The Death of Humanity

This might seem like yet more “doom-porn” but think of it rather as a reflection on the pitiful nature of our very humanity which may one day be our very undoing.

It may seem quite obvious to many but other than some catastrophic natural disaster, of which there could be many diverse possibilities the only other candidate in our known universe which will lead to our demise as a species is ourselves. The former, a natural disaster, is probably over-due but nonetheless a extinction level event is rare, happening in the time scales of millennia, so the conclusion really must be that it is much more likely then that we will the end of our own kind.

Furthermore if you take a look at how we have been behaving in the last century it would seem like its only a matter of time before something gives and we end up creating or own “extinction event”. We are a species that has raped the earth with our technology and philosophies to the extent that our own planet is struggling to cope with the abuse it has taken in the last few hundred years. Modern man seems to have spent most of his time arguing with his neighbor about whose “God” is better than the other or who deserves more little bits of paper called “money” and drawing lines in the ground to demonstrate which bit of this of rock we call home is owned by whom.

In the last century or so we have had two world wars, dropped nukes, ravaged our environment, used up vast sums of the earth’s natural resources, killed untold millions of our brothers and sisters because they read one “holly” book over another or don’t like the funny lines we draw on or maps and we spent years treating. Its frankly quite a pathetic existence we have come to where all we seem to want to do is wage violent war on each other.

What’s even more pathetic is that for a species that has been gifted with such wonderful intellect we are disgustingly stupid and would rather use this intellect to figure out yet more ways to kill each other than we would fixing our problems buy building even bigger bombs and even creating nasty little bugs that could kill us all. Other examples of our blatant stupidity can be seen in the racism, homophobia and judging stare we give others whose life style we disagree with. But by far the most blatant example of our stupidity falls at the feet of religion and the deep seated grudges one group have over another that goes back hundreds of years. GET OVER IT.

So what am I getting at here, well, this is my point

If we reflect on the current path we as a global population it seems quite obvious to me that things will only get worse, not better, the fighting will continue and as it does we will continue to build more of these pointlessly big weapons so that corrupt old men can blow us all to hell sometime in the next 100 years. And hell is where we are probably going to wind up because if there is a god(s), there is no way that he would ever let us lot in to his kingdom after the mess we made of our last little bit of paradise on earth.

Honestly, we Kill our own, We Torture and harm our own, all for a little material gain and comfort.

As a species are we really worthy of this planet, just on how we treat each other, let alone our home and fellow species here.


Sometimes I wonder if the Anti-alien and Anti-god crowd are just afraid theres someone out there more powerful than us, who is going to be very angry at our stupidity.

reply to post by OtherSideOfTheCoin


Well said.

Quote ; god gave us what we had to see what we would do with it.....rats in a cage would have done better...Babalon AD'

Could be that after god saw what we turned out to be just said "well that didn't go well" and moved on....just a thought.

reply to post by OtherSideOfTheCoin


The parasitic memes have assumed control from the biological life forms. Until and unless humans permanently discard religion, they are doomed to extinction.

Why? because these memes by their very nature devalue the existential universe in favor of "after life" where there is no causality.

"Anti-God crowd" that's truly amusing. Thanks for the chuckle.

There is good and bad in the world. According to a religious perspective there will appear some kind of surreal apparatus to separate the good from the bad before an apocalyptic event(s) occur that will change the world before humans destroy everything.
It may be that technology has allowed us the opportunity (weapons of mass destruction) to destroy the world and beyond.

reply to post by OtherSideOfTheCoin

But by far the most blatant example of our stupidity falls at the feet of religion and the deep seated grudges one group have over another that goes back hundreds of years. GET OVER IT.

So what am I getting at here, well, this is my point

If we reflect on the current path we as a global population it seems quite obvious to me that things will only get worse, not better, the fighting will continue and as it does we will continue to build more of these pointlessly big weapons so that corrupt old men can blow us all to hell sometime in the next 100 years.

Excellent thread and OP, otherside, S/F.

I try to be optimistic and look at the "Awakening" that has been going on for a couple of centuries now; but you are correct. RELIGION needs an overhaul or to be relegated to the archives of ancient mythology (which is what it is, IMO).

And WAR will probably always be with us. But keep in mind that the MAJORITY of people, indeed probably the VAST majority, do NOT WANT WAR, and ARE NOT involved in building "bigger, better bombs" or "smaller, deadlier, bugs".

Jealousy and greed are the ultimate problems, along with STUPIDITY. Correct.

As Ron White once said, "Ya can't fix STUPID." It seems that only the most elite, most powerful and most greedy are those at the control panel; and the rest of us are left to their whims which are FAR FROM merciful. (By "us", I mean plants, animals, innocent humans, the seas, the land, etc.)

It is sickening, to the core. I used to look forward to having grandkids in the near future, but now I think I'd be fine without them - the world just worries me too much. And I am considered, as are my kids, NOT stupid at all. We all make stupid mistakes - that is humanity's foible. NOT LEARNING FROM THEM, and short-sightedness are STUPIDITY.

This topic is one that is very close to my heart. I feel very strongly that one of my callings here on this planet is to help, in whatever way I can, to try to end the suffering of living beings. This is a hard topic though, because I am back and forth between two extremes.

If we take a look around us, it seems hard to ignore that we are headed towards a brick wall at 1,000 miles per hour. But on the other hand, I see great progress being made. Especially in the past decade, hell, even the past half-decade. I have strong hope that humanity can realize the precious gift of life that we hold.

We have the power to explore the universe and feed and clothe every person on this earth, yet we continue to squander this precious gift in the name of immediate gratification. Coming from this perspective, I want to close my eyes and wait for the crash. I know the brick wall is coming, and I know it won't be pretty. But as T.S. Eliot once said, "This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper." Somehow I don't think it will be quick and painless.

On the other hand, I am inspired by the changes we are working towards as a race, but I am the first to acknowledge if we have a chance of making it out alive, we need to pick up the pace.

Marshall McLuhan once said something that fills me with hope.

"Cataclysmic environmental changes such as these are, in and of themselves, morally neutral; it is how we perceive them and react to them that will determine their ultimate psychic and social consequences. If we refuse to see them at all, we will become their servants. It’s inevitable that the world-pool of electronic information movement will toss us all about like corks on a stormy sea, but if we keep our cool during the descent into the maelstrom, studying the process as it happens to us and what we can do about it, we can come through. Personally, I have a great faith in the resiliency and adaptability of man, and I tend to look to our tomorrows with a surge of excitement and hope. I feel that we’re standing on the threshold of a liberating and exhilarating world in which the human tribe can become truly one family and man’s consciousness can be freed from the shackles of mechanical culture and enabled to roam the cosmos. I have a deep and abiding belief in man’s potential to grow and learn, to plumb the depths of his own being and to learn the secret songs that orchestrate the universe. We live in a transitional era of profound pain and tragic identity quest, but the agony of our age is the labor pain of rebirth. I expect to see the coming decades transform the planet into an art form; the new man, linked in a cosmic harmony that transcends time and space, will sensuously caress and mold and pattern every facet of the terrestrial artifact as if it were a work of art, and man himself will become an organic art form. There is a long road ahead, and the stars are only way stations, but we have begun the journey. To be born in this age is a precious gift, and I regret the prospect of my own death only because I will leave so many pages of man’s destiny — if you will excuse the Gutenbergian image — tantalizingly unread. But perhaps, as I’ve tried to demonstrate in my examination of the postliterate culture, the story begins only when the book closes." - Marshall McLuhan

That quote reminds me that mankind is adaptable and strong-willed.

We cannot let a few bad apples ruin the whole batch. It's up to us to decide to not let it happen. We are all responsible and we are all standing by watching the car hurtle towards the wall at 1,000 miles per hour.

It seems clear to me that the advent of life itself desires to be spread far and wide. Perhaps the human race is not the final form, and perhaps our time here is fleeting. But I think it is clear that life itself desires to spread and thrive. We have the ability now to spread life off this planet into the space surrounding us. What an amazing time we live in.

Alan Watts once gave a talk where he painted a picture of a god-like being who desired to dream all kinds of dreams. He said that if we were gods, what would we dream of?

"Well, what would you do if you were god? Or let me put it in a simpler way. Supposing that every night you could dream any dream that you wanted to dream: what would you do?

Well, first of all, I’m quite sure that most of us would dream all the marvelous things we wanted to happen, we would fulfill all our wishes. And we might go on that way for months. Besides, you could make it extraordinarily rich by wishing to dream seventy-five years in one night, full of glorious happenings. But after you had done that for some months, you might begin to get a little tired of it, and you would say, ‘What about an adventure tonight in which something terribly dangerous and exciting is going to happen But I’ll know I’m dreaming, so it won’t be too bad, and I’ll wake up if it gets too serious.’ So you do that for a while: you rescue princesses in distress from dragons, and all sorts of things, and then when you’ve done that for some time you say, now let’s go out a bit further.

Let’s forget it’s a dream, and have a real thrill!’ Ooh, but you’ll know you’ll wake up. And then you get— after you’ve done that for a while you get more and more nerve. Until you sort of dare yourself as to how far out you can get. And you end up dreaming the sort of life you’re living now.

Now why have we— why does one do that? Why would one do that? The reason for that, the Hindu would say, is that the basic pulse of life, the basic motivation of existence, is what we call The Game of Hide and Seek. Now you see it, now you don’t. You see, everything’s based on that, because all life is vibration—pulsing. Light is a pulsation of light darkness; sound is a pulsation of sound silence. Everything is going du-du-du-du-du at various speeds. And in order to have—it’s like the motion of a wave.

Now a wave consists of two parts: the crest and the trough. You can’t have crests without troughs; you can’t have troughs without crests. They always go together. You can’t have hide without seek; you can’t seek without hide. Just for example: you can’t have here without there. Because if you didn’t know where there was you wouldn’t know where here was. You can’t have is without isn’t, because you don’t know what you mean by is unless you also know what you mean by isn’t, and vice versa.

So in that way, they think that Hide and Seek is the fundamental game, as if the Lord God, the Brahman as they call it, said in the beginning, Get lost, Man! Disappear. And I’ll find you again later. And when, you know, the disappearance gets very far out then the contrary rhythm begins and the dreamer wakes up, and finds out, ‘Phew! That was a relief.’ And then, after a rest period, in which everything is, of course, at peace, uh, starts all over again, because the spirit of adventure springs eternal."

Well, I don't know where we're headed. But if this all blows up in our faces, then at least I can say I am proud to have been alive in such an important time. And perhaps, it's all part of the cosmic drama... the game of Hide and Seek. And when we awake we will say "Wow, what a ride!"

In the meantime, we should do what we believe in passionately and selflessly. We owe it to ourselves and those around us. Stay positive, we still have hope.