There's so much comfort in the idea that humans will colonize other planets. Not if pollution makes us sick, weak and dumb first. Imagine if every woman in the world chain smoked during her pregnancy. It will also alter our genetics as we pass them on - we're undoing hundreds of millions of years of evolution. The world is so caught up in who has a nuclear weapon, and who's ideology is the best one to force on others. Issues that we can't even resolve without war... or with war. What if there was a global militia who's sole purpose is to gun down irresponsible, stubborn and destructive politicians. Green energy is not a dream, it's reality. Time to invest!
It's not undoing evolution, it's just part of evolution. As long as there's a food supply of some sort, humans will never go extinct. I was hoping this was going to be another thread with a schematic and idea for free energy.
Pretty much ^^ Humans will die. And death is the mechanism for selection. Humans wont become extinct, we will just evolve -yuri
I'm not sure why you'd say that. We wouldn't be devolving, we'd still be evolving into the next step, that step just may not be what you had in mind. Already our teeth have gotten smaller and more recessed, which someone 1,000,000 years ago may have thought would make us weaker since we weren't as good of a predator. But they'd be wrong because they weren't taking into account that we'd basically removed ourselves from the predator/prey thing. We'd evolved passed that*. So the effects of pollution and whatever else will continue to make us stronger, We are highly adaptable creatures. *To anybody wanting to argue a fine point, that's just something as an example, so calm down.
I don't think you understand how evolution works. Its not evolution into something lesser. Basically its all the same humans, but ones with higher tolerance to pollution will survive better. Your idea of pollution "smoking" damaging our DNA as a species, does t make us devolve. It simoly increases mutation rate. For all we know depriving our brains of oxygen will inevitably create selection pressure for an even more efficient human brain making us even smarter. -yuri
I understand how evolution works in nature, different play rules from how us humans do things. We'll keep stubbornly taking meds and coming up with different ways of keeping ourselves alive even if our bodies want to die You'll have a bunch of sick people mating and eventually the damages caused by pollution will be imprinted in the off springs several generations down the line Led pollution was linked to aggressive behavior back in the 30's or something. Today we've found a link (in China) between pollution and low birth weight. Eventually I believe we'll find that kids who grow up in polluted areas perform worse academically. Cancer will prolly be on the increase too, diabetes, seizures etc. I'm not saying we'll reverse the process of our own evolution. Our species reached this point by leaving behind the weak to die, like all other animals, but today erryone has the right to life and family so the way I see it we're taking evolution in a different direction we're we'll eventually just be passing down our weaknesses rather than strengths because there won't be any strengths to pass on If only the brightest and strongest ppl we're allowed to reproduce it'd be a different world. We're fine for now, but a species isn't supposed to grow at this rate
Then we'd have to evolve into a creature that can live in polluted areas without it affecting our health. I imagine a nasty looking pseudohuman
Why would we have to be nasty looking? And we wouldn't be a pseudohuman, we'd still be human. Right now humans have a very small environmental range in which we can survive okay. We're really weak in that regard. If you take away technology and think from just a physical, animal aspect, we can't survive too far out of the tropical zones on the planet. We need clothes, shelter, etc. to go farther beyond that. Being able to live in more extreme environments, whether it's pollution or temperature based, would be a positive thing as it increases our chance for survival.
A species isn't supposed to or not supposed to grow at any rate. Your assuming there is some sort of natural order that if it isn't followed, the balance breaks and shit hits the fan. What really happens is life just shifts to rebalance. Notice how human population explosions lead to bird and rodent explosions? They thrive off our waste. Nature balanced quite quickly. Pidgeons reproduce faster than humans. I doubt we can produce more waste than pidgeons can eat You are being too pessimistic. None of us know what will happen. But here is some food for thought. Tadaelis, you brought up medications. But you realize these are just human survival tools right? Its interesting. I been watching the series "life" and seeing all the strange ways non humans adapt to their environment. Its quite entertaining I highly reccomend it. In the end its always the same. Problem - solution. As sneaky snake said. Humans actually have a very narrow habitat zone. If you compare humans to polar bears, our thermal neutral zone limits us to only tropical regions, where as polar bears could live comfortably almost anywhere. Why are humans able to live all over the planet? Its because we evolved the ability to create artificial environments. A few things will happen when earth get polluted. 1st. Many animals humans included will die. 2nd. Humans will try to respond with technology, hiding in air filtered houses Ans buildings. Animals will try to do the same. Ants will improve their colonies, fish will try to find the cleanest part of the ocean, birds will find the spot where wind is just right and pollution is less there. 3rd. The survivals will be the ones able to survive. This might simply mean better lungs, or the ability to create artificial environments, or even the ability to use toxins for good things. Much of life on earth has made a living eating toxic waste left by other animals. Remember. Oxygen, sugar, carbon dioxide, and many other chemicals are actually extremely dangerous to life. Oxygen and sugar are very damaging to our bodies. But we evolved biological pathways that allows us to transport these dangerous chemicals around our body safely, for use in our chemical reactors. Also remember that life exists in areas on earth hot enough to melt lead. Even if we created aa chain reaction and cooked the earth, life.might survive, as might humans. Maybe if we go full Venus we can kill everything, but even then, some life forms might survive. -yuri
You guys made some good points tht made for an interesting read. I didn't give the subject enough thought, too much pessimism like u said However I still do find the rate at which our species is growing very alarming and I bet it'll have very negative effects. what's even more disturbing, and ironic, is tht we need more ppl to take care of all the seniors, like the crisis in Japan Life is on my recommended list on Netflix. Gonna smoke a bowl and watch it now
Moving forward in any direction is not devolution, it's evolution, with or without personal bias. We will war over water before we colonize other places. A human is an animal that almost always does the easier thing than the right thing, it's why we are all so surprised at human kindness, because it's an evolved response, unlike violence, which is impulsive and expected. It's like power corrupting or human hypocrisy imho, you almost expect it. There's no such thing as rare metals or running out if you consider all options, but we won't do that, because there's an easier way. It's unfortunate. I'd bet nearly everyone reading this post are already desensitized to suffering due to propaganda. Many won't even understand compassion until it's too late to matter. I wasn't even aware I was brainwashed until illness limited my ability to care for myself, until paralysis took my legs and illness almost took my life. There's a reason people who almost die seem to have it figured out, because death quickly recategorizes what's important and what isn't. I have this sickening theory that world war 3 would destroy the selfishness that has become the norm in our society. Forced suffering creates a certain kind of human, unique from all the rest. It's why many refer to the ww2 generation as a dying breed, because they experienced human atrocity on a whole nother level. And it changed the world. Comfort leads to complacency imho Truth is, I created my own delusional bubble like most to live inside. It's the only way I am aware of to survive the insanity that humanity has accepted becoming with open arms. We all understand each other, we just pretend we can't because...once again...it's easier. As a collective, nobody knows how to fix this mess, and with population control, the unsatisfied rich and greedy humans need to exert power over the masses for fear of loss of control over the animal. Because even the most civilized nations find atrocity entertaining, so atrocity becomes the accepted norm. It's only in the midst of chaos, and perpetual war that atrocity seems to snap the human mind awake to reality, where good men rise up in a temporary state of relief, and while they're at war the greedy and the thinkers fill the political offices to shift the agenda to fit their own needs, at the cost to us all, as we kick about this ball of power and wealth, from continent to continent, repeating the limited reactions of those who came before us. ~ poke
one more thing to consider. Populations explosions are natural. It is the goal of life to reproduce. Having access to easy life makes it easier to reproduce. All species will have a population explosion if given the opportunity. And with that naturally comes strain on resources, and thus more selection/evolution. Human population explosions isn't something to be allarmed about. Its natural. As will be the starvation and natural selection pressure on humans when we reach that point -yuri
more like daymares. I daydream a lot but sometimes its more like terrifying visions. Then I snap back to reality and try to think about something happier. -yuri