Is humanity on a path to suicide?

[Norsemaiden]

Global dimming is one threat. Responsible for droughts that have already killed hundreds of thousands of people in sub-Saharan Africa.

Even the most pessimistic forecasts of global warming may now have to be drastically revised upwards. That means a temperature rise of 10c by 2100 could be on the cards, giving the UK a climate like that of North Africa and rendering many parts of the world uninhabitable.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dimming_prog_summary.shtml

Today's news

New CO2 evidence means climate change predictions are 'too optimistic'

Yes, very "metal"!
http://timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2719627.ece

"Mutational load" is the total genetic burden in a population resulting from accumulated deleterious mutations.
http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/ridley/a-z/Mutational_load.asp

There are more than 1500 known mutational disorders or genetic diseases. By elimination of the unfit, natural selection reduces the harmful effects of mutations on a population. Some human behaviour is a pathological result of genetic mutation or neurological damage. Contamination/pollution is a major cause of bioaccumulated mutagens. Experiments have shown that genetically adapting to survive in a polluted environment can result in the population being so genetically altered that if they were put back into the non-polluted environment, they would die and the pollution itself causes mutations, altering germcells. This was found in an experiment involving fish. It is mentioned in the article I am about to quote from by a major Canadian geneticist, Michael Easton, entitled "Environmental Mutagens: A Crisis of our Time"
http://www.naturphoto.com/oped2d.html

Easton says that pollution caused by humans could quickly cause such massive deleterious mutational genetic load that we may go extinct.

Germcell mutations, even if harmful and selected against will likely remain in the population for many generations. Thus in an environment of a chemically induced increase in the background mutation rate, there will be an increasing legacy of useless or harmful genetic material that is created within each generation by an ever increasing build up of genetically toxic chemicals. These effects may be compounded each generation. Under polluted conditions, natural mutation events are slowly accumulated and form a reservoir of material (genetic load) for evolutionary change. At high levels, this mutational load becomes a drag on the population and can result in an enormous burden of useless mutated genes resulting in greater embryo and pre-reproductive mortality. At lower levels, the genetic flexibility of the population is diminished.

The end of many species, possibly including man, could come about not from the catastrophic effects of atom bombs, but from the genetically damaging effects of our toxic environment, short sighted industrial practices and the ineffectiveness and inadequacy of present government regualtions to reduce the rate of an ever increasing debt of genetic damage. Unlike the fiscal debt, the genetic damage debt can't be paid off.

More doom mongering to follow...

 

[Norsemaiden]

I mentioned global dimming as one factor in climate change. There is also the "run away greenhouse effect" which would be a process where our oceans boil away and all life on the planet obviously dies. This effect has already happened on Venus.

http://www.worldpress.org/americas/1975.cfm

When global temperatures rise by 3 degrees

At this point the rainforests begin to die, releasing vast new amounts of carbon dioxide. Algae fail in the ocean and stop generating cooling clouds and absorbing carbon. The Greenland glacier goes into meltdown, releasing enough water to flood many of the world's cities. Crop failures, human migrations,the emergence of 'brutal war lords' follow.

From James Lovelock's book "The Revenge of Gaia".

Time left to sort this out before irreversible processes begin is as little as ten years.(NASA confirms).

Global politics is heading for serious confrontations and strong likelihood of nuclear weapons being used.

Wars over water set to become commonplace.

Rate of scientific innovation slowing, from a peak 100 years ago. New Scientist article "Entering a dark age of Innovation".
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7616

In his book "Half gone: oil, Gas, Hot Air and the Global Energy Crisis" published last year, Jeremy Legett quotes Munich Re, the world's largest reinsurance company, warning

according to current estimates, the possible extent of losses caused by extreme natural catatrophe in one of the world's metropolises or industrial centres would be so great as to cause the collapse of entire countries' economic systems and could even bring about the collapse of the world's financial markets.

The world is overdue for a massive cull through plagues. AIDs is ongoing and threatens to virtually wipe out Africans. And the bird flu is teetering on the brink of decimating populations. The effect of the bird flu could be that people can't or won't work and so hospitals will be devastatingly undermanned and food won't be reaching supermarkets, causing a crisis whereby people will rely on the army bringing food parcels. It only takes a matter of days to reach such a point.

There is increasing belief in religions and superstitions showing humanity is regressing - hardly a surprise when the least intelligent are having the most children, and when people from cultures with little regard for science are emmigrating to the communities that have traditionally led this field.

Increasing levels of illiteracy and innumeracy,

standards of literacy are today lower than they were in 1914. What appears extraordinary is that literacy seems to have been going down fairly steadily ever since the state took an active part in education

http://www.edwardgoldsmith.com/page55.html

Dr Geoff Hayward from Oxford University's Educational Studies Department discusses their report into the falling standards of numeracy and literacy amongst students entering university.

http://www.edstud.ox.ac.uk/about/current.html

Other signs include: increasing bureaucratic corruption; institutions like the National Health Service failing; families breaking up and this causing dysfunction; increasing mental illness. http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/1998/1021/immigrant.html

Most people react to all this like an obese glutton who is told to cut down on donuts - denial and annoyance.

So is it just another cycle?

Well no. You see, we have depleted the Earth of the basic metals that we would need to start up over again. We officially will need "a new planet" by 2050
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6077798.stm

I rest my case

 

[Spikeshade]

I mentioned global dimming as one factor in climate change. There is also the "run away greenhouse effect" which would be a process whereby our oceans boil away and all life on the planet obviously dies. This effect has already happened on Venus.

Listen to Ozzy's song Dreamer.

If we keep up this destruction of the earth we arent going to survive, because we are raping the earth.
And global warming/global dimming is going to be our downfall.

 

[SouthernTrendkill]

Personally speaking, I think you guys are all full of bullshit (except for Seditious and Blowtus and such), but I certainly hope you are right about the end of the world.

We shall reconvene this thread in 80 years and see how it's going.

 

[JoeVice]

"If I was God, you'd sell your soul to the Great Southern Trendkill."

shut the fuck yup

 

[SouthernTrendkill]

"If I was God, you'd sell your soul to the Great Southern Trendkill."

You're right, I would.

The relevence of my signature is what, exactly? And are song lyrics frowned upon on this music forum?

 

[BlackMetalWhiteGuy]

Today, seven billion... in ten years, nine billion. The average IQ is 85-92. Each one of these people produces a bag of garbage a day, and needs food that leaves more heavy metals in the water, more pesticides and fertilizer in our waterways.

Well, here's an idea. Since my IQ is about 136 (or anywhere between 120 and 145), I'll have sex with as many women as possible and hopefully some of them will get pregnant and give birth to babies with half of my awesome DNA. I know, I know, ordinarily no man would want to have sex with that many women, but for humanity's sake, I'll do it

 

[Blowtus]

I would have thought a fitting test of that marvellous iq would be to demonstrate it's worth by luring all the women you want to bed with you, if that's what you desire...

 

[BlackMetalWhiteGuy]

I would have thought a fitting test of that marvellous iq would be to demonstrate it's worth by luring all the women you want to bed with you, if that's what you desire...

No, I think you are confused, I'm not doing it for me, I'm doing it for them

 

[death metal black metal]

Since my IQ is about 136 (or anywhere between 120 and 145)

You seem to be about mid-120s, at the highest. Where did you test this IQ of yours? (Did it end with ".com"?)

 

[Blowtus]

You seem to be about mid-120s, at the highest. Where did you test this IQ of yours? (Did it end with ".com"?)

An oracle on a fetus forum told him no doubt

 

[cryosteel]

Personally speaking, I think you guys are all full of bullshit (except for Seditious and Blowtus and such), but I certainly hope you are right about the end of the world.

Isn't it interesting that the content of black and death metal music coincides with everyone except those two Britney Spears fans?

 

[BlackMetalWhiteGuy]

You seem to be about mid-120s, at the highest. Where did you test this IQ of yours? (Did it end with ".com"?)

I saw a psychologist who administered a series of tests from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale over a course of four weeks. I consistently scored "above average" to "very superior for age," with the exception of repetitive psycho-motor coordination and verbal communication, which were average and low average respectively, indicating that I do indeed have Adult ADD and "a specific language learning disability," which were the exact diagnoses that the appointments were scheduled to evaluate.

Speaking of intelligence, my ex-girlfriend was reading over my shoulder while I was viewing the religion thread last night, when she suddenly exclaimed "this is the second time that death-metal-black-metal guy has posted a stupid comment in response to another poster without understanding the original argument," to which I replied "actually, it's the second time he's done it on this page. Oh that reminds me, check this out!" After reading the conversation twice to make sure she didn't miss anything, she replied "this doesn't make any fucking sense. Ah well, every forum has its retard. Oh wait!"

they are unconvinced they are anything but supor-geniuses

"He's right about that part though."

Of course never more-so than when in comparison to someone like you

An oracle on a fetus forum told him no doubt

Haha, for serious. And to think, I almost believed he was actually qualified to clinically evaluate the IQ of another based upon his interpretation of their personality over the internet

 

[cryosteel]

which logical fallacy is that? and why is to warranted to assert that this generation is in fact the one which is right/doomed?

The statement, "Every generation thinks that the world is about to end", indicates a hasty generalization and as an often repeated modern cliche, it rates an argumentum ad nauseum for an additional -5, giving us a -10 so far. Pretty bad for one phrase.

 

[SouthernTrendkill]

The statement, "Every generation thinks that the world is about to end", indicates a hasty generalization and as an often repeated modern cliche, it rates an argumentum ad nauseum for an additional -5, giving us a -10 so far. Pretty bad for one phrase.

Complete bullshit.

Look at it this way --

Every day you go to the grocery store and buy an apple. You eat the apple and fully expect it to kill you through some rare apple-born-disease. If you do this every day for 30 years, and then somebody tells you "Dude, you're not going to die from eating that apple. You've done it more times than I can even remember. And it's never caused you any harm." Would you tell them "Logical fallacy. Eventually the apple has to kill me."?

Humanity could potentially live forever. More importantly, the notion that humanity might end someday doesn't lend any credence to believing that we have a better chance of being the last generation than all the previous generations did when they thought they were the last. The fact that they're proven to have been so overzealous about the threats facing the world and it's supposed upcoming end shows us how we may too be prone to believing eroneous, grandiose notions of the world's end just the same. The people thinking the world was about to end during The Cold War were no more accurate (based on the fact that the world didn't end) than the people were in early Biblical times who thought the end days were near. The more logical position is to look at history and see how many times we've been wrong about it (all) compared to how many times we've been right (zero). Statistically we are almost certain to be just as wrong about the upcoming end of the world as all of the past generations have been, and that the next generation after us will look at us as having been silly like some of us look at people in the 60s or BC or at any time as being silly for thinking the world was about to end.

Technically, you could try to punch a wall and the molecules could line up right so your hand goes right into the wall, and not because you broke through the wall. But it's a fool who fully expects it to happen the very next time they punch a wall.

 

[The Poona of Peshwa]

Well, um we do have nuclear weapons. A particle accelerator accident or other technological mishap wasn't in the cards for previous generations either. Statistically we have a similar chance of succumbing to an asteroid or rogue black hole or something, but the manmade threats can't even be compared.

That being said, if I were a Londoner in 1666 with the city burnt to ashes, plague raging, the Turks knocking at the doors of Christian Europe in Vienna, and a crypto-catholic on the throne, I'd have been rather scared.

Point is though, you can't compare the supernatural fears of the past to the technological fears of the present.

And no, humanity will not last forever. A very long time perhaps, if we can colonize other solar systems, but the universe itself has a finite lifespan.

 

[SouthernTrendkill]

Fair enough. But it's not all that much easier to destroy the world today than it was in the 60s, and they were wrong about their hubris. The thing about nuclear weapons is, nobody really wants to destroy the world. If terrorists nuked the US that doesn't mean the US'd necessarily go and nuke the whole middle east and then china would nuke america and japan would nuke china and so on until nothing is left. That's not going to happen. I admit it's easier for the world to end today, but I still think the evidence and likelihood is that it won't and that we are simply prone to assuming it will because we tend to think what goes on around us is more substantial than it is.

 

[Norsemaiden]

Well, here's an idea. Since my IQ is about 136 (or anywhere between 120 and 145), I'll have sex with as many women as possible and hopefully some of them will get pregnant and give birth to babies with half of my awesome DNA. I know, I know, ordinarily no man would want to have sex with that many women, but for humanity's sake, I'll do it

What a novel idea.

A lot of intelligent people still haven't figured out that they should have a lot of kids (or at least ONE) with their own spouse!

 

[Norsemaiden]

Fair enough. But it's not all that much easier to destroy the world today than it was in the 60s, and they were wrong about their hubris. The thing about nuclear weapons is, nobody really wants to destroy the world. If terrorists nuked the US that doesn't mean the US'd necessarily go and nuke the whole middle east and then china would nuke america and japan would nuke china and so on until nothing is left. That's not going to happen. I admit it's easier for the world to end today, but I still think the evidence and likelihood is that it won't and that we are simply prone to assuming it will because we tend to think what goes on around us is more substantial than it is.

Actually, humanity has a tendency to think that it is going to live forever and is infallible. Even those who think a Biblical "judgement day" is around the corner still think that THEY will escape and that it has nothing to do with mankind's shortsighted destructive behaviour. Were this not the case, people would be a lot more cynical and cautious, and they wouldn't be behaving in this unsustainably greedy manner.

 

[SouthernTrendkill]

Actually, humanity has a tendency to think that it is going to live forever and is infallible. Even those who think a Biblical "judgement day" is around the corner still think that THEY will escape and that it has nothing to do with mankind's shortsighted destructive behaviour. Were this not the case, people would be a lot more cynical and cautious, and they wouldn't be behaving in this unsustainably greedy manner.

I disagree. While I agree that people are careless about their own mortality, this thread is out-and-out proof of our tendency to pretend we're the last generation or that the world is in rapid decline and will end soon.