Are we going downhill?

[FullofHoles]

It will get easier and easier for small groups of people to cause massive destruction. The combination of modern biotech and modern transportation makes it possible to have a world-ending plague. I would be surprised if civilization lasts another couple thousand years.

Disaster could be averted by destroying knowledge, by destroying transportation, or by destroying freedom. Destroy knowledge and people would not be able to design new diseases. Destroy transportation and it would be possible to quarantine areas again. Destroy freedom and control over knowledge and transportation could be effected.

Destroying either knowledge or transportation worldwide without destroying freedom would be difficult.

Does the hope of humanity lie in the emergence of a ruthless, oppressive empire? Maybe.

The only way I see for humanity to have "immortality" without requiring massive oppression would be for humanity to reach the stars. In particular to get so far away from each other so that there is no incentive for inter-global wars. In this way, humanity could defuse the danger brought by "modern transportation" without destroying it.

To me the saddest thing in my lifetime was the cancelling of the building of the superconducting super collider in Texas. I lost a large portion of my hope that humanity could last forever.

The terrible thing about the cold war being over is that there is no imminent need for international competition. The International Space Station seemed to me to be doomed for failure from the first moment that I had heard of it. Cooperation is just not nearly as strong of a force as competition is. Crisis is the primary motivating force and we need a sense of crisis in order for there to be a possible happy ending.

 

[Blackadder]

Sorry, why are we discussing nuclear weapons and killer viruses now? Do you think nature is idle?:crazyeyes
Are you truely so sure that it will be mankind that wipes out the pitiful existence of insignificent man-kind. Man is not even a fraction of a blink in the universes' timescale. Did the dinosaurs have fancy transportation, or nuclear weapons, or philosophies and society? Did they (as a majority) survive?
Lets stick on-topic, chaps!

Are the Westerners becoming decadent?

Are the Easterners becoming decadent?

Are the people in-between becoming decadent?

We'll know when humanity ends, as then we will have something to compare society today with.

Society, in the east, western clothes are fashionable. In the west, many have taken up ancient arts of defence and decorating.
A cultural merge? A cultural switch?

Just what is meant by 'genetically'?

No, it still awaits the ascent to ultimate power of its greatest ever leader, one referred to in ancient texts as The Dark and Shaded One.

I read that ancient text, but the 'shaded one' looked more like the out-line of a child. Oh no, that means one day DarkChild will rule the world. Must practise my grovelling.