[Jack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', '
')wow, this sarcasm from Jack! The proper purpose for for one's life is enjoyment of life itself. Whether you get off with reading Kant or eating it, fly-fishing or eating sundaes in front of the starving child/children. Its all good. Its just happened that a lot of toys/net worth inhance the ability to enjoy life for some people.

[jlw61]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('seldom_seen', 'z')ensui, the problem I see with this post is that you seem to think that humans and "human intelligence" somehow exist apart, and separate from the earth and the cosmos.

There's a good chance that today you ate either, corn, wheat, eggs, chicken, beef or fish. So couldn't I say that if you put corn inside a human it becomes intelligent? Is corn intelligent? I know for sure today you inhaled many breathes of oxygen, and you consumed water. So couldn't I say that the water that entered your body is intelligent water?

[Kingcoal]

Something as trivial as peak oil will not force us to extinction. However, we are due for a catastrophe in the form of a comet or other object from space. Perhaps a gamma ray burst from a local supernova. That's what I worry about on a daily basis. After all, the Earth has little protection from space, just a thin, wispy atmosphere. We are exposed to whatever comes our way and it doesn't take much to destroy the environment we depend on.

[bodigami]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('seldom_seen', 'z')ensui, the problem I see with this post is that you seem to think that humans and "human intelligence" somehow exist apart, and separate from the earth and the cosmos.
(...)

[Novus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kingcoal', 'S')omething as trivial as peak oil will not force us to extinction. However, we are due for a catastrophe in the form of a comet or other object from space. Perhaps a gamma ray burst from a local supernova. That's what I worry about on a daily basis. After all, the Earth has little protection from space, just a thin, wispy atmosphere. We are exposed to whatever comes our way and it doesn't take much to destroy the environment we depend on.

[Jack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Novus', 'I')t is not peak oil itself that will cause extinction but the fact that the run up to peak oil allowed the human race to expand beyond 3 standard deviations of its long term carrying capacity. Ecologically anything beyond 3 standard deviations is an extinction level event. The human race is now over 5 standard deviations away from the mean. In the billion+ years that life has existed on Earth the human race is not even a blip, not even a footnote.