where are we going as a civilization?

[DeletedUser]

Brace yourselves... I'm starting a discussion


Scientists have made a divided civilizations into a few types. Type 1 can controll everything that happens on it's planet(wheather, vulcanos, earthquakes and so on), type 2 has exausted all the resources on it planes and it's using it's star as a power source. Type 3 has started colonizing other solar systems. Where are we here? Well, we are a type 0... actualy 0.7 which means we are about 100 years from a type 1 civ.

How does a type 1 civ looks like? Well it's formed of a planetery civ. This civ is multicultural, tolerant, scientific, pluralistic. The implications to this are huge. Will we be able to give up religion, racism, traditions and terorism without a fight?

Now hints of this are everywhere. The internet wich will be the new phone, a huge amount of people know english as their secong language, world icons(fashion, tv show, movies), racial ad cultural tolerance(tricky little subject), the Olimpics, soccer and so on.

The most important hint is countries forming big alliances, like the EU, formed for comercial and military reasons. Eventualy the whole world will be formed of such alliances and then all of them suposedly merging into just one. Now this may sound as a classic George Orwell scenario... but what can I say... maybe I just lost some faith in our society.

They say all this is bound to happen. Now... is it really?

full detalied story

 

[DeletedUser]

I don't think so. Scientific advances may make humans more technologically advanced, but cultural differences will persist. Culture defines one's world view and every corner in the world has vastly different cultures from each other, some of which are conflicting.

 

[DeletedUser]

Until we, as a species, realize that we are all in this together, bad stuff is going to happen on a global scale.

Basically, why can't we all just get along?

 

[DeletedUser]

In a world where the civilized debate the morality of the death penalty and torture whilst claiming the eradication of slavery despite sponsorship of such, both inside and outside their own borders, and the barbaric provide economic support to these self-same civilized, is such a discussion even remotely viable?

 

[DeletedUser]

I agree with you Hellstromm... as a species we are quite immature. If the world ever gets united, it will because of an outside threat, or a nation winning Risk in the big league.

 

[DeletedUser28032]

[or a nation winning Risk in the big league./QUOTE]

It which case i put all my money on Australia.

Either way I can't see us all getting along long enough to build a ship capable of taking us somewhere else

 

[DeletedUser]

We are on a course of self annihilation. The more technology we gain the closer to extinction we get. There are so many problems and no real solutions; from the genetically enhanced crops to global nuclear warfare. Its just a mater of time.

 

[DeletedUser]

The robots will enslave us.

Or maybe the rapture comes first, I forget.

Great topic for a discussion tho'.

 

[DeletedUser]

I think Switzerland is going to remain neutral, watch everybody else kill each other off, and eventually have the world (or what's left of it) to itself.

 

[DeletedUser]

Oi! Imagine a world dominated by Swiss Alps, Swiss cheese, and Swiss pocket knives!

*brrrrr* I shudder to think...

 

[DeletedUser]

Well you do know nuclear radiation tends to get up into the atmosphere and pretty much spread every where. There would be no safe place on earth in the event of world wide nuclear warfare. Even if you are in a shelter during the event eventually food and clean water would run out.

 

[DeletedUser]

well I had my fare share of Fallout, so I can handle a nuclear fallout

We are on a course of self annihilation. The more technology we gain the closer to extinction we get. There are so many problems and no real solutions; from the genetically enhanced crops to global nuclear warfare. Its just a mater of time.

I disagree with you. I think technologies today are fixing the problems that old technologies caused. You name them... every technology slowly is replaced with another one that harms the planet a little bit less.
My favorite exaple is the Electric or hydrogen powered engines that are being developed to replace combustion engines... and I predict a sudden decrease in green hour gasses once coal and petrol run out.
Personaly I have high hopes for the hydrogen engines.

Oi! Imagine a world dominated by Swiss Alps...

how would that happen? name all the mountains "The Swiss Alps"?
And I'll take swiss cheese over the american "cuisine" every time.

 

[DeletedUser]

well I had my fare share of Fallout, so I can handle a nuclear fallout



I disagree with you. I think technologies today are fixing the problems that old technologies caused. You name them... every technology slowly is replaced with another one that harms the planet a little bit less.
My favorite exaple is the Electric or hydrogen powered engines that are being developed to replace combustion engines... and I predict a sudden decrease in green hour gasses once coal and petrol run out.
Personaly I have high hopes for the hydrogen engines.

The problem is that green house gasses are not the only problem we face. There is a big problem with pollution of other types. And so far as those other so called non polluting alternative energy sources wont really make a whole lot of difference. Most pollution to include air pollution comes from industry. Cars on the road are not the main source of air pollution.There are big factories pumping out green house gasses day and night. And even if we stop using petroleum to run vehicles,; plastics are made from petroleum. The process of reining petroleum is still going to continue to pollute.

There are so many other big issues besides pollution. I wish I could be as optimistic as you.

 

[DeletedUser20688]

Just read "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. That will pretty much sum up the inevitable destiny of mankind for you.

 

[DeletedUser]

Ok, ok... there are a lot of ways in which the planet can lose it's marbles. But honestly at the moment the ONLY real threat we have is every country going bankrupt... and even that is hypothetical. Economy has a lot of back doors...
So unless a solar flare fries all the electronics on the planet we are safe for quite some time. Also please don't get paranoid about nuclear threats.

 

[DeletedUser]

Just read "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. That will pretty much sum up the inevitable destiny of mankind for you.

Ugh, I tried, but kept getting pulled over by the friggin' grammar police! Sorry, it's not an easy read because of his punctuation and grammatical ball-drops. Couldn't finish it, and I'm an avid reader, so that says a lot.

 

[DeletedUser]

I'm sure we could build nano-scale mechanical versions of everything to overcome solar flares.

 

[DeletedUser]

I'm sure we could build nano-scale mechanical versions of everything to overcome solar flares.

Well yeah... but it's said that this year, solar flares will be at they're highest, meaning their strenght will decrease after this and along with it.... the threat. I don't see any technology that can protect all our electronics developed any time this year. The only protection we have is turning off every electronic device on earth.

 

[DeletedUser]

Nah, they anticipate some pretty good ones (solar flares) up until after 2013. However, the latest big ones have assuaged most professional concerns and made monkeys of the lay doomsayers. We weathered them with minimal disruption.

I also disagree with your assertions Turda, the economy is a short-term drama, the destruction of the environment and and man-fed climate disruptions are long-term concerns that pose the very real potential for our species' endgame.

 

[DeletedUser]

Ok, fine. They are long term problems... we have long term solutions. In the first post, I said that we are going towards a type 1 civ. which can control everything that happens on it's planet. In other words we will overcome it. We'll terraform the damn planet if we have to.