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Sort of off topic but Tokyo (indeed Japan) is an amazing place, if you ever get the chance then check it out. before the world ends!!!

i honestly believe that the human race as we know it will look anything like it does now in 200 or so years time

renewable energy is all well and good but harvesting the materials needed for things like electric cars and turbines etc burns so much more carbon than it actually saves

energy will run out for the western world, and hopefully i won't be around to see it happen

I heard somewhere lately that pessimists make better decisions
so it's probably good that I (& Magma) don't get to make many.
I just keep seeing the best in people,
with the worst an abberation due to educatable/drug-treatable ignorance & greed.
After all, we're all in this together & for such a little time.
Anyway, if the current structures of society collapse, other structures will arise.
With my mindset, I see advantage in having an opportunity for improving it's capacity for negotiation & cooperation.
If Asaad, corrupt Greeks & mining barons are shitting themselves,
then bring on the so-called downfall.

yoowan wrote:i honestly believe that the human race as we know it will look anything like it does now in 200 or so years time

renewable energy is all well and good but harvesting the materials needed for things like electric cars and turbines etc burns so much more carbon than it actually saves

energy will run out for the western world, and hopefully i won't be around to see it happen

Since when?

idk it was on radio 4 the other day

'The Decline of The West' by Oswald Spengler is also a very interesting read, especially as it predicts the EU by many decades (from before WW1) amongst other things

sd5 wrote:I heard somewhere lately that pessimists make better decisions
so it's probably good that I (& Magma) don't get to make many.
I just keep seeing the best in people.

Basically, I can't be fucked to go through my only shot at life being miserable. It's too precious. If I'm going to do this existence thing, I'm going to do it with a motherfucking smile on my face.

Kind of implicit suggestion there that you can't be smiling as you anticipate the downfall of man.

I'll just be happy and see where that gets me. If the world or society ends, I'll take a page out of pev's book and roll with the punches. For all I know, this could be the only time I am me, so I'll spend my time living in every moment like it's the only moment

Nothing is going to happen, because nothing ever happens. Sorry.

Something almost happened, but then it didn't...

wait




is that...











nuh.


carry on

nowaysj wrote:Kind of implicit suggestion there that you can't be smiling as you anticipate the downfall of man.

I personally would find it difficult to be happy if I really believed our civilisation was heading down the pan. I'm comfortable with the fact that people have *always* believed society was on the brink of failure and it's never happened in the past... conversely, we've always made tangible progress over the medium to long term.

If you're happy being pessemistic about everything, then fair enough... do you. It takes all sorts to make the world go round.

Well, I look at it the same way I look at my life. I know I'm going to die. I know everyone that I love is going to die. Doesn't mean that I stop loving them, or myself, and enjoying every minute that I have. Same thing with our civilization. We're going to die, every brilliant and inspired notion we've ever generated will be lost forever, doesn't mean we can't enjoy the time we have.

In regards to the it's never happened before, so it will never happen: you can't deny that we are at an unprecedented (it is not even the right word for the starkness of the contrast between our current and former) level of technological development, and looking even a few years into the future reveals a myriad of ways in which any small group, or even an individual, could kill every human being on the planet. Never have we faced this perilous condition.

nowaysj wrote:Well, I look at it the same way I look at my life. I know I'm going to die. I know everyone that I love is going to die. Doesn't mean that I stop loving them, or myself, and enjoying every minute that I have. Same thing with our civilization. We're going to die, every brilliant and inspired notion we've ever generated will be lost forever, doesn't mean we can't enjoy the time we have.

In regards to the it's never happened before, so it will never happen: you can't deny that we are at an unprecedented (it is not even the right word for the starkness of the contrast between our current and former) level of technological development, and looking even a few years into the future reveals a myriad of ways in which any small group, or even an individual, could kill every human being on the planet. Never have we faced this perilous condition.

Again, I agree with almost all of it. Death, I don't have a problem with... I'm comfortable with having to die, I don't see why that would affect me being an optimist or pessimist really.

Our civilisation will die and it may well be by its own hand, but I actually have an awful lot of optimism (call it faith, I guess) in the general positive trend that our people have been experiencing since they put down their spears and left the nomadic life for a civilised life based around agriculture and the idea of "working for a living". We've survived massive catastrophes in the past and have always bounced back; we survived an Ice Age that killed off at least two very similar species, we made it through the Great Plagues because of our ability to organise and quarantine en masse, we've even survived all our own best efforts to wipe ourselves off the planet.

We may well move into a realm where an individual could press the button and end humanity. I don't really know what to say about that risk other than yes, it's a risk, but no, it's probably not worth worrying about because if it happened, well, there'd be nobody to be upset about it anymore. A bit like I won't be saddened by my own death, humanity will never weep over its own grave. Nobody will, because nobody else on this rock even understands the concept of extinction let alone can be moved by it.

The only thing that really upsets me is human suffering. Humans used to have hard, short lives as most animals do... as a general trend civilised humans have been getting healthier and older for thousands of years now... human suffering, whilst still horrifically apparent almost everywhere, is going down and that's a good thing. Society is doing it's job, but it's incumbent on all of us to make sure it keeps moving in the right direction... optimism certainly isn't an excuse for apathy.

Anyway, like I said... we basically agree, it's just a glass half full/empty thing.