What is the future of mankind?

[Kamehameha]

Everything Kamehameha says =

 

Laughed at by a bourgeois neckbeard haole, what a huge shutdown.

[Oskar]

One way or another, mankind will eventually go extinct. It is virtually impossible to avoid this. How far away this date is, nobody can tell. Here are some possibilities that could happen in theory:

1. USA and Russia start a nuclear war, and they both nuke each other and other nations join in and mankind is killed off by Putin's stupidity.

2. People decide not to reproduce as much.

3. Some more powerful race is evolved. This could be an evolved gorilla sort of thing that has human intelligence and gorilla strength. They then kill humans for revenge.

4. Some dangerous government experiment goes horribly wrong, wiping out mankind. 

5. God decides that we are all stupid and hateful and sends another flood. 

6. The sun explodes and all life in our solar system is destroyed. 

 

Yeah, laugh your heads off and say this is stupid, but really, it is quite possible, one way or another.

[Kamehameha]

Please explain to me how he is bourgeois. Also, racism.

What racism? Haole means "he who has no breath," it's not a racist term.

[Jaehaerys]

Let's cool the ad hominem a bit, everyone. Going overboard with name calling will result in a warn.

[Big Brother]

1984? Oceania? Heh.

 

By writing that novel, Orwell made sure that such a society would never come into existence. It's a warning, one that has been well heeded. I think Huxley's ideas about how the world will turn out are more accurate:

 

 

 

 

Humanity will undoubtedly face countless challenges as time progresses and our societies evolve, but the nature of these challenges are irrelevant. It only matters whether we rise to the challenges or not. The climate, nuclear weapons, disease and artificial intelligence are some of the issues I think we'll have to face, but I'm sure we can handle it.

 

As for the further future, this might seem ridiculous to some but I've always been fond of a kind of philosophy from the Halo universe called "the Mantle of Responsibility":

 

The Mantle of Responsibility^[1] was a Forerunner philosophy. Although no precise definition of it exists, it is heavily implied to have been the source of both the Forerunners' "authority" and their apparent duty to preserve the galaxy's biological diversity. Bridging the social strata between an interstellar Marshall Plan and a benevolent, religious stewardship, the Forerunners took responsibility for the protection and cultivation of the species and planetary systems within their domain.

 

http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Mantle_of_Responsibility

 

That's basically what I'd like humanity to do. We alone are capable of understanding the significance of life, and so we have a responsibility to preserve it. That's what our ultimate destiny should be.

[Bilal the Great]

Either:

 

or:

[Nathaniel Aurelius V]

I think we are in a pivotal point in history. It is during this time that we have both the capabilities to do great good for humanity, or destroy it. We are in an age of scientific and technological advancement that has never been paralleled before in our history. I'm an optimist and am prone to imagining a world where humanity has outgrown its greed and has replaced it with compassion, a world where scientific and social progress are driven, not by competition to outsurvive, but through competition to outcreate. I feel that we have a very good chance of building this world. Despite there being a number of conflicts throughout our world, we are in a more stable and more peaceful society then ever before. And most of the conflicts that are occurring are mostly growing pains, conflicts centered around a group of people's fear of progress. Despite there still being impoverished and starving, people all over the world are contributing to the collective war against hunger and poverty and they are slowly becoming a thing of the past. Of course, whether the progress we have made in the last half century will continue is ultimately up to us. For this reason, despite continual rambling about our generation being the narcissistic and lazy generation, I believe that we can and eventually must disprove these names as false, if we are to progress past the petty differences and conflicts which stifle our growth. If we do this, we will be remembered as the greatest generation yet, for we have the collective choice to be the stepping stone to greatest or to destruction.

 

I am personally fond of the Star Trek universe where under a "New World Economy material needs and money no longer exist and humanity has grown out of its infancy. People are no longer obsessed with the accumulation of things, effectively eliminating hunger and want and the need for possessions. The challenge and driving force were to self-improvement, self-enrichment and the betterment of all humanity."

 

As I said, I'm an optimist and I might be totally wrong in dreaming about this seemingly perfect world, however what is humanity but a dream which we all share.

[Kadin]

I think the future of mankind will be determined by an accumulation of small events, like whether Hawaiians are able to restore sovereignty and righteousness to Hawaii. Because in a righteous environment all good men are lifted up, but under evil rule the people are doomed to destruction.

Embarrassing. And you tried lecturing me on campaign finance reform? Just shut up.

[WISD0MTREE]

Either:

 

-snip-

or:

-snip-

I prefer the top.

 

By writing that novel, Orwell made sure that such a society would never come into existence. It's a warning, one that has been well heeded.  

 

Nope. Communist China, anyone? If they survived the outside pressure, first generation of protests, and put tons of propaganda in schools, they would've had a chance. 

It worked for Kim... 

[Big Brother]

Nope. Communist China, anyone? If they survived the outside pressure, first generation of protests, and put tons of propaganda in schools, they would've had a chance. 

It worked for Kim... 

 

It's hardly the same as Oceanian society and our world is not in a state like the one depicted. In that world, the entire world has fallen to some form of left-wing radicalism; Ingsoc in Oceania, Neo-Bolshevism in Eurasia and Obliteration of the Self in Eastasia.

 

This is obviously not the case in our world, where we have a wide variety of political systems, ideas and ideologies that aren't controlled or oppressed, and some of the most dominant nations are free market liberal democracies whom heavily influence the international, and thus national setting.

 

It's close to impossible to achieve anything like the Oceanian state in our world, and North Korea is proof of how difficult it is. China failed to stand against outside pressure already during the Opium Wars, and it hasn't gotten easier to withstand outside pressure for anyone since then. Everything is far too global now and unless we technologically regress somehow, things will stay this way.

Edited May 20, 2015 by Big Brother