Why Society is on the verge of collapse.

Almost everyone can agree that they feel the end of the world is coming, wether it be a Mayan prophesy, galactic alignments or even just a feeling. I made this thread to say that even if all of that doesn’t happen our society is still going to collapse on its own very soon, it may not be the end of the world but it could be the end of a modern civilization.

If you think about all of the advancements that humans have made over the past 100 years it is almost unimaginable, but we have reached our peak. This is the moment that natural selection plays no factor in human evolution, no longer do the smartest and the fittest survive to make babies and evolve the human race. Instead it is the opposite, where the “weaker” members of the species are having more children than the “stronger” members of our civilization. Let me explain, im not suggestion genocide or sterilization of the “weaker” members of society or anything like that, I do believe this is “supposed” to happen and is part of the natural cycle of human civilization, I do believe humanity has a “peak” and then its straight downwards after that. So as I was saying earlier, the weaker members of society often have way more kids than lets say a married couple who are both doctors, The married couple who are both doctors will have like 1 kid maybe... and lets say someone on welfare living in a trailer park could have many kids. Im not saying everyone is the trailer park has a litter of children, im just saying that in general low income families tend to have more kids due to poor education and Jack Daniels. We don’t even have to look at just most developed nations either. Just compare the world as a whole, every day the least developed nations have more kids. In 1st world nations our populations would be stable at best without immigration. Every day the wealth gap gets wider and wider, and humanity losses more and more survival skills simply just by sitting down and watching tv all day. We are on the verge of collapse.

Humanity will destroy itself.

reply to post by tylerc25211


I agree that modern civilization is on the verge of a collapse. I think it's obvious to most people here.
It's also a feeling shared by many who are not into conspiracy stuff at all.


But I don't think it's for the reason you state.
First of all, natural selection is a much longer process and not something that would change over a century.
Second, there has, to my knowledge, been no observed drop in IQ's in fact i have heard that there has been a rise in IQ's this century.


I believe that modern civilization is on the verge of collapse because people are waking up and realizing that it's a really, really bad system.

A system that is destroying itself because it is unsustainable & based on a lie.

And I really don't believe that humanity has peaked, far from it

Originally posted by tylerc25211
Almost everyone can agree that they feel the end of the world is coming, wether it be a Mayan prophesy, galactic alignments or even just a feeling. I made this thread to say that even if all of that doesn’t happen our society is still going to collapse on its own very soon, it may not be the end of the world but it could be the end of a modern civilization.

If you think about all of the advancements that humans have made over the past 100 years it is almost unimaginable, but we have reached our peak. This is the moment that natural selection plays no factor in human evolution, no longer do the smartest and the fittest survive to make babies and evolve the human race. Instead it is the opposite, where the “weaker” members of the species are having more children than the “stronger” members of our civilization. Let me explain, im not suggestion genocide or sterilization of the “weaker” members of society or anything like that, I do believe this is “supposed” to happen and is part of the natural cycle of human civilization, I do believe humanity has a “peak” and then its straight downwards after that. So as I was saying earlier, the weaker members of society often have way more kids than lets say a married couple who are both doctors, The married couple who are both doctors will have like 1 kid maybe... and lets say someone on welfare living in a trailer park could have many kids. Im not saying everyone is the trailer park has a litter of children, im just saying that in general low income families tend to have more kids due to poor education and Jack Daniels. We don’t even have to look at just most developed nations either. Just compare the world as a whole, every day the least developed nations have more kids. In 1st world nations our populations would be stable at best without immigration. Every day the wealth gap gets wider and wider, and humanity losses more and more survival skills simply just by sitting down and watching tv all day. We are on the verge of collapse.

Humanity will destroy itself.

I dont agree that humanity will destroy itself, it is something else that is trying hard to do that but it will fail, but then again that does depend on individual perception.

In the end humanity as a whole will learn the lesson of life in my opinion.

Being here is a punishment after all in many ways. It is not meant to be an easy experience or we will never learn. As long as people take the hits and keep moving the finish line will remain in sight.

It will be worth it just like most things in life that are painful.

Humanity decided that natural selection isn't that much fun when they started building huts and growing crops. We have stopped playing the game of evolution a long time ago. Didn't hurt so far.

Also:
www.xkcd.org...

And of course this:
www.xkcd.org...

yea i realize that this isnt the only factor contribution the the collapse of modern society, i am just trying to cover all the bases. i was saying if there is no 2012 or whatever u believe, overtime our society will be watered down with bad genes. i wasn't necessarily saying it would happen in the next 10 years if so lol

reply to post by tylerc25211


I believe that these theories about bad genes are just something that will create more hatred and sense of superiority. Very little is about genes. You could take almost anybody and educate him to be a scientist, or a very successful person could have been a loser under other circumstanses. I think that spreading theories like that only creates more hatred and confusion.

I think we are actually going to go to another level as a society. Think about it. The Cold War would have been an excellent time to blow the whole world up. Yet it didn't happen. Humanity is insane but not suicidal. I don't think that world will end. I think there will be another level of social evolution soon. Maybe the turning point is around 2012, who knows.

We would have the chance of becoming something truly great as a world society, yet currently things are run by greed, hatred, stupidity and madness. I think that this has to change. We could have a golden age, a scientific utopia if you will.

Originally posted by XXXN3O
Being here is a punishment after all in many ways. It is not meant to be an easy experience or we will never learn. As long as people take the hits and keep moving the finish line will remain in sight.

I think that life here is somewhat claustrophobic. We are often doing not quite the thing we should do, but something useless. It is currently almost impossible to tell truth apart from lies, to see what is the right thing and what is the useless thing. Almost as if we really are imprisoned. I can only hope that things change soon.

And yes, we moved away from natural evolution into cultural evolution thousands of years ago. And yet this is an eyeblink in the timescale of natural evolution. We should be almost completely similar to first modern humans, natural evolution is very slow. And our cultural evolution is really fast. And the process is still incomplete. Almost as if the society would try to change an animal into a robot, while it should be just human.

Things will continue to be run by greed, stupidity and madness. But a scientific utopia? Hahaha what a riot, like hell we're going to let that happen.

Society is not going to collapse.

Things have been a hell of a lot worse than this, lots of times.

The survival instinct is incredibly strong. People adapt. Those who can't or won't get kicked to the wayside, but the others keep on going, living on a handful of dog-sick if that's all that's around.

Every generation imagines the 'end times' will be in their lifetime. It doesn't happen, they die of course and a new generation goes through the same with variations and the 'end times' beliefs capture a new audience, on and on.

Society isn't going to collapse. There are too many with a vested interest in keeping-on and they will keep on, no matter how rough it gets. In fact, we're having a cake-walk compared with what previous generations considered 'normal life'. People today are soft and self-indulgent. They've had it easier than any generation that went before. Put three people together in a mud hut and you have a society. It's what humans do.

Sometimes you rely too much on the left brain's logic and miss the reality.

Tests have shown that there is always a tendency towards the middle. There is no guarantee that two bright adults will have a bright child. Truth is that if the parents have a very high IQ there is a good chance that their children's IQ would be lower than the parents.

Similarly, if two people with a low IQ were to have children, its is very likely that their children's IQ would be higher than there's.

Nature takes care of itself. There is no way we could ever consider ourselves to be smarter than nature and figure out a better way of doing things. Every time we do we suffer the consequences.

I think so too. It is an apocalypse of a sort, because a world is ending, that is, the 20th century world.

But, people who can jive into the 21st century will be happy, and hopefully, it will be a much BETTER world than the one that just ended.

Originally posted by St Vaast
They've had it easier than any generation that went before.

I would debate this. Easier in what way? If it's so easy, then why is everybody so miserable?

Well I’ve been reading posts on this site for about one year now and I have come to some general conclusions.
First of all I discovered this site because I was reading about Ronald Weinard and followed a link to ATS.
So in the past year I have read that the America would cease to exist as a unified country, There would be an alien landing sometime in October, The UN was working on a plan for “disclosure”, George Bush would declare martial law, Something really bad would happen on January 21st or 22nd. Some guy was convinced that the government was jamming his radio but oh wait he moved to a different room and reception was fine, No planes hit the world trade center, and FEMA has a coffin for us all. Please.
I have a few predictions for the rest of the year.
Aliens will not arrive and show themselves
The United States will still be here this time next year
The New World Order will be discovered to be the New World Disorder
Yellowstone will not erupt in a super volcano
Mexico will continue to function and plod along with its drug war
In other words life as we know it will continue with little or no significant changes for the next year and even beyond 2012. Life is not nearly as exciting as the members of ATS would like it to be.

Originally posted by citizenbob
Well I’ve been reading posts on this site for about one year now and I have come to some general conclusions.
First of all I discovered this site because I was reading about Ronald Weinard and followed a link to ATS.
So in the past year I have read that the America would cease to exist as a unified country, There would be an alien landing sometime in October, The UN was working on a plan for “disclosure”, George Bush would declare martial law, Something really bad would happen on January 21st or 22nd. Some guy was convinced that the government was jamming his radio but oh wait he moved to a different room and reception was fine, No planes hit the world trade center, and FEMA has a coffin for us all. Please.
I have a few predictions for the rest of the year.
Aliens will not arrive and show themselves
The United States will still be here this time next year
The New World Order will be discovered to be the New World Disorder
Yellowstone will not erupt in a super volcano
Mexico will continue to function and plod along with its drug war
In other words life as we know it will continue with little or no significant changes for the next year and even beyond 2012. Life is not nearly as exciting as the members of ATS would like it to be.

AGENT! AGENT! AGENT!!!


Hahahaha, just kidding. The United States is running out of money, it still exists now, but for how long? They're not God, they can't bail themselves out of every predicament. The UN will never disclose anything, they are a part of the cover-up.

As for George Bush declaring martial law, I don't think the time was right. His popularity was just way too low. That's why they chose Obama.

As for the FEMA thing ... maybe it's for the Swine Flu?

I think you're wrong - the 2010s and beyond are going to be so, so different from how the world has been in the 20th century.

[edit on 6-8-2009 by Donnie Darko]

Originally posted by St Vaast
Society is not going to collapse.

Things have been a hell of a lot worse than this, lots of times.

The survival instinct is incredibly strong. People adapt. Those who can't or won't get kicked to the wayside, but the others keep on going, living on a handful of dog-sick if that's all that's around.

Every generation imagines the 'end times' will be in their lifetime. It doesn't happen, they die of course and a new generation goes through the same with variations and the 'end times' beliefs capture a new audience, on and on.

Society isn't going to collapse. There are too many with a vested interest in keeping-on and they will keep on, no matter how rough it gets. In fact, we're having a cake-walk compared with what previous generations considered 'normal life'. People today are soft and self-indulgent. They've had it easier than any generation that went before. Put three people together in a mud hut and you have a society. It's what humans do.

Exactly what I would have said if I was quick enough. People adapt, get new skills, and work through it. Society isn't coming to a swift sharp end. That isn't how it works.

Originally posted by butterflycatcher

Originally posted by St Vaast
Society is not going to collapse.

Things have been a hell of a lot worse than this, lots of times.

The survival instinct is incredibly strong. People adapt. Those who can't or won't get kicked to the wayside, but the others keep on going, living on a handful of dog-sick if that's all that's around.

Every generation imagines the 'end times' will be in their lifetime. It doesn't happen, they die of course and a new generation goes through the same with variations and the 'end times' beliefs capture a new audience, on and on.

Society isn't going to collapse. There are too many with a vested interest in keeping-on and they will keep on, no matter how rough it gets. In fact, we're having a cake-walk compared with what previous generations considered 'normal life'. People today are soft and self-indulgent. They've had it easier than any generation that went before. Put three people together in a mud hut and you have a society. It's what humans do.

Exactly what I would have said if I was quick enough. People adapt, get new skills, and work through it. Society isn't coming to a swift sharp end. That isn't how it works.

Dog sick becoming a staple does sound like the collapse of a civilization to me. Just to be clear plenty of civilizations have collapsed, and when one is as short-sighted and exploitative as ours it either changes its ways or goes the way of the dodo.

The top 10% of the population takes 50% of the resources. These are not superhuman "Producers of Wealth" but the people taking resources from the bottom 50% of humanity that live on 5% of the wealth through manipulation. We have had the resources to feed, clothe, house, and medicate every person on the planet with a fraction of the ecological damage for over a century. The greed of those who manipulate and divide us is the only thing that prevents everyone's needs from being met in full for a fraction of the work. With perceived scarcity comes the ability to manipulate.

If we don't change and collapse does happen people will still be here, but as many? One thing is for certain, in the event of a collapse people will be living in a much new pattern of existence. Most people today can identify over 1000 brand names but can identify fewer than 10 native plants and animals, much less their possible uses in a survival situation or possible medicinal value in the event of illness.

Corporations have used the Propaganda techniques of Edward Bernays (the father of PR and a favorite author of Goebbels) to infantilize people. By making them completely dependent on corporations for their survival the corporations becomes parental figures. It has gotten to the point where people identify with corporations. Corporations being granted personhood was the result of a clerk changing a supreme court decision in the paperwork. Afterwords the corporations kept using legal and political pressure to widen the gap. Today corporations have more rights than people under almost every legal rubric. This is not the way the world was meant to work.

If the suffering people are feeling causes them to question their behavior and change there is hope, if we keep trying to keep the systems we currently have intact collapse will occur. We are at the crossroads right now, there does come a point of no return where collapse becomes inevitable, nobody can say when. Collapse wouldn't be the end of the world, just the end of the world as we know it. In the long run hat sounds to me like a breath of fresh air for a suffocating people and their planet, even if the short term consequences would be disasterous. That is just how nature works - when you systematically ignore it disaster strikes sooner or later.


[edit on 15-8-2009 by wanderingwaldo]

Originally posted by St Vaast
Society is not going to collapse.

Things have been a hell of a lot worse than this, lots of times.

The survival instinct is incredibly strong. People adapt. Those who can't or won't get kicked to the wayside, but the others keep on going, living on a handful of dog-sick if that's all that's around.

I'm not saying society will collapse during my lifetime but that it will is inevitable. Our planet is finite, it's space and resources are finite. Nearing the end of space and resources we will be warring with eachother over that patch of land to grow food or that mountain which contains iron.

The 3rd world countries are currently too busy fighting eachother or struggling to remain alive but it is possible they will educate themselves and make something of their society, they only need a few individuals who would lead and unite a people. It will take some time and it might be outsiders need to intervene, just as happened in Iraq/Afghanistan.

At some point there will be a shortage of natural resources and it is by then many things will become rationed, 1 car per 2 persons, only 1 house, furniture and other items being used for an entire life and maybe passed on to children instead of buying new stuff regularly. Meanwhile people in former 3rd world countries will wake up to the concept of finite resources and how they have been used (by the rich countries), how they've been left out for so long, blaming the first industrialized nations for wasting resources for centuries and use that as a reason to go to war over whatever resources remain.

The only way to prevent society to collapse would be to exist in perfect harmony with nature, something which we can't (technologically/logistic), don't want to and will not be able to for at least a century. The world should also be viewed as 1 society and wealth be distributed equally, something that isn't going to happen for a long while, unless it is through undemocratic/oppressive powers just as a father would throw his child in back in his room for making such a mess of the garden around the house.

There are just too many consumers and people in power who go for the immediate gain no matter the consequences while we need people who make plans for the next century. The amount of waste is staggering compared to a few centuries ago and will not become less any time soon. Quite the opposite; more countries becoming more wealthier, growing in population and waste.

Originally posted by Donnie Darko

Originally posted by St Vaast
They've had it easier than any generation that went before.

I would debate this. Easier in what way? If it's so easy, then why is everybody so miserable?

Before, you'd have to wipe your butt with all sorts of things to get it clean, not even mentioning things like plumbing! Many things have improved. Not having to walk for hours to get to the factory, or spending days in the woods just to get some food, I can't even imagine what it would be like without deodorant and toilet paper, lol.

[edit on 26/8/2009 by Dragonfly79]

When and if society does collapse in my lifetime ill have no problem exacting my revenge upon it.

Originally posted by wayno
Sometimes you rely too much on the left brain's logic and miss the reality.

Tests have shown that there is always a tendency towards the middle. There is no guarantee that two bright adults will have a bright child. Truth is that if the parents have a very high IQ there is a good chance that their children's IQ would be lower than the parents.

Similarly, if two people with a low IQ were to have children, its is very likely that their children's IQ would be higher than there's.

Nature takes care of itself. There is no way we could ever consider ourselves to be smarter than nature and figure out a better way of doing things. Every time we do we suffer the consequences.

This isn't true. It's greater than 90% chance that a child's IQ will be within 10 points of the average of two parents. If the mother has an IQ 135 and the father IQ 125, the child will have an IQ between 120 & 140 > 9 out of 10 times. It's usually much more closer, within 5 points. My father and I never took IQ tests, but we took the asvab which is basically an aptitude test. We both scored 97th percentile, for whatever that's worth...

There are exceptions to every rule. Some geniuses came from above average families. Some idiots come from brilliant families. It's just not too common at all.

@op

Society will collapse. It's happened before and it'll happen again. Were you referring to a specific society or civilization? The U.S. will collapse as a society within the decade. We peaked a long time ago. Civilization may very well collapse this century, but it's not set in stone. A lot of people are fearful of peak oil, but it's basically a non-issue since we have so many alternative energy methods. Hemp could fuel the world without a problem. The real problem for our world today is pollution, deforestation (hemp again!) , overfishing, and hierarchical power structures. We'll hopefully get passed this all.

[edit on 28-3-2010 by unityemissions]

reply to post by Donnie Darko


Do you think that living in the Middle Ages would be any better than this? I certainly don't.