Why?

Because unlike other species we are cognate animals with a capacity (albeit limited) to anticipate and attempt to control "our future". Such a capacity is inextricable from the domain of human language in which questions such as "why" operate.

Who bothers? You?

I'm not the least bothered..



Says who? How do you know that?

People have been saying so for thousands of years (early Greeks said that already) and nothing proved it to be true.



How can you say so? Do you have evidence of it?

People do change as a result of many thoughts/causes/events.

Saying that they were at the brink is meaningless..

Because some of us get a Rush from the experience

Couldn't resist

Some of us, not you and me to be sure, Rush, gain from it a sense of awe or reassurance. Why not after all, if it makes one feel good

Because we don't have much of a choice

I presume Rush you meant "in time" and I presume you mean before we wipe ourselves out by overpopulation or nuclear means. Do't know about you but my own life is apparently extraordinary

….so far

Of course. But in the meantime why can't we have a good time

I suppose the answer would differ from person to person, but in my own case, it's because I want the actual right answer to questions.


More to the point, there's not a shred of evidence for the imaginary friend, and, as I said, I want the actual right answer to questions.


Because I cannot figure out how to get rid of the people who cut the space program and refuse to plan seriously for defense against a meteor impact. The people who are elected are mainly people who can convince you that they're nice, but usually just want to be elected and re-elected. They are rarely people who are in the habit of long term thinking.


There may come a day when we have reason to be sorry that we ignored the colonization of space and the development of an anti-meteor strategy, and, yes, when the day comes, it will probably be too late.

Why people keep playing Cassandra is beyond me.

Don't take the worst for granted..

I'm just saying that if, for example, we notice a large meteor on a collision path with the Earth, it will probably be a little late to start developing the technology to stop it.

But we are working with the technology we have now.

We don't have the technology to prevent a meteor to crash on earth.

I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had, It came to me when I tried to classify our species. I realized that we're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but we humans do not. we move to an area, and we multiply, and destroy, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way we can survive is to spread to another area and repeat this cycle. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern: a virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. we are a plague

a big brained mammal that can control and destroy its environment is nonetheless a mammal. The first mammals laid eggs and were splay footed like reptiles. Do we refuse them clade membership too?

You're being naïve. Mammals (and other species) routinely destroy their environments. If an environmental niche or area is not in balance, then they can not only destroy their immediate environment, they can have profound changes on the ecosystem, too. Also, when an ecosystem regains its natural balance, that can change things, too. You might find this video interesting, "How wolves can alter the course of rivers." (Don't worry, it's under five minutes.)

you watched the Matrix too? see Number 1 was a great concept, but Id say 2 and 3 were entirely unnecessary wouldn't you agree?

I respect your opinion and understand completely what your saying, only problem is that "the wolf" did not destroy over 15% of the planet in a mere 100 years, we humans did! from Fukushima and other nuclear disasters to carbon emissions and ocean acidification of today, we need to be worried! did you know that shell fish farmers on the west coast can no longer grow their product in open ocean water? they have had to resort to a controlled environment or indoor cultivation as a result of changing ocean chemistry. Carbon emissions have if anything increased the rate of global warming, we are now melting permafrost in Siberia that is over 200 thousand years old, so what do we do? in newly accessible artic ocean water we prospect for more of the very substance responsible for the problem in the first place! in the late 1800's atmosphere Co2 levels were roughly at about 200/220 ppm, now we are at 400 ppm, in 100 years industrialised nations of the world are responsible for doubling C02 levels, and now all of Asia and the middle east from China to Pakistan want what we have, they all want industry and they all want cars to get to these new jobs, they dwarf the industrialised nations responsible for current environmental conditions 10 to 1. and they are doing this in a fraction of the time it took us! Our environment is changing at an alarming rate, weather is but one indication of this change, we have been breaking records every year for the past 10 to 15 years, did you know that last year we seen the worst hurricane ever recorded, and if that's not enough we also had the largest or most destructive tornado ever recorded in the same year! frequency and severity of weather phenomena are defiantly on the rise, our biosphere is failing and it doesn't take a physicist or environmental scientist to point these things out! Monarch butterflies will likely be on the endangered species list next year! Bee populations globally have decreased by an alarming 40%, ocean acidification is destroying crustacean or arthropods as of the past 3 years, and not just in a few sporadic regions but globally! biologists just last year have been trying to warn the world that we have a serious problem, or maybe they are just worried about job security and are trying to insure their study grants! I have only named a few of the problems we face in todays day in age, there are many more things that point to what is happening, don't get me wrong, I'm not an alarmist or a doomsdayer, I'm just an observer with a curiosity of what others might think.

My point was that people with long term thinking would start trying to develop something that works now, rather than wait until it's too late.

Up until this post, I've had a lot of respect for everything you've posted. This is very melodramatic. The only reason the other animals don't consume resources as we do is that they aren't smart enough to develop the technology. While we are a little lacking in the forethought and wisdom department, it's probably normal for a species in its infancy. We are not a plague. We just have to pass some laws and develop some technology.

no, the original quote was not from the movie! but it is a good one! it was used in the matrix, the day the earth stood still, and I seem to remember Morgan Freeman quoting it in yet another movie but I don't remember the name. I first read some variation of this quote many years ago in high school.

I'm sorry if you find my comment to be melodramatic, I did this intentionally in attempt to evoke responses such as yours! of course I don't actually believe we are a "virus", I was simply just pointing out the correlations between human beings and a virus, albeit in a sort of unrealistic way but never the less, it worked! your comment as to the difference between the uniqueness of human beings and the rest of nature, or those laws and changes in technology you referred to are but the point of this discussion, will we figure it out in time?

thnx for your response!

That humans are destructive on a higher order of magnitude that other animals doesn't alter that we are animals, too, and it is only the degree of our success which separates us from other animals.

By the say, the first great extinction event (as far as we know, and it likely is the one) arose because of bacteria which produced oxygen. This was about two and half billion years ago, and it wiped out the then dominant life forms. Some of them, though, do survive to this day. That we might create conditions which wipe us out is just another bump on the long road of the history of life on this planet. We may not contemplate it with equanimity, but "nature" doesn't care. That's just the way the cookie crumbles.

Your "revelation" about the viral nature of humanity and our inability to control it may indeed be valid. But such validity is only meaningful to humans with their psychological constructs of "time" and "control". So logically the term "virus" itself with all its negative connotations is predicated in the term "intelligence" with its connotations of control abilities.
Perhaps you have read the celebrated fable "Jonathan Livingstone Seagull" which speculates on a successful attempt to transcend the apparent futility of existence. As an atheist, I found this an interesting rejoinder to the "logic" which you evoke which underpins the futility position.