How Long Have We Got?

[Bruce]

The news said that Stephen Hawkins said that life has less than 1000 years left on this planet.

 

Personally, I reckon what we laughingly call civilization has a lot less than that. My personal guess is about 100 years left for the better-off places, while for the worst-off places ( like South Sudan) it has already gone.

 

The triple whammy of overpopulation, climate change and resource depletion will be our undoing.

 

How about anybody who knows better persuades me out of this gloomy prediction?

 

 

[Bikky]

Very interesting topic that has fascinated me for many years.

 

Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca wrote: "increases are of sluggish growth, but the way to ruin is rapid."

 

The rise of a civilisation is a slow process while the collapse can happen over a few generations. This is illustrated by the Seneca Cliff.

 

[ATTACH]48044._xfImport[/ATTACH]

 

Various factors are involved including those you mentioned of which the most important seems to be resource depletion.

 

No good news here, I'm afraid.

 

[Bruce]

Yes Bikky, the same has been said in a different way by somebody who said that we are only a few days food supply from chaos. This gloomy person went on to say that you might rush to where a supermarket was being looted only to find it was the police and the army doing the looting.

 

Personally, I think that is too gloomy and we will have a return to feudalism first, in fact I reckon that is going on at the moment.

 

 

[hihosland]

The Seneca Cliff argument fits well with the much more recent Jared Diamonds's "Collapse".

 

Not much in the way of good news Bruce.

 

However

 

I do take some comfort from the second world war.

 

At that time when our (and their) backs were to the wall the amount of universal mobilisation and production was truly phenomenal. Look at how many Liberty boats and aircraft were produced in very short time frames.

 

Perhaps more outstanding was the German industry that managed to support a tremendous war effort in the face of severe restriction on access to resources.

 

If and when the whole world gets sufficiently scared of the effects of our resource profligacy; perhaps just perhaps; we will display enough unified nouse to as a species/civilisation take the necessary action.

 

Won't happen tomorrow however.

 

 

[Methusala]

IMHO the most important are ACM followed by the threat of a confrontation between NATO and Russia getting out of hand and prompting a nuclear conflagration. Resource depletion is likely to entail drying up of water supplies but still down to climate change or more correctly Global atmospheric temperature increase (same as ACM).

 

 

[hihosland]

Had the Kennedy/Krushchev stoush gone bang, by now the planet (if not homo [not very] sapiens ) would be recovering from a nuclear winter rather than tasting the first steps of an escalating climate warming.

 

 

[Methusala]

I read somewhere that the 1st strike was only averted by the (understandable) reluctance of a Russian submarine commander to launch. My recollections are not always reliable and I can't guarantee the source but ...food for thought.BTW I may have used the wrong acronym ACM. Meant ACC (anthropogenic climate change)

 

 

[nomadpete]

This is a most interesting thing to ponder. The trend seems to be clearly happening (ala Seneca curve). And natural paranoia combined with natural human denial, clouds one's judgement. Unfortunately (?) I don't expect my curiosity to be satisfied in my lifetime. But I go with Bikky - a rather sudden decline within a couple of generations.

 

 

[Bikky]

It could likely be even quicker than that. Here we are concerning ourselves with the big, obvious problems when something much smaller could decimate the human population.

 

Antibiotic resistant strains of tuberculosis already exist and viruses have a remarkable ability to mutate. I have read that we are becoming genetically weaker and more dependent on medical intervention with each generation. Scary stuff for us humans!

 

I think any life form can only dominate for so long.

 

 

[Bruce]

We are pretty tough though. I remember it being said that cockroaches will inherit the earth.

 

Well humans can not only eat them, we can actually party on cockroaches. There are accounts of aborigines doing just that.

 

So I reckon humans will survive, but not with the nice civilization we have now. Unless we get to exploit space resources like asteroids, but this seems to be too much to hope for.

 

 

[nomadpete]

Lucky for me I am not a member of your human race.

 

Glad to be an alien. Just visiting. They'll be coming to take me home before you all collapse in a heap.

 

 

[Bruce]

Just like Ford Prefect huh? I'm afraid that name is getting dated... the kids would never have seen one.

 

 

[nomadpete]

Much less driven one!

 

 

[nomadpete]

More realistically, in spite of the gloomy possibilities, I have a mental flow chart constructed around many 'if - then' scenarios.

 

Eg. If an asteroid hits earth, then it's all over. Result = outside my control so stop worrying.

 

There are multitudes of mostly bad or disastrous things that might happen. I love watching "Doomsday Preppers" on TV. But not out of morbid paranoia. It is comedy, isn't it?

 

Now that I come to think about it, ALL my results = "Stop worrying"

 

 

[Marty_d]

More realistically, in spite of the gloomy possibilities, I have a mental flow chart constructed around many 'if - then' scenarios.

Eg. If an asteroid hits earth, then it's all over. Result = outside my control so stop worrying.

 

There are multitudes of mostly bad or disastrous things that might happen. I love watching "Doomsday Preppers" on TV. But not out of morbid paranoia. It is comedy, isn't it?

 

Now that I come to think about it, ALL my results = "Stop worrying"

You are a philosopher Peter. I like your style. I think they made a song about that attitude... Bobby McFerrin wasn't it?

 

 

[nomadpete]

Had to google him (excuse my higgorance).

 

Ok the song does say it!

 

Thanks Marty

 

 

[Bruce]

Nomadpete, being an alien makes you just the right life-form to ask this:

 

I reckon we as a species have some fatal flaws....

 

1. We are way too short-term in our awareness. So something that requires long-term thinking ( like global warming, resource depletion or overpopulation) will be willfully disregarded.

 

2. We are too inclined to love authority. What culling we must have had to make us like this I shudder to imagine. Too many of us are compelled to love and obey and support authority even when it is wrong. Gosh you see people like that even on this website.

 

3. We are way too inclined to sincerely believe nonsense when it suits us or the authority figures we follow. Religion is the primary example, but not the only one. Patriotism is another.

 

4. Just about our only inborn fear is that of falling, which explains why we spend ridiculous resources on aircraft safety while short-changing much more serious issues like obesity.

 

 

[nomadpete]

Yes, Bruce, your species does seem to have a number of potentially fatal flaws. No offence intended but yours is a 'unintelligent design' . Compounded by a limited psychology more suited to a 'lower' creature.

 

Your list pretty much describes behaviour suited to a pack animal's need to have a alpha leader. In a pack each individual must be able to relate to all the others to keep their pecking order, right to the top (alpha) member. But when all the packs merge due to mass overpopulation (as humans have done), they no longer cope with relating to everyone in the mass, so try to invent a 'super alpha' so they can just get on with life without so much interpersonal squabbling. And God is invented. All over the place.

 

 

[nomadpete]

And then the fight started.......

 

 

[Yenn]

How long before the latest super alpha is tossed off his perch, or will we just adore him like the last one from the republican party?

 

 

[nomadpete]

Whichever human leader you choose to follow or adore, rest assured of one thing.... When the going gets tough, He (or she) will be too busy looking after their own ass, to worry about yours ( or mine).