The sky is NOT falling!

I know things are bad. I know things look to be getting worse. We have a quagmire of a pre-emptive illegal war, we have politicians playing "Let's Make a Deal" with the corporate powers-that-be, deliberately and consciously screwing the average American. We have global warming. We have Diebold. We have a complicit press and a complacent public. We've got a looming depression most of the country can't even see coming. We've got a ballooning deficit and rampant corruption in congress.

It's bad. It's getting worse.

How bad will it get? I'm not sure. But I do know that hopelessness and despair are going to get us precisely nowhere. The end of the world is not upon us. I won't even bet that the end of civilization is upon us. Maybe the end of American ascendency is, but hell, I'm not so sure that's a bad thing. One of the Earth's oldest empires is about to step into our place, and, if one sets aside their horrendous human rights record, they might actually be a bit wiser with regards to how they handle things. At least China isn't tied down by Bronze Age ideology. A significant number of China's population isn't just phoning it in waiting for the End Times.

I grow weary of the hopelessness. I really do. Damn near everything we're seeing has been foretold at one point or another. Maybe nothing really shocks me because I'm a sci-fi fan. I've seen it all, or near enough that the difference is pretty meaningless. The controversy over cloning came as no surprise. Now it's animal hybrids. :boring:

Been there, done that.

The most ridiculous thing is that we probably stand on the brink (within twenty years or so) of some pretty incredible scientific breakthroughs...things that could well make the past hundred years or so look remarkably like the dark ages. The survival of the human race, and of many of the Earth's creatures, can be assured if we simply take the steps to make it so. It would require the end of bombing the crap out of one another, more than likely. We can't afford to waste so many of our resources engaging in petty squabbles when our whole existence is on the line.

One of our biggest problems in this country is the absurd level of influence the Rapturians have...people who believe the end of the world is just around the corner and therefore none of this matters. They are, in my opinion, not very different ideologically from the suicide bomber. It's all a matter of scale. A bomber kills X innocent bystanders. The Rapturites are trying to take ALL of us with them.

The future is coming whether we like it or not. Hiding from it isn't an option. Denying it even less of one. The future might not be what we'd like it to be, but it could well be a place of wonder anyway.

But maybe we should make certain our children and grandchildren learn Mandarin. It will probably be very useful in the future.

I refuse to believe the sky is falling. Sure, it's a little shaky, but it's held up this long...why not a little longer?

What more can I say? When hope's all you got left, it's the one thing worth having.

ok, now I'll read your post.

on edit: K&R! I can adapt to the future you describe.

:sarcasm:

Or as the great Studs Terkel put it, "Hope dies last."

day people....we have a choice...a collective one no less...that we choose better over bad...

The answers lie in the direction of overcoming Ignorance/Fanaticism

Until we install systems refuting/reducing Ignorance...we will plod on hoping for Destiny to come rescue us....we shouldn't be holding our breaths....to that end, we must work for the answers and solutions....and...at the same time...keep up the HOPE that we succeed....

Our technological/mechanical/agricultural/ etc advances demonstrate our advancement toward what can be utopia or at the very least, something very close...whats's holding us back is advances in our Social Structures....resulting in inept leaders with nefarious intentions...

But the fact that we have these arguments means something too. That a significant portion of the U.S. is aligned with those who believe in positive change in other places in the world is significant.

Hell, we must stand up and DEMAND the changes needed to get this Human Species off our asses and do something GOOD instead of being led around with rings through our noses

Unless the future scenario includes the eradication of religious faith from human conscious thought then my pessimism, with all the hopelessness and despair that comes with it, still stands.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
- Albert Einstein

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.
- Albert Einstein

To imagine is everything, to know is nothing at all.
- Jacques Anatole I. France (Jacques Anatole Thib

The imagination equips us to perceive reality when it is not fully materialized.
- Mary Caroline Richards

"The struggle of man against tyranny is the struggle of memory against forgetting." Milan Kundera

But it's falling for Republicans. :)

But unless we change course 180 degrees, America won't be the ones making those breakthroughs. I don't think I've ever, in my lifetime, seen this nation more ANTI-science than today. I was educated to understand that there is no genuine conflict between science and faith -- but today, the fundies have declared war on science and they seem to be winning! How pathetic! It's like a return to the Dark Ages right now, right here.

I'm not ready to give up hope. I truly believe the pendulum is about to swing back our way. Because if it isn't, I don't want to be here.

Bake

I really don't think America will be the one making the breakthroughs...UNLESS we have a pendulum swing the other direction.

And even that may not do it. Too much ingrained prejudice against some of the things that will be coming. Too much fear and ignorance. Too much outright stupidity.

I hope I'm wrong about that.

It can't fall; it is merely a foolish expression.

However, wages are falling. Freedoms have been beaten down. Walls are being put up. Soldiers are being blown up. Detainees are being wired up. Passengers are being taken aside. Laws are being sidestepped.

But we can get past all that. We can go to the future. Tomorrow does offer hope. Hope is the spirit of America. We have all the power and things we do, not because people tried to keep the world as it is, but because they wanted to make it better. You are right that hope should be upheld, because things may get worse before they get better.

Every time in American history when the future looked dim, and people thought the world was going to end, the world was merely at the end of a chapter not the book. The next chapter usually was far better than the previous.

I think America is going to go through a wonderful rebirth; we are entering a new chapter. People will see the consequences of not caring about the most important things in life. Those of us who survive the coming years will create a world in which the future is very bright. One where people are tired of the horrors of war, but acknowledge the darkness in all of humanity that brings it about. We will create new systems that are self-renewing which will attempt once more to tame the dark wilderness of hatred and violence. We will succeed, hopefully.

Despair is our greatest enemy in this. Plan for the worst, hope for the best.

Although I'd feel so much better about everything if our species hadn't invented nuclear weapons, germ and chemical warfare, other newfangled high end technologies used for potentially wiping out our species.

Many people like to put forth the idea that, "well, all throughout time, there have always been those who claim that The End is near," yet it never happens.

What troubles me is, eventually, our species may indeed go that route ...the fact that we've turned power over to those who invent such horrifying things as nuclear bombs in the first place is a rather revealing sign of ensuring race suicide, wouldn't you say?

It's a difficult balance to strike between raising awareness of things like global warming and habitat destruction and being positive about the future. I am convinced that this is a political liability for the left. It's a challenge, and it's hard to play both sides without sounding inconsistent.

The world has been through much worse periods. Environmental destruction is nothing new. Ancient civilizations turned their forests into deserts by irresponsible logging. China and the America hunted almost all their large mammals to extinction. Wars were more brutal, and people poorer and less in control of their lives. Just the last hundred years have brought amazing improvements, and there's no reason to think that the obstacles today are insurmountable.

I think the world will continue to get better, partly because I have faith in people, at least over the longer term. I just hope that a hundred years from now, we will still have the natural heritage to go along with economic progress.