[onlooker]

thought I would liven up the Party
One point to clear up. By descent of civilization, I generally mean inability to access information and technology as I equate these with civilization

[jedrider]

All of the above. A nuclear holocaust, of course, may short circuit the first three.

Let's be rational about this: We will NOT be missed.

[SeaGypsy]

The question is too vague. Who is this "we"? Since it could easily be a can kicking exercise for a very long time yet, the demographic here maybe none of the above, but our children & grandchildren possibly. There's too many exponential factors for it to wind down smoothly & there's no system available to replace the demand for growth implicit in the current one.

[onlooker]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '&')quot;None of the above" 3 count. AdamB, Asgy and outcast-searcher.

The rest: 4 count. Smart folks

Smart folks have it 4 to 3. We won yay!

[asg70]

The usual inaccurate strawmanning because in the minds of some, if you don't believe doom is nigh, then you don't believe in doom...ever.

We will become EXTINCT, probably within a 100 years, as Stephen Hawking suggests, but not until after the usual suspects embarrass themselves with a host of additional false end-is-nigh predictions.

It's only because doom is NOT here yet that people can amuse themselves with cult theories like ETP, POD, or "Demand Dearth". When it arrives, it will be unambiguous and the debating will cease.

It's possible that if technology progresses fast enough that some form of AI will take hold and be able to stick around through self-repair and replication, but it would preside over an earth that has returned to primal soup conditions ala The Matrix. It's a depressing enough future that I don't paticularly care whether AI or even a few Morlock-like cave dwellers or a pocket colony on Mars or the Moon hang on or not.

Oh, and just so I'm clear here, the main driver of the extinction will be AGW which will lead to the collapse of agriculture.

[ralfy]

A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.

- Wordsworth

[Plantagenet]

Global warming will continue unchecked until coastal cities are flooded and rich agricultural lands around the world are underwater and abandoned. Hundreds of millions of people will be displaced, becoming landless, starving hordes, demanding their governments "do" something.

Then it really will get bad, with conflicts over the remaining agricultural land leading to nuclear war.

Cheers!

[SeaGypsy]

Stephen Hawking is just a fringy spruiker for the space race. Funny someone who mocks doomers in general believes in human extinction in 100 years- isn't that exactly the same psychology just deferred? Appears so to me.

Somehow in the long distant past, life existed, thrived even, with a whole lot more CO2 in the atmosphere than now or than speculation has it going in the foreseeable.

Change is the only certainty. Human boondoggles will be around as long as humans can find something to eat.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'G')lobal warming will continue unchecked until coastal cities are flooded and rich agricultural lands around the world are underwater and abandoned. Hundreds of millions of people will be displaced, becoming landless, starving hordes, demanding their governments "do" something.

Then it really will get bad, with conflicts over the remaining agricultural land leading to nuclear war.

Cheers!

[Ibon]

For the fate of humanity and long term resilience of our species let us hope and pray that 7/8 of our population is reduced in the next couple of generations. Through attrition, disease, famine, reduced fertility rates, conscious planning, war, wisdom, compassion, hatred, pandemics, holocausts, genocides, compassionate humane distribution of resources. Note that the arsenal to get their is a basket of "solutions" mixing the sacred and profane. You can't get there without both being part of the solution.

History does repeat itself, there is no dark Dystopian landscape nor Utopian garden of eden awaiting us. Humans are apes and carry the mixed baggage of self interest and altruism mirrored in society at large. Both were honed through natural selection and both will be applied as part of the necessary solutions. That is our fate. Our destiny as a species, a constant.

[asg70]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', '
')isn't that exactly the same psychology just deferred?

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '
')You seem to conflate our innate genetic propensities with some sort of ultimate state, our so-called 'destiny'. But there are possible outcomes that could result from neither of those conditions. We could be all transported by a higher alien intelligence to another world for a lab experiment or a zoo attraction? Or possibly raptured up? just sayin' though I am not sayin' lol

[asg70]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'I') have chosen to hone my humor.

[Cog]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('asg70', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'I') have chosen to hone my humor.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'I')bon, it seems you have chosen to worship the Predator. I have chosen to hone my humor. I guess you are a Christian from the Midwest? And perhaps I am a Jew from New York?

[SeaGypsy]

What if- all the incremental changes going on are adding up to eventually balance out without a global catastrophe? Is that possible?

Everywhere with decent living conditions, people are breeding less. Look at the panic knee jerk responses in parts of Europe, Australia & NZ- jack immigration like mad to keep population growing- people being the basic economic unit- capitalism being dependent on overall growth.

People choosing to live more simply with less consumption, riding bikes & catching PT- I'm seeing this a lot in the city I'm living in Australia- more bicycles are sold than cars.

People opting for greener lifestyles- simpler more plant based diets, solar roofs, working from home, hobby farming etc.

People who aren't making these choices leading by bad example- ending up with arms full of starving dying children at one end of the spectrum, obesity, cancer, heart & lung disease at the other.

None of us here are blind to the state of affairs as they are. I'm not going Utopian, just noting that our view is skewed by our perception of time.

For argument sake, I'm saying what's at threat is not humanity itself, but primarily capitalism as it stands. I'm certainly not going to argue against free trade & barter being natural evolutions, or for Marxist revolutionary government- which I trust as little or less than the system as it stands. I'm arguing that evolution is taking place constantly, that natural selection though thwarted, still bubbles away under the surface, that human nature is still incredibly resilient & may just find ways to muddle through & become better at living on a finite planet- just maybe this is already happening, just lost in the noise on both sides- doom vs capitalist globalist OWG Utopianism.

Eventually we go extinct, like everything else does, including the planet, the sun, the whole shebang. But for me, the Stephen Hawking's are the ultradoomers, reprehensible cowards. His physical state has nothing to do with how I perceive his message aside from seeing him as a strange pawn of an obscure aspect of the f'd up system, eliciting a weird mix of pity & awe from the not so bright, pity & scorn from the nothing to see here, move along crowd.