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I don't know if I entirely agree with the premise of this thread, but with age has come the realization that both I, and humanity, has been down this road before. I think of myself charitably-well reasoned, deliberate in my considerations and sound in my judgement- but people that I think are a danger to humanity think of themselves in the same manner. And since our positions don't come close to matching, at least one of us is wrong.
I also realize that me considering an abstract situation and me considering a real situation that is unfolding in front of me will generate multiple reactions that usually are wrong to some degree. Abstract problems are frequently pretty well defined in both their causes and consequences. Real problems can have entire cargo ships worth of undeclared baggage and consequences that I may not find out about until decades later, completely changing my point of view about what had happened and how reasonable both my and other peoples reaction to it was, in hindsight.
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I think we often do underestimate the adaptive pressures that shape our behaviours, or worse, think we're above them.
These last 2 years have been eye opening in that regard.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Quote: I don't think we'll move past animal stage until we redefine what it means to be human in the first place.
Exactly!
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Our meat cages are both a blessing and a curse, but I don't know how we could possibly escape them. Unless you've got something like digital in mind, but that comes with new problems. After all, it put Dodge in Hell*. 
*Fall; or, Dodge in Hell - Wikipedia
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP.
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I am alluding to transhumanism in some form, though I don't know that discrete circuits and otherwise digital tech could get us there.
Real programmers use butterflies
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honey the codewitch wrote: For those of you that believe (acknowledge?) we as a species are headed for unusually spectacular disaster, maybe after nature downsizes "right sizes" us we'll learn from our mistakes
I've been hearing all my life that humans were on the path to extinction. Clearly that's true for all species...but I've always questioned how long-term we're talking about. On a geological scale? Well, duh. In the next 100 years? 1,000? 10,000? Million? At which point does it no longer matter - and who makes that arbitrary call?
Looking at the numbers, more humans exist now that ever have in the past, and I haven't seen any hard numbers showing this trend is gonna reverse itself any time soon (defining "soon" is left as an exercise to the reader). COVID's done nothing here to "help", irrespective of what the mass media has been trying to portray. It's a rounding error imperceptible from previous years. People are dying, but they're still being replaced at a faster rate.
Growth is on a decline, and that's been trending for decades - I attribute that to some large swath of the population coming to their senses (forced to, economically?) and realizing it's no longer necessary (or make sense) to have families with 8 kids. It's about time. My dad was one of 9 kids. My grandfather was one of 14. But all numbers I can find show population is still on the increase. By the tens of millions. Each year.
I agree we can't keep doing what we're doing without there being horrific consequences. But we're kidding ourselves if we think the population can keep growing, but it'll be alright in the end if only we traded SUVs for electric cars and all had solar panels on our roofs. Nobody ever wants to talk about the real solution, because nobody wants to acknowledge the implications.
Sorry if I missed your point. 
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I'd argue not that we're on a path to extinction - we might be - but more I'm arguing that we're likely going to experience a significant downsizing of the human population within the coming generations - I don't exactly how far out, because everything is a moving target, at best. That's not extinction. In the big picture, it's simple, ruthless culling.
Global human population growth is still increasing, just slower than it has been since its peak in 1989.
I'm simply arguing we're likely going to see that graph of steady growth get a crater in it.
Real programmers use butterflies
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I was just listening to one of Neil deGrasse Tyson's podcasts yesterday. His guest pointed out (and rightly so) that we've had plagues before, that wiped out large percentages of the human population. We've never gone extinct, but we just need one sufficient large rock to take care of that.
And George Carlin is absolutely right in his earth plus plastic skit, the earth has survived much worse than we as puny humans could throw at it even if we tried our best.
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I agree, and even the rock won't get us without a fight, which is why I don't bet against us.
Real programmers use butterflies
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We need to start by shedding the delusion that the wealthiest, most ruthless among us, are the most admirable people. At the root of everything, that's the problem. We just can't say no to them, and it's them who are dragging us down in the race to the bottom.
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Only reasonable people read our opinions. We have yet to learn to communicate with the masses. Except DJT the ex, who now has his wings clipped. I assume twitter is a bird. But he understands stupid.
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I won't weigh in on other countries and cultures but here in the US I think some of that we got saddled with by way of the Puritans.
Forgive me because I have to mention religion here, but none of this is intended to weigh in on religion or a specific religion. This is about groups of people and the way they treated others:
The Puritans did not flee England because of religious persecution as the popular yarn goes. The reality is they were chased out of England because they insisted everyone had to live like they do and so they made a lot of enemies. Everyone wanted them gone.
Although nobody here calls themselves a Puritan anymore they have plenty of ideological descendants in the states today.
They brought with them the notion that if you're prosperous, it's because you are righteous. That's a big seller in the US even today.
It's a funny thing, because their religion almost says the opposite, but here we are.
Real programmers use butterflies
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Indeed, the Puritans were Calvinists, and Calvinism had a deep influence in American society. The logic goes like this. Since God is all-wise and all-powerful, if you are rich, it can only be because he sees that you're a good person and he's made you rich. You must be a morally upstanding person if you're rich because, if you were not good, God would send bad things your way to punish you. Then you would be poor.
And yes, the poor are poor because they're lazy, vice-ridden fornicators. If only they worked hard and followed the straight and narrow, God would make them rich. It's so easy, and yet they don't do it. That's because the poor are bad on purpose. They're just no good.
And since God has decreed that the poor are not good people, then it stands to reason that helping the poor is tantamount to undermining God's punishment. Now you can see what informs America's attitudes about welfare.
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Yep. And it's awful. Human beings will pervert any message to justify their own selfishness.
Real programmers use butterflies
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I think you would like the Riverworld saga
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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As individuals I believe we have free will. We choose the lives we lead. In the aggregate however as cultures, societies, even as a species, your thesis may be true. There may be nothing more in our future than some Malthusian horror. On the other hand we might retreat from the brink and create a society that makes the United Federation of Planets look like an exclusive men's club. I don't know.
Given my advanced age (I turned 60 last year) and my appropriate classification as a 'boomer', you might expect me to lean more in the dark direction than the light. While I fear the dark as any reasonably sane and aware individual would, I hope for the light. Certain small things make me optimistic. A little kid in the store says "please", or I see a dad and daughter having an earnest discussion about breakfast cereals. I read about someone who stepped up and helped by adopting a rescue animal or mowed an elderly person's lawn. You can find countless examples every single day.
It's not the action of governments, the United Nations, criminal syndicates or charitable agencies like the Gates Foundation that will shape our collective destiny. It's the free-will choices made by each of us that will create a worthwhile future.
Software Zen: delete this;
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For reasons that I think are a bit long for this format, the notion of having free will requires a form of special pleading, even in the individual.
First, if we aren't every bit the automaton a gorilla is, for example, then where does that spark of free will - this radical inspiration - come from? This eventually gets you to the special pleading problem.
You imply free will is due to your ability to make choices. It's here I think you *might* be missing my point - how do you know someone else couldn't predict your choices given enough information about you? What I mean is, how "free" is that choice really? Were you already going to make it? I think you were. I think if I knew enough about any of us, I could tell you exactly what we would do under a given set of circumstances.
It could be that you're just easier to please than I am in the context of our understanding of what free will is. In case that's what's up, let me explain myself here. For me it's not enough to be able to make a choice. My cat makes the choice to bite me when he's dissatisfied with how I pet him. He doesn't have to do it - he does make the choice, and is much more likely to make it if he's already cranky.  - but that by itself does not lead me to the conclusion that my cat has free will.
Here's how I define free will:
If I could make a perfect copy of you, plunk you down in a parallel universe where everything is the same:
Free will would mean those two versions of you do not behave the exact same way in the exact same environment.
I believe they would.
Real programmers use butterflies
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Greetings Kind Regards Looking over the history of our species is it not clear we are becoming more peaceful except of course for the occasional fascist and communist . The brutality of our ancestors was incredible to wit i.e. e.g. we no longer rip out the intestines of convicted criminals for public display , I am thinking of the Mel Gibson movie "Braveheart" . For another judges impose the death sentence on convicted criminals less frequently . For another slavery is of course a thing of the past except again as practiced by the occasional fascist and communist . I conclude we are slowly becoming civilized - Cheerio
"I once put instant coffee into the microwave and went back in time." - Steven Wright
"Shut up and calculate" - apparently N. David Mermin possibly Richard Feynman
My sympathies to the SPAM moderator
“I want to sing, I want to cry, I want to laugh. Everything together. And jump and dance. The day has arrive — yippee!” - Desmond Tutu
“When the green flag drops the bullshit stops!”
"It is cheaper to save the world than it is to ruin it."
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We're becoming more civilized. It just means we've gotten better at domesticating ourselves.
But that domestication is fragile. It's easy for people to go feral. Look at the US today, and we're not even looking at a localized societal collapse. A good 1/3 of humans will kill the other 1/3 while 1/3 watches. It's only the act of self-domestication that prevents it.
And that goes south pretty quickly, for example when a social sickness like fascism (which is not ideology) infects democracies.
Self-domestication doesn't change our nature. It just trains us to do better, but that's not permanent.
Adding: Don't get me started on slavery, which we still practice. We just retired chattel slavery. It wasn't economically viable. In todays labor market you need to maintain flexibility, so it's more cost effective to lease your slaves - especially offshore - than it is to buy them outright.
Real programmers use butterflies
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My view (I'm religious): Sin is what's wrong with humanity. It's because of sin that humans are estranged from God and why they are like that and why all the bad things happen.
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What I'm saying about us is a secular read of an interpretation of Genesis. I'm *not* religious, but the Torah, and by extension, the old testament is profoundly useful if you know how to use it. It's ancient sociology - shows us how we work, both individually and collectively.
I wasn't raised with it, so I'll only ever get so much out of it compared to someone that studied it since childhood.
But regardless, I am pretty confident in my eschatology (if you want to call it that) which draws largely from the fall of man story in genesis, and an interpretation of what the curse in the exile from the garden is, and how we transcend it in the end. As Noah did in part with his invention of the plow, easing the curse of toil. This is precisely what "God wants" - metaphor here - (although I don't anthropomorphize God in that way, just trying to convey a concept)
I won't go deeper here, because I don't want to start a deep dive on this topic here, especially with someone who is religious (no offense) simply because I don't want to veer into religious territory.
But what I wrote is informed in part by abrahamic scripture.
Real programmers use butterflies
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You said it right and no matter how much we'll try but because of the other factors in our life we tend to come back to the same position of being selfish, short tempered and eager to get everything for ourself. There no way we can escape from this. We never know what other person is thinking of us but we want to show ourself foolish by caring extra about others.
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Wow, thanks.. That was fast!
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