Humanity's Future

[grimace]

Not counting a surprise nuclear war or supervolcano or something, our population will continue to grow, and there will be a mass die off.

 

People haven't learned about population control, and will never do anything about it until it is way too late.

[Kestra15]

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.

Thankfully, I am Mr Kestra, ergo I will be fine.

[sonseray]

Yes, because hard work and wealth building are inherently evil things that will kill us all. Instead, let's give the same amount of money to Billy Bob sitting on his couch drinking beer all day as we give to the manual laborer who worked his tail off all day. Yes, sounds like a fabulous plan to me. Why should I own a car anyways? Other people don't own cars. It's not like I need to drive to work to care for my family and my own needs. Oh yeah, the government should be caring for my family. So let's get rid of all our cars then, because there will always be people who won't have them, and even if everyone did have them, some people would have older ones which would mean they would be less privileged than I! Gasp! Oh dear, I guess we'll have to compensate them for their lack of a suitable car by taking some of my money and giving it to them to equal out but... wait, how will I get food now? Where is all this money coming from anyways??

 

The above is merely an example. Your assumption is that me wanting to work hard, earn money, and lead a comfortable life thereby is a bad thing. That assumption is wrong. There is nothing wrong with my talents, skills, and hard work earning me money, and those who do nothing to earn money should not be rewarded for such.

 

 

On topic... Rapture

I wasn't going to post in this thread, but this post irritated me. First of all, did you know that sarcasm is a classic psychological sign of insecurity? Second of all, if it weren't for capitalism, you wouldn't have to work for that money at all. No, you're right, it's not a fabulous plan for you. It would however be a fabulous plan for Billy Bob, who may have any number of reasons to not be working. If he's drinking all day, he probably has some deep problems or an addiction he can't overcome, both even. It would also be better for the planet as a whole if you gave away some of that "Hard earned money" You work your tail off for so you can slowly kill of other people and animals through your selfishness. Actually, you don't need to drive to work everyday! This may come as a shock to you, but the comforts you seek in life so fervently Are not necessary . You could get a closer job, for instance! Oh wait, you probably couldn't. Your ideals have already messed up our country. Not so easy to find a job now, is it? Yeah, the government should be caring for your family. That's about the only good we get out of the government. Although getting rid of our cars is probably for the best, nobody will do it. It's human nature to maximize gain for ourselves even at the cost of others, evident by the way you shamelessly post your ideals with such sarcastic certainty. And you could probably spare some money to give them couldn't you? Do something that doesn't benefit yourself for once? But you won't, will you? And you'll justify it however you can because you're a stereotypical american.

 

The above was a response to a particularly bad example. You're right it's a bad thing, but that's not going to stop you. It's not going to stop me either. I'm still going to work hard and try and live a life in comfort too, the difference is I do it because I don't have a choice due to the very specific model our government has set for society, which by the way, is doomed to fail as evidenced by our rapid decline in standard of living. Remember when America used to be the best country in the world? Boy, those were the days.

 

And as for your idea of the rapture, I respectfully disagree. I am not personally religious, but religion is something I can appreciate. Religion is something in which you believe in something greater than yourself. I advise you take that aspect of your life and apply it to your otherwise selfish ideals.

 

As for the fate of humanity, we will be dead within 100 years. Stephen Hawkings believes that in around 100 years, humans will develop space travel, if we can somehow survive to that point. However, the chances of us holding out that long at the rate things are going, in my opinion, are exceptionally small.

Edited December 15, 2011 by sonseray

[Tazzay]

Well in my short and honest opinion, humanity will likely not survive. There is no population control, ongoing wars and endless racism and hate. We'll either all kill each other, or some new virus will spread around the world, killing everyone who gets it. We are destroying this planet, and in the end, nature has its way of getting revenge.

[KageSora]

Humanity will kill each other. We'll probably wipe out the earth in the process.

 

The best part is it'll probably be the people screaming the loudest about how they want to "save" the world who will do us in, I bet.

[esnym]

I think it's highly unlikely that humans will be exterminated. Our world may suck in a lot of ways, but with a population of seven billion and an instinctive, undeniable will to survive I think we'd manage to overcome/survive quite a lot, even if in smaller numbers.

[VeeVeeLa]

I'm hoping that we manage to survive as long as we can. That is a natural instinct isn't it? To survive for however long you can.

 

Or at the very least, survive as long as I'm alive. I'd rather not witness the end of it all.

[St. Jimmy]

Humans will destroy each other, like they've done as long as they've existed. They'll only realise what they've done when it's too late, when there's nothing left for the earth to give. Then they'll turn on each other.

 

*is not a happy Jimmy right now*

[Fuzzbucket]

Humans will destroy each other, like they've done as long as they've existed. They'll only realise what they've done when it's too late, when there's nothing left for the earth to give. Then they'll turn on each other.

 

*is not a happy Jimmy right now*

*joins Jimmy on the sofa*

 

I couldn't agree more.

[teslakana]

humans have thousands of ways to go extinct we just haven't found them all yet

[Kai]

There's some seriously sour people wishful thinking for people they don't like to die.

 

Humans cover the entire globe, the worst case, life is going to suck extremely hard, but we will manage. Even catastrophic global warming would probably leave a few people alive in a bunker.

[pinkgothic]

We need more optimists and dreamers.

 

o/ *raises hand*

 

<background>

 

Mankind's inevitable destruction has been predicted as being (then-relative, not now-relative) near future so often in the past that I simply cannot consider it a credible theory. I understand it's the prevalent point of view, but then, so is misanthropism.

 

I'm the polar opposite of misanthropic - I hold my fellow humans in high regard and have, genuinely, never been given cause to change my opinion in the matter. We all make mistakes, and with power those mistakes often have grave consequences - but excepting a few bad apples (which, given the sheer size of human population, of course manage to dominate the news and look like a plague just given their ridiculous absolute numbers), in my personal experience, most people honestly try to do what's right.

 

Of course, there is the saying "The road to hell is paved with good intentions," and people disagree on what 'right' even is, and that in turn causes conflict; but owing to our biology, we're probably more alike than we think. I think the more we learn to deal with information transparency (-> we are living in super exciting times right now, with the internet fundamentally changing how cultures function), the more we're likely to realise what we have in common.

 

Note, I don't identify as an altruist; quite the opposite. I think peace, kindness and cooperation are the logical endpoint of an egoistic point of view (as opposed to being axioms as in altruism). Coldly stated: It's economically suboptimal to make enemies. You're even worse off if you start to attack each other and waste resources.

 

The benefit of that point of view is that I'll never be scared of people "being selfish" - with enough information available to people (the few bad apples notwithstanding), cooperation will result regardless whether they're altruists or egoists. So, given the way communication is heading, I don't believe we'd wipe each other out.

 

</background>

 

With that said...

 

Hi, I'm transhumanist. I'm intensely happy to be alive in the current time, with how many awesome technological advances are enabling new forms of communication. Even right now, I can talk to someone on the other side of the planet in real time. And sources like Wikipedia (when used properly, by checking the talk pages and the page history, and using permanent links to refer to articles to 'preserve' the version you actually visited when you put up the link) and to lesser(!) degree internet search engines have put a torrent of information at our fingertips.

 

We just have to open our eyes and look.

 

The global network is gradually eroding borders. It has the potential to help people liberate themselves. We have generations growing up with it now that cannot, unless they deliberately shelter themselves, escape a sense that certain "traits" such as nationality are wholly arbitrary. Online, we can (and often do) speak to each other as a collection of ideas, independent of colour of skin, heritage or gender.

 

Ironically, I have some incredibly unpopular ideas (I'm an anarchist, for one, and then I even have the gall not to discard the social notion of private property, so I suppose I'm a minority even amongst anarchists (a few of which would deny me the right to call myself that at all)) - but even those haven't left me lying in a ditch. In the circle of close friends that I have (maybe ten people?), all but one and a half are deeply incompatible with my political worldview. And yet... we get along.

 

I'll be frank. I don't know where all this will lead. Mankind currently seems to be scrambling to deal with the new paradigms, but we've yet to collapse into significantly more disarray over it. That being said, I'm certainly convinced there will never be an utopia - the same things that make human life worthwhile and interesting will always cause conflict - but I think some of the major problems are in the process of being slowly eliminated.

 

 

 

At the end of the day, my point of view sort of reduces to that I don't think I'm fundamentally more enlightened than anyone else, and if I can manage not to want to kill my neighbours, colleagues, or smother my boyfriend with his pillow in his sleep... it can't be that hard, surely.

 

 

 

(The above deliberately makes no statement about environment issues. I don't think I'm educated enough about those matters to say whether it's a problem that can't be fixed. It also deliberately makes no statement about large-scale catastrophes like meteor strikes. Again, I don't feel equipped to say anything about how well we could deal with those, so... leaving that there. <3)

[Lore_Master]

In all honestly, despite my immense cynicism of humanity, I do believe we'll overcome. We survived events that wiped out other species, we survived the black plague, we stopped ourselves from crossing the threshold of extinction multiple times. Humanity is nothing if not determined and resourceful. It'll get worse before it gets better. I do believe that our future is in the stars, it has been stated that there could be as many as two billion Earth-Like planets within the habitable zone. This is only counting for our galaxy, so you can only imagine how many are within our universe. In fact, Gliese 667 C made the news recently because it has three within its system that can support life.

 

Even though we have evolved, we are still just animals... complete with a survival mentality. We would never willing allow ourselves to go extinction. We'll survive, we'll preserve, and we'll get the point where we can leave our beloved Earth.

[Ripan]

Everything ends. Sooner or later. And unless the end of humankind is something like the planet exploding into smithereens, the planet will likely outlive us.

[Shadowdrake]

We gon' die!

 

Considering how shortsighted humans are, if global warming is our fault I think it's going to end with frozen methane melting and accelerating the warming effect, then the skies being full of methane will set on fire and everyone is doomed. Whee! (Note: I have no idea what will actually happen, I just think the skies on fire is a good indication of the apocalpyse )

 

Interestingly enough, Isaac Asimov has written something about nuclear wars being the end of most worlds, yet we haven't died by nukes and probably won't due to the level we've gotten to. Yay optimism?

 

*shrugs* Who really knows what the future holds? And can I have robot clones of my brain?

[Kestra15]

I really am starting to think that Fallout 3/New Vegas is our future.

[little lost dragon]

With money being far more important then life to many I see no future for humanity. The economy will collapse and then WW3 might just happen as a result and with all the stored weapons.... we dunnu if the earth could hold up to the result

[shadowgrr]

We are a spiece as all the others and as the evolution says through a hard situation that we can't overcome we'll get vanished and another spiece that can survive "beat" us or we'll get evolve to something else. But I think in that we have another advantage, in addition with other species we can change our surrounding in consious, so surviving isn't a matter of changing a part of your body, but using nature for your advantange. But it's too early to talk about this since we only exist for 1.000.000 years, we have plently of future and since societies and systems change as the species we won't self-destruct.

[AquaBlueRain]

humans destroy earth (atomic war, extreme pollution...) and get exterminated

 

This wouldn't surprise me at all. Too many people don't give a darn and don't realize their actions are going to have drastic consequences.

[Moonlight_Eevee]

The daleks come to whisk me away before they exterminate all life on earth. Daleks FTW

[BlitzDrake]

Humans will cease to realize their error of pollution, over population, global warming, etc when it's too late. Then in order to fix their problems expenses will be put into it, increases/inflating the prices of everything (more than it already is, beings that gas/meat/water will be harder to come by then at this point and time) Animals will be extinct everywhere, national parks will have to be turned over so that people can live somewhere as the population increases, we may have to wear gas masks going outside (because the air is too tainted) and in the end, we all/or most will die out leaving behind the dying planet that we created from our own negligent efforts.

[dark_kitsune]

With all the mass extinctions the earth has experienced, it would be foolish to think the human race will go on forever. We will eventually go the way of the dinosaurs....either by a natural event or by our own hands.

[earthgirl]

-.-

 

We've gone a long way to destroying our planet, but we've still got another long(er) way to go in order to make it uninhabitable and go extinct ourselves. When nature will take its toll, of course.

At this point we're still thriving.

Edited July 18, 2013 by earthgirl

[Ælex]

We're all going to die.

Each of us individually.

Some of us sooner then others.

Some of us peacefully, others in agony.

Most of us against our will, but yet some of us willfully.

 

But collectively? The entire human race?

...face it. We have the nukes, and we have the egos.

Sooner or later, nuclear war will break out, especially with our diminishing natural resources and overpopulation problems.

 

And when it does, the effects on our ecosystem will be so severe, that it will either take decades, or even centuries for the wounds to heal.. and we will pat ourselves on the backs and promise this will never happen again, until several more hundred years down the line, when history repeats itself.

 

Or.. the wounds won't heal. We'll face mass extinction and environmental collapse of such proportions, that chaos and mayhem will lead to the complete and utter demise of the human race and everything that we've ever established.

Edited July 18, 2013 by Ælex

[sparkle10184]

The human population is definitely not dwindling, but we're slowly destroying our planet. Earth is going to be uninhabitable if we keep this up. And then who knows? Maybe by then we'll have found a new planet to live on and destroy that too. Unless humanity looks in a mirror and realizes what we're doing, earth is going to be lifeless. So all in all, I think the human race is going to die by it's own hands.