The human race is doomed (thank goodness!)

Im debating with myself whether to have children or not. One of the reasons against is how the world is currently shaping up. To quote Nathan Barley "the idiots are winning".

Some thoughts reflecting on the comments above as well as my own. ....We have destroyed the planet because of capitalism. Everything worked in sync until the Industrial Revolution paved the way for needless commodities and extra income to spend on non-necessities as well as the climate changing pollution.  Technology is fantastic but scares me how it will develop in the future and that children are brought up not knowing life before smart phones. The I want it all now culture. 

I hope for best case scenario in that AI will relieve human kind of work and our meaning on earth will become one of enjoyment. However we need to act responsibly and not destroy the earth further.

I think graphene will change the world in a way we cant yet comprehend.

I find it ridiculous we are considering colonising Mars. Its just typical of the culture we live in. Instead of repairing what we have here we are looking at where else we can destroy.

I get comfort reading about the Universe and how insignificant we are or looking at the Pale Blue Dot picture. (My avatar). Look at it. See. Theres nowhere else for humans to go. 

Someone mentioned dolphins. Intelligent creatures with self-awareness. But we are measuring this based on a human world-view like we do with everything thinking we are superior beings.

We will obliterate ourselves before any alien invasion happens. Aliens wouldnt touch us with a barge pole. Theyll just watch from the sidelines as we slowly kill the thing that keeps us alive in the name of capitalism.

There are too many humans on this planet for us to be sble to sustain in the current way. So yes we are doomed. 

out_of_step said:

So yes we are doomed. 

I'm not sure we are doomed.  Due for a realignment with reality - very certainly, but doomed?  Not necessarily in my opinion.  Nor do I think it likely that we will "destroy the planet".  We might make the planet effectively uninhabitable by our species, and many others, but destroying it, like blowing it to smithereens or something, could well be beyond our current abilities.

It's more likely that we'll be reined in by our very behaviour.  What happens when we can no longer sustain our current civilisation?  It will likely collapse, there'll be widescale deaths etc. and things will revert back to an earlier stage where our race is no longer quite the existential threat to the current eco-system that it is now.  Possibly the eco-system will change and evolve.  That might still allow our species a chance of life, or it might not.  It may be that we cease to be the top predator and become prey again.

Think in terms of the fall of Roman empire and the subsequent "dark ages".  We did better than the Romans this time around, but maybe we're reaching the limits of what can be sustained with our "current paradigm/civilisation structure".  Or maybe we'll come up appropriate fixes before we reach the point of no-return.  Who knows?...

out_of_step said:

So yes we are doomed. 

I'm not sure we are doomed.  Due for a realignment with reality - very certainly, but doomed?  Not necessarily in my opinion.  Nor do I think it likely that we will "destroy the planet".  We might make the planet effectively uninhabitable by our species, and many others, but destroying it, like blowing it to smithereens or something, could well be beyond our current abilities.

It's more likely that we'll be reined in by our very behaviour.  What happens when we can no longer sustain our current civilisation?  It will likely collapse, there'll be widescale deaths etc. and things will revert back to an earlier stage where our race is no longer quite the existential threat to the current eco-system that it is now.  Possibly the eco-system will change and evolve.  That might still allow our species a chance of life, or it might not.  It may be that we cease to be the top predator and become prey again.

Think in terms of the fall of Roman empire and the subsequent "dark ages".  We did better than the Romans this time around, but maybe we're reaching the limits of what can be sustained with our "current paradigm/civilisation structure".  Or maybe we'll come up appropriate fixes before we reach the point of no-return.  Who knows?...