almighty dollar.

 

I'd go so far as to suggest that Joe Schmuck sitting there unemployed on his couch with an alcohol problem is a rather telling symptom of this problem. How's he supposed to work and contribute to society when no one's hiring? Not even the minimum wage get-treated-like-garbage-for-almost-no-pay-but-at-least-it's-something jobs are hiring much these days. The uprising that threatens on the horizon will not be a clean one, mark my words.

I disagree. Your worth as a person is not in any way dependent on your net worth. I, for example, have very little in the way of actual cash. But I have skills I could use to EARN said money. The assumption you're making is that money is all there is, nothing else is worth anything. There are intangible things that are worth plenty.

 

 

Student loan debt is a personal problem that can be avoided. Work your way through, go to a cheap, in state school, go to community college your first 2 years, etc. It is a myth that getting a degree requires debt. I'll hand you a list of people right now who I know are going through school and getting jobs with no student loan debt. So that's a silly argument.

 

 

 

Being helpful with charitable giving generally does not hurt you financially. I give over 10% of my income charitably and I don't have a problem paying for my insurance, phone, food and gas. I'm making just above minimum wage with VERY few hours. Many prominent, successful financial advisers encourage charitable giving. I'm not against that, nobody should be. Plenty of people do so, so your argument that people refuse to help because it hurts them is also not completely true.

 

 

If Joe Schmuck spent his time in a free public library, consuming vast stores of information, rather than blowing money and time on beer and TV, or doing productive things, he could learn skills that could earn him money, create things that he could sell, OR BE LOOKING FOR A JOB. In a capitalist society there is ALWAYS a way to make money doing SOMETHING. You just have to have the initiative to do it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Been watching George Carlin have we? wink.gif

Oh, that is where I got that from isn't it. LOL. Forgot about old George.

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I disagree. Your worth as a person is not in any way dependent on your net worth. I, for example, have very little in the way of actual cash. But I have skills I could use to EARN said money. The assumption you're making is that money is all there is, nothing else is worth anything. There are intangible things that are worth plenty.

 

 

Student loan debt is a personal problem that can be avoided. Work your way through, go to a cheap, in state school, go to community college your first 2 years, etc. It is a myth that getting a degree requires debt. I'll hand you a list of people right now who I know are going through school and getting jobs with no student loan debt. So that's a silly argument.

 

 

 

Being helpful with charitable giving generally does not hurt you financially. I give over 10% of my income charitably and I don't have a problem paying for my insurance, phone, food and gas. I'm making just above minimum wage with VERY few hours. Many prominent, successful financial advisers encourage charitable giving. I'm not against that, nobody should be. Plenty of people do so, so your argument that people refuse to help because it hurts them is also not completely true.

 

 

If Joe Schmuck spent his time in a free public library, consuming vast stores of information, rather than blowing money and time on beer and TV, or doing productive things, he could learn skills that could earn him money, create things that he could sell, OR BE LOOKING FOR A JOB. In a capitalist society there is ALWAYS a way to make money doing SOMETHING. You just have to have the initiative to do it.

Again, you are misunderstanding, sir.

 

How do you earn money when there are no jobs available? In some places not even McDonald's is hiring. How do you get a job when even the lowest rung is full? You're assuming that "get a job" is a solution, but guess what? I'm near minimum wage myself (albeit in Canada so my situation is only slightly different) and my weekly hours have recently been slashed from 30 to 12. I'm not speaking as one of those people who can't get a job, in fact I have a slight advantage in that I even have a job at all. You can't just tell people to go get a job when no one's hiring, because that's like telling someone to go fill a bucket of water in the desert. It's really really hard.

 

I never said that a degree requires debt; in fact I'm getting by just fine without a loan. But that doesn't change the fact that thousands of people are in debt because they took out the loans to pay for their education, and yet are unable to find work. Student loan debt is not something employers look at when considering candidates, so your argument is just as silly as you're trying to make mine out to be. Some people who have loans to pay will find jobs, some who don't are having trouble. It works both ways here.

 

And I'm not talking about charity. I'm talking about the big corporation that is doing layoffs as damage control to their own worth, and thus dropping people out of their means of fiscal sustenance. You know, the things that lead to people eventually eating into their life savings just to survive.

 

And if Joe Schmuck is educated and is sitting at home with a beer because he's just finished another day of handing out another three dozen resumes to every business he could find? What then, hm? It's a symptom of the problem here. You suggest that everyone who is unemployed is just not looking. What of those who have just lost their jobs due to layoffs? What about those who simply cannot find work because no one's hiring? No one wants to buy things nowadays so even making things to sell is likely to result in either a loss or making a few bare cents an hour for their work.

 

So I stand by my point here. When the corporate machine has ground to a halt, something is going to break. When that happens, I don't know what you'll be doing but I'm going to duck for cover.

Edited by Lythiaren

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Both of which are highly, highly unlikely to affect us. We're in a rather safe area of space and in danger of neither occurring for billions of years. We are, however, stupid animals who love to find more and more ways to kill one another and are draining our planetary resources at a worrying rate.

I will bet your undead ghost money that natural phenomena and other unavoidable aspects of existing will wipe out humanity, not humanity.

 

Humanity might make things suck for humanity, humanity might diminish itself, or just kind of funk things up for a while, but ultimately I believe humans will persevere, until space kills us.

 

Good 'ol space.

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I will bet your undead ghost money that natural phenomena and other unavoidable aspects of existing will wipe out humanity, not humanity.

 

Humanity might make things suck for humanity, humanity might diminish itself, or just kind of funk things up for a while, but ultimately I believe humans will persevere, until space kills us.

 

Good 'ol space.

You think we're going to survive several billion years without topping ourselves? Because that's how long we'd need to wait for a supernova to take us out.

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You think we're going to survive several billion years without topping ourselves? Because that's how long we'd need to wait for a supernova to take us out.

Uh...you think that it will take several billion years for ANY of the cosmic phenomena out there, which are huge, unpredictable and common, affect us?

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Uh...you think that it will take several billion years for ANY of the cosmic phenomena out there, which are huge, unpredictable and common, affect us?

I specifically said 'supernova.'

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There are, indeed, various way of producing electricity that do not require fossil fuels. To be fair nuclear is the only one that's practical on a large scale, and I'm a great proponant of it. But nuclear cannot create plastics. Plastics require oil to create, and geologists will happily tell you that oil reserves are finite. Not only that but as we use up the more easily acessed oil and have to move on to the stuff that's more difficult to extract the price will skyrocket.

 

"We're running out of fossil fuels" is something pretty much every big institution - from oil companies, to governments - wants to play down. No one wants to create panic. But I've studied Geology, and I've seen the reports from quite a nmber of leading geologists. Fact is we cannot create *more* fossil fuels, and we're using up the ones we've got. At an ever increasing rate, I might add.

 

"Already the output of [natural] gas has begun to wane. Production of oil cannot

long maintain its present rate." -- US Coal Commission, 1922

 

Yet...

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12245633

 

IEA doubles global gas reserves estimates

 

"The world may have 250 years of gas usage at current levels thanks to "unconventional gas" from shale and coal beds"

 

How? U.S. developments in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. Drill, baby, drill. user posted image

 

"Given the likelihood of other energy sources coming on line long before

then, the energy expert Nick Grealy has said that shale gas may be `essentially eternal‘"

 

On plastics:

 

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/williams-...tion-2011-09-20

 

"It is cheaper to produce ethylene from natural gas than from crude oil[...]"

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/...10914100600.htm

 

'Synthetic Biology' Could Replace Oil for Chemical Industry

 

Nuclear and other electrical plants could be tied indirectly to plastics and biofuels via cogeneration.

 

"The U.S. Department of Energy has set a goal of obtaining a quarter of industrial chemicals from biological processes by 2025."

 

Second Generation Biofuels

 

http://web5.cns.utexas.edu/news/2011/11/br...xas-enterprise/

 

Algal Biofuels are the Future (For Now)

 

http://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2011/nov/spaldingdario

 

http://www.israelnewtech.com/2011/10/the-g...iofuel-and-oil/

 

"While algae currently costs more per unit mass than crude oil, due to high capital and operating costs, it yields between 10 and 100 times more feedstock per unit area than any other second-generation biofuel crops."

 

The best source would be a fully synthetic genome instead of tweaking pathways in nature's organisms.

 

@TikindiDragon: Well, Uranium isn't that abundant either. Like coal ond oil it's only something else we'll run out of sooner or later.

 

Wrong. You're basing this on reactors that can only utilize Uranium-235 which makes up a very small fraction of uranium. There's reactor designs that can utilize depleted uranium and guzzle all the other radioactive material generated. Uranium reserves would last much longer -- thousands of years.

 

Additionally, this doesn't even include the thorium cycle.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_cycle

 

"Thorium is estimated to be about three to four times more abundant than uranium in the Earth's crust"

 

"Thorium fuels have fueled several different reactor types, including light water reactors, heavy water reactors, high temperature gas reactors, sodium-cooled fast reactors, and molten salt reactors."

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011...m-nuclear-plant

 

India plans 'safer' nuclear plant powered by thorium

 

 

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we are going to destroy the earth with pollution etc if we do get the chance to go to another planet and survive i say we should stay no point doing the same to that planet what we did to earth

 

merry Christmas biggrin.gif

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I think there are a bit too many humans on Earth and we might die of overpopulation or of too much pollution. I'm not sure which is more likely.

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Nature could just cook up a super virus that wipes out half or more of our population. Nature always finds a way to level out massive populations....Or we'll mostly perish the same way as all the other species that grow to huge numbers; resources run out, some of the species die, and then there are some resources left for the others and stuff. Too tired to make sense.

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Massive populations are usually levelled out by lack of food, or over-abundance of the animals feeding on them, though.

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Eh, we'll all die someday, and we have many threats, but some are just worries. I think we'll make it, just for us, the world still has many years to go.

And is it a coincidence that the HATCHLING NAME HOLDERS banner goes right to my DC account? -foot tap-

Now that just makes me sad...what a bad reputation to have...

Edited by Crazy Dragon Lady

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Aside from the inevitability of some natural disaster. I believe we humans will slowly die not just in number but in humanity. We will lose what makes us human if we aren't careful. In some places that has already started. Yes pollution, famine, war, and many other factors tie into it but the sad sad truth is something has to change or we will destroy ourselves and the only reason we don't change is because it might affect our daily routines.. that's just my opinion.

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Not directly related to the end of humankind but:

 

Today, I was met with so utter stupidity and the lack of interest in one's own future that I felt like shrieking out loud 'THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS!!! and other horrific profanities.

If people continue to be completely uninterested in their own future, we're gonna die very, very soon. Oh, my dead braincells. T_T

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I say die when our sun goes supernova.

Our sun is way too small to go supernova. But it will go red giant, which is enough to make life on Earth impossible - if Earth doesn't get swallowed up, that is.

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We will slowly devolve as a civilization through warfare. We will sooner or later meet our final end when an asteriod/meteor finally slams into the planet and we will all perish...

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Seeing that most humans only care about money and such, yeah we're all going to die.

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Gods gonna kick our buts, and mankind as going to try and fight back and epicly fail since god is almighty.

 

Legions epic angel beat down is a supporter of that minus the possesion part.

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