It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (1 Viewer)

[Huntn]

We originally moved to Houston, so my wife could be closer to her aging parents. It’s the biggest metropolitan area, 6m, I’ve ever lived in. After 30 years n Minnesota living in the suburbs of a lovely 1.5m metro area, with splendid summers and cold winters, although they were not that cold the last 10 years we lived there. We both miss it. It’s relatively inexpensive to live here, but I guess you get what you pay for.

We’ve got a nice little house and backyard with a pool, but this last summer was the worst, heat was miserable 100F (38C) days for 3 months. We are totally dependent on the electrical grid, to keep our house livable, while the state, Texas, asks everyone to conserve or we’ll be looking at rolling brown outs.

This is while my brother just pulled up stakes from the Virginia, DC suburbs and is headed for Alaska. I’m envious, although I’m not sure I’d choose to live there. The draw is big beautiful scenery and not a lot of people. During the course of my career I visited there several time, and I did not care for a winter of twilight, or a summer of daylight.

The interesting thing, is that in the age of global warming, if I had carte blance to move where I want to, I’m not sure where I’d go. I used to say Tennessee, Knoxville, near the Appalachian mountains, but that’s also getting hot summer.

Who imagined we would actually arrive in this place? 40 years of warnings, hard core denial, today the artic melts, forests burn, oceans simmer, and we respond with yap yap, maneuvering for our individual advantage, killing each other, while seemingly oblivious, ignoring impending calamity, unable to change, basically helpless to to do anything but watch with fascination at the approaching apocalypse. Are we worthy?

Note, I don’t consider myself superior, I’m just one of the sheep who lived my life, open to making sacrifices, sending letters and writing emails to my representative, but just rolled along, allowing someone else to rally the sheep, waited for something to happen. And it never did happen, at least not enough. From a group perspective we are exactly where we should be as a species based on our inability to move out of our comfort zones and be proactive in the face of clear warnings being given.

Post apocalyptic stories have taken on new gravity, moving from fiction to something much closer to fact. A favorite is the Book of Ely, yet I am not a religious person. I favor the imagery, the environment, the search for a book so the sheep can be controlled. Never mind that an imaginary deity would give a human special powers on a quest to resurrect a book of fantasy stories in the post apocalyptic world.

Moving to Texas was my compromise to make my wife happy, but she’s not that happy living here. It’s been a red State and we lean blue (liberal). And honestly I think this country could likely go to hell. While there are a lot of good people living here (everywhere) there are way too many bankrupt broken bad, fascist leaning MAGA/Trump types and Republicans who as a minority of right wing butt crevasses, are ready to chuck democracy and shirt on our Constitution so they can continue to hold power. Voter rights? Haha, it’s fork you so me and my little band of losers can call the shots, and finish us off properly.

If you want honesty and darkness, I think the human species is headed for a fall. We are just too locked into our economies to do what we must be doing to keep the planet from burning. I’ve mentioned it before but read up on The Fermi Paradox and the Great Filter. I don’t believe we are good enough or worthy enough to get though that filter.

The Great Filter: A possible solution to the Fermi Paradox

There are many major hurdles to becoming an interplanetary species, but one might be tougher than the rest.

www.astronomy.com

​

 

[coldseat]

We originally moved to Houston, so my wife could be closer to her aging parents. It’s the biggest metropolitan area, 6m, I’ve ever lived in. After 30 years n Minnesota living in the suburbs of a lovely 1.5m metro area, with splendid summers and cold winters, although they were not that cold the last 10 years we lived there. We both miss it. It’s relatively inexpensive to live here, but I guess you get what you pay for.

We’ve got a nice little house and backyard with a pool, but this last summer was the worst, heat was miserable 100F (38C) days for 3 months. We are totally dependent on the electrical grid, to keep our house livable, while the state, Texas, asks everyone to conserve or we’ll be looking at rolling brown outs.

This is while my brother just pulled up stakes from the Virginia, DC suburbs and is headed for Alaska. I’m envious, although I’m not sure I’d choose to live there. The draw is big beautiful scenery and not a lot of people. During the course of my career I visited there several time, and I did not care for a winter of twilight, or a summer of daylight.

The interesting thing, is that in the age of global warming, if I had carte blance to move where I want to, I’m not sure where I’d go. I used to say Tennessee, Knoxville, near the Appalachian mountains, but that’s also getting hot summer.

Who imagined we would actually arrive in this place? 40 years of warnings, hard core denial, today the artic melts, forests burn, oceans simmer, and we respond with yap yap, maneuvering for our individual advantage, killing each other, while seemingly oblivious, ignoring impending calamity, unable to change, basically helpless to to do anything but watch with fascination at the approaching apocalypse. Are we worthy?

Note, I don’t consider myself superior, I’m just one of the sheep who lived my life, open to making sacrifices, sending letters and writing emails to my representative, but just rolled along, allowing someone else to rally the sheep, waited for something to happen. And it never did happen, at least not enough. From a group perspective we are exactly where we should be as a species based on our inability to move out of our comfort zones and be proactive in the face of clear warnings being given.

Post apocalyptic stories have taken on new gravity, moving from fiction to something much closer to fact. A favorite is the Book of Ely, yet I am not a religious person. I favor the imagery, the environment, the search for a book so the sheep can be controlled. Never mind that an imaginary deity would give a human special powers on a quest to resurrect a book of fantasy stories in the post apocalyptic world.

Moving to Texas was my compromise to make my wife happy, but she’s not that happy living here. It’s been a red State and we lean blue (liberal). And honestly I think this country could likely go to hell. While there are a lot of good people living here (everywhere) there are way too many bankrupt broken bad, fascist leaning MAGA/Trump types and Republicans who as a minority of right wing butt crevasses, are ready to chuck democracy and shirt on our Constitution so they can continue to hold power. Voter rights? Haha, it’s fork you so me and my little band of losers can call the shots, and finish us off properly.

If you want honesty and darkness, I think the human species is headed for a fall. We are just too locked into our economies to do what we must be doing to keep the planet from burning. I’ve mentioned it before but read up on The Fermi Paradox and the Great Filter. I don’t believe we are good enough or worthy enough to get though that filter.

The Great Filter: A possible solution to the Fermi Paradox

There are many major hurdles to becoming an interplanetary species, but one might be tougher than the rest.

www.astronomy.com

​

In many ways, I feel the same way you do and am in the same place. It's a daily fight to stave off the pessimism I feel because of my fellow man and our society as a whole.

 

[J-DONK]

In many ways, I feel the same way you do and am in the same place. It's a daily fight to stave off the pessimism I feel because of my fellow man and our society as a whole.

Realistically, it's coming to a head/conflict soon in this country. Republicans are so far right. They are authoritarian now. Eventually, something will have to change. There will be an inflection point.

I just can't get my head around that big of a chunk of people displaying psychopathic attitudes towards their follow Americans. Forget hating Dems, what about stuff like Medicare for all? That policy boils down too not letting people die because they can't afford care. They are waging a war against the child tax credit, and school lunches for poor kids? How did these people become monsters? They don't care about the things directly in front of them. They are never going to find the empathy to care about Global Warming or their children, or grandchildren's futures

 

[Dragon]

I am not quite there but close. A drunk friend at a party asked me just for fun the other day that what I would do if an alien race visited earth and asked me if they should remove every single human from earth and just let the earth heal on its own. My initial reaction was rather scary to be honest.

 

[Dragon]

Somehow the social "contract" has been broken and after Covid it has been a lot worse. It is as if the isolation has created a massive mental illness in some ways, Maybe even made worse by the fact that so many people are single or living in small family groups today.

Maybe we should have predicted it - After all plenty of research from high security prisons have shown that isolation can make people mentally ill.

I see it in my job as Community manager too. Before Covid we did have some stupid idiots but it has increased 100x and people are normalizing behaviour - even online- that was totally rejected just 3-4 years ago.

 

[Huntn]

Realistically, it's coming to a head/conflict soon in this country. Republicans are so far right. They are authoritarian now. Eventually, something will have to change. There will be an inflection point.

I just can't get my head around that big of a chunk of people displaying psychopathic attitudes towards their follow Americans. Forget hating Dems, what about stuff like Medicare for all? That policy boils down too not letting people die because they can't afford care. They are waging a war against the child tax credit, and school lunches for poor kids? How did these people become monsters? They don't care about the things directly in front of them. They are never going to find the empathy to care about Global Warming or their children, or grandchildren's futures

Can the species of which the Republicans are part of, (I think ) be indited? The outcome of whether the US survives as a Democratic republic, or the Earth avoids turning into a cinder (compared to how it was for the last several thousand years, and not just a US problem by far) will be the culmination of our species efforts as a whole. If the country implodes, you might hear “but it was such a good country”, but not good enough. Ask the minorities. Ask the citizens who are adversely being affected by having their civil rights stripped. Ask those who sat by because they were mostly unaffected, maybe until now. We will be judged as the whole, not as the good individuals who tried and are still trying to right the boat, if we fail in the end.

There is a long trend here. In small group survival situations we may act for the good of the whole because the stakes are so apparent. But in any larger group and in some percentage of us, mostly the smart ones who have the opportunity and are in the position to take advantage, this is what we often see. Oh, and you also need a lot of sheep willing to be oblivious, or herded and sheared. That’s humanity in a nutshell.

In a condensed history, The World According to Huntn, the group that represents the Republicans has never been for the working class. Usually I finger Reagan in the 80s, and slimy Newt Gingrich in the 90s as the start of the Republican party disintegrating. This is where the GOP had reached a point of lessened popularity, of turning to outright lies, manipulation, mischaracterization, hypocrisy, and double standards in an effort to hold onto power. And as they started to lose their grip, their devotion towards the standards upon which the Nation was founded, started disintegrating with them as they move on to fascism as the solution.

In the post WWII environment, first economic boom, and then slowly sliding backwards, capitalism holds no patriotism. And as the huge middle-class from the 50s started to dwindle, to what it is today, you have a group of dissatisfied citizens, struggling paycheck, to paycheck, wondering how they pay their medical bills or their rent who might normally be classified as blue-collar, and unhappy with the inability of liberals to keep their good paying jobs for them.

As far as the environment, we take stabs at it, but mostly we are locked into our economies as the Earth gets hotter.

Then comes along the genius of the corrupt, millionaire, sociopath, Lil’Donny and MAGA who appeals directly to the disaffected (and the disaffected racists) with his latest con job about how he cares for them and will make America great again. Ha ha. We’d be kidding ourselves if we didn’t think that racism, and white privilege does not play a big part in this movement.

Capitalism will never do it for the majority without hard-core regulations design to prevent gluttony, the unhealthy accumulation of wealth. I’d regulate out of existence, both billionaires and multimillionaires. How much money do you need to live a good life? Do we have it in us? Let’s see if we can first avoid imploding.

 

[Taurus]

Can the species of which the Republicans are part of, (I think ) of be indited? The outcome of whether the US survives as a Democratic republic, or the Earth avoids turning into a cinder (compared to how it was for the last several thousand years, and not just a US problem by far) will be the culmination of our species efforts as a whole. If the country implodes, you might hear “but it was such a good country”, but not good enough. Ask the minorities. Ask the citizens who are adversely being affected by having their civil rights stripped. Ask those who sat by because they were mostly unaffected, maybe until now. We will be judged as the whole, not as the good individuals who tried and are still trying to right the boat, if we fail in the end.

There is a long trend here. In small group survival situations we may act for the good of the whole because the stakes are so apparent. But in any larger group and in some percentage of us, mostly the smart ones who have the opportunity and are in the position to take advantage, this is what we often see. Oh, and you also need a lot of sheep willing to be oblivious, or herded and sheared. That’s humanity in a nutshell.

In a condensed history, The World According to Huntn, the group that represents the Republicans has never been for the working class. Usually I finger Reagan in the 80s, and slimy Newt Gingrich in the 90s as the start of the Republican party disintegrating. This is where the GOP had reached a point of lessened popularity, of turning to outright lies, manipulation, mischaracterization, hypocrisy, and double standards in an effort to hold onto power. And as they started to lose their grip, their devotion towards the standards upon which the Nation was founded, started disintegrating with them as they move on to fascism as the solution.

In the post WWII environment, first economic boom, and then slowly sliding backwards, capitalism holds no patriotism. And as the huge middle-class from the 50s started to dwindle, to what it is today, you have a group of dissatisfied citizens, struggling paycheck, to paycheck, wondering how they pay their medical bills or their rent who might normally be classified as blue-collar, and unhappy with the inability of liberals to keep their good paying jobs for them.

As far as the environment, we take stabs at it, but mostly we are locked into our economies as the Earth gets hotter.

Then comes along the genius of the corrupt, millionaire, sociopath, Lil’Donny and MAGA who appeals directly to the disaffected (and the disaffected racists) with his latest con job about how he cares for them and will make America great again. Ha ha. We’d be kidding ourselves if we didn’t think that racism, and white privilege does not play a big part in this movement.

Capitalism will never do it for the majority without hard-core regulations design to prevent gluttony, the unhealthy accumulation of wealth. I’d regulate out of existence, both billionaires and multimillionaires. How much money do you need to live a good life? Do we have it in us? Let’s see if we can first avoid imploding.

We just need to keep it together long enough to get off this rock.

In the long run our chances of survival here are zero.

 

[zztop]

I am not quite there but close. A drunk friend at a party asked me just for fun the other day that what I would do if an alien race visited earth and asked me if they should remove every single human from earth and just let the earth heal on its own. My initial reaction was rather scary to be honest.

I think of that often (not the aliens part) but how often, many days, I think the planet would be better off w/o humans. So much pollution (theres microplastics everywhere, in everything), a giant patch of garbage roughly twice the size of Texas, floating in the middle of the Pacific, careless extension of plants/animals etc. Humans have caused so much ruin to the planet.

 

[Taurus]

I think of that often (not the aliens part) but how often, many days, I think the planet would be better off w/o humans. So much pollution (theres microplastics everywhere, in everything), a giant patch of garbage roughly twice the size of Texas, floating in the middle of the Pacific, careless extension of plants/animals etc. Humans have caused so much ruin to the planet.

Eh, we have a long way to go to match cyanobacteria.

We're just organisms doing organism things.
But with sapience comes the moral and self-interested responsibility to control ourselves.

 

[Huntn]

I think of that often (not the aliens part) but how often, many days, I think the planet would be better off w/o humans. So much pollution (theres microplastics everywhere, in everything), a giant patch of garbage roughly twice the size of Texas, floating in the middle of the Pacific, careless extension of plants/animals etc. Humans have caused so much ruin to the planet.

On a small scale we can be smart, but not necessarily clean, and when we were small, being clean was not so vital and the Earth could handle us. Now there are billions and our short comings are evident, we are not smart enough to function on this level with group direction. We took a stab at getting better with the United Nations, but that has been a failure. We are still tribal. You might ask China why is it not spending its billions on cleaning up its act? According to the world carbon map, we are not any better in the States. And look at our National Debt. We are in the process of digging an insurmountable hole of debt. I hate the Republicans who preach fiscal responsibility, but refuse to raise taxes. They just want to cut all the social spending for the “unworthy people “.

Climate Research and the Effects of Global Warming | Saving Earth | Encyclopedia Britannica

Modern research into climatic variation and change is based on a variety of empirical and theoretical lines of inquiry.

www.britannica.com