Are we at Peak Humanity now?

[2004typer]

Had a couple of beers and this thought passed over me.

Is there anything better to come or have we reached our artificial human peak due to how we live now?

I'm aware there is still a damn lot of disparity in living standards across the globe, but is there anything better to come?

A vast majority of us live in comfort, although being sheep to working lives etc., we have it a damn site better than previous generations (I think), in terms of healthcare, access to technology, living standards etc., obviously this differs vastly depending on how wealthy you are but in general there is a good safety net for most (or am I being too first world centric?).

But, in terms of lifestyle, a lot of the world is very consumer centric (and I'm guilty of this), gobbling vast amounts of power, massive pollution issues, global warming, seas full of plastic, species going extinct, deforestation etc. - are we ever going to solve this before we all eventually self implode or destroy ourselves with the ridiculous weapons at our disposal?

There's nothing I'd love more than a Star Trek fantasy world where we've solved all of these issues and we all get along in harmony for the common good, but as a species I think we have a tendancy for self destructiveness in a bid to gain advancement, there doesn't seem to be a balance in progression to stave off ruining what supports our actual existence.

I might be a million miles off actuality, but I remember a study from school on opportunity cost, where you had to balance the benefit of one thing against the loss of another situation, seems pretty relevant.

Another issue clearly is CoVid, or the next iteration when it arrives, the global transit of persons on the current scale makes it very easy as we have seen for a virus to spread uncontrolled - surely this will also happen again at some point?

Do we need to drastically change our outlook and actions to progress, or do we continue as we are?

Or.....is this just evolution happening?

Sorry for rambling!

 

[2004typer]

So peak = comfort?

The ultimate goal of mankind is to become comfortable?

Like always it depends on how you define peak, what is the purpose of life, is it too remove all suffering and fear is it to be happy or seek pleasure?

Is your life really better than the last generation?

What happens when you die?

Are you just becoming lazy and ungrateful?

Plenty of variables

All good points, but on the comfort topic, not really, that's why I termed it as an artificial peak, in that the innate need in the first instance is survival, a facet that most of us have quite easily now (i.e. shelter, food etc.), hence in these terms we do have comfort, but at the expense of this comfort are we ruining our future progression, and is what a lot of us have now the best we'll ever have before a decline?

 

[2004typer]

peak as in evolution ? then no .. but there will be a couple more wars till we sort ourselves out .. man has great potential ..we also have a great greed and a wanting for more ..
once we lose this we will be going in the right direction ..
but those that control will always be the obstacle.

Yep, those are my thoughts in general, we have the capability to achieve a lot more I think, but are we going to make it unsustainable to do so on our current trajectory.

 

[2004typer]

Peak humanity??

We still have people being extremely ***** to each other because they believe in imaginary friends.

Not our peak in terms of our ability, but our peak in terms of a self imposed limit.

 

[2004typer]

Op says most of humanity lives in comfort. False. Most of humanity lives below the poverty line. It's just not seen as frequently in the UK.

We as a species are a million miles from peak humanity, we're fast approaching peak Orwellian society though.

Peak humanity can only largely be argued as something similar to Star Trek, when no human wants for anything, population boom and size will matter less when we can start living off planet, of course feeding everyone is another problem until replicators are invented.

Agree with this - I did try to put some context in my initial comment by stating perhaps my view is a bit first world centric, and I agree there is a large proportion of the world's population below the poverty line.

Just looked up the Orwellian definition and I think that is where we are at (Quote from Google):

"Orwellian" is an adjective describing a situation, idea, or societal condition that George Orwell identified as being destructive to the welfare of a free and open society.

I touched on the Star Trek analogy and I hope future generations can get to this point, agree that once we have sussed getting off the planet sustainably and can survive in space for the long term, developed much more efficient energy sources, stopped fighting among ourselves and of course solved food supply we will have opened new horizons and will have much more potential.

 

[2004typer]

Which might be the peak that humanity reaches. The OP's question is "how high up will humanity get?" not "how high up can humanity possibly get?"

Yup - in the context of are we going to destroy ourselves or the world prior to being able to reach our full potential.