[Butters 2011]

Yes, probably done before on here, but a quick search through the pages brought nothing up, so I present this little 'debate' again. I was thinking of posting this in General Chat, but was looking for more of a mature debate on the subject matter, rather than getting spammed with useless sh*t.

So, the main question here is: What's eventually going to be the final down fall of Mankind?

Will it be Religion?

Take a look at what's going on in the Middle East, where we find two different 'sides' fighting for territory that each believes to belong to them. This is actually where the idea for this subject was founded, by watching Ross Kemp reporting on the action occurring 'every day' around the Gaza Strip. It's not the only war where we see Religion as been one of the key factors, just look at WWII, how many thousands of Jews were murdered. Or how about the one Religion that, when taken out of context and read wrong, leads people to believe that blowing themselves up along with civilians leads to 'paradise'.

Or how about Technology?

Might seem strange, but with all technology seeming to be aiming at making 'life easier', are we going to eventually start losing touch with our basic instincts, thus slowly leading to the decline of Man Kind? Or is technology the very thing that's going to improve Man Kind?

How about Health Issues?

Yes, we may be seeing a lot of advances in modern medicine, but that's all about the treatment. What about the youth, who seem to be getting younger in age when they have there first alcoholic drink or use some type of drug as the years go by. Yes, the treatment is available, but nothing can truly ever eradicate the effects completely. Or how about another massive flu outbreak, completely taking everyone by surprise and killing faster than any previous. I know Swine Flu was probably hyped up a lot by the Media, but there's no denying that it took the whole country by surprise, and been hard to spot made it ever more harder. I personally know 4 people who died from the outbreak, and of them was my neighbour. Scary stuff. We've seen it happen many times throughout history, so why not again?

Why not Politics?

Politics is probably the biggest factor, or one of them, in terms of how this world runs. We see thousands of innocent people being slaughtered, all for their political stance. We see countries burning to the ground, as two sides fight it out on the streets below. There will never be a Government that is loved by all, so arguments will always be there, in some cases leading to violence.

Could it be Mother Nature & Earth herself.

Since this is a topic about the down fall of Man Kind, and not about the ending of it, I'm not going on about a massive event wiping out the population. I'm on about the very Earth we call our home. If you're into all the Global Warming hype, then you're probably in the boat that believes the world will end up being flooded [No pun intended]. Is the world seriously going to start melting soon? Will we eventually run out of natural sources? Will we one day starve ourselves to decline? How long can this Earth really tolerate Man Kind, and the way we abuse it without second thought?


Or will it be something else entirely?

I hate starting topics off, as I find it hard to talk about specific details until someone else mentions their view, so I'm leaving it at this at the moment. Just want to hear some of your views on this subject.

[Robinski]

I think, if we're talking about total, complete eradication, most of your points are a little on the not-so-grand-scheme side of things. Religion, health issues and stuff like global warming are things that don't really matter if you look at the entirety of human existence. We've persevered much more so far: ice ages, pandemics and genocides have had very small effects on the greater human population. The only thing there that could cause irreparable damage is politics, and only because it's tied in to nukes. Even then, with a complete MAD situation, there would most likely be (quite large) pockets of civilisation that weren't killed outright or hit by lethal radiation poisoning. True, they would see the effects from it: nuclear winter, irradiated water (and as a result, food sources). But would it be enough to kill off every person? Frankly, I don't know.

I don't think there's much, bar an asteroid or other cosmic-scale disaster that could completely destroy the human race. We can tear ourselves apart, but there'll always be one set of hands left that pulled the last bit of flesh. We've got to where we are now because we're adaptable and durable, it'll take a lot to overcome that.

In short, life.. uhh, finds a way.

[Butters 2011]

QUOTE (Butters 2011 @ Dec 9 2011, 17:37)

...Since this is a topic about the down fall of Man Kind, and not about the ending of it...

QUOTE (Robinski @ Dec 9 2011, 18:05)

I think, if we're talking about total, complete eradication, most of your points are a little on the not-so-grand-scheme side of things.  Religion, health issues and stuff like global warming are things that don't really matter if you look at the entirety of human existence.

This is why I was looking more at what will be the start of the downfall, rather than the ending of it all. I know everything I posted has happened in History, and yet Man Kind is still around, but I'm asking which of these will be the the trigger, the main down-fall.

[Robinski]

My reading comprehension is going downhill I guess. I misinterpreted your post. But my point still kind of stands, I don't think any of these things could ever actually kill us off, I think it'd have to be some sort of outside force.

But if we're talking about a downfall more like a "fall from grace", then yeah, things like pandemics and climate change could very easily rock us back into the stone age. Our societies these days are so great because of the amount of knowledge we have, and that knowledge is stored in people. If something dramatically thins the heard, and a lot of the expertise with it, you could easily us in a new dark age. Thankfully it would be difficult to lose a lot of our knowledge in one go, we don't exactly have a Library of Alexandria to burn down.

So yeah, I think if we were to be blown back to pre-civilisation levels, it'd be on the back of a pandemic, drastic climate change (i.e. the difference between an ice age and now) or through nuclear winters. I don't think the other things you mentioned really have the clout to bring us to our knees.

E: Reading my post it still sounds like I might have misinterpreted you, I don't think I have. I genuinely think the only way mankind could be set back is with some kind of mass cull. Numbers are strength in our case.

This post has been edited by Robinski on Friday, Dec 9 2011, 18:24

[leaflinks]

Humanity's problems in this century will be over population as well as resource decline. And that could be the major downfall.

[Talakua]

The elephant in the room - Overpopulation and resource depletion, without a doubt. Earth cant even support the number of people we have at the moment, so what is it going to be like in another 20 years or 50 years? We are seeing the start of the downfall already, increasing unemployment, widespread economic break down, mass starvation throughout the third world, fossil fuels are are become increasingly scarce and we are struggling to meet energy demands, and its only going to get worse over the next few decades.

Interesting you brought up technology too, because i also believe it will be a major factor in our downfall, or rather our dependence on technology. Lets face it, the majority of people on this planet, especially those of us in the Western world, would be completely lost without our technology. We have grown accustomed to a life where almost everything is done for us by other people or technology. Now if the overpopulation scenario plays out the way i think it will, when the sh*t hits the fan and society ultimately breaks down, almost all of those luxuries and services we currently depend on just to live, will quickly disapear and we will be left to fend for ourselves. This is where a lot of people are going to die, because the average joe like you said is completely detatched from their basic instincts and doesnt have the first clue about survival or self sufficiency. They dont know how to hunt, forage or grow food. They dont know how to find and purify water. The dont know how to generate electricity. It will be anarchy, and only the strongest and smartest will survive.

It might sound horribly pesimistic and apocalyptic, but i will be genuinely surprised if we dont see something like this happening within our lifetime. Theres a saying, "society is only three square meals away from anarchy". Global food demands are becoming increasingly stretched so its only a matter of time and its the reason i recently took a strong interest in survivalism.

This post has been edited by Talakua on Sunday, Dec 11 2011, 20:48

[Tchuck]

It depends on what you'd classify as a downfall. Mankind on the whole, a nation, an empire, a group of people?
But in any event, there will always be a rise that'll follow that downfall, taking us to another level.

Take the roman empire, once ruled the world, then faced their downfall. Did mankind cease to exist? No, some other nation took their place as the dominant. When WW2 happened, was that the downfall of mankind? No, a lot of people died, it was a tragedy, but mankind in the end only got stronger.

Religion. Religion's downfall will be the rise of something else. Perhaps a new age of enlightenment? Perhaps an all out war? I'd wager on enlightenment, as usually most non religious people aren't as aggressive as religious ones, what with a lot of wars in human history being caused by religion.

On technology, you say man would lose contact with it's basic instincts. What are those instincts and why is that a bad thing? Human's instinct is the fight for his own survival, is it's ingenuity, it's ability to change the environment. Losing contact with the first, means that our basic needs have been fulfilled, and as such man has not to worry about surviving another day and can focus his ingenuity on other exploits. Anything pushing away from our basic instincts, in my opinion, would only allow us to be freer and achieve more. I believe technology is the very thing that will allow us to reach even higher levels.

On health issues, we can't cure certain diseases/addictions now, but we probably can in the future. Every other week you hear about some major breakthrough that can lead to potential new treatments of everything. Eventually those breakthroughs become real treatment and less people die. Yes an outbreak of a deadly virus has wiped out part of the population many times in history, but we have always found a way to outsmart it. And even then, the factors that made the outbreaks happen were analyzed and fixed, bringing more benefits in the long run. Take the black plague in Europe, killed a huge percentage of the world's population, but ended up leading to sanitation concerns that eventually upped the quality of life. Had the plague not happened, would we still have concerned ourselves with sanitation?

Indeed, there'll never be a government that satisfies everyone. But in our history, you'd find more examples of stable governments than of unstable ones that led to revolution. With the huge access to information we have nowadays, it's easier to make an informed decision during elections, and governments have to be more careful about what they do since they're under the lenses of the entire world.

On nature, mankind has survived all but the worst cataclysmic events in history. We faced harsh winters, faced melting hot summers, faced plagues, faced tsunamis, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions. Far from causing a downfall, they caused us to get better at preventing and responding to those events. Unless there's a mass extinction, any sort of downfall caused by nature will eventually be superseded by a new rise in mankind.

Resources and whatnot, yeah they're expiring little by little and eventually will be consumed, but we'll always find a way around it. We might not be able to retain the same standard of life we have now, but we'll make it.
Hunger and the like aren't downfalls for humanity, but for specific populations. People starving in Somalia won't be the downfall of America. Overpopulation is a pretty big issue, but we'll deal with it one way or another. Sure maybe a lot of people will die, but we'll thrive anyway.

Downfalls are either final events or they're only part of the process. In my opinion, there's two possible final downfalls to mankind: Extinction or the rise of a better species. Those would be the only possible downfalls from which mankind could never rise. Any other possible scenario would probably be catastrophic, but man is far too smart and has thrived under harsh circumstances to be put down definitely by such scenarios. Sure, they'd cause a massive change in the lives of people, but eventually we'd surpass it and reach higher flights.

[Irviding]

How many thousands of Jews??? I hope that was a mistake.


I have to agree with Tacula and Tchuck. I think resources are probably the primary thing that could cause problems down the road. A complete wiping out of our civilization? I don't think so. But once we reach our carrying capacity, I have a good feeling war with occur. In 2050 the population is supposed to be what? Close to 11 billion? (though growth rates are declining, it only grew like 1 % last year compared with 3.5% in the 60s and 70s at times) I just don't see how each country can support itself with that many people, especially China and India. And with the growth of those two, there is no doubt war will be on the horizon. Not necessarily between the western democracies and them, but with each other. Things are already very tense with them with China warming itself up to Pakistan (perhaps to give China a strategic location for a future war to launch a two front offensive from), and we all know Indian and Pakistani relations are arguably the most volatile in the world, due to the fact that both are nuclear armed.

[Viperman]

2012 will kill us all!

Jokes asides, I have to agree that the huge increase in population will strike humans hard. 200 years ago there was little less than 1 billion of us, now there's little over 7 billion! Fresh water is not exactly in ten fold supply.

One day, war will be fought over fresh water supplies.

The only other thing I would point out is power vs control. I know this is my veiws, but there is a general belief that oil is world power in terms of government control. As the black gold runs our world as we know it. So what happens when a country has the technology to create fusion, cold fusion, zero point energys on a self sub stained level? How will this shift world power? Will it cause war, or peace?

Although I feel none of these is enough to completely wipe us out. Only nature can do that.

I for one would love to live in the sticks like our ancestors. Make a little house in the woods, collect and growing for yourself is your day job. Bonfire every night to stay warm. Sound like the life!

[john12]

2012... remember me and i will come and take you. Bible said these lines.

21/12/12 Bible... sure to read because afterwards nothng is written.

Talking about New Testament.

[leaflinks]

QUOTE (Tchuck @ Sunday, Dec 11 2011, 23:13)

It depends on what you'd classify as a downfall. Mankind on the whole, a nation, an empire, a group of people? But in any event, there will always be a rise that'll follow that downfall, taking us to another level. Take the roman empire, once ruled the world, then faced their downfall. Did mankind cease to exist? No, some other nation took their place as the dominant. When WW2 happened, was that the downfall of mankind? No, a lot of people died, it was a tragedy, but mankind in the end only got stronger. Religion. Religion's downfall will be the rise of something else. Perhaps a new age of enlightenment? Perhaps an all out war? I'd wager on enlightenment, as usually most non religious people aren't as aggressive as religious ones, what with a lot of wars in human history being caused by religion. On technology, you say man would lose contact with it's basic instincts. What are those instincts and why is that a bad thing? Human's instinct is the fight for his own survival, is it's ingenuity, it's ability to change the environment. Losing contact with the first, means that our basic needs have been fulfilled, and as such man has not to worry about surviving another day and can focus his ingenuity on other exploits. Anything pushing away from our basic instincts, in my opinion, would only allow us to be freer and achieve more. I believe technology is the very thing that will allow us to reach even higher levels. On health issues, we can't cure certain diseases/addictions now, but we probably can in the future. Every other week you hear about some major breakthrough that can lead to potential new treatments of everything. Eventually those breakthroughs become real treatment and less people die. Yes an outbreak of a deadly virus has wiped out part of the population many times in history, but we have always found a way to outsmart it. And even then, the factors that made the outbreaks happen were analyzed and fixed, bringing more benefits in the long run. Take the black plague in Europe, killed a huge percentage of the world's population, but ended up leading to sanitation concerns that eventually upped the quality of life. Had the plague not happened, would we still have concerned ourselves with sanitation? Indeed, there'll never be a government that satisfies everyone. But in our history, you'd find more examples of stable governments than of unstable ones that led to revolution. With the huge access to information we have nowadays, it's easier to make an informed decision during elections, and governments have to be more careful about what they do since they're under the lenses of the entire world. On nature, mankind has survived all but the worst cataclysmic events in history. We faced harsh winters, faced melting hot summers, faced plagues, faced tsunamis, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions. Far from causing a downfall, they caused us to get better at preventing and responding to those events. Unless there's a mass extinction, any sort of downfall caused by nature will eventually be superseded by a new rise in mankind. Resources and whatnot, yeah they're expiring little by little and eventually will be consumed, but we'll always find a way around it. We might not be able to retain the same standard of life we have now, but we'll make it. Hunger and the like aren't downfalls for humanity, but for specific populations. People starving in Somalia won't be the downfall of America. Overpopulation is a pretty big issue, but we'll deal with it one way or another. Sure maybe a lot of people will die, but we'll thrive anyway. Downfalls are either final events or they're only part of the process. In my opinion, there's two possible final downfalls to mankind: Extinction or the rise of a better species. Those would be the only possible downfalls from which mankind could never rise. Any other possible scenario would probably be catastrophic, but man is far too smart and has thrived under harsh circumstances to be put down definitely by such scenarios. Sure, they'd cause a massive change in the lives of people, but eventually we'd surpass it and reach higher flights.

That was in an era where people lived further away from others, there was no central global system. Everything anywhere was always local with exceptions.

In such an interconnected world, unless that starts to change for the next half century it doesn't look good.

I'm from England, yet within the Union I live in, we consider ourselves better protected as an Island nation than independent states. The North sea is predominately Scottish with Norway sharing the energy deposits...well what is left.

Though predominately English officials conspired to keep the resources for all the island, not let the Scottish take it for themselves. Sad.. with hindsight.

That's all a little off-topic.

[Robinski]

QUOTE (john12 @ Monday, Dec 12 2011, 14:43)

2012... remember me and i will come and take you. Bible said these lines.

No, it doesn't. Matthew 24:36 however does say this with respect to the rapture:

QUOTE

But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father

So shh.

[sivispacem]

QUOTE (john12 @ Monday, Dec 12 2011, 15:43)

2012... remember me and i will come and take you. Bible said these lines. 21/12/12 Bible... sure to read because afterwards nothng is written. Talking about New Testament.

Yeah, lets keep replies intelligent and coherent, please.

[Viperman]

My biggest concern is that we start tapping into the last of the little wilderness for resources before trying to fix our problems. Predominantly the Antarctica's land mass. BBC's Frozen planet touch on this, almost touched my heart.

Very sad that this topic seems to becoming an everyday conversation, widespread. Maybe not in absolute mass wipeout, but the general down turn of us, and our planet.

[sivispacem]

QUOTE (Viperman @ Monday, Dec 12 2011, 18:14)

Very sad that this topic seems to becoming an everyday conversation, widespread. Maybe not in absolute mass wipeout, but the general down turn of us, and our planet.

Are you saying that discussion about the end of the world is a new thing? I don't agree with that at all, eschatology has been part of human society for millennia.

[Viperman]

QUOTE (sivispacem @ Monday, Dec 12 2011, 19:03)

QUOTE (Viperman @ Monday, Dec 12 2011, 18:14) Very sad that this topic seems to becoming an everyday conversation, widespread. Maybe not in absolute mass wipeout, but the general down turn of us, and our planet. Are you saying that discussion about the end of the world is a new thing? I don't agree with that at all, eschatology has been part of human society for millennia.

I agree to an extent. I suppose the difference between the last Millennia and say the last 30 years is our knowledge and intellegence. I mean, until recent all talk of end of the world was either religious or catastrophic event. I mean we have been center of the universe until Galileo 400 ish years back.

Until the global warming scene kicked off we didn't appriciate our delicate place on this planet, and in space. Had no care of buring through resources.

With technology advancements we have also gained the knowlegde of everything around us. Bringing us to a point where were worrying about how many people live on earth. Where being green is constantly being forced into us.

Although I would agree, my point was more oriented to a scientific understanding

[GTA_stu]

Mankind has been on the Earth for a ridiculously small amount of time, and even smaller still is the time in which civilisation has existed. We really haven't faced any great climatic events that have threatened us on any large scale. I would say the most potent threat lies in nature and not in any kind of man made creation.

We like to think of ourselves as so incredibly adaptable, and that our technology is so advanced that it could combat any potential threat to our lives. "huge meteorite gonna hit us?" -No problem, we'll just knock it out of the sky. How do you exactly go about knocking an asteroid about 10km in diameter out of the sky? That's roughly the size of the asteroid which caused the end of the dinosaurs at the K-T boundary. It hit with the force of about 95 terratons of TNT - that's 2 million times more powerful than the Tsar bomba which was the most powerful man made explosion in history. I'm not trying to be sensationalist, and I'm not saying anything anywhere near the size of that will hit us for millions of years, but it does put things in perspective.

You only have to look at a relatively weak event like the earthquake that hit Japan at the beginning of the year to see just how vulnerable we are to nature. Japan, which is one of the richest and most developed countries in the world, and the best prepared in dealing with the effects of earthquakes, as well as having a good early warning system in place for tsunami's was brought to it's knees. I say weak because although it was one of the most powerful earthquakes on record, we haven't had accurate records for very long.

We say things like "it was the most powerful hurricane/flood/earthquake in a lifetime" well ok, but a lifetime actually isn't very long at all. If we struggle at dealing with a "once in a lifetime" event (what, 80-100 years?) then what about a once in a 500 year event, or a 1000 year event. Of course the higher you go the greater the magnitude. The point I'm trying to make is we are over confident in our own ability to cope with disasters, because really we haven't faced ANYTHING yet.

[Tchuck]

QUOTE (GTA_stu @ Monday, Dec 12 2011, 21:46)

Mankind has been on the Earth for a ridiculously small amount of time, and even smaller still is the time in which civilisation has existed. We really haven't faced any great climatic events that have threatened us on any large scale. I would say the most potent threat lies in nature and not in any kind of man made creation.

Indeed, compared to the age of the planet or even the existence of life on it, we are but a mere drop of water in this ocean. But, look at how much we achieved in so little time. 50 years ago we landed on the moon, 100 years ago we were first experimenting with flight, 300 years ago we had our first proper steam engine, 600 years ago we were first exploring this world through the seas. Given enough time, we'll be off visiting other planets, testing every physics theory there is, discovering all sorts of cool stuff. Man is the apex of life in this planet, nothing here can surpass it.

QUOTE (GTA_stu @ Monday, Dec 12 2011, 21:46)

You only have to look at a relatively weak event like the earthquake that hit Japan at the beginning of the year to see just how vulnerable we are to nature. Japan, which is one of the richest and most developed countries in the world, and the best prepared in dealing with the effects of earthquakes, as well as having a good early warning system in place for tsunami's was brought to it's knees. I say weak because although it was one of the most powerful earthquakes on record, we haven't had accurate records for very long.

Relatively weak? Compared to what? To an asteroid hitting us? Sure. To every other earthquake that has happened? Not quite. It was simply the most powerful earthquake to ever hit Japan. The MOST powerful. Japan routinely endures weaker earthquakes with no big issue, so for it to do what it did, it was something else. And then you consider that it was also hit by a bloody tsunami, which was the main cause for the casualties. And what is Japan doing? Is it going into a downfall? Not in the slightest, instead it's rebuilding what needs rebuilding, saving what can be saved, learning what it can from it and improving what they already have. That is a testament to what man is capable of achieving in order to survive. And that is why I believe that only a completely cataclysmic event or the rise of another species can cause the downfall of man. Man got this far because of it's ability to survive, thrive and, most importantly, adapt.

This post has been edited by Tchuck on Tuesday, Dec 13 2011, 01:32

[Gtaman_92]

I believe that politics will lead to the end of mankind for many reasons. No political figure gives a sh*t about any of the issues facing people today, to them it all boils down to their own asses, money and the fate of their political parties. Bush for example nearly drove america into hell with his attics and what angers me is that he got away with it. Also europe got a problem with half the countries there going broke and corruption running rampant and civil unrest going on. Too many people are out of work and losing their homes with those assholes in congress doing nothing about it and seemingly ignore it all together, if only people will get their shot straight there wont be so much trouble but i guess its to late for that.

[Stefche]

QUOTE (Gtaman_92 @ Tuesday, Dec 13 2011, 13:11)

I believe that politics will lead to the end of mankind for many reasons. No political figure gives a sh*t about any of the issues facing people today, to them it all boils down to their own asses, money and the fate of their political parties. Bush for example nearly drove america into hell with his attics and what angers me is that he got away with it. Also europe got a problem with half the countries there going broke and corruption running rampant and civil unrest going on. Too many people are out of work and losing their homes with those assholes in congress doing nothing about it and seemingly ignore it all together, if only people will get their shot straight there wont be so much trouble but i guess its to late for that.

Yeah, America and the world have never, ever had corrupt and/or inefficient leadership before, so surely this it going to be it. And, yeah, America's never had a devastating economic depression as the one it's going through now. I mean, sure, the unemployment rate of just under 9% is better than a rate of 10%, but, I mean, Bush nearly sent America to hell, so y'all are going to go under like a Greek bank on steroids.

In fact, I never even considered previously that Bush would be the one who would bring about the Apocalypse, but after reading your insights, it makes sense now! Seriously, f*ck that guy.