I was inspired to start this thread from reading this thread... I'm curious as to a theory of sorts I have.

Simply put, what do you think is the state of the world, more or less? Do you think humanity, civilization, etc. is evolving into something better than it was, or degrading from what it use to be, or essentially the same as its been? Feel free to cover anything from governments to technologies to whatever, but I'm mostly interested in your views on the world's moral or ethical state. You know, if people are doing the right thing or not.

Also, if you would, please say if you believe, do not believe, or disbelieve in some faith or reason. For instance, taking el popular example of Christianity as context, one might be a believer, an agnostic (non-believer) or atheist (disbeliever). Of course, that example can be misleading... after all, an athiest believes there is no God. I ask partially because it's necessary to figure out part of my theory, but also because depending on the answer, your views on what defines right and wrong could be different. I hope it's clear what I mean.

Thank you for your time. This, of course, is not aimed to be a discussion of who and what is right or wrong, and thus I hope it will not turn into the hellish flame war these sorts of threads (unfortunately) often bring about.

i say the world is nearly ready for a reset

yes, there is a big red button somewhere that resets the whole world

*searches*

When I'm 40 and gas prices become 16 dollars a gallon, then we run out of oil, and we can't make some plastics anymore, or run cars, or factories that build things we need, and we fall into another dark age, then we can hit restart.

i'll keep myself to myself and let the world pass me by.

as long as i can make a profit that is.

Personally I think the world is dissolving into chaos.

The state of the world is a sorry affair. But fortunately ignorance is the salvation of mankind. Every new generation is born without the experience of a better world, and they live knowing they were the lucky ones, and those who will come later should be the real subjects of pity...

Being a history major with a focus on pre-modern [eg up to about the protestant reformation], civilization and people and such don't seem to me at least to have changed significantly.

Technology has changed immensely, however it still has been for much the same reasons as ever before [food water and warfare], and culture has had to change to adapt to said.

However with regards to people themselves and politics [teenagers have been whinging-yet-not-acting about almost identical issues all the way back at least as far as the hellenic era] and government and society, i really approve of this quotation:



[once i can find them i will add ones from ancient greece person complaining about rebellious youth and their wild music, and a sumerian one bemoaning their children's lack of drive and initiative]

according to that quote, we have notihng to worry about

Well, being that he was talking about the Roman Empire, that collapsed shortly thereafter..

[edit] yes, i meant republic.

If by 'shortly' you mean 440 years.
[edit] (unless you mean the Republic, which fell 11 years later in 44 BC).

Two thousand years of complaining, and those things still stand uncorrected. I never thought politicians listen to the public, but now it has been indisputably proved.

The world will continue on despite what the doomsday seers say. They have been saying the world will go to hell in a handbasket for millenia and I'm not going to start believing them now.

Of course, it's only in the past 100 years that we have actually had the capability to wreak havok on the world as a whole.

I think its the same button that launches nukes, no?

I think the human world has stagnated into a mindless, soulless waste of habit and ritual. It has become a painfully ordered bureaucracy that exists solely in anticipation of what it has deemed inevitable. It no longer functions as a living thing, no longer changes and co-operates to survive. It has developed society as an algorithm for dying.

I have only attended Catholic schools, though I do not consider myself a Catholic because I am morally opposed to the authority of the Church, let alone any other organized institution. I would say that I am a mystic of any religion, whether Western or Eastern. I especially tend towards the spiritual Earth religions.

I'd say it stinks.

-I think mankind now, for our machines, technology, cars and greed, is becoming too wasteful. We are taking too much from our earth and probably soon run out of resources (or severly limited). But millions of people continue to not care. Sudden starvation from these desires, like electricity, oil, paper, will probably lead to rapid violence amd turmoil.

-I think that making and developing more and more mass weapons is probably not the way to go. We know more and spend more time with research and funding in ways to kill each other instead of establishing universal peace. We find missles and nukes are guardians of our countries instead of the power of peace amoung each other.

-Too many people are become corrupt over simple material possessions like money. Often CEOs, politicians, world leaders, much of society and so on, view people as economic assests instead of regular beings. Even certain charities take donations for themselves without much for the poor. Yes, money can run an economy. But money should not run a life.

-People who wants to see a better future should actually go out to create a better present. Thoughts and ideas can open doors, but action does the work. Nothing better is going to come out of the times to come unless changes happen now.

I probably have more to say, but I can't think. :/

It's the end of the world.....as we know it.

...and I feel fine...:p

Instead, humanity is materialistic, greedy, selfish, corrupt, and stubborn. True, this is not for all humanity. There are those who have rejected humanity's instinctive and natural tendancies to do good. I may go philosophical/spiritual here. I think there will be a schism in humanity. Those who have bettered themselves and those who are corrupt.

I was asked this question by my friend "Do you think that a human is instinctively evil and taught good or vice versa?" My answer was that we are instinctively evil taught to be good.

Moral of the story: We're going to blow ourselves up.

Rising oil prices (depletion of world's supply of oil), terrorist attacks, corruption, decline of morality, etc. I don't think I need to go on. Any time now, the end will come.

LOL, you're serious. It's called Hydrogen and the War on Terror. Morality and corruption is your personal opinion, thus subjective. The world will go on. Sheesh.

Hydrogen is not a solution to the depletion of oil. Drilling for oil produces more energy than it consumes. Generating hydrogen in any form suitable for moving or manufacturing things takes more energy than it produces. Hydrogen is an intermediate storage form of energy.

If we get nuclear fusion up and running... Well, then things might change considering hydrogen. But right now it looks like oil might run out before that happens.

Rising Oil Prices has as little do with with depletion of oil as rising diamond prices has to do with depletion of diamonds. There is an extreme backstock supply of it, rising oil prices is caused by people deciding to fix oil prices at various levels for various reasons.

Degrading

Lets see, well, there's about 14 wars in In the East, prices are too high, your 20 year neighbor will kill you because he lost a dollar, bad, but not as bad as it will get if we keep going this way, wait a second, I forget something, no JO or JA in Mexico... HORRIBLE!

You're all so depressing. :p

Theres simply too much abuse of everything in our world, all of our non-renewable resources are nearly out the window, and we waste money like nothing, I think it really is time to start over.

In my opinion, the zenith of human society is Karl Marx's vision of a socialist utopia. The way I measure progress is the equality of welfare among all. Right now, division between rich and poor, the billionaire CEOs in the U.S., with starving masses in Africa, is a sharp contrast. But then again, with monarchs and serfs in the middle ages, plantation owners and slaves in the colonial... It's been a persistent problem... We haven't mad any progress... but I'm not sure if we've regressed either.

[hrmm will update later.]

*sigh* Yeah, we haven't made any progress at all.

Darn right

Interesting... lots of 'down the toilets' and a few 'nothing new's... no optomists?

For most of us, our hearts in the right place. We do want things to get better than what it currently is but at the end of the day it just seems too much. I think change will happen, but it's a few centuries away.

I think Tolkien was right. Our machines will destroy us. In the pursuit of power we created devices capable of destroying the world, albeit with the best of intentions in some cases.

Power corrupts, and Western Civilization is the most powerful culture ever to exist on the Earth. Given how closely our society at present mirrors that of Rome's last days of glory, I don't give us very long. A century or two at most, barring some improbable drastic change.

The world will always get worse, if only due to the nature of Evil. While Good can be corrupted and beget Evil, as I'm sure we can all attest to from personal experience, Evil never begets anything but Evil. Evil is really nothing more than the absence of Good, the corruption of that which is perfect, it's not a thing in and of itself. So every time a new evil emerges in the world, it does so by the loss of a good, and the change is irreversable. Evil does not beget good. So the amount of Evil in the world is always increasing.

Entropy is inevitable and irresistable. Sooner or later, Evil will be the only thing left in the world. And that'll be the end.

Depressing, isn't it?

Entropy isn't "evil".

Do you have any idea how much energy is wasted in the production of reports that nobody ever reads? How much energy is wasted in the production of packaging, how much energy is wasted shipping standard air freight boxes which contain one tiny item? How much money - and thus, how much market power - is invested in people whose sole purpose in life is the creation of more work?

The corporate system is the worst idea in the history of the universe, the biggest threat to democracies and free enterprise, and an enormous waste of countless resources.

I never understood why they have to wrap your big mac in a paper, then put it in a foam box, and then put the foam box in a bigger carton bag. If you're going to eat there, serve it on a damn plate. If you're going to take it away, put it in a damn ziplock.

Paper is about a billion times more efficient to produce than plastic.

As mort said, Entropy isn't necessarily evil, just as Anarchy doesn't necessarily mean people running down the streets raping, murdering, stealing and pillaging at will.

Sure, it could happen, but there are other alternatives that entropy could lead too.

Entropy == Anarchy (essentially) and Anarchists don't want (above looting/pillaging/stealing phrase). A world without government where people obey moral law, they work to better themselves/help the human race, they don't murder because it's wrong, not because there's a law against it.