Is This Humanities Golden age.

Confab wrote: »

We've been whing about this for 150 years with the old "If something isn't done in 50 years, X will happen." Load of toss. The population of the Earth could fit into Texas with room to spare.

A bit of a meaningless point. If I stack all my furniture into the corner I can move in another couch, my living conditions haven't improved any. If anything they've gotten much worse and all my furniture has become unusable. It's not so bad if you want to have your grandchildren living a Somalian life style but if your looking for any comfort more people means more problems.

I think people will see the last few generations as a mixed bag that done a lot of good but wiped all that good out by being self indulgent and having a reckless regard for anything outside of their own personal needs.

The fact is we know we're doing harm we simply don't care as we won't be around to suffer through our mistakes. In generations to come future generations will hear about how we fished the oceans to the floor even though we knew fish stocks where falling, they'll hear how we exploited 3rd world countries even though we could see their faces in our media, They'll hear how we squandered our oil on cars, fought the freedom of knowledge that was inherent in the internet, the list goes on and on.

Other generations made mistakes but we know what we're doing and we just carry on regardless and that's how we'll go down in history. Reckless and self indulgent.

Colmustard wrote: »

I thought I would bump this to depress you all.

It seems to be a thread about pessimists and optimists.

But the optimists have no real science, just mocking and slagging and wishing I am wrong.

I want to be,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, so give me a good argument, tell me it is going to be rosy, give me links to confirm your optimism and please. don't talk about moronic conspiracy

The science is there it's open and online.

Optimists? Realists.

Every single generation has had people who think they live in the end times. That's because everything that happens contemporaneous to you seems more inportant.

There have always been volcanoes and tsunamis. Ireland has always had crappy weather.

Those clowns in congress did it again. What a bunch of clowns.

Calibos wrote: »

Theres less wars and people dying from them than at any time in history.....you just get to see/hear about every little conflict on TV now

In recent recorded history, wars require civilisations. We don't know much about what happened 20,000 years or more ago. Could have been getting along just fine.

Theres less poverty than at any time in history......You just get to see/hear about all the poverty on TV now.

Poverty becomes a non issue once you go back to civilisations that just didn't use money. I've wondered about this one lately, 99% or the population of earth is poor the major difference is the bottom of the ladder is a much nicer place to be than it ever has been in history so the poor are much more content than they've ever been.

Theres less people dying in natural disasters (Weather, Volcano's, Earthquakes etc) due to technological advance warning/better contructed buildings etc).....you just see/hear about them all on TV now.

That's surprising considering the population explosion in the past century.

The population will level off at around 10 billion and stay that way. We're at just over 7 billion now. We can manage 10 billion.

Fingers crossed we stop reproducing at 10billion, I don't see it happening though. Of course we can't give a decent quality of life to the 7 billion we have and I don't think there's anyone that's willing to share their wealth out between another 3 billion.

The King of Moo wrote: »

No.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS2SzGUwaMI

Had a ****load of things I wanted to get done today but saw that.....

F' it, what's the use

Confab wrote: »

Ok, so recommend which eugenics program we should use. It's either that or increase food, oil and fresh water production.

We don't need eugenics, the fact is we have enough of everything it's just there's a large proportion of people that can't afford to buy. Increasing production only makes sense with our horrible global economics. That being we produce more, there's more available which means supply matches demand or increases demand sue to lower prices. It doesn't solve any problem it just makes it worse and turns a problem in the distance into a face to face problem.

We can fix all these problems it's just not financially viable to do so, there's no profit in it.

Calibos wrote: »

Your final comment about hoping that we all stop reproducing when the population hits 10 billion makes me think you didn't watch the end of the second vid.

No time yet and I agree that things are comparatively better these days but at the same time they're still not great for the majority and there's no real sign that things will get much better based on the way we operate now.

Colmustard wrote: »

Oil prices rising and not going down
Serious food inflation also with little hope of the prices going back down.
Fresh water crisis in most the world.
Pending climate chaos.
Icelandic Volcanoes rumbling.
Population explosion
We are also living in one of the Earth's major extinction events.

Have we, or are we living in the golden age of humanity, is the only way down

Its the Golden age of buying cheap property, and making sh*tloads of cash by renting them out.

Colmustard wrote: »

There is an epidemic of rising stupidity in the world today,

I don't really accept that humans are becoming dumber. All humans have incredible levels of intelligence many of us just choose to fill our heads up with useless inane information.

Colmustard wrote: »

That was interesting, its not so much that ignorance is bliss, its more acceptance is bliss.

There is an epidemic of rising stupidity in the world today, the fundamentalist religious numbers are growing, physic hot lines, astrology, the "alternative" medical industry is no longer a fringe industry for the vulnerable, its a huge industry selling unproven snake oil remedies by the ship load, TV telephone poll shows, reality TV, Film flam, dystopian fiction been read by adults, online poker, lotteries, UFOs and alien abductions.

A hundred years ago if you were to write a scifi about a society who had access to all world knowledge, entertainment, culture, a machine that would answer any question and such a machine would be in everyone living room or on a hand held phone. You would have wrote about a new Jerusalem, a society steeped in culture and knowledge.

But we have that machine and it seems to be making us dumber.

Or maybe that machine has simply opened our eyes to the reality of just how many idiots there really are in the world?

That said, I reckon society greatly underestimates the intelligence of people in general.

Dangerous Man wrote: »

Freaks? They're not freaks - they're just ordinary, everyday Americans from Georgia. They're quite normal but a lot of people seem to have a problem with them because they are comfortable allowing people into their homes to see how they live.

I don't think they're freaks either. They're human beings, whatever their faults.
What I find reminiscent of a freak show is that this programme is meant to be a shocking look at these people, with viewers tuning in in morbid fascination at what are perceived to be freaks.

BraziliaNZ wrote: »

Those people look happier and to be having more fun than most people from what I can see in that trailer (no pun intended)

Good for them. I don't see why anyone would want to watch the programme though.

Napper Hawkins wrote: »

Interesting point.

The happiest people I know haven't got much going on upstairs, in my experience at least.

Makes you wonder who the real idiots are.

I find it's usually the stupid people.