Is there any hope for the human race?

413x said:
It actually doesn't bother me.
I'd be worried if i have kids. But I don't. And I don't have any because I don't want any. Not because I'm scared of the world they'll inherit

I feel this is quite lucky as it means even though I think our standard of living for the average person is going down, it probably won't affect me. I'll be gone by time it ramps up.. If it does.



I actually think I'm more intrigued by what will happen with advanced technology. Personally I think it will create a bigger and bigger divide between rich and poor. But it is possible it will make the world better.

There are So many what ifs
-will we invent a new piece of tech that's provides unlimited energy (ie fusion)
or
-will we run out of fossil fuels and collapse as a society

-will we cure cancer?
or
-will be create something that makes covid look like a walk in the park

-will we invent an actual amazing vr world where people can live and enjoy life (ie severely disabled)
or
-will social media/automation turn us into mindless zombies with no purpose or use and we just fade out


There are many scenarios due to unforseen tech. At the moment I think we are sliding the wrong way in too many aspects.
Click to expand...

You might not want them, but it seems like you need them.
 
Efour said:
Yes
ferret-bath.gif
Click to expand...
The world would be a much better place if everyone forgot about politics and killing each other and watched endless videos like this.
 
JonRGV250 said:
Yawn

Just get on with life, enjoy the company of your loved ones and make the most of whats available to you.
Or..
Be a massive cry baby and spend your life worrying about anything and everything and make your life as miserable as possible and be forever unhappy.
Decisions decisions..
Click to expand...
Elderly inlaws - first thing they do on a morning is switch on the news, then spend their day watching ****** soaps and in the evening, Corrie, Eastenders etc where people are facing constant issues and screaming/aruguing with each other. Their only conversation is the news (and their homophobia) and they wonder why they are so negative all the time.

While the politicans, fat cats, big corporations etc are only interested in their own profits, there is sweet FA the general population can do about it. Also the fact that a lot of the rest of the population are quite scummy - scammers, law breakers, the bone idle etc, people who take, take, take, but who will never contribute.

Whilst i 100% agree we need a planet reboot, we only have one life, remove the negativity where you can, appreciate the good things and try to enjoy your life.
 
Last edited:
nightwish said:
I think it's a maths fail honestly. Millions - I would have raised an eyebrow. Billions - I just think the poster has no concept of how long a billion years actually is, or what can happen in that kind of time
Click to expand...

Your faith in humanity is disturbing. Your concept of time is just based on the past, with no concept to understand that life can keep existing beyond what it already has.
 
Zefan said:
Ackkkkshully we only have technology to do that to because of the politics and killing each other, so there!
Click to expand...
Most likely! Technology advanced a lot because of WW1/WW2. I'm trying harder to stick to the cute animal youtube vids and walks in the countryside watching the wildlife now though (by wildlife I mean squirrels, not chavs)
 
Begbie said:
Your faith in humanity is disturbing. Your concept of time is just based on the past, with no concept to understand that life can keep existing beyond what it already has.
Click to expand...

There needs to be a "huh?" emoji. Maybe just a big question mark. As this barely makes sense. Is this the usual standard of conversation in GD in general? I'm not a regular, and may not become one at this rate.

Where to even start. "Faith in humanity" - what does this mean? Are you a Star Wars extra? Is this meant to be sarcastic? It's genuinely hard to tell what you mean.

No-one but you is talking about "life" - that's a straw man. "The human race" is what the OP stated, and "humans" is what what was stated in the first post of this particular conversation.

I have a pretty good concept of numbers in general - like for example how old the Earth is, how long is has to live (barring massive sci-fi engineering intervention) how long ago the dinosaurs were, and how long they lasted. How long "humans" have already existed for. What evolution could do to the "human race" in a billion years. Stuff like that.

Mostly I understand how much bigger a billion is than a million (the difference between a day, and nearly 3 years, for example).
 
Last edited:
Slam62 said:
The things that seem to happen mostly because someone somewhere just decided it was a good idea seem to be getting more and more atrocious.

Global warming appears to be a real thing, but the chances of huge greedy nations doing anything about it is zero, the same goes for plastics that are dumped into the oceans.

When I was younger I hoped we would build a better world, as I have got older I have come to realise the world is full of evil parasites and all we can do is protect ourselves. Even then if we were to do it probably wouldn’t save us from the mad max world we are heading towards.

Or is there a more positive spin that can be put on it all?
Click to expand...
Count yourself lucky you live in a stable rich country and just get on and enjoy your life and stop worrying about things you have no control over.
 
In the words of Arnie in T2: "It's in your nature to destroy yourselves".

I reckon we'll plod on, exploiting every resource we can in pursuit of wealth, until we're forced to change.

Then we'll reluctantly and slowly adapt, with circumstances dictating our actions rather than a far-sighted intelligent plan.

I think we will get off-planet and continue elsewhere, but we'll leave a virtually uninhabitable (for humans) planet behind, and cause lots of suffering along the way.
 
I think one of the issues is that you don't need society as a whole to be messed up for serious problems to arise, you just need a few loose cannons in positions of power.
Generation X grew up living in fear of a nuclear holocaust and that's the sort of thing where a few acts by a few people can snowball into a catastrophe, even if 99.99% of the world's population aren't in favour of it.

More generally there is a lot of inertia when it comes to addressing long-term problems, with the risk of being too slow to act (e.g. climate change).

I haven't thought this through but arguably what humans are reasonably good at is tackling medium-term issues, where they aren't acting impulsively but nor are they trying to solve things over decades where they can't realise the fruits of their labours for many years. Maybe transport systems is an example of this, an infrustructure project lasting 2 years we can handle, one lasting 20 years (HS2 etc) you never have confidence in. Then again I'm probably weighting this too much for modern western civilisations, ancient Egyptians be like "u wot m8 we literally did a 20 year project to build this pyramid 4000 years ago!".
 
Last edited:
HangTime said:
I think one of the issues is that you don't need society as a whole to be messed up for serious problems to arise, you just need a few loose cannons in positions of power.
Generation X grew up living in fear of a nuclear holocaust and that's the sort of thing where a few acts by a few people can snowball into a catastrophe, even if 99.99% of the world's population aren't in favour of it.
Click to expand...

en.wikipedia.org

Nuclear close calls - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

I knew there were a few, but a bit shocked at how many there were! Amazing that we made it to the end of the 80s!

This is the one I was looking for specifically:
Several weeks after the downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 over Soviet airspace, a satellite early-warning system near Moscow reported the launch of one American Minuteman ICBM. Soon after, it reported that five missiles had been launched. Convinced that a real American offensive would involve many more missiles, Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov of the Air Defense Forces refused to acknowledge the threat as legitimate and continued to convince his superiors that it was a false alarm until this could be confirmed by ground radar.
Click to expand...

Hats off to Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov. We might not be having this conversation if it wasn't for this man.
His subsequent decision to disobey orders, against Soviet military protocol,[4] is credited with having prevented an erroneous retaliatory nuclear attack on the United States and its NATO allies that could have resulted in a large-scale nuclear war which could have wiped out half of the population of the countries involved. An investigation later confirmed that the Soviet satellite warning system had indeed malfunctioned. Because of his decision not to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike amid this incident, Petrov is often credited as having "saved the world".[5][6][7]
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Begbie said:
I disagree, I think it's all scaremongering. We may go down poor life choices as a species, but we also manage to get out of it. Worst comes to the worst we have a reset and try again.
Click to expand...
THIS!
Don't forget though, those CR2025's last like 25 years, so that should be enough time for the dust to settle and the air to clean again, best not let ze terminators have a CMOS battery though, or we are all screwed!
 
I don't get posts like this, the worlds never been a peaceful paradise that some seem to think it was. You just have to make the best of what you can and find things that make you happy.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom