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Not sure I feel this hopeless!

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Aug 14, 2011
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Not sure I feel this hopeless. Not sure I don't. What do you think?

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WC17 (take that 3V) :shifty:
 
I think things are slowly getting better. I may not live long enough to see it, but I have hope for a better future. The mistake a lot of people make is looking for magical instant solutions to problems. Real change takes time, and often comes with a price that can only be paid with coins minted from pain.
 
Hm.
You know, I'm an idiot. I really am. I don't know 99.999999% of knowable information out there. I'm just a wee speck on a wee speck in the midst of other wee specks in what seems to be an infinite vastness of shit I don't know, but I do believe that there is no such thing as a perfect existence. I do not believe that there will be a 'cap', so to speak, to human evolution and potential. I think we will just keep on going and changing in various aspects of our lives. Just looking back into human history- past the corsets, past the straw thatches, past the nomadic voyages on the hunt for food, and I can't believe anyone would say that we're for the worse unless they think that starving for days, being riddled with parasites, and living in caves is really what life should be all about. Something will always rub someone the wrong way, it's a given, but the perfect existence isn't possible. Utopia is not possible.
I get angry too when I see and hear people say the most obnoxiously offensive bullshit and try to pass it off as fact, but that's life. I am actually excited for the future! We are on the edge of a golden age. Technology and medicine is where I sit my cushy little ass and holler about progress. We are growing functional organs in labs, cures for all types of diseases are being discovered constantly, growing food in labs, machines that can easily produce fresh water, and don't even get me started on what Ivy Bridge is bringing to the table, crime rates and teen pregnancies are going down, etc. I mean, fuck, if this isn't progress in the 'right' direction (which when I need a new heart I will be thanking the stars we don't live in the 60's), then fuck you. I want to live forever and play in virtual reality and ride a goddamn dinosaur. I really don't care if no one likes it, but don't get in my fucking way.
 
Shaun__ said:
I think things are slowly getting better. I may not live long enough to see it, but I have hope for a better future. The mistake a lot of people make is looking for magical instant solutions to problems. Real change takes time, and often comes with a price that can only be paid with coins minted from pain.
I am glad you see things as getting better, and I very much agree that, in the absents of the rare huge catastrophic changes that can occur, change is slow. And yes, coins minted from pain, I fear will be the currency paid. Nicely put Shaun.



WC46
 
I've always enjoyed George Carlin's perspective on things. I don't always agree with it but here I personally feel he's on to something. When it comes to science and technology we are indeed continuing to make incredible advances but I feel like often times those advances (especially when it comes down the the science part) are in the face of adversity from religion and commerce (the two things Carlin places a majority of the blame on). In other areas we seem content or in fact adamant about keeping the status quo. Why do we need to improve things? They're fine now! Making them better is a waste of resources!

Also keep in mind these statements were made prior to June 22, 2008 when Carlin died though based on how he looked in the interview I would say it was done within the last two years of his life. Side note: I saw Carlin's show live in November of 2007. It was shocking when he died less than a year later.
 
I love George Carlin as well.

And I actually have to agree with him on here. While we are ADAPTING, we are not EVOLOVING. Evolving means our genetics change. We haven't evolved much at all. Gotten bigger, yes, but that's about it. Certainly haven't gotten nicer.

Our perspectives need to change, and that will take time. Unfortunately, it requires a lot more time because every generation has to relearn.
 
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I've sort of always thought that way.... being a sort of ancient history buff.
The human race had such potential, way back when we first started to learn to grow stuff and domesticate a few animals. We has such promise.

Then, some cocksucker invented religion.... which made us arrogant, assuming to know the mind of what we call "god". Then the invention of money made us greedy. It was all downhill from there.

We could have been so much..... more.
:woops:
 
LadyLuna said:
I love George Carlin as well.

And I actually have to agree with him on here. While we are ADAPTING, we are not EVOLOVING. Evolving means our genetics change. We haven't evolved much at all. Gotten bigger, yes, but that's about it. Certainly haven't gotten nicer.

I have to disagree on this! And here is why:

Discovery
Time
Live Science
 
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Can't argue with science!

Okay, so we're evolving towards healthier. Or at least, humans in part of the world are doing so. But those all point to isolated. I demand country-wide studies, spanning the next four generations! In every country! :p

But seriously, that's the only way we'd know for sure about the rest of the world. In an isolated population, yeah, it's easy to track that. But when there's a whole country to choose from, and so many of the people in the country are obese and/or retarded... The argument that those with more kids will influence the genes of the next generation holds true. But not all of that is due to natural selection when there are so many methods of birth control available that let a woman decide if and how many children she wants.
 
LadyLuna said:
But seriously, that's the only way we'd know for sure about the rest of the world. In an isolated population, yeah, it's easy to track that. But when there's a whole country to choose from, and so many of the people in the country are obese and/or retarded... The argument that those with more kids will influence the genes of the next generation holds true. But not all of that is due to natural selection when there are so many methods of birth control available that let a woman decide if and how many children she wants.

Selective pressures don't have to exist on huge scales like you are talking about, they can and do exist on small scales. Are humans evolving? Yes. What causes those evolutionary processes is going to be unique to any given population/environment.

There is TONS of evidence that says that populations all over the world are still evolving in their own unique way given their unique circumstances.

Here is another good one! LA Times
 
LadyLuna said:
Can't argue with science!
Okay, so we're evolving towards healthier. Or at least, humans in part of the world are doing so. But those all point to isolated. I demand country-wide studies, spanning the next four generations! In every country! :p


No, we are devolving. Natural election kills of what doesn't work. With medicine intervening everywhere, many people who would have died 300 years ago are living on and reproducing. With the reduction on infant mortality far more people are making it to breeding age. More people are breeding who would not normally (bead dead in previous generations) and passing on negative genetic aberrations and deformities. It doesn't matter at the moment, but if the environment takes a dive and we get reduced back to dirt floors and subsistence agriculture, a lot of will be dying of allergies and genetic defects who currently aren't.

Earth will live on, but humanity may very well be fucked. In the near future, when the long delayed next ice age kicks in, 99% of the Earth's population will die, starting with those most dependent on technology to survive.
 
Red7227 said:
Earth will live on, but humanity may very well be fucked. In the near future, when the long delayed next ice age kicks in, 99% of the Earth's population will die, starting with those most dependent on technology to survive.

All the smart people will just go south as the miles of glacial ice creeps towards them and live it up near the Equator.
 
Shaun__ said:
Red7227 said:
Earth will live on, but humanity may very well be fucked. In the near future, when the long delayed next ice age kicks in, 99% of the Earth's population will die, starting with those most dependent on technology to survive.

All the smart people will just go south as the miles of glacial ice creeps towards them and live it up near the Equator.


Won't matter, you can't fit 6 billion people on the equator, and the people already there are more than capable of hanging on to their territory. Also, the ice ages come on fast (a matter of decades) and the possibility of a volcano instantly blotting out the sun for a decade is just as likely. It has all happened before, and no species has ever been as vulnerable ad humans are now.
 
Red7227 said:
Shaun__ said:
Red7227 said:
Earth will live on, but humanity may very well be fucked. In the near future, when the long delayed next ice age kicks in, 99% of the Earth's population will die, starting with those most dependent on technology to survive.

All the smart people will just go south as the miles of glacial ice creeps towards them and live it up near the Equator.


Won't matter, you can't fit 6 billion people on the equator, and the people already there are more than capable of hanging on to their territory. Also, the ice ages come on fast (a matter of decades) and the possibility of a volcano instantly blotting out the sun for a decade is just as likely. It has all happened before, and no species has ever been as vulnerable ad humans are now.

You actually could fit 6 billion people on the Equator, but I said the smart people. Humans have more technology available then you realize. We have the ability to create a self sustaining enclosed underground city, but we would have to give up wasteful things, like livestock. None of these things really matter though, because in the event of an ice age all the nuclear powered countries are going to eliminate the competition for dwindling resources and everyone will be dead before the first decade is over.
 
Rosemary said:
I get angry too when I see and hear people say the most obnoxiously offensive bullshit and try to pass it off as fact, but that's life.

I am actually excited for the future! We are on the edge of a golden age. Technology and medicine is where I sit my cushy little ass and holler about progress. We are growing functional organs in labs, cures for all types of diseases are being discovered constantly, growing food in labs, machines that can easily produce fresh water, and don't even get me started on what Ivy Bridge is bringing to the table, crime rates and teen pregnancies are going down, etc. I mean, fuck, if this isn't progress in the 'right' direction (which when I need a new heart I will be thanking the stars we don't live in the 60's), then fuck you. I want to live forever and play in virtual reality and ride a goddamn dinosaur. I really don't care if no one likes it, but don't get in my fucking way.
I'm a little confused about the first line above. The sentiment is clear, but I do not see how it is relevant to anything in the OP. Carlin was clearly expressing his opinion. The only fact that he seemed to be expressing, was, that he had no hope for the continued existence of the human race. You may feel what he said to be obnoxiously offensive bullshit, but it is the rest of that line that has me confused.

I too am a bit excited about the exponential growth rate that technology seems to be taking. On the other hand I think many of the new developments are a mixed bag. The examples you have given are wonderful advances in terms of longevity of life. But if you are of the opinion, as I am, that there are already too many ppl populating our tiny speck, than these advances, in the absents of a counter reactive force, seem not so advantageous. I like you very much Rosemary, you know that, and I want you to live well into your second century and ride dinosaurs. Hell I like the thought myself, but unless we get on the ball about colonizing space, or figure out how to get ppl to have less ppl, then everyone living to 150 years old is not a good thing.

And finally I saw further along in this thread some discussion/debate about human evolution. I have two things I would like to add to that. One: I will not argue that humans are not evolving. In fact I would think it very illogical to believe any different. But physical evolution and the evolution of ideas/beliefs/accepted behaviors are not one in the same. tendencies or Traits that lean toward more gentle/kind nature may occur over thousands or tens of thousands years, but may never see the light of day if our belief systems lean in the opposite direction - toward less kind more aggressive tendencies in the next century or two.

Two:It is very often forgotten that evolution has no obligation to produce traits/mutations in any given direction on our scale of what we believe to be positive vs negative. That is, it is just as likely that we will evolve in ways that we now would believe to be negative, as we are to evolve in ways which we now feel to be positive.

I also understand that the above points on evolution become moot at that point we have the true ability and decide it is OK to engineer life. That's a whole different discussion.



WC422 Vic :woops:
 
[Sigh] R.I.P. George....
It does me good to see this man is not forgotten since his death.
His comedy was responsible for many a good side ache and tears of laughter over the years.
 
camstory said:
Two:It is very often forgotten that evolution has no obligation to produce traits/mutations in any given direction on our scale of what we believe to be positive vs negative. That is, it is just as likely that we will evolve in ways that we now would believe to be negative, as we are to evolve in ways which we now feel to be positive.

Not quite. Natural selection is a lot like stand-up comedy. The bad stuff disappears without trace fairly quickly, while the good stuff gets copied and redistributed.

Mutations might be thrown up at random, but only the successful ones are propagated.
 
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I go really back and forth with this, but I think things are looking up. Some days I feel like everything is shit and we're fucked beyond repair, and other days I think about how much progress we've made in just the last hundred years with human rights. I think that people have the tendency to romanticize the past, "back in the good old days..." What good old days? You mean like racism, sexism, homophobia, complete intolerance of anything weird or sexual or anti-church? Where everyone worked 18 hours a day to eat cabbage soup, while royalty flounced around in riches? Things are not perfect, but I think that if you look at the course of history things are getting better. And now, we have the motherfucking internet. And it's brand new, really. It's not even all over the world yet. What's going to happen when every single person on this planet is connected to a global economy/society? I think we live in a very exciting time, I wouldn't chose any other time in history. It's our responsibility to make this world the best we can. By saying "oh, the hell with it, it's all fucked, nothing I can do!" we're giving up. Neglecting our responsibilities as members of society.

That said, I think George Carlin contributed more than most with his words, he changed the way people think about things in a very good way I believe. You don't have to agree with what he says to understand what he's talking about. We have to identify the bullshit to get rid of it.
 
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VeronicaChaos said:
I think we live in a very exciting time, I wouldn't chose any other time in history. It's our responsibility to make this world the best we can. By saying "oh, the hell with it, it's all fucked, nothing I can do!" we're giving up. Neglecting our responsibilities as members of society....
You don't have to agree with what he says to understand what he's talking about. We have to identify the bullshit to get rid of it.
:clap: :banana-stoner: :happy-cheerleadersmileyguy: :techie-hourglass: :dance: :text-goodpost: :hello1: :banana-dreads: :happy-cheerleadersmileygirl: When I found this Carlin clip I caught myself thinking, 'Yeah he's got it right', and my fear is, that he has. I thought about that a little, and realized I wasn't ready to throw in the towel yet. I am an old man, and I have lived my life at full throttle with the restrictor plates off. There's a twelve foot tall rabbit somewhere with my right foot on his keychain b/c he thinks he'l have better luck with it than I did. I am not the super optimist I once was, but adopting the mindset of a pessimist never has made sense to me.

My reason for starting this thread was to maybe find an outlook such as the one above. I also though if it makes you youngsters pay a tiny bit more attention than it was a good thing. I don't think were/your doomed. I do think we/you are getting to some critical point of no return. I don't think incremental change has any hope of working. I believe ppl can do great things. I believe ppl organized in mass can do huge things. IMHO the change that will need to occur, will have to be both great and huge.

:clap: :dance: :clap: :dance: The post above, gives me a little more hope than I had yesterday. :clap: :dance: :clap: :dance:
 
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VeronicaChaos said:
Thanks camstory! Yaay my rambling made contact! As much as I love love love George Carlin, I prefer Bill Hick's outlook on life:

I agree. Carlin is funnier but Hicks tempers his harsh criticism of society and politics with optimism... "...if we...then we can..."
 
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I very much like Hicks, and the idea that our future is a choice. Nordling points out the "if we" & "then we can" how we/you handle that will make the difference. Personally There is no other sentiment I believe more in, than this.
 
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Rosemary said:
I promised myself I wouldn't get into any heavy, time-consuming, and awesome debates, but I kind of broke my own rule here :\

Forgive me,
442a2c4b9af7024879261a0e99676129.jpg
, but I am going to let this one go! :h:
I think you might be referring to this
Two:It is very often forgotten that evolution has no obligation to produce traits/mutations in any given direction on our scale of what we believe to be positive vs negative. That is, it is just as likely that we will evolve in ways that we now would believe to be negative, as we are to evolve in ways which we now feel to be positive.
I understand that the course of natural selection is one of positive development. My statement was incorrect to the extent it suggest otherwise. I should have simply said that we can not count on genetic adaptation to keep us out of trouble.

Also I guess the idea that our problem with population can be solved any time in the near future by the colonization of space seems pretty naive. Though the rate at which advances in science will occur is not predictable to any degree of accuracy ether, I think.

Finally, RoseMary if this is directed to anything in my post, and its a question of science You can point it out with out getting into a heavy time consuming debate. I am smart enough to know that I know very little. I am not well educated, and only very vaguely aware of recent and current discoveries/developments in science/technology. Therefore what you would get from me would be the acknowledgment of my error, and the understanding I would try not to make the same mistake next time.

I am sure that a lot of ppl feel most of my opinions are wrong, or not supported by fact as they see it - that does not bother me. On the other hand to bothers me greatly when I make a statement of fact that is incorrect. I try my best not to do that, (obviously I am not foolproof) and when I do, and it is pointed out to me, I am not pleased that I was corrected, but it is not the teacher who I am upset with. To argue the validity of a fact should be left to geniuses and idiots, I am neither.



WC279
 
LadyLuna said:
Can't argue with science!

Okay, so we're evolving towards healthier. Or at least, humans in part of the world are doing so. But those all point to isolated. I demand country-wide studies, spanning the next four generations! In every country! :p

But seriously, that's the only way we'd know for sure about the rest of the world. In an isolated population, yeah, it's easy to track that. But when there's a whole country to choose from, and so many of the people in the country are obese and/or retarded... The argument that those with more kids will influence the genes of the next generation holds true. But not all of that is due to natural selection when there are so many methods of birth control available that let a woman decide if and how many children she wants.

Natural selection as it was is almost completely void in this day and age, because of birth control and modern medicine which keeps the sickly alive and procreating when normally they would have died. That's just a fact, Natural Selection does happen, every miscarriage is an act of natural selection, but now-a-days natural selection, and human evolution, are going to take a different form than they have in the past because of the advances we have made in science and medicine. Evolution isn't going to look like it did when prehistoric man fought a battle everyday just to eat, when they killed the sickly child for the better of the community, that doesn't happen now. Evolution now is basically in the hands of those countries and people who can afford the best scientific and medical care. :lol:

I do totally agree with Carlin here though. I think he's spot on.
 
Er, I was going to just PM you Camstory but I don't know if everyone else feels same way as you, so I'll just post it here :lol:

The only reason I am using the pull-out method is because this particular debate is going to be incredibly time consuming (and I've done it about 5 times already on other, more science-oriented forums/articles, lol!). That's all! No hard feelings or anything, I promise :h:
 
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Rosemary said:
Er, I was going to just PM you Camstory but I don't know if everyone else feels same way as you, so I'll just post it here :lol:

The only reason I am using the pull-out method is because this particular debate is going to be incredibly time consuming (and I've done it about 5 times already on other, more science-oriented forums/articles, lol!). That's all! No hard feelings or anything, I promise :h:
I understand completely. I very much was not wishing to draw you into a debate. To do so for myself about bio/life sciences would not be unlike a one leg man entering an ass kicking contest. :-D
 
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