The End of Progress

Do you think man has reached the end of the evolutionary line, and that we have pretty much gone as far as we are going to go?

I don't know how to skew this for what individuals think the limiting factor is. With some it might be intelligence, we just aren't smart enough to go any further. With others it might be morality; we are such selfish bastards we are pretty much doomed.

I also don't define progress - you can define that as you like. And I am talking about the Human Race in general, not the United States (which would be another poll).

Bryant
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I believe we have the intelligence, morality and wherewithal to overcome the devastating problems we have created for ourselves and our planet, but it the 21st Century will mark the most challenging times for the human race IMO. Right now, I put our chances of making it out of the 20th Century on an upswing at 50-50.

Century, that remains to be seen. But probably not by me.

i.e. things are improving for humanity rather than worsening

optimistic. I think humanity was better off in 2000 than in 1900, but I could make a case the other way, too.

that I find it difficult to have the kind of optimism reflected in this poll.

The human population is out of control, ecosystems across the globe are in collapse, global warming is altering the planet's geology and ecology at rates never experienced by modern man, and greed and religious insanity are pitting people with unconscionable weapons against one another.

But hey, alway look on the bright side of life. :yoiks:

If I believed we were as screwed as all that I would have a hard time continuing to do what I do.

:shrug: nothing i posted is tinfoil material; it is as real as it gets

But I would suggest that while I don't doubt that there will be hard times ahead, we don't know what our capabilities to meet such challenges are. For all you and I know the next Martin Luther King or Steve Jobs or Albert Einstein just graduated from college, and is setting out ready to make his mark on the world.

when you said "If I believed we were as screwed as all that", the "all that" to which you were referring was my list of problems we face.

Indeed, there must be new geniuses emerging on the scene, but there are also new Bushes and Bin Ladens who will make their mark.

Our survival is less about who the new masterminds of good and evil will be as it is about ordinary people demanding massive changes to the economic and political machinery of the world.

For one thing you seem to write off the possibility of technical innovation. You can hardly expect the masses to, on their own, develop a new energy system.

Secondly masses have never done this kind of thing before without leadership, so I see little hope in assuming they will spontaneously do it now. On the other hand, masses with good leaders have accomplished a lot.

the sheeple simply fail to see the urgency before them. we shall see. I should be able to stick around for 30 or so more years. it will be interesting if not inspiring.

Just out of curiousity? Is it just intellectual curiousity? Or what?

I mean if you think we are generally screwed and you obviously don't think much of humanity, what's the attraction?

and I think that right now in the U.S. the Democrats are our best hope. But after the last 5 years, I have lost a lot of faith in my fellow Americans to look beyond the ends of their noses.

The average guy can't even see that the Republican economic policy is stacked against him, how is that dude going to see that the global ecology is collapsing? Hell, his lawn is still green thanks to Scotts fertilizer. :banghead:

I have many doubts that we should exists long enough to evolve, as a group we're pretty reprehensible.

Rather acting like a colony of viscious, parasitic baboons.

Just for the afternoon crowd to vote.

Bryant

We are like egotistical fleas on an elephant convincing ourselves that we are steering it and are of noteworthy importance to it.

The one thing that separates us from the other critters is our monumental vanity.

How do you think this philosophy on mankind influences your political outlook?

Not having to cope with idea that what I do, think, believe, etc, is of any particular importance to most people, or to some egomaniacal "God", I'm free to do what I think is right. Without the shackles of dogma, I'm free to look at life and the universe fairly objectively.

With that in mind, I've discovered myself to be pretty much of an Anarchist politically. I have no love for politicians or politics in general because they seem to end up inevitably corrupted by the power they achieve.

So, as briefly as I can, I try to keep the focus on the least among us. It's all very nice to discuss the doings of the bigshots, but I'm much more interested and concerned about how what the bigshots do to the ordinary folk. i.e., some politician decides he wants to wave the flag and prove his toughness, and some kid gets killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Or, some guy is elected Pope and some poor woman in Guatamala is condemned to a life of hopeless poverty and drudgery because she isn't allowed to use birth control.

I view politics as a means to an end. When it leads to the destruction of real human beings, as it usually does, I'm an equal opportunity critic. Republicans championed war in Iraq. Democrats did the same, but prettied it up by criticizing the "way" the killing was done.

In a nutshell, I oppose what I perceive of as evil, no matter how much veneer is painted over it.

resulting in an innate propensity for violence, tribalism and religious insanity that thwarts the progress of our species.

Same question as above - how does that perception of Humanity play into your political views?

and who are not religiously insane

should be encouraged

and those who are violent and religiously insane should not

Or, to put it another way, you think that by encouraging right behaivor, humanity can progress?

Or is this just a way to pass the time until our negative tendencies destroy us?

I would ask what you mean by religiously insane, but based on previous conversations I think I have a pretty good idea - you can elaborate if you want though.

to superstition, hatred and violence, we can significantly improve the gene pool, giving our better nature a chance to emerge.

I am not optimistic that it will do any good though. Probably too little too late.

Like the Drake equation, you can prove anything you want to prove by making up whatever numbers work best for your argument.

We have no way of knowing what will actually happen in the future, obviously. This poll is more about our attitude towards progress. Do we think it possible or do we think it unlikely?

I think agriculture took care of that. When we stopped being hunter gatherers we jumped the evolutionary track. What we are doing now is proving how adaptable we are. Just because we are able to tolerate all of the disconnects between what we evolved as and this way of life that we have made is not necessarily a good thing. These disconnects explain much of what's screwed up in human society and why we're ruining the Earth.

as well as an individual level. Clearly societies have evolved over time, in some cases positively and in other cases negatively. And of course theirs technological evolution as well - we create better tools.

we spent millions of years evolving as a successful hunting gathering species with the low population density typical of predators. There's a certain amount of hard wiring that you can't wish away. Rather we must try to learn to live with what we are while retaining the best of what we have learned during this aberration which we have adopted these last 15,000 or so years.

...I mean, we made it out of the 20th Century, but, NOT SO YOU'D REALLY NOTICE...

And to be in the 21st, and STILL have ONE person HOMELESS and/or HUNGRY, is BULLSHIT.

We’re all fucked. It helps to remember that." - George Carlin http://www.GeorgeCarlin.com