We're All Doomed - Top Three Reasons!

I'd have to agree with the bulk of your doom and gloom rant.

I look at Earth's badly failing environment in a somewhat different
way, that often excludes the importance of humanity, in that for the
longest time mother Earth and of its vast populations of complex life
did just fine and dandy without us pillaging and raping everything in
sight, including that trick of our having put our own kind on a stick
for such a silly faith-based PR stunt.

I believe that Earth became livable for us humans because of our
mostly freshwater global environment having obtained that somewhat
salty and icy protomoon, and otherwise extensively of what those nifty
little diatoms accomplished. Remove or exclude them little diatoms
and we all get to die.

Of course, removing our orbiting mascon of such a substantial tidal
influence, as having been the most likely encounter of what created
and having sustained Earth's seasonal tilt, and for the most part
Earth loses 2/3s of its tides and gets itself summarily frozen to
death.

How's that for sharing the Guth doom and gloom rant of the day?
- Brad Guth


John Savard wrote:
Gloom, doom, and despair pervade the outlook of many people on the
future.

I think there are basically three reasons for this.

One is the very genuine danger of global warming. Increasing human
numbers and advancing technology have led to pollution in many forms,
and to loss of natural wildlife habitat in many areas. But this used to
be merely local. The discoveries of changes in the ozone layer showed
that things have reached the point where humanity is affecting the
environment on a global scale.

Another is the advancing status of women. Historically, the early
civilizations of antiquity did not have much in the way of resources to
work with, compared to the developed nations of today. So, they
concerned themselves with keeping the men in line, and content, because
they were the ones whose upper-body strength made them good swordsmen.
Keeping men from fighting over women was important, keeping women
content was not. Now, the rules are changing, yet men are still most of
the cops and most of the soldiers.

And then there's world politics. World War II didn't yield what everyone
hoped for - peace forever after. Instead, freedom was cruelly snatched
away from Eastern Europe, and as Red spies obtained the secret of the
Atomic Bomb, it seemed that the forces of Big Business, so slow in
recognizing the Nazi menace, had a point after all about Russia. And
then Russian Communism collapsed...but we still weren't out of the woods
yet. China menaces our ally Taiwan, and forces down an American plane,
stealing classified technology from it. Russia obstructs American
efforts towards world peace, and harbors 900-number fraudsters in
Belarus. And, of course, most seriously, terrorists strike on American
soil - and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan gives them a chance to
escape into hiding. And we turn around and look about us - and find that
over the past fifty years, immigration has taken place, so that instead
of Islam being an exotic, foreign thing, Europe and even North America
have the potential of... internal divisions, and reasons for
nervousness.

Therefore, it becomes hard to visualize how our future in 100 years'
time could look like a 1930-era science-fiction story or a 1960-era
comic book.

A peaceful, prosperous world. Crime is so rare that treating criminals
with psychiatry instead of being harsh and vengeful is acceptable to a
populace not overburdened by crime and is not unaffordable. Of course
racial bigotry is a thing of the past, but of course America/Western
Europe/wherever is overwhelmingly white, just like it's always been.
People may live in futuristic cities with really tall buildings, but
they're not suffering from overcrowding. Whether or not there is a World
Government, there are no dictatorial regimes anywhere, although there
may be mad scientists trying to establish them (one has to give the hero
something to do in order to have a plot).

If one can't paint that kind of a future, one has to paint a different
kind of future.

One possibility is for a catastrophe to happen, whether nuclear war or
ecological collapse. One can then write a story about the people living
among the ruins.

Another is for the apocalyptic possibilities in our current problems not
to be realized. So we muddle through, with some human suffering, but
technology still progresses, even if the annoyance of power blocs
standing in contention with the heirs of Greece and Rome still persists,
and if Europe and America happen to be a bit more broadly multicultural
than they once were, and more crowded, and with more tension and crime.

And then there are stories about a future where China has become the
dominant power.

Some people have opposed setting up space colonies or colonies on Mars
because the rich and powerful could escape to them in order to avoid the
consequences of their misdeeds upon Earth. I can understand the basis
for such concern, but I feel it mistimed.

As long as there is any uncertainty about the future - as long as we're
not absolutely confident that the future will simply hold an advance
from one glittering peak of cultural and technological achievement to an
even higher one - we must be able to deal with adverse eventualities.

The vast majority of human genetic diversity... is located in Africa.
The situation of most people in sub-Saharan Africa today is, in a word,
apalling. And that has been true, although for different reasons, for
the last few centuries.

A tiny fraction of humanity, though, left Africa for less crowded areas,
and, although they eventually had enough children to make them crowded
as well, in the interim they had enough breathing space to build the
great civilizations of Europe, China, and India. And some Europeans
managed to get even more breathing space by discovering the New World,
leading to the power, wealth, and freedom of America.

Well, we've bumped into our limits here on Earth. There are no new
continents just beyond the next ocean.

With rockets, we aren't going to be able to launch the entire population
of the U.S. to Mars. Only dozens of people, or maybe even hundreds,
would be lucky enough to escape the Earth. What good is that?

Well, what good is America, since it hasn't solved the problems of
Africa?

Of course people are primarily concerned about their own personal
descendants, which is part of the reason why different ethnic groups so
often are in conflict. But the survival of Man is ultimately what
counts, and if a bleak future is possible on Earth, then Man's finest
achievements of freedom and science need to be preserved where some
people - whose descendants would eventually outnumber those who Earth's
limited resources will be supporting - can live the way people should
live.

John Savard
http://www.quadibloc.com/index.html