Will the world fall apart at the seams before we fix it?

I’m betting that we will pull out of this skid at the last minute (partly because of Obama’s election), and go on to great things as a planet. But I’m an optimist.

Fixing things takes vast resources – just like it did to get where we are now. I’m not sure if we have all of those resources, but I hope we pull a miracle out of somewhere before it falls apart. I’m not optimistic.

If we continue growing at the rate we’re at, we will eventually collapse. Exponential growth. But I’m hoping some epidemic will wipe out most of the population before that happens. But I’m a Malthusian.

Seams? Do you mean tectonic plates then the answer is no. Nature will out and there is nothing invented by mankind to help when tectonic plates slip.

Most people call me a pessimist, but I prefer to say I’m a realist. That being said, I think humanity is going to vanish, eventually. We never do anything right, as a whole, until it’s too late to change anything. Global warming will fuck us over or AIDS will spread so rapidly that practically everyone has it eventually… Or something.

Every generation or two predicts that the world will end in their lifetime. I do think that we are at the end of artificial prosperity and greed. Everything is cyclical.

life is cyclic. There will be tough times, then we will figure out a few important things that will make life on this panet Earth better for all.

Nah. We’ll work it out.

@drastic: Yeah…. that’s more pessimism than realism.

I can’t think about this too much, or I start to feel panicky. What I hope is that there a lot of people out there like me, who feel we’re on the verge of a huge turn-around and are willing to do the hard work required to bring it about. What I fear is complacency. If complacency wins out, we will continue going downhill…but I can’t venture a guess on how long it will take to hit bottom.

We’re not the world. We’re just temporary occupants of a minor planet. The planet will be fine, as will the universe of which it’s an infinitesimal part. Some terran species have taken a whipping, and in the end we may be one of them, but (taking the long view) we won’t be missed.

@drastic – the thing that seems to turn your position into pessimism is the ”...or something”. That is, you appear to believe that something, no matter what it is, will fuck us. If you pointed to a specific thing that had a realistic chance of wiping us out, then your position would be that of a realist.

Just to clarify: when I say “the world” I mean “human society”, not “the planet”.

Calling myself a realist was humorous, not serious. ;) However, I do think it’s likely that AIDS is going to get far worse than anyone realizes right now. If it doesn’t wipe us out completely, I think it will come close.

Better get right with the Lard now, before we all fry. Aint global warming a drag?

Nope. Humankand is adaptive. We’ll learn eventually.

I believe the “decline of religious fundalmentalism” is one of the reasons we are facing these massive dilemmas.

In what way are “global warming, multinational cooperations taking over too much stuff, the oil crisis, the economic crisis, overpopulation, weapons proliferation, and dictatorships” connected to the “decline of religious fundamentalism”?

I suspect that they’re saying that people who have fundamental religion are more apt to act in a moral manner, and then defining proper stewardship as good morality. However, I can see where this might be an incorrect assumption, seeing as how people have had fundamental religion for a good long time and still did things like overpopulate, make weapons, etc.

I’d have to agree with laureth on that one.

The world is falling apart scenario is just a continuation of the scaremongering that has been used to frighten the bejesus out of us. Today’s version of the world falling apart is that we won’t be able to fulfill every whim instantaneously to the detriment of the majority of the rest of the world’s population.

Think a minute about the 14th century when 1/3 of the people in Europe died in 3 years. Or 1919 when more Americans died of the flu than died in WWI. Today when a new pandemic breaks out we know how to cure it or avoid it before 100’s instead of millions die.

Or the oil crisis reminds us that we can’t live in minimansions 50 miles from where we work. We have to put an effort into making our cities livable instead allowing them to decay because we can run away to suburbs which we can then befoul and move on.

We may no longer be able to open up a branch of Toys R Us in the kids’ room or fill up 100sf walk-in closets with clothes and 10 pair of shoes each. We may have to live in houses withot 3 car garages (or 3 cars).

Don’t look up, Chicken Little, the sky IS falling. You will have to live within your means-sans credit cards.

That’s a very good point, galileogirl, but it still seems as though the bad things that seem to be gaining speed are going to affect the people in the world who have hard lives just as much, if not more than, those who don’t. Rising sea levels caused by climate change, for example, will affect the millions of destitute people in Cambodia, not the wealthiest one percent.

Similarly, the Oil Crisis may force some wealthy people to start living within their means a little more, but it’s really going to hit the single mothers who have to drive to two jobs every day.

But perhaps you’re right. Things were much, much worse six hundred years ago, and the human race didn’t die out – the “will the world fall apart at the seams” scenario may be a bit drastic. So instead, I suppose it would be “will the net quality of life go up or down in the next fifty years”?

The world will function as it has since the rise of civilization with a variation of good and bad events UNTIL a very un-natural and unpredictable disaster strikes mankind ending ALL life on earth. Thats it,,enjoy,,,bottoms up!

Heck, it functioned that way long before the rise of Civilization, too.

The world is old enough and big enough to take care of itself.

It’s ourselves that could use fixing, not the planet.

Seems to me that in order for our species to survive, with the concentrations of populations that we have, and the populations we’ll grow into, we’ll have to get our healthcare systems up to speed for everybody all over. If some very viral very harmful phage is in the air it won’t matter much if you personally can afford healthcare. We are all going to need you to get better or a lot of us get it too.

So maybe universal health care never gets real in this epoch and humanity continues to market itself toward some brinks.

But maybe populations drop dramatically for whatever reason. How will lifestyles be changed for them from what we know now? Will all of us, who have lifestyles abundant enough that we can type away at questions, still be doing things like that ?
If populations drop what effects on total carbon usage will there be? Will it matter?

Is it inevitable that humanity ends in a planetary catastrophe or will it be a sputtering slide into savagery due to collapse of human systems? Who knows what the surviving population will come become?

If suddenly we know of a few other nice planets, and quick transportation was available, then would seven eights of the current inhabitants of Earth say, “sure what have I got to lose? I’ll go.”? Who does their jobs after they left ?

Lester the Typing Horse’s stablemate says to mention that self sustaining floating cities will be the next gated communities. Twelve preparations of local sea vegetables are on the menu in the main dining hall !

It happens to be the way of man, to use everything up, then bitch about who’s to blame for it.