Are you optimistic about our worlds future?

[Godwynn]

Only get worse? Are you kidding? Yeah, it was so much better when medicine was a joke, when your place in society was determined by your birth, when slavery was legal worldwide, when most babies did not live past their first year, when being able to read was the exception, when laws were not the same for everybody, when 99% of the population would die in the very same village they were born, when a bad crop or a drought meant death.
SO MUCH BETTER INDEED!

There are still places like that across the globe, and there are new problems now, but to say that things are getting worse is ludicrous.
Please, pray tell when was the optimum, the time when things were at their best?

I said it can't get much worse, not it is only getting worse.

But I foresee more global conflict based on such a stupid ideal as religious pride. I also see more war for resources as they become strained.

 

[Masquerouge]

I said it can't get much worse, not it is only getting worse.

But surely the fact that it can't get much worse means that we're at rock-bottom.

So, when were we on top? When was the time from which it could get only worse?

 

[CanseiDeSerSexy]

It will probably be more or less the same shape and of the same texture, with different embroidery.

 

[Kennigit]

I'm just looking forward to some sweet, sweet soylent green

 

[Masquerouge]

Before agriculture.

You really think you'd be happier living as a cavewomen in a hunter/gatherer tribe?

The history of humanity is ugly. I'm not suggesting a return to the Middle Ages, but a shift to a new kind of culture. But yes, it was better - even back in the Middle Ages. Sure, the peasants lived under oppression and in horrible conditions, but disease isn't all bad. It killed those poorly resistant to disease. That's how life works. Stuffing people into cities to die of the plague is something that shouldn't have been done in the first place.

No, having cities without a proper sewage system was the issue. The Romans got it right.
And it's not only the peasants that lived under oppression and in horrible conditions - regardless of the fact that they comprised the vast majority of the population, and that as such the vast majority of the population lived under oppression and in horrible conditions. Life in cities was not rosy either if you were not a noble, or an artisan/trader.

The hierarchical system had its benefits when you compare it to that of today. It's the democratic system, industrialization, conceptions of humanism that have gotten us into the mess we are in today. Economic globalization, cultural homogenization, urbanization, and human alienation are incompatible with ecological sustainability. Only now are we in an ever accelerating cycle of extinction. It could all have been avoided up until the industrial revolution.

That is not true. Simply because all that you're discussing, economic globalization, cultural homogenization, urbanization, and human alienation, all of that happened before the industrial revolution. European countries, for instance, grew bigger and bigger through precisely all of that. What started as little more that county-sized states ended up being large countries such as Spain of France through constant globalization, cultural homogenization, urbanization - and of course the feodal system was really, really good at human alienation.
And the accelerated cycle of extinction does not exist.

When humans weren't around, naturally.

Fair enough

The world is messed up because of Western influence. There aren't many primeval tribes left that haven't committed suicide or been wiped out. There are still some out there. Not for long.

I don't get it. On the one hand, you say that diseases killing people is a good thing

Sure, the peasants lived under oppression and in horrible conditions, but disease isn't all bad. It killed those poorly resistant to disease. That's how life works.

, but on the other hand you're saying that primitive tribes being wiped out is a bad thing? That's a huge contradiction. Primitive tribes being wiped out is how life works, too.

in the 19th century
slaves were told they were slaves
but knew in their hearts
they were free

in the 21st century
slaves are told they are free
but know in their hearts
they are slaves

Oh please. So you'd rather be a 19th-century slave?

 

[Godwynn]

But surely the fact that it can't get much worse means that we're at rock-bottom.

So, when were we on top?

Hm... the 1990's!

 

[useless]

im optimistic about my pestimistic view of our world's future. very.

 

[Masquerouge]

Hm... the 1990's!

Surely no decade that saw the advent of Vanilla Ice can claim Golden Age status!

 

[Godwynn]

Surely no decade that saw the advent of Vanilla Ice can claim Golden Age status!

Ouch, forgot about him. Then yes, we are on our way up!

 

[Narz]

Things will be better after the dieoff. We'll learn from our mistakes. Life will be harder for future generations (with the legacy of massive pollution, global warming, etc.) but people will be smarter and our leaders will be less corrupt (by the end of this century people will see the folly of putting short-term thinking spin-doctors in charge of their lives.

 

[Masquerouge]

Things will be better after the dieoff. We'll learn from our mistakes. Life will be harder for future generations (with the legacy of massive pollution, global warming, etc.) but people will be smarter and our leaders will be less corrupt (by the end of this century people will see the folly of putting short-term thinking spin-doctors in charge of their lives.

What's the dieoff?

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

Two words: Exit Mundi.

 

[Narz]

What's the dieoff?

http://anthropik.com/2006/09/overshoot/

Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change

Debate on the subject here (note, I don't fully agree or disagree with any of the views held on said thread, I find many of them to be exaggerated and with less than adaquete respect for human ingenuity, that said I agree with the basic premise that global population will max out soon, probably in the next 20-40 years).

 

[Narz]

Another factor in the potential collapse. Wiki on Colony Collapse Disorder. Pesticides and GM crops (which have allowed us even further to overshoot, inevitably causing even further suffering eventually, mostly in the 3rd world) may be part of the culprit.

 

[Fugitive Sisyphus]

I am a pessimist about the world's future (I am a pessimist about everything) but I still think the near future will be much better than most people say.

 

[LucyDuke]

You really think you'd be happier living as a cavewomen in a hunter/gatherer tribe?

Yes, I really do.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

Yes, I really do.

sucks to be you.

 

[aneeshm]

Yes, I really do.

You do know about the position of women in such societies, don't you?

 

[LucyDuke]

sucks to be you.

How do you figure? I'm not trying to imply that I'm not happy, I'm just saying that a preagricultural lifestyle appeals to me. I made the "Before agriculture" comment because I really believe that people were happier in general, and life was better, before we imprisoned ourselves in the crop-fields.

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

Is there any chance it will turn around and get better through human 'will' or will we have to screw it up entirely and start over, if there's a second chance, or won't there be anyone left by then?

Things may turn out well, but they'll get worse before they get better.