Is The Modern World A Chimera?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

[Rum]

I wonder if you have the faintest idea how unliked you are here.

What a fucking childish thing to say.

He might not be the most cheery person in the world but I get more sick of noticing you're whining about his threads. Not that I'm saying you don't have the right to but man you're a pain in the arse with it. It it upsets your little sensibilities so much why don't you fucking stop reading them. You're like one of those Christian cunts that sits down and monitors what's on T.V. just so they can be appalled and complain about it.

I suspect I'm not the only one who's sick of your whining.

So, do you have the faintest idea how unliked you are?

I seriously doubt it.

What a fucking idiotic thing to say.

I get so sick and tired of reading your threads complaining about Rum's threads. Why do you always whine so much about his threads? If you don't like them, stop reading them!

Do you have the faintest idea how unliked you are?

What a fucking childish thing to say.

He might not be the most cheery person in the world but I get more sick of noticing you're whining about his threads. Not that I'm saying you don't have the right to but man you're a pain in the arse with it. It it upsets your little sensibilities so much why don't you fucking stop reading them. You're like one of those Christian cunts that sits down and monitors what's on T.V. just so they can be appalled and complain about it.

I suspect I'm not the only one who's sick of your whining.

So, do you have the faintest idea how unliked you are?

I seriously doubt it.

[Bella Fortuna]

I have all too clear of an idea just how disliked I am.

[Thinking Aloud]

I have all too clear of an idea just how disliked I am.

*slap*

[Pappa]

I like rum and crumple, though I prefer rum and coke.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I like rum and crumpet, though I prefer rum and coke.

[klr]

I like rum and crumple, though I prefer rum and coke.

What about grog (watered down rum)?

I see a name change in the offing.

[Rum]

I promise to only say nice things about Crumple or nothing at all from now on.

I'm quite a nice person really once you get past the horrible stuff about me.

[Azathoth]

I wonder if you have the faintest idea how unliked you are here.

I'm not here to be liked. The point for me is to wake some people up and persuade them to prepare for the coming catastrophe. I have a lot of false optimism to counter so I must tell the news, explain the reality of the situation as it is rather than it is imagined to be, in the bleakest manner without blinkers. There is not a happy ending here - things are going to get so bad death will be relief for some who now count themselves lucky and safe.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Crumple, you've wolfed us too much.

[Robert_S]

In the business world they use the term 'creative destruction' to describe the constant turmoil that brings down established business models (newspapers for example) while new business models emerge. The same thing will (is) happen(ing) to civilization as a whole. It's in constant creative destructive turmoil.

I hate businessspeak. There's destruction. And then there's creation that may or may not follow. But this "creative destruction" phrase just makes me begin to wish for the "creative destruction" of capitalism itself.

[Coito ergo sum]

Various discoveries and historical contingencies have contributed to the formation of the modern world as we know it today. Is this a rugged example of longterm human progess or a transitory kludge doomed to failure from the start, and full of a myirad of hidden flaws as others, like Crumple would contend?

Neither. The universe does not have a direction "toward" anything, and there is no objective basis for comparing success and failure of any species of organism.

[Coito ergo sum]

I wonder if you have the faintest idea how unliked you are here.

I'm not here to be liked. The point for me is to wake some people up and persuade them to prepare for the coming catastrophe. I have a lot of false optimism to counter so I must tell the news, explain the reality of the situation as it is rather than it is imagined to be, in the bleakest manner without blinkers. There is not a happy ending here - things are going to get so bad death will be relief for some who now count themselves lucky and safe.

Chances are, things will be as good and bad as they have been for the last 10,000+ years. Some folks have it good; others bad. Nations rise; nations fall. If you were expecting something different, then it's your expectations that are the problem. Rome stood for 800+ years, and nobody ever expected it to go away. But, it did. And, everything was fine.

[Coito ergo sum]

I am not saying the end is nigh here anyway. What is likely will be the first of a number of catastrophes or ruptures which lead to eventual civilization collapse. Each level of decline might be viewed as a reduced energy state. It is unlikely that a level will be reclaimed until the overall energy of a civilization is so eroded that 'rebuilding' towards the first rupture becomes impossible rather than unlikely. At that point something new and different and 'advanced' might be built. The level of erosion in terms of civilization defining features must be very marked to remove the possiblity of a return to the old, and a similar collapse. The difference between the Roman world and the modern is small in comparison with what is required to avoid a similar 'growth to infinity - crash to zero' era. Human beings would almost have to be a distinctly different species, which might be worth exploring in a seperate thread? when this is combined with ongoing post industrial climatic variablity makes it a unlikely proposition. There is a narrow window but that is closing rapidly and very few, perhaps none, are up to the challenge of taking it.

Of course civilization will collapse. The universe was here for trillions of years before we came along, and it'll be here for trillions more after we're gone. Every civilization on Earth today is just a blip in historical time. Even an old civilization like the British change so quickly and dramatically that we would find the Britain of only a century ago an alien and bizarre place. Two centuries ago even moreso, and five centuries ago it isn't even recognizable. It would have been difficult to communicate in language.

Trying to stop the "decline" of a civilization is like trying to push back the tide with your hands.

[Atheist-Lite]

That isn't to say with but a small amount of preperation both in terms of material expediency and cognitive reserve you can't increase your odds of surviving what must be counted alongside The Black Death and the trenches of WW1 one of the great historic traumatic events in human history thus far.