118 comments on Fear of Losing Immortality
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
| Show without comments | PDF version
118 comments on Fear of Losing Immortality
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
| Show without comments | PDF version
User login
Personnel
Classic posts
Archives
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
The Oil Drum: New York City archives
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- January 2006
- December 2005
- November 2005
- October 2005
- September 2005
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
GAIA Host Collective
es·cha·tol·o·gy
n.
1. The branch of theology that is concerned with the end of the world or of humankind.
2. A belief or a doctrine concerning the ultimate or final things, such as death, the destiny of humanity, the Second Coming, or the Last Judgment.
Please point out where he said that.
I also notice that you don't answer the question.
You are a true crank.
No one here buys your false dichotomy:
"I have true faith in science, whereas the rest of you are delusional."
Peak oil is the outcome of science.
Haying with horses and a loader are just as technologically challenging as doing it with tractors and a baler. The difference is you don't have to rely on mechanics when the equipment breaks down.
You seem to be reading a lot more into what peak guy said than what he appears to have said.
So it's just an elementary deduction: If you are opposed to unsustainable practices, then you're opposed to the electric power grid. That sounds pretty medieval to me.
and...
Therefore,
you are, by your own reasoning, either "medieval" or FOR "unsustainable practices."
Which is it?
That doesn't mean I'm in favor of senseless, wasteful consumption and growth. It also doesn't mean that I'm ignoring the limits imposed by the planet. I means that I think the best chance for long-term survival of the human race lies in modern, technical, industrial culture. If we let the lights go out, it's 100% sure we will perish like the dinosaurs. Our minds are our only chance.
Furthermore, there is a built-in presumption that high-intelligence is a survival trait that will ensure the perpetuation of our species. This may not necessarily be so, for our superior intelligence has gotten us into lots of trouble. If we destroy ourselves in a nuclear war over access to oil, then from a classical Darwinian point of view, one might conclude that high-intelligence does not ensure survivial of the species.
It may be slightly too much to say that it is certain that Homo sapiens will become extinct in a time comparable to time that that species has existed but it is not, in my opinion, unscientific to say that the evidence is such that the odds are so strongly if favour of this happening that it should be accepted as a working hypothesis.
When this happens, bacteria, the real success story of evolution, as well as many other species will carry on as normal.
From a planetary perspective man's passing will not be of fundamental importance and from a cosmic perspective, and these religions tend to imply that their teachings have cosmic application, man's passing will be of utter insignificance.
Peakguy is entirely correct that the mind set that so readily accepts all manner of improbable propositions in order to avoid acceptance of the oblivion facing him in a few decades is pre-conditioned to accept comforting stories that dismiss or minimise the problems threatening him and to do so in the face of all evidence to the contrary
Crocodile:
It's a religious belief because you are predicting the future with too much certainty, i.e. with a certainty requiring faith. The fact that the dinosaurs became extinct due to a cosmic catastrophe does not prove that we are doomed to the same fate. We may be different from the dinosaurs. Only time will tell. The scientific position is agnostic: maybe we'll go extinct, maybe we won't. "Doomed" is a religious concept.
I would challenge you to point to a single animal species alive 100 million years ago that still exists in the same form today.
Alligators, army ants, cockroaches, the coelacanth, cycads, the dragonfly,the gingko, the horshoe crab, the nautilus, salamanders, the sturgeon.
Also, change and extinction are different things. If the human race survives by gradually morphing into something more mechanical (a la Ray Kurzweil and Hans Moravec), I wouldn't say the human race became extinct. There's a big difference between a lineage changing and perishing.