I honestly believe that humanity is doomed to extinction. The thing is, I can’t say whether this is optimistic or pessimistic.
The basic problem is there are too goddamned many of us. We’ve proliferated beyond the point of survival, for ourselves and for everything we’ve polluted, physically and mentally.
The second problem is that we’ve evolved into a conflicted mass of warring individuals and cultures based on a wholly outdated concept of survival: “Those not like us endanger us and must be curtailed or destroyed.” This formula can’t work in a world and landscape where 8 billion of us are forced to live cheek by jowl while competing for limited and constantly diminishing resources.
If the planet as a whole is to be considered, beyond and above humanity’s narrow needs and desires, its survival depends on our extinction. Does this assume we cannot change and adapt as a species? Yes. If our history shows nothing else, it’s that social evolution has never come close to evolving toward overall survival. And at this point it would have to do so at a rate of change that’s inconceivable.
But let’s suppose (as an exercise in throwing a few breadcrumbs) that some other existing or future species could reach our level of “intelligence,” isn’t it at least possible that they could salvage the planet (assuming there was something left to salvage)?
Possible, but hugely unlikely, though I’m sure my cat could organize a better environment that our “leaders” and their skulking followers – despite Tigger’s inexhaustible appetite for mice and voles. (Not a Buddhist, I don’t cheer-lead for mice and voles.)
At this stage, what bothers me far more than the end of humanity is that, before its demise, it wants to pollute the rest of the solar system. The current drive by moneyed loonies to colonize Mars and/or Venus is horrendous: “Let us to take our ruinous impulses to the far corners of our celestial neighborhood, build them up, then recreate our destructive asininity there.”
Fortunately, this impulse is not only vile but ridiculous. We have nothing like the technology or energy sources available to support anything this complex or involving concerted action. Plus, the desire to move fast would overwhelm the reality of the measured complexity required, eviscerating the prospect, leaving it another side-issue absurdity. (For those of you who might have read up on “Dyson spheres,” you know how ludicrous such crap can be.)
So… am I pessimist or optimist? I like (naturally) to think of myself as a realist. And as I won’t be around for the outcome, I can jaw on without having any personal stake in the directions taken.
But hey, fellow sinking-boaters, I still like you. That’s what I share my depression with you. Ain’t I the good guy?
lickhaven 