No need to look any further than these forums; the bickering, the self absorbed little lives we live. I just wonder if our brains are truly capable of seeing the big picture. Highly irrational, even as one reads this, we assume that we do. Do you? Do I? We are in no way prepared for the challenges of the future, we dig oil out of the ground like it's an endless supply, we dump valuable materials into landfills every day. More on point, we are not prepared to deal with serious life threatening events. We don't have the time to wait around for it to happen, we should be spending a lot more effort on these high risk issues, we should be thinking about the time when we need to leave this planet. We should be trying to work together. When animals become extinct, it's usually due to some kind of specialization, I wonder if ours is just plain ole' complacency?
In short....No, we will not "Get It' in any meaningful way. Likely we will eventually become a victim of our own nature....or nature itself. Sucks....but there it is.
Humans may be complacent and suffer from a lack of forward thinking but throughout history was shown an astounding ability to think really fast on our feet when we need to
Don't worry about it. Humans have largely freed themselves through technology from the former ravages of disease, predators, and hunger. As a result, we are breeding like bacteria and have probably already exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet (as attested by the polluted oceans, aquifers pumped dry, deforestation, exhausted salty soils, and so on.) And yet we continue to breed like bacteria. Now, this is entirely normal, and everything from bacteria to lemmings to crab grass does this every chance they get. The result is always the same - a population implosion when the resources are exhausted, often accompanied by rapid evolution due to selection turning back on mercilessly. Seeing this, knowing this, will we voluntarily reduce our birth rate? Ask your nearest anti-abortionist - this forum has plenty of them.
I would consider a long term existence on Earth to be a death sentence. I think something like 99% of all species to live on earth are now extinct. I'm saying look hard at exoplanets, try to expand our intelligence, focus our energies, and find a 2nd home.
No amount of fast thinking will make a trillion tons of CO2 in the atmosphere disappear. Human civilization depends on food. Food depends on weather. Weather depends on climate. Fast thinking got us into this mess. What we need is long-term thinking, something at which humans have been astonishingly incompetent.
This sounds like, "People who don't agree with me are wrong and dooming the planet. Why can't everyone be as smart as I am?
Pretty much. I see our society wasteful and am pretty much asking if other people see it as well. Sorry to have offended you and your kind. Of course I'm not sorry, it's the very point of this thread. So really, I'm sorry that you, even in this thread about the subject, can't get past your little emotions and insecurities, and see it in such a small way. You think small my friend. Thank you for the thinly veiled insult, I guess that is what passes for intellecutual debate on these forums these days. - - - Updated - - - Pretty much. I see our society wasteful and am pretty much asking if other people see it as well. Sorry to have offended you and your kind. Of course I'm not sorry, it's the very point of this thread. So really, I'm sorry that you, even in this thread about the subject, can't get past your little emotions and insecurities, and see it in such a small way. You think small my friend. Thank you for the thinly veiled insult, I guess that is what passes for intellecutual debate on these forums these days.
Ha! No worries! I don't feel in the least offended! Although I'm not sure who my "kind" is. Maybe I would feel offended if I knew that. You wouldn't happen to be a college freshman or sophomore would you? You sound like you have all the answers.
I think that we will never get it , probably one of the species that will evolve and diversify from us will have the mental capacity and psychological stability to progress mankind . On our defence we survived a very serious extinction event 70k years ago and we still carry many ancestral traumas , in short we are too spoiled to make things work.
I just wonder if it's just not in our design to think long-term. In fact I know that it isn't, it's why for example it is impossible to convince anyone that flossing is necessary. But we DO need to evolve, we do need to look past what we think FEELS good or right and look towards a future of more focused on challenges. I guess I don't think leaving the species up to chance, our own devices is really a good gamble to take. I'm sure the religious would see it as something just as real as genesis if a big rock was hurling at us and we had no control over it, I would see it as a failure on our part to find the solutions in time. We would be no better than the Dinosaurs when it comes down to it. Not too impressive to be no better than an oversized chicken.
Actually you just posted the most significant psychological factor that separates us from the rest of our ape cousins , control over emotion and yes as the civilisation goes forward what we acquire is even more control until one day rationality takes over superstition , fear of the dark , feeling of insignificance when looking at the night sky .
lots of people out there with the same concerns who would like to make positive changes. if that's what you're looking for, its always good to remember that even though posting is doing something, it feels that way, its not doing anything about what you want to change no matter who you talk to about it or for how long. Also you can't get important human feedback without seeing the eyes of the person and people who are listening/talking to you so its not a good place to look for that kind of thing. I mention this because I've seen a few people let their interactions from the internet turn them into cynics about humanity. Hopefully that was just internet activism or the site and they went elsewhere and didn't lose their goodness passion.
the three marks of existence are desire, aversion and delusion. so the answer to your question is: NO!
I think the world could come closer together in the exploration of space. At this point in time, we would have to depend on probes to venture to the places we cannot get. Hopefully we can come across a bit of knowledge that will help us evolve significantly. So lets try to make probes as cheap as possbile, and send them out by the hundreds! The universe is a big place, so we will need numbers on our side since no effecient means of propulsion exists. It would be awesome to have a website dedicated to monitoring any video footage these probes send back, but that may be wishful thinking.
we're not leaving this planet, ever...we either take of our only home or die on it sooner than later...
we make it the chemo is ugly but the knowledge does exist that you seek the why, the what, the who: to live
An internet forum is the last place to go for understanding. Too many bored little boys having immature fun getting a rise out of people by posting inflammatory crap. Trolls. That being said I do agree that humanity is in a state of denial and only looking at the short term. Deforestation, overpopulation, nationalism, aggression. It will come to a head soon and I don't think we'll make it. Even you seem to be locked in a mindset that fleeing from a dying world as better that cleaning and caring for it. Think about it and then re-watch Independence Day. Those evil aliens who, like locusts, move from planet to planet. consume every natural resource and then move on, could be US! Fortunately for the universe the physics of space travel and the lack of nearby livable worlds makes such a rapacious existence impossible. We'll collapse before we get there. You can't reach the stars while the earth rots away under your feet. We have to clean up our room before we will be allowed to go out and play.