Societal critical mass

[birch]

Do you think humanity will last much longer? Dinosaurs lasted for millions of years but I don't foresee that as being the case for humans. It is because we do require, expect and want more as well as our negative attributes are more conflated because of these attributes.

Unless we will be able to leave earth to colonize other planets or there is a mass extinction or disaster that kills most humans, I predict a eventual implosion leading to some major disaster or a nazi type of regime for resources.

There are some major reasons for this. There is not much left undiscovered or uncharted on this planet anymore. Even global travel will become more redundant as, again, too much human footprint, nothing much left that is virginal or new.

Look at the population explosion and the resulting pollution of the air, water and soil. If we don't move a portion of the human population off the planet, i foresee a world war three in the future. This planet can't sustain the mass population and consumption for much longer as well as the eventual boredom/ennui and restlessness of redundancy with little new frontiers. Space is the next step for that new frontier and if humans cannot do that successfully, it will be a problem if population and lifestyle is not downsized.

 

[Capracus]

This planet can't sustain the mass population and consumption for much longer as well as the eventual boredom/ennui and restlessness of redundancy with little new frontiers. Space is the next step for that new frontier and if humans cannot do that successfully, it will be a problem if population and lifestyle is not downsized.

The Singularity is near. Our AI overlords will intervene to correct our excesses.

Bring on Gort.

 

[Oystein]

I predict a eventual implosion leading to some major disaster or a nazi type of regime for resources.

With no time limit on this "prediction" then either one of these is bound to happen sometime in the future. Meh.

 

[Jeeves]

Do you think humanity will last much longer?

Not in its present configurations.

Dinosaurs lasted for millions of years but I don't foresee that as being the case for humans.

They were stable and balanced, both individually and with their environment. They didn't become extinct through action or flaw of their own, but due to external events over which they had no control.

It is because we do require, expect and want more as well as our negative attributes are more conflated because of these attributes.

It's because we're internally conflicted and act out these conflicts with one another.

Unless we will be able to leave earth to colonize other planets or there is a mass extinction or disaster that kills most humans,

Space travel wouldn't solve any problems. Every new technology so far has failed to save humanity from itself: replacing outmoded external problems with bigger, slicker modern external problems goes no way at all toward solving the internal ones. We change the environment, not our own nature.

I predict a eventual implosion leading to some major disaster or a nazi type of regime for resources.

What's new about that? We've always had both. As the population, the technical capability and the powers grow, so do the crises.
Given finite room on which to stage our crises, we're bound to reach an end-point: a disaster from which we cannot recover.
Depending on the size of that penultimate disaster, there might still be a planet, on which there might still be life, and some of that life might still be human.
The quick, clever, aggressive creatures that survived the extinction of dinosaurs evolved into this unstable form.
Next time, it might be a different type of creature that survives to become something else.

 

[Kristoffer]

Next time, it might be a different type of creature that survives to become something else.

Let's hope for a next time.

 

[billvon]

Do you think humanity will last much longer?

Not in our present form, at least on geologic scales. Within a million years or so we are going to look very, very different.

Unless we will be able to leave earth to colonize other planets or there is a mass extinction or disaster that kills most humans, I predict a eventual implosion leading to some major disaster or a nazi type of regime for resources.

We will leave Earth; that will not prevent us running out of resources.

Look at the population explosion and the resulting pollution of the air, water and soil. If we don't move a portion of the human population off the planet, i foresee a world war three in the future.

Both are likely IMO.

 

[Jeeves]

Moving any appreciable population off-planet would be a far, far, far greater drain on our resources than feeding, housing, medicating and providing with birth control the population we already have.
Fighting over the resources also wastes a considerably greater portion of resources than sharing them would.
What kills us is not scarcity; it's innumeracy.