The Tide of the Times
Optimism
Side Score: 8
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Pesimism
Side Score: 2
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Watch the Star Trek series (with the exception of Voyager) in order to get a picture of Humanities potential (albeit in a Fantasy/Sci-Fi context). Then, turn on Cable TV and watch any given "reality" show (the Real World will work fine) to see how we are currently countless light-years away from where we could be/should be and are not even on the right track as a species (Homo Sapiens). The trouble is, there have always been a rather extreme minority of Humans able to break free from Mammal Snow Globe World and ask deeper, fundamental questions about the nature of our existence, the Universe, and how to best use this information to lead more productive, happy, healthy, rational lives (who are really the ones pushing humanity slowly forward/onward). There are written records of this for as far into the past as we have written records; that is, a few people on the "outside" looking "in" at society/humanity at large and questioning (with their jaw dropped), "What is everyone doing?". For example, Socrates thousands of years ago, Jonathon Swift several hundred years ago, and countless others. In the Modern World, astonishingly, this problem remains essentially the same even though just to sign on to one's email account, they must use a computer (created by Scientists/Engineers), log on to the World Wide Web (again, created by Scientists/Engineers), and on their homepage before they can even get to their email is filled with perhaps a dozen News headlines, of which every so often one may read something along the lines "New Early Homo Sapien Fossils Found Dating back 300,000 years", ect. which should be more than enough to at some "wake up" a half-way sane, healthy, functioning, mature/developed Human mind to deeper truths about our existence, thus causing a Domino effect that ultimately would lead one out of the Mammal Snow Globe. The fact that it does not "wake people up" in any significant numbers suggests that people such as Socrates thousands of years in Humanities past did not have even a infinitesimal hope of getting through to the people of his own time. Moreover, it suggests that a similar condition may be likely to proceed into the future even if we are able to become more rational, civilized, technologically/scientifically advanced, ect. ect. Currently, there are only approximately 10,000 Physicists in the World while an average D1 College Football game attracts an audience of 45,000 in attendance and many more watching at home (e.g. an estimated 91 million people watched the 2007 Super Bowl). In brief, most people are simply following the "Tide of the Times" no matter how good or bad that "wave" may be and we have yet to find a way to overcome this dire predicament. Side: Optimism
@Polaris95 Sometimes I see hope in the human race. But then...I think we have no chance of surviving this century or the next. This is a very legitimate concern. In fact, it is well accepted/understood by many in the scientific community that our Civilization (as it currently stands) is a ticking-time bomb. Our modern world is based on Science and Technology while nearly nobody knows anything about Science and Technology, the technology has gotten advanced enough to wipe out Civilization if not used properly, and the popular culture actively rejects/discourages intellectualism thus teaching people it is okay to use the "toys" produced by Science but do not actually need to understand anything about it (it might as well just be Magic). The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists have placed the Doomsday Clock at 2 minutes and thirty seconds to Midnight. That is, the chance of Nuclear War is a perpetually strong possibility that we are just barely, narrowly escaping as of yet (although as a matter of Probability, it is essentially impossible to keep this up for any long term time period without conflict). And that is just one issue of many potentially species threatening events on our horizon Side: Optimism
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Watch the Star Trek series (with the exception of Voyager) in order to get a picture of Humanities potential (albeit in a Fantasy/Sci-Fi context). Then, turn on Cable TV and watch any given "reality" show (the Real World will work fine) to see how we are currently countless light-years away from where we could be/should be and are not even on the right track as a species (Homo Sapiens). The trouble is, there have always been a rather extreme minority of Humans able to break free from Mammal Snow Globe World and ask deeper, fundamental questions about the nature of our existence, the Universe, and how to best use this information to lead more productive, happy, healthy, rational lives (who are really the ones pushing humanity slowly forward/onward). There are written records of this for as far into the past as we have written records; that is, a few people on the "outside" looking "in" at society/humanity at large and questioning (with their jaw dropped), "What is everyone doing?". For example, Socrates thousands of years ago, Jonathon Swift several hundred years ago, and countless others. In the Modern World, astonishingly, this problem remains essentially the same even though just to sign on to one's email account, they must use a computer (created by Scientists/Engineers), log on to the World Wide Web (again, created by Scientists/Engineers), and on their homepage before they can even get to their email is filled with perhaps a dozen News headlines, of which every so often one may read something along the lines "New Early Homo Sapien Fossils Found Dating back 300,000 years", ect. which should be more than enough to at some "wake up" a half-way sane, healthy, functioning, mature/developed Human mind to deeper truths about our existence, thus causing a Domino effect that ultimately would lead one out of the Mammal Snow Globe. The fact that it does not "wake people up" in any significant numbers suggests that people such as Socrates thousands of years in Humanities past did not have even a infinitesimal hope of getting through to the people of his own time. Moreover, it suggests that a similar condition may be likely to proceed into the future even if we are able to become more rational, civilized, technologically/scientifically advanced, ect. ect. Currently, there are only approximately 10,000 Physicists in the World while an average D1 College Football game attracts an audience of 45,000 in attendance and many more watching at home (e.g. an estimated 91 million people watched the 2007 Super Bowl). In brief, most people are simply following the "Tide of the Times" no matter how good or bad that "wave" may be and we have yet to find a way to overcome this dire predicament. Side: Pesimism
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