What hope for humanity given the experience of the past 10,000 years?

[Elder Iptuous]

i would agree with you for the most part, Rat, but you gotta acknowledge that we now have thermonuclear shit at our disposal to fling...

[LMNO]

Which brings us back to the question...

Hope for humanity to do what? 

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

i would agree with you for the most part, Rat, but you gotta acknowledge that we now have thermonuclear shit at our disposal to fling...

Yep, we do... and 60+ years ago we threw some of that shit.... then for a good 40 years we had a big steaming radioactive pile of it ready to fling and so did some of our enemies. We not only had a handful of it, we were keeping large poomp buckets in storage just to make sure we could fling more radioactive poomp than our enemies.

But, we don't seem nearly as ready to do that today, we're not really all that excited about pooping more of it out. Sure there are still monkeys that are trying, but the general attitude of the monkeys seem to be changing... not at lightspeed, but hell, we've gone from having nothing like Nukes, to using a couple, to stockpiling enough to destroy the whole planet, to being one JFK key turn away from Game Over with all the screaming Nancys along for the ride... to a world of people that, for the most part, seem to have decided that its not such a good idea. ALL IN A SINGLE HUMAN LIFESPAN.

If you look at our history, it generally takes at least a generation or two for minds to change... but over the past two hundred years, it seems to be happening with greater alacrity. If I were using the 8-circuit model, I'd say that people seem to be moving their 'default' circuit focus from second to third, or even fourth. Maybe its just optimism, but if so... at least I'll be surprised when the mushroom clouds kill us all. 

[Cainad (dec.)]

Hope for humanity to do what? 

I second the question.

Thirded.

Infinity'd.

Allow me to offer my thoughts on the matter, as I wrote them a few months back:

There is no solution. This crisis will not be 'fixed.' A few of its symptoms will be alleviated, a little bit. Maybe. For some people.

An uncaring and uncontrolled juggernaut of changes will run its course across the fields of humanity, leaving ruin, death, poverty, and confusion in its wake. No, it IS running its course as I write this. It cannot be stopped, slowed, or hastened to its destination. It will have its way with us before the survivors are left to build yet another empire from the rubble.

And we shall make up a story or two explaining why it all happened, what we did wrong, and how to avoid such things in the future. But it won't make a lick of difference because it's too late and we're fucking hopeless when it comes to finding out where the next juggernaut is coming from.

This is not the end of days, nor even the end of civilization. Do not be so optimistic. Humanity has prophesied its own demise a thousand times in the hopes that the next big catastrophic clusterfuck will be the last one we have to struggle through. The doomsayers are the hopeful ones; once humanity is destroyed or reduced to barbarism it won't have to live with memories of the disasters it can't believe it didn't see coming, and the torturous knowledge that it will happen again. And again, and again

But humanity is big, dumb, and resilient. It cannot be destroyed, not even by its own hands. It shall lumber along as it always has, clumsily and nearly-blind, crawling and drooling its way into the future.

There will be another huge fucking disaster; a maelstrom of blood, anger, and misery. And when the dust settles we'll have lots and lots of dead people and still no answers.

It's what we do.

[Cain]

Nothing ever has a resolution.

[Cainad (dec.)]

Nothing ever has a resolution.

[Elder Iptuous]

Nothing ever has a resolution.

I hereby resolve that all things eventually end, and that they are increasingly being captured in their final moments in 1024x768 video.....

[Jenne]

I personally think it's all in perspective. 

There are small good things, large bad things and large good things/small bad things everywhere...guess we're unlucky enough to know a fuckload of the larger bad things these days, while a lot of small good things are taken for granted.  Whereas in earlier human history, it was probably pretty much the opposite.

[Kai]

I disagree.

[Thurnez Isa]

I personally think it's all in perspective. 

There are small good things, large bad things and large good things/small bad things everywhere...guess we're unlucky enough to know a fuckload of the larger bad things these days, while a lot of small good things are taken for granted.  Whereas in earlier human history, it was probably pretty much the opposite.

Every generation believes and hopes for apocalypse

[Epimetheus]

Personally, I miss the dinosaurs.
RAAWWRRARARRGHHH.
You'd understand that if you had half the heart of a parasaurolophus.

[Cain]

I personally think it's all in perspective. 

There are small good things, large bad things and large good things/small bad things everywhere...guess we're unlucky enough to know a fuckload of the larger bad things these days, while a lot of small good things are taken for granted.  Whereas in earlier human history, it was probably pretty much the opposite.

Every generation believes and hopes for apocalypse

In some ways, belief in it can be a comfort.

It allows for one to wipe away the mistakes of the past, and start again from scratch.  Unfortunately, it never really works out that way.  The optimistic drive for Utopia and the pessimistic denial of progress and change are two sides of the same coin.  They're both ahistorical, unrealizable and grounded in a flawed approach to human nature.

[Kai]

I personally think it's all in perspective. 

There are small good things, large bad things and large good things/small bad things everywhere...guess we're unlucky enough to know a fuckload of the larger bad things these days, while a lot of small good things are taken for granted.  Whereas in earlier human history, it was probably pretty much the opposite.

Every generation believes and hopes for apocalypse

In some ways, belief in it can be a comfort.

It allows for one to wipe away the mistakes of the past, and start again from scratch.  Unfortunately, it never really works out that way.  The optimistic drive for Utopia and the pessimistic denial of progress and change are two sides of the same coin.  They're both ahistorical, unrealizable and grounded in a flawed approach to human nature.

Cf. I Don't Believe in Atheists - C Hedges

[Cain]

I was actually thinking Gramsci:

While the view of the proletarian masses as avenging agents of social revolution is excessively optimistic, the pessimistic Frankfurt School view of the masses as docile Stepford workers is equally extreme. Gramsci rejects both determinism and fatalism and shows identification to be a historico-political matter without any final resolution.

But that works too.

[Kai]

I was actually thinking Gramsci:

While the view of the proletarian masses as avenging agents of social revolution is excessively optimistic, the pessimistic Frankfurt School view of the masses as docile Stepford workers is equally extreme. Gramsci rejects both determinism and fatalism and shows identification to be a historico-political matter without any final resolution.

But that works too.

Even better.

I just said it because I was excited I recognized the general argument. Most of the time when I read your stuff I'm left wondering about it instead of understanding it; I'm just not well read enough.