Can the human race survive the next 100 years?

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by CatherineW, Dec 21, 2008.

  1. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    You forgot "technological singularity" on your list, which mind you is such a wonderful way to get ride of the human race: obsolescence, upgrade, evolve.
     
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  3. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    You need to keep reading. Chinese civilization has never fallen and has been continuous for more than four thousand years. China has been conquered, first by the Mongols and later by the Communists, but in each case it absorbed and assimilated the occupiers and reemerged as China. The same can be said for India. It was conquered, first by the Mongols and later by the British, but its civilization remains intact and only a little worse for the wear. The same applies to Persia, perhaps to a lesser extent.
    I don't think the word "eventually" is needed. Rome was conquered by barbarians and never regained its glory, but its civilization never came to a "final end" as you put it. It did the same thing to its Germanic occupiers that China did to its Mongol occupiers: assimilated them so they wound up as heads of a relatively continuous government. And meanwhile Greece took half of that civilization and kept it going in Byzantium.

    The civilization of Egypt was obliterated, but it was replaced immediately, not "eventually," by the civilization of its Muslim occupiers. The civilizations of the Aztec and the Inca were likewise obliterated (more thoroughly than Egypt: the Aztec libraries were burned), but like Egypt their civilizations were immediately supplanted by the Christian civilization of the European occupiers. Byzantium was overrun by Muslim armies, but we can hardly say it was destroyed. The glory of many of its cities is still extant.
    We're living through the Paradigm Shift into the Post-Industrial Era, and the next civilization will be largely virtual. We're building it right here on the internet, and it's a perfect fit.
     
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  5. Hercules Rockefeller Beatings will continue until morale improves. Moderator

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