Do you relate most with your ego? Because soon it will be gone. Do you relate most with humanity? Because soon it will be gone. Do you relate most with nature? Then you really don't care what happens to you because it is the way of nature. You know, ibjamming just solidified something for me in another S&P thread, and that is the feeling that there is no future for humanity. Ironic as it sounds, human disappearance is the only thing that will save planet earth. Look, I'd love to see a brighter picture, but right now I'm as sober as it gets. It makes me sick when I hear people talk about how they want to have kids (and by "have" they mean create and shape of their own volition). Hello!!! In what future? You see this world we live in? Where do you picture it heading, really? Got some bright visions about how everything's going to work out and shit? How is it going to work? Is Jesus coming to save the earth? When he comes will everyone just be like, "yep, that's him alright"? People live everyday distracting themselves from this reality. They do not want to see it. Laozi (ancient Chinese Taoist) said that essentially only one in ten will see the Tao (the Way, the Truth, the Ultimate Reality). Just because it is the truth does not mean the majority will understand it - to understand it is to accept it, because one understands one must accept it to know it. I may be preaching to the choir here, but people like ibjamming represent the masses of humanity to me - all of whom I have a deep relativistic love for, but cannot join in their quest for the next distraction. Sia sings in a Zero 7 song, "I only make jokes to distract myself from the truth." - Never have I heard more hauntingly and undeniably true words. Look, we live on a planet with limited resources and our effort to conserve (a.k.a. play fair, use only what is necessary, and abide by the rule of nature) is scant. All the land that is paved with asphalt... that's dead land, dead earth - nothing will live there for thousands of years - humans look at it from the perspective of years, earth works at a rate of millions of years. Thought experiment: suppose that human beings wanted to decrease the population by having fewer children (using their so-called logic and realizing there is no other humane option for reducing the global population). 1. Even if everybody attempted to prevent themselves from having children, some would still get pregnant. 2. If everyone wanted to stop having children, it wouldn't be reality, because there will still be people who want to have children, regardless of the lives their children will have to live. Humanity is now in a downward slope - this is reality to any willing to open their eyes. No dumbass (hate to be blunt), we're not going to migrate to the moon or to Mars. We can't even get out of our atmosphere 100% of the time, let alone transport billions of human beings on a ship through space. Not happening. Human existence has reached its pinnacle. We can pretend as our leaders love to do, as parents love to do with their kids... we can pretend there is a bright future just because we want there to be. It would make our dreams come true if there would be a bright future - but where is it folks? What's the most tragic thing about tragedy? Umm... how much hope there is in it. Look at the world - you are witnessing, as am I, the final breaths of a hopeful tragedy. The climax is hitting us - but who is paying attention? Who is reading between the lines? I personally am ready to die at this very moment. Were my life to be taken away and I was to be assured this ten seconds before it were to happen, I would be ready to accept it. There is no fighting (hiding place from) nature, "the father of creation". My life is part of a natural cycle that has been going on for longer than I can imagine. To this day I cannot accept that I am certain whether or when it all began. My life is unimportant and it will not rock nature - as Depeche Mode says, "it knows its lines, it's well-rehearsed". But this is simply the death of my ego I'm talking about - the one that tags along with my frail little human body. According to scientists, there are billions and billions of stars in the known universe. It would seem reasonable to assume there are many more planets orbiting these myriad stars, and it wouldn't be a stretch at all to reason that human-like intelligences are involved with these planets - probably living on them. Now, suppose humanity on its tiny little planet orbiting its relatively small star were to just disappear. Poof!! Gone. Who would miss us? There would be no humans left to miss us... who the fuck would care? Like the ego and body die, humanity at its mature stage will die. We are now at this mature stage. There is virtually no room for real expansion - the nature of mankind (greedy and spiteful) will not change. Scientists study other species, observing how they came to be extinct. When they cross the line of natural imbalance, they are quickly wiped out for whatever reason. Scientists are human, so it's only logical it would be difficult for them to truly look at evidence demonstrating the end of our very own species and all its scientific, cultural, and technological achievements. But one who listens to one's ears, who sees with one's eyes, who knows with one's heart cannot be distracted from the truth. Humanity has no future - the best you can is good enough. People spend time worrying about silly things. Better to live now while you still have it. At least that's my perspective.
Best bkadoctaj post I've seen. Humanity is fucked, and any light at the end of a tunnel is an armored train with machine gun turrets driven by nazi zombies. I blame technology. Think about people 5000 years ago, they would get their warmth from a fire or even rubbing their hands together, while now to get warmth you have to: - harvest copious amounts of coal - burn them in multi m(b?)illion dollar power plants. - send the created electrons through miles of buried wire - yada yada yada - flick the switch. It seems to me like people are going so far out of their way to make things easy in the short term. The majority of people are just fed through the social grinder to survive and that doesn't make anybody happy. You can't just eat the orange and throw the peel away - a man is not a piece of fruit!
Let us not forget, those people 5000 years ago were us as children. Now here we are as adults at the gate of Zion.
K+ On this post... It was a good read and I enjoyed it's content. The last line is the truth, best post I've read all night.
This is a great post bkadoctaj, I can't help but marvel. Personally (clearly) I think Humanity has purposely separated itself from nature to the point that it's become horrific. For reference, I direct you to this online article: TG Daily - Humans will be immortal in 20 years I gladly assure you that my body will never become an electric sin against nature. When I die my body will feed the Earth directly, I'd rather be dead than be a robot. I cannot help but pick up a slightly pessimistic vibe from this post, though. I view there nothing to be pessimistic about, apart from the fact that we are members of humanity, the greatest blemish to mark this Universe. When my thought is focused on subjects similar to this, I can't help but feel a strange sensation, a strange shift in my perception of myself. It's bliss but only momentary, and hard to part with. I can only hope this is a sign from the Universe. As long as there are minds conscious of the surrounding beauty that is planet Earth, as long as there are open hearts hearing clearly Nature's cries, as long as there are intellectual souls absorbing the music and melody of the oceans and the winds, there is a chance for redemption. The blind masses are lost forever but some of my best friends are plants and they know more than you think. I thank you, friend, for an amazing post. I find myself, often, forgetting how much I love Earth and the Universe it is apart of and your deep thought has provoked an immense flood of emotion and love to come rushing back to me. I hope you experience this beauty before you write planet Earth off for good, brother. -Lonely Planet Boy
"And its whispered that soon If we all call the tune Then the piper will lead us to reason. And a new day will dawn For those who stand long And the forests will echo with laughter." I think perhaps you have that feeling because you realize there's no such thing as 'future', just constant 'now'. Devour to survive. The planet gave us life, when we are greater than the planet we will consume it, it's the order of things. If there is more to us than what we see, then obviously our interaction with the world will out-do the physical level. What we see isn't what we see. This charade is planned. I have the odd sensation we're not going anywhere anytime soon.
Oh, I'm not writing off earth man. Earth will be just fine. Even if that's a joke, it's what plenty of people believe. That is indeed odd.
Human perspective often conflicts with reality, we're so tiny , I believe we may have built up a bit of a Napoleonic complex.
To question my own words, though: What if mankind gets to Earth first? What if we blatantly continue our attempts to morph Earth into a digital wonderland for the Human species? Will Earth be fine? Will the Universe know when it is time to restart life on Earth, before we begin invading intergalactic territory(We already have polluted the cosmos with satellites and NASA scraps. There's too much garbage already in orbit thanks to the human species.)?
This too shall pass. Humanity has a very bright future. If you don't believe that, then you haven't been keeping up with the latest tech news. Think about it, we're most likely going to see super AI in our lifetime. How fuckin badass is that?
I can't help but feel the mechanic man is not humanity, the mechanic man is a by-product of humanity's ignorance. In my opinion, it's not "bad ass" to manipulate the machine of life. It's sad.
No it's a by-product of mankind's genius. Our ultimate goal, to play God. Does the creation of artificial life disprove religion?
What is genius for one is manipulation for another. It remains my opinion but I feel mankind has become a mirror image of cunning, deviousness and segregation.
Gotta go with Agalloch here. At just about any time, humanity have said; "Well, it's downhill from here!". Yet at the same time, just about everything have gotten better, well, for us in the west and non-muslim parts of Asia at least. Ofcourse, we do have challenges to meet. Short term and long term. But where I am from, the difficult is routine, the impossible just take a bit longer Now, as for population growth, I am going to say something that is very politically incorrect. It got two prongs. First, we, industrialized nations, need to get off the oil addiction. That is first and foremost. It will help the environment, but more important cut off the funding to barbaric regimes and ideologies. Second, the industrialized world do not have a population growth at all. It is declining. Some see that as bad. It is not, it is the only way forward for a sustainable future. If other parts of the world produce more children than they can sustain, well bad fucking luck. The insanity is that the bleeding heart western world feel obliged to alliviate the pressure from the less than willing to modernize parts of the world, and import people en-masse that do not even like our culture, much less want to help develop it in any meaningfull way. For some reason, other parts of the world fucking up, is our problem!? I don't buy it. They all know what the path to prosperity and sustainability is. All they have to do to get with the program, is to actually follow our path. It is not that hard, all it requires is asking questions to the current order of things, challenge authority and shedding stale old dogma. Infact, we need a new UN. Rather, DUN, Developed United Nations. Where democracy and human rights are front and center, and membership is contingent on following a minimum of rights. Unlike the UN of today, that is hijacked by totalitarian corrupt regimes.
Have some faith in humanity. You think shit is bad now? We're nowhere near the climax. We have thousands of years left. The earth will be in bad shape, sure. Traveling in space is possible. A biosphere isn't impossible to recreate. It is very complex, sure, but we can create smaller versions of earth... google "biosphere 2". I'm glad you're egoless and stuff, but humanity is capable of some badass shiat. Yes, we have corruption and greed and envy and some sick fucks... but the human virus will continue. I don't understand how you think we've reached a pinnacle in technology... lol... that's not even close to being true. We will have shit in thousands of years that we couldn't comprehend today. We will colonize space... no, not the stupid masses... but humanity will colonize space.