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If you play Russian Roulette long enough, the gun will eventually go off. I can't prove that mathematically; according to math there's always a chance (however small) that the gun won't go off; still I assert that the gun will eventually fire. A corollary is that this is true regardless of the number of chambers in the gun.

Humanity has survived some pretty serious crises. After two major world wars it has gone for 77 years without such a world wide conflict. After a lengthy Cold War and the nuclear arms race that could easily have destroyed the whole world, calmer minds prevailed and such an end seems far less probable than it did fifty years ago.

Still, if you keep playing Russian Roulette, the gun is eventually going to go off. Think global warming in the short term. How are we doing with that crisis? And think universal heat death in the long term, say a hundred billion years in the future. What is humanity's plan for dealing with that? And what about all the crises between those two crises that we don't know about? We just keep putting that gun to our head, spinning the chambers, and pulling the trigger, over and over again.

How do we stop? How do we stop the cycle? We've got to figure things out, come to enough of an understanding of the universe that we can symbolically put the gun down and break it into pieces with a sledgehammer. It won't be easy getting to that understanding, but we've got to try. Don't our consciences require us to try?

KevinSim wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 14, 2022 8:00 pm

If you play Russian Roulette long enough, the gun will eventually go off.

I agree with your post about the risks currently faced by humanity.

Please excuse me, therefore, for taking issue with your first sentence, by asking - what is 'long enough'? What you mean, I suspect, is 'until the gun goes off'. That makes your statement into a tautology, words which appear to tell us something, but in fact add nothing to our knowledge although what they assert is guaranteed to be true, like "Mr. Biden's surname is Biden'.

Chap wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 14, 2022 9:15 pm

That makes your statement into a tautology, words which appear to tell us something, but in fact add nothing to our knowledge although what they assert is guaranteed to be true, like "Mr. Biden's surname is Biden'.

Chap, if you already knew that humanity is headed for extinction, then I commend you, and it would appear I had no need to convince you of that tautology! But my main point was that we owe it to future humanity to figure out how to put the gun down and destroy it. Do you agree with that?

My sincerely serious fear (and I agree with you KevinSim) is that the culture has brainwashed us past the point of no return. We are so spoiled, so ignorant, and so proud and arrogant of that ignorance that we believe lies, and refuse to even look at the truth of our world. We have been brainwashed into believing we HAVE to have an enemy. And, yes, the price we pay (perhaps through the rest of this year, the one we are in right now) is the deaths of billions, due to starvation and famine, and war. And our dumbing down and our agreeing with allowing ourselves to be so dumbed down (imagining guns, war, and the other political party being enemy, oh and money is the go to answer for all our troubles) is going to be a too steep of price to pay. Once several billions are dead, it will be too late, but then, again, if it can be claimed to be an optimistic note, we can re-kick start from cave man times (because that will be the new reality we have to live) and rebuild ourselves different for the next round. For this time, the world is collapsing, and I have become bitterly skeptical about stopping it.

KevinSim wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 14, 2022 8:00 pm

If you play Russian Roulette long enough, the gun will eventually go off.

Chap wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 14, 2022 9:15 pm

I agree with your post about the risks currently faced by humanity.

Please excuse me, therefore, for taking issue with your first sentence, by asking - what is 'long enough'? What you mean, I suspect, is 'until the gun goes off'. That makes your statement into a tautology, words which appear to tell us something, but in fact add nothing to our knowledge although what they assert is guaranteed to be true, like "Mr. Biden's surname is Biden'.

KevinSim wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 15, 2022 4:17 am

Chap, if you already knew that humanity is headed for extinction, then I commend you, and it would appear I had no need to convince you of that tautology! But my main point was that we owe it to future humanity to figure out how to put the gun down and destroy it. Do you agree with that?

It's not a tautology that humanity is facing very serious risks (though your first sentence does appear to be a tautology). It is a statement that could be either true or false, and it is true, even though most elected world leaders prefer not to have to deal with the obvious implications of that, because they know that their voting populations won't want to hear annoying stuff about not burning large amounts of fossil fuels and ceasing to eat lots of meat and dairy products.

It is the obvious dangers of this situation for us and our children that is driving protest groups to take direct action against the huge businesses that profit from destroying humanity's future.


(by the way, does anybody remember a poster here who used to tell us that we would all be better off if the climate got hotter? He claimed to be a roofer, if I recall rightly. Lots of people all over the States are feeling rather differently about that as they go through another hotter, drier summer.)

I'm not optimistic about humanity's future either.

My solution would be to have everyone start microdosing. (I watched the new Netflix doc on this last night, so it's fresh). A radical change in consciousness is what is required. And yeah, since that will never happen, we're likely doomed.

by the way, I have little doubt humanity (as currently constituted) will be long gone by the time the Earth dies, let alone the universe. I'd be surprised if all life forms weren't completely incinerated millions of years before the planet is eaten by the sun. And let me tell you, it would be a miracle if humanity even made it that long.

Chap wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 15, 2022 7:09 am

KevinSim wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 15, 2022 4:17 am

But my main point was that we owe it to future humanity to figure out how to put the gun down and destroy it. Do you agree with that?

It's not a tautology that humanity is facing very serious risks (though your first sentence does appear to be a tautology). It is a statement that could be either true or false, and it is true,

Chap, you didn't answer my question.

Some Schmo wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 15, 2022 1:43 pm

by the way, I have little doubt humanity (as currently constituted) will be long gone by the time the Earth dies, let alone the universe.

Some Schmo, if humanity is indeed doomed, as you say, then that means there will be a last generation of humans, a generation with hopes and dreams like all of us, but they're going to all die off before those hopes and dreams are realized. Some Schmo, in your opinion what is our conscientious obligation to that last generation of humans?

KevinSim wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 15, 2022 8:30 pm

Chap wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 15, 2022 7:09 am

It's not a tautology that humanity is facing very serious risks (though your first sentence does appear to be a tautology). It is a statement that could be either true or false, and it is true,

Chap, you didn't answer my question.

I think it is vital to the future of humanity to take effective action to limit global heating to levels that will not cause widespread disruption of normal human existence, if that is what you mean. If you mean something else, please say what it is in concrete terms, without any distracting metaphors about guns and so on.

KevinSim wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 15, 2022 8:37 pm

Some Schmo wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 15, 2022 1:43 pm

by the way, I have little doubt humanity (as currently constituted) will be long gone by the time the Earth dies, let alone the universe.

Some Schmo, if humanity is indeed doomed, as you say, then that means there will be a last generation of humans, a generation with hopes and dreams like all of us, but they're going to all die off before those hopes and dreams are realized. Some Schmo, in your opinion what is our conscientious obligation to that last generation of humans?

Our obligation on an individual level or as a society? As individuals, there's only so much we can do. As a society, however, with the financial power of the US government, we could do a lot. The problem is that it isn't politically popular, and animals like us humans will almost always sacrifice the future for short-term, selfish gains. It's everybody's fault and nobody's fault (well... except all the people denying the reality of climate change and making stupid/misinformed arguments all this time).

Humans have only been around for 200,000 - 250,000 thousand years. In biological terms, that's the blink of an eye. Our big brains have allowed us to live far past our biological mandate, but that survival strategy will only take us so far, and in many ways it's working against our species. Our technological advances have warmed the planet beyond saving it's habitability (barring a major scientific breakthrough) and we like our technology (not to mention beef) too much to moderate our use of it.

Despite the abundant life that exists on the planet, Earth is still pretty hostile toward living creatures. It's taken down millions of species before, and it's nowhere near done. It'll get us long before we conquer it.

But you know... I limit my trips and use of plastic. I've cut down significantly on red meat. My next vehicle will be electric (if I even get one). I recycle what I can. All of these things are good for the environment, but it'll make almost no difference unless we do something as a society.

I was telling a friend of mine yesterday that the only thing that might save the planet is an incompetent alien invasion. They'd have to be hostile and smart enough for intergalactic space travel, but terrible at killing humans. That way, we, as tribal humans, would finally have an imminent threat against all of us and an "other" we could unite against (humans vs. aliens), and maybe start making real progress together (after taking care of the useless aliens).

But, like I said, humans are too selfish and myopic to band together against an inevitable, long-term threat against all of us. I like the idea of your conversation (to get people thinking about it), but I feel stuff like this has to be said in the bluntest of terms. We waited too long and I strongly suspect we're screwed. The heat these days...