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View Poll Results: Do you believe in ancient predictions of the end of the world in 2012? | |||
I believe we are approaching the end of the world. | 5 | 19.23% | |
I do not believe we are approaching the end of the world | 16 | 61.54% | |
I am not familiar with such prophesies and have no opinion. | 5 | 19.23% | |
Voters: 26. You may not vote on this poll |
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09-23-2006, 09:50 PM | #21 |
the Shrike
Join Date: Mar 2002
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I really do think you are placing far too much credit in the human ability for destruction. If for some godforsaken reason, we manage to wipe out every iota of humanity, you necessarily think that that would be the end of life on earth? I think not. All that aside, I don't think the earth will fall to a WW. That's just a fairytale we like to scare the kiddies with. Along with all those silly conspiracy theories that those nutjobs keeping bangin' on about. Life is a lot more resilient than anything we can throw at it.
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09-23-2006, 09:56 PM | #22 | |
the Shrike
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Quote:
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"Binary solo! 0000001! 00000011! 0000001! 00000011!" ~ The Humans are Dead, Flight of the Conchords |
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09-23-2006, 10:05 PM | #23 |
the Shrike
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"Binary solo! 0000001! 00000011! 0000001! 00000011!" ~ The Humans are Dead, Flight of the Conchords |
09-23-2006, 10:11 PM | #24 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Dec 2000
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BeardofPants, having faith in humanity is not rational.
As for destroying life, I think we're very much capable of it. We right now have enough firepower to blow up all life many, many times over. We also are mangling our atmosphere with Global Warming, and we're thinning our ozone layer. We also are killing off vast amounts of life in our oceans. And that's just in modern times. I think we're fully capable of destroying all life in our world and leaving the world's atmosphere, oceans and the rest of it utterly ruined. A few hundred years will undoubtedly enhance our ability to destroy our world and cause it lasting or even permanent damage by many, many multiples. And as for humanity's likelihood of doing what technology is enabling us to do, I'd say that is very high. Humanity is selfish and aggressive, not improving, no matter what Brownjenkins says . We nearly destroyed ourselves in the Cold War. With WMDs in the hands of terrorists, the threat is much higher. It'll take time though, I very much believe. I think we've got a few hundred years at least.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
09-23-2006, 10:15 PM | #25 |
The one true King of the human race, direct descendant of Adam and heir to the kings of old. "You owe me your fealty." The Tar Minyaturion
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Wikipedia is a information control system.
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Proverbs 21:3 To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice. Ecclesiasticus 2:1-5 1 My son, if thou come to serve the Lord, prepare thy soul for temptation... ...4 Whatsoever is brought upon thee take cheerfully, and be patient when thou art changed to a low estate. 5 For gold is tried in the fire, and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity. Romans 5:3 And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; |
09-23-2006, 10:31 PM | #26 |
Entmoot Secretary of the Treasury
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Nevertheless, it is not replacing quantum mechanics any time in the near future, and to think that anyone should state otherwise bugs me a bit. No offense to you or anything, but the first paragraph of each those first two websites contain statements contradictory to everything in modern physics thus far. Admittedly, controversial scientific views are held with the utmost scrutiny, but these don't even appear to offer concrete, physical evidence (from what I scanned of them, that is) that matches any real observation or mathematical prediction. That is the problem with such physical theories: without the math to back it up, you might as well make a tab in the round filing cabinet. (This does not apply to non-physical sciences. Biology doesn't need math to back it up. But the end of the world is a purely physical consequence of any action: physical or biological, unless the end of the world means the end of the human species itself, which, again, has it's very foundations in physical occurrences. I myself have seen no evidence for life's demise other than the threat posed by planetessimals and humans themselves. Being that humans are in fact destructive, I think they're going to destroy this planet more. Yet, I beleive that humans are also more creative than destructive (hard to beleive, huh?), at least to a degree where the end of the Earth won't matter (at least to humans), who will then just have colonized the nearby solar neighborhood (or at least the solar system), and hopefully such an event would teach them what not to do.
My confidence in human descision making, however, isn't exactly high. If humans had any common sense, they would have built a space elevator already.
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09-23-2006, 11:23 PM | #27 |
The one true King of the human race, direct descendant of Adam and heir to the kings of old. "You owe me your fealty." The Tar Minyaturion
Join Date: Jun 2006
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hey, you might be right, food for thought. It is a fact though that the earths rotation is slowing down. We may differ on the why and it's consequences.
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Proverbs 21:3 To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice. Ecclesiasticus 2:1-5 1 My son, if thou come to serve the Lord, prepare thy soul for temptation... ...4 Whatsoever is brought upon thee take cheerfully, and be patient when thou art changed to a low estate. 5 For gold is tried in the fire, and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity. Romans 5:3 And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; Last edited by The Telcontarion : 09-23-2006 at 11:26 PM. |
09-24-2006, 01:02 AM | #28 | |
the Shrike
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Quote:
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"Binary solo! 0000001! 00000011! 0000001! 00000011!" ~ The Humans are Dead, Flight of the Conchords |
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09-24-2006, 01:06 AM | #29 |
the Shrike
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Oh - and this whole business with interfering with the environment? Not new. We've been warring and changing and fiddling and raping and destroying for just about our entire existence. As have the chimps. It's in our ****ing dna to be selfish developmentally driven chumps. Ain't nothin' changing there.
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"Binary solo! 0000001! 00000011! 0000001! 00000011!" ~ The Humans are Dead, Flight of the Conchords |
09-24-2006, 01:28 AM | #30 | |
Entmoot Secretary of the Treasury
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Well, good night everyone! Have to be at the living desert early tomorrow. 9:30 AM nature walk.
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09-24-2006, 05:02 AM | #31 | |
The Chocoholic Sea Elf Administrator
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09-24-2006, 05:03 AM | #32 | ||
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Well yeah, I meant the end of humanity too in my own anthropocentric way.
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"I can add some more, if you'd like it. Calling your Chief Names, Wishing to Punch his Pimply Face, and Thinking you Shirriffs look a lot of Tom-fools." - Sam Gamgee, p. 340, Return of the King Quote:
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09-24-2006, 05:46 AM | #33 | |||
Entmoot Attorney-General,
Equilibrating the Scales of Justice, Administrator ♎ Join Date: Jan 2003
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We are ruining the planet but I think we'll live through it. Humans are amazingly good at adapting their enviroment to suit their needs and I think that would be the case even in worst case scenarios where the ozone layer is gone or the polar ices have melted. Quote:
Here's an ABC news article that relates to the above. How to Calculate Chances of Doomsday! Quote:
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09-24-2006, 10:52 AM | #34 | ||
Elf Lord
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Fountain Valley, CA
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Quote:
Quote:
We can annihilate all life right now, and considering what we're doing to our oceans, they're on a steady course toward being rendered uninhabitable. Considering the rate of technological change we've been experiencing in our modern era, and considering how humanity's ability to destroy itself increased by many, many multiples in just the 20th century, I really think you're being overly optimistic.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." Last edited by Lief Erikson : 09-24-2006 at 10:56 AM. |
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09-24-2006, 11:17 AM | #35 |
An enigma in a conundrum
Join Date: Oct 1999
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I can see by all the diverse responses and the areas they address, that I should have been much more specific in order to get a more rarified response.
It's too late now so I'll just let this continue through the ten days allotted before the end of the thread.
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Vizzini: "HE DIDN'T FALL?! INCONCEIVABLE!!" Inigo: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." |
09-24-2006, 01:54 PM | #36 | |
The Chocoholic Sea Elf Administrator
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In a few hunderd years, our destructive capacity will likely be different. But considering we don't know how things will be in a few hundred years, things are difficult to judge now.
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We are not things. Last edited by Earniel : 09-24-2006 at 01:56 PM. |
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09-24-2006, 02:39 PM | #37 | |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Fountain Valley, CA
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Considering how rapidly our ability to destroy one another and life on Earth is increasing, I'm sure that the technology available to us in coming decades or centuries will have far, far more terrible capability.
But at this point, we land in a realm of merely opinion, so I guess it's not worth debating. Quote:
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." Last edited by Lief Erikson : 09-24-2006 at 02:41 PM. |
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09-24-2006, 05:15 PM | #38 | ||
Co-President of Entmoot
Super Moderator Join Date: Aug 2002
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Three people did answer that we are approaching the end of the world. Why did you guys say that? I'm curious since that view hasn't actually been expressed in the thread. (Unless that's one of those survey pitfalls where different people understand the question differently.)
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"I can add some more, if you'd like it. Calling your Chief Names, Wishing to Punch his Pimply Face, and Thinking you Shirriffs look a lot of Tom-fools." - Sam Gamgee, p. 340, Return of the King Quote:
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09-24-2006, 05:40 PM | #39 | |
The one true King of the human race, direct descendant of Adam and heir to the kings of old. "You owe me your fealty." The Tar Minyaturion
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: By the shores of cuivinien
Posts: 694
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Quote:
__________________
Proverbs 21:3 To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice. Ecclesiasticus 2:1-5 1 My son, if thou come to serve the Lord, prepare thy soul for temptation... ...4 Whatsoever is brought upon thee take cheerfully, and be patient when thou art changed to a low estate. 5 For gold is tried in the fire, and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity. Romans 5:3 And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; Last edited by The Telcontarion : 09-24-2006 at 05:44 PM. |
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09-24-2006, 09:39 PM | #40 | |
Entmoot Secretary of the Treasury
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That's why I'm going to have my brain put inside a giant genetically engineered raven before I die.
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