You should look up some post humanist thinkers to answer this question. Homo Deus and 21 Lessons from the 21st Century are excellent speculatory books about the future. Straw Dogs by John Gray is also an excellent book about the philosophical positions that lead human beings to thinking they were important, including the myth of 'progress'.

Likely we are "doomed" but all of life is doomed eventually, and we aren't at all special. In the history of the universe we are a mere blip.

I think that we are in deep trouble with the problems you list. However, one of the difficulties is that all the doom and gloom could end up creating a self fulfilling prophecy. It can be hard not to feel gloomy about it all, and perhaps we need to remain positive, and look to finding solutions to the real, imminent problems, especially climate change. It seems to be escalating so rapidly.

Of course, human beings have often expected the end of the world. The end of the millennium passed and the date of the end of the end of the Mayan calendar, 2012, has passed. People feared the end of the world and spoke of a new age. It may be that the current difficulties are a mixture of both scenarios, and the human race has to find ways to address the serious problems asap.

Remember malthus? Remember jesus? Remember the Cold War? Remember the alleged oil crisis We? We humans are the future and extremely strong.
You pessimists can stress yourselves out,and doom and gloom,but you only hurt yourselves and annoy others.

Lifeboat (triage) ethics on both continental and global scales just might delay our entry into the fossil record...

Some of my rosy outlooks:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/346349 (re: climate change)

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/515775
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/515794 (re: overpopulation)

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/528858 (re: nihil-ation)

You pessimists can stress yourselves out,and doom and gloom,but you only hurt yourselves and annoy others. — Mystic

How am I a pessimist for simply asking the question? I personally have little opinion on either course of humanity I’m simply looking to see what others believe. Be careful not to make needless assumptions about people based on little more than their inquiry

@Benj96 If your not an optimistic your a pessimist.
Don't hide behind the nonsense of I only asked a question.
Grow a pair and own your post.

Your existence on TPF is probably doomed.

Shhhhhhhh ...

global warming, nuclear war, drug resistant super infections, ecological collapse, overpopulation, solar flares, asteroid impacts, AI overlords... — Benj96

All that and more!

There are solutions to our problems at hand, but we ourselves--our inability to plan and act together for the long-run (a century ahead, at least)--doesn't have a solution.

Take drug-resistant infections--a topic that hasn't received as much doom-scrolling attention as it deserves. When penicillin and the other new antibiotics entered productions, alert researchers were aware of the problem of resistance. Billions of us used antibiotics like aspirin, taking them for sore throats for which they were not needed, or for viral infections for which they were generally irrelevant.

In 2021 doctors in the US still receive demands from patients for antibiotics that aren't going to help their ailments. In less regulated markets antibiotics are over-the-counter. Even where care was taken, in the treatment of gonorrhea for example, penicillin gradually lost its effectiveness. Other antibiotics were substituted. There are now multi-drug resistant strains of Neisseria gonorrhoeae, a tough well-traveled hard-working organism. On the other hand, Treponema pallidum, which causes syphilis (a more dangerous infection than gonorrhea, is still very susceptible to ordinary penicillin after 75 years of use.

Drug companies do not find antibiotics as profitable area for research as drugs for chronic diseases. Get an infection, take a pill for 2 weeks, and that sale is over. Get depressed and then hooked on antidepressants and you have a customer for decades. Or high blood pressure, high cholesterol, over-eating, arthritis, and so forth. Very real problems that deserve good treatment and will result in sales for years on end.

As a consequence of decisions at Bayer, Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson, GSK, et al, there are no new antibiotics in the research and production pipeline. That's entirely owing to short-sightedness. If the drug companies don't want to do it, then the government must.

Unfortunately, there is no drug for short-sightedness.

History is replete with men who thought they could predict the future, and without much success. So more often or not we're faced with a chicken-little scenario than a prophetic one.

Remember the Cold War? — Mystic

The cold war was also lost, not just won.

A better example might be: remember Pfizer?



One problem is, models of complex systems aren't often very good at long-term prediction, because they have to be approximated to be tractable. It would be nice to be surer how long we've got to solve the problems listed in the OP; the danger is finding out too late to implement those solutions.

The other problem is that, even given a solution and the time to implement it, it's difficult to get people to actually do it. Powerful people are very invested in HOW THINGS ARE NOW and aren't apt to adapt.

For me, the nervousness arises from this unknowable balance between the problem solvers and the exploiters, and the progressives and conservatives who respectively enable them, more than the problems by themselves. Another Republican President and everyone might be fucked.

There seems to be endless ways by which humanity could end or at least be severely diminished in the coming century. Do you think it’s all just over-dramatic nonsense or should we be genuinely concerned for our future here on earth? — Benj96

This is the first time we've attempted to create a global civilization this complex. Getting it right on the first try doesn't seem that likely. I predict more of what has already happened, a longstanding pattern of the rise and fall of civilizations.

One word: Frenemy

"Frenemy" (also spelled "frienemy") is an oxymoron and a portmanteau of "friend" and "enemy" that refers to "a person with whom one is friendly, despite a fundamental dislike or rivalry" or "a person who combines the characteristics of a friend and an enemy". — Wikipedia

Our dear ol' momma earth has h. sapiens as a frenemy. It's humans who've opened up Pandora's box from which all sorts of planet-killers have escaped and are now on the loose. However, mother nature's problem, in spite of what I said, isn't us - it's the natural catastrophes, not the man-made ones, that'll do her in so to speak and undo millions of years of priceless evolution as happened 65 million years ago (Chicxulub Crater).

The earth needs a savior and humans are it. With our powerful brains and some well-deserved luck we may be able to mount an effective defense against natural disasters such as asteriod impacts, etc. and only then can life ever make progress - the danger of global diasters pressing life's reset button will need to be addressed pronto!

I guess nature is more than willing to suffer some losses to its biodiversity caused by humans so long as we keep our end of the bargain and develop defenses against natural disasters while also learning how to rein in our own destructive tendencies.

If your not an optimistic your a pessimist.
Don't hide behind the nonsense of I only asked a question.
Grow a pair and own your post. — Mystic

Rude haha. And very polarised view. Nothing is black and white and there is such thing as “ on the fence”, besides I’m actually asking a question based on what people have said to me not my personal opinion. Anyways despite your somewhat unwarranted, hostile and needlessly personal comment I will assume you’re just having a bad day. Poor you.

over-dramatic nonsense — Benj96

Going with the over-dramatic option. Sure we could end our existence on earth, but will we really? Nope. I kinda wish we had the stones to though. At least it would show some commitment as a species. I see people that try to explain human value as if we will save the planet, but really, the planet will be fine. Our species has been around for the length of a decent hiccup in the lifespan of the planet. How arrogant are we to think we matter at all to anything other than us? The planet will shrug off any damage we cause and carry on regardless. We might not survive, but that would be another species going extinct, nothing more and hardly a horrible loss at that. Don't worry, something will replace us.

Humankind could secure a prosperous and sustainable future - by addressing and overcoming the threat from climate change - but only if we adopt the right approach.

The common assumption that production and consumption must be reduced, as if to eek out finite resources, is a mistaken conclusion in the course of Malthusian ideas; proven conclusively false by 200 years of history, in which food production has far outpaced population growth.

This was achieved by the invention of tractors and fertilisers, and so by technological innovation we transcended the equation of Malthusian pessimism. Similarly, we can transcend the limits to growth equation by harnessing limitless clean energy from magma, to produce endless clean electricity, capture carbon, hydrogen fuel, desalinate sea water to irrigate land, recycle - and we can live well, long into the future.

And if so what do you believe is the most likely scenario? — Benj96

You will die.
Prior to that, your teeth will rot, possibly for quite some time.


Anyway, what are you really/also asking? Whether it is worth it to invest in humanity (such as by developing a career that is intended to help others), given that humanity might face a bleak prospect?

There seems to be endless ways by which humanity could end or at least be severely diminished in the coming century. — Benj96

If humanity does end, then there isn't going to be anyone around to worry about it.

If it does not end and it is severely diminished, that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

In any case, I doubt that communism would be the right solution to environmental problems.