The Most Important Question of the Century

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Originally Posted by 59caddy

if i have explain, then you would not understand. calling me ignorant is your unwarranted attack on something that you could not grasp and that is the "survival instinct of man"...I.E. we adapt and move on.
there is a saying and a song "a country boy will survive" take that for what ever you want, i could care less, i will survive at all costs, just human instinct. the rest of my statement i will leave for you to ponder and do what you want, i don't care and you are DISMISSED

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My referring to you as ignorant was not a means of "attack" at all. If that's what you choose to believe, that's fine; but the reason I used that word was because you demonstrated in your previous post a number of ways in which you were ignoring a few facts and trends in favor of your own ingrained outlook. Trust me, if I resort to name-calling, I'll be a little more creative.

I don't know quite where you're coming from with this "survive at all costs" stuff, but I don't really think it's a point that's worth mentioning. Every living creature has a survival instinct.

By the way, I think it's more accurate to say that most people adapt to a point, but once they reach a certain comfort level they become pretty set in their ways. Which brings me back to my initial observations about how your entire persona seems slightly...antiquated.

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Originally Posted by Blade Wielder

Which brings me back to my initial observations about how your entire persona seems slightly...antiquated.

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you ain't seen nothing yet....

What do you mean by that?

Right then, I'll get her restarted.

Let's accept that the next century will be critical* to our achieving some kind of earthly Nirvana.

What are the solutions to the problems. Overfishing is a problem, but rather than ignore it we can ask, "What's the solution". Personally, I'm not all that worried about overpopulation problems. I've heard it said that the Earth has a carrying capacity of ten billion people which we're not at yet and educating women provides a natural population inhibitor as young women realise there are a lot of wonderful things to pursue as well as motherhood. Food and fuels, especially future fuels should all be plentiful for such a controlled population.

What about international aggression. We suppose Iraq wants the bomb and maybe even desires a jihad meltdown too. Such total destruction would send all the good Muslims in their country and in the world straight to martyrdom as far they're concerned. How do we prevent an aggressive global compression?

*I don't necessarily mean critical to the survival of life on earth or even just the human species, maybe critical enough to knock us off stride, like the Dark Ages did.

I think there will be no new earthly Nirvana within the next 100 years.

Aggressions in the Middle East can also end up a way or another, but i'm little pessimistic with it too. I hope the time will show how wrong i was.
There are other worries to consider, just like: IF the climate keeps changing * and the average world temps keep rising even 2 C, then huge areas of the world become useless for living, fresh water becomes more new reason for aggressions on some areas (Evian probably already costs more than engine oil), etc etc. That causes enormous worldwide problems so large we cannot imagine yet.
There are so many things that might go wrong. It is very typical for this time, that local problems become worldwide easily.
Edit: i do not thing that new dark age would be coming or even that the mankind will end. I see it more like going from the mess to another.

* I'm not willing to start another civilized conversation about the possibility of climate change and who's to blame

A few years ago we published the following title by a philosopher who was writing about all the ways which might lead to the human race dying. I think his point was that, taking things logically (from war, famine and disease to comets hitting the earth), we are doomed. Plain and simple fact.

Here's a link to a preview of the book. You can only read the first 30 pages for free, but those pages include a list of all the ways he reckons we could die as a species.

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[Well look at that! I didn't think it would work, but it appears this site can take the widgets we developed!]

YouTube - It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)- Historical Music Video

I think one of the only ways things would get bad enough to actually have to leave this planet to survive would be in the case of all out nuclear war.

In that case I don't think you'd be going anywhere anyway.

The other thing that could devastate us would be if some kind of super-virus, like ebola, was introduced to vast populations.

You are talking a few degrees one way or the other in the course of hundreds or thousand of years, in my opinion, the earth is not going to get to the point where we are unable to survive on it.

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Originally Posted by Miner123

... , in my opinion, ...

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No offense intended at all, but men and women of science are in a much better position to offer opinions.

Personally, I think the best way to approach the proposition is to consider ways to avoid the impending catastrophes rather than wait for us to fail and hope there's enough left over to pick up.

I agree that John Leslie has identified all the major civilisation destroyers, but I'm not easily convinced of his conclusion. The probabilities are too low in most cases. There doesn't seem to be enough accumulation. So I don't think we're certainly doomed, just possibly doomed, likely doomed at best.

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Originally Posted by xman

No offense intended at all, but men and women of science are in a much better position to offer opinions.

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when does plain old common sense come into play?