The Core Of It All: Can we fix the world?

[treg50]

All I can think about is how f'd up everything is within human control and outside of human control, but how we as a species, forgetting ethnicity, religion, nationality, gender, and age, can not stop exploiting, capitalizing, destorying, and hurting each other to realize that we're just killing ourselves off. Humanity is destroying itself. It sounds so grand and too simple, but when you boil it down it makes sense to me.

Forget the everyday local shootings and other crimes. But check out the rest of the country or even the world. Things are getting really ugly out there and honestly, it's a bit scary for lack of a better word. I know that everday everything's getting worse by the second, but here are just a few things I noticed today. Pretty soon we may be dying from the common flu, the dollar earned today is worth less than it was yesterday, and I'm positive than global warming is a big contributor to the increase in hurricanes (i.e. warmer ocean temps, warmer air temps, smaller polar ice caps, etc.)

Resistance to Flu Vaccine On The Rise

Gas Prices Hike Inflation In Canada

Rita Gathers Strength En Route to TX

We're too greedy and self-centred to give a crap about the big picture. The big picture is what will kill us when it eventually gets too heavy that it falls crushes everything under it. Every now and then someone like me somewhere goes on a rant like this and pretty much says, "if we all take a stand we can change this world." I believe this is true, I believe it's possible. I hope that if anything I get one or two people to think and maybe change something or everything in their life for the better of the world around them. Life is bigger than me, you, our families and friends... it includes people we don't know, it includes entire other countries, it includes the environment, basically our life includes this planet and everyone on it. We co-exist.

My paycheck is now worth less than it was yesterday, and am I getting a raise anytime soon probably not. Housing costs are ridculous for anyone planning on starting a family, or even for the first time home buyer it's pretty disheartening. With everything else going on, I believe our lives are more difficult than our parents' lives, and scarily our children will have a worse off world than we have now... imagine that.

[b_t]

No. The world will always be broken. Until some kind of absolute genius figures out how to solve the human condition and completely separate us from our base instincts so we are governed only by conscious thought (and thus lose all motivation to reproduce, compete, etc.) the world will always be fucked. It cannot be fixed. Deal with it .

[abyss]

Originally posted by treg50
...

Start building Noah. Most of us are aware that society is slowly collapsing. I would suggest to live your life as full and complete as possible while trying to ensure you teach your children about the values of life and do your best to ensure they'll do the same for their kids and so on.....No sense getting all chicken little on us, just do what you can with what you have.

[snowboard]

Fridays need to be reformatted to make the world a better place.
It should be mandatory, for everyone over the age of 14, to get drunk.

Or else just add friday to the weekend and make thursday the new friday.

[statick]

it's wonderful that you've had this realization, and if everyone had pure intentions the world would be a much better place...unfortunately a lot of ppl just dont care about soemthings. but u can always be a better person yourself and bring positive impact in to the world. i read somewhere that your average citizen in north america and/or europe will affect 10,000 people in his or her lifetime (you won't know most of these people but you do impact them), so u can make a difference yourself, not a big difference, but u do what you can.

[QuasarCav]

No

[koopkoop2]

We're nothing but a virus on a bigger scale. Like another poster said, there's nothing we can do to stop it because it's in our nature. Enjoy life while it's still good and accept our fate instead of letting it bother you.

The only salvation I think we have is if we can survive long enough to invent technology that would allow us to travel to another hospitable planet.

[Xtrema]

If everything is good and well, what defines bad?

Yin and Yang, good and evil, neo and agent smith, both need to exist to define each other.

Human fights virus but virus and sickness suppose to keep population in check, hence they improve and fight back. And we are slowly tipping the balance and look at all the problems that associated with it.

[rage2]

Originally posted by treg50
I'm positive than global warming is a big contributor to the increase in hurricanes (i.e. warmer ocean temps, warmer air temps, smaller polar ice caps, etc.)

Even global warming scientist say there's no link to the hurricanes. In fact, # of hurricanes have gone down. Please get your facts straight before passing off bad science. Yes the damage is larger, but that's because areas prone to be hit by hurricanes have increased in size. More stuff == more damage.

What has increased is the intensity of hurricanes. But that's only over the last 10 years. Here's a chart of hurricane intensity since 1930.



A huge jump in intensity between 1995 to 2005. Could that be global warming? Maybe, but if you look at ocean temperatures over the last 50 years (trying to find a graph now) there hasn't been a huge shift between 1995-2005. Doesn't look like a correlation at all but who knows. I mean, it could be just a freak cycle we're going through. SST (sea surface temperatures) increased which is causing these higher hurricane intensities, but that's due to other climatical factors unrelated to global warming. A summer with low amounts of clouds would cause a large spike in SST. Over land, it would cause a drought. In other words, shit happens.

If you study current events (crime vs population, disasters, etc) over the course of the last 100 years, you'll realize that there's no huge noticable trend that sticks out pointing to a huge increase to "armegeddon". What you will notice is that media coverage is amazing these days, and you're subject to more information regarding these events, which in turn makes you feel more like the world is coming to an end.

[Aleks]

Media is everywhere and makes a big deal out of a lot of things. (not saying hurricanes are not a big deal) like yesterday with that plane, 3 hours of coverage and panic and whatnot for something that is a little more than a routine forced landing for an airliner. The probability of something going wrong with that landing was very very minimal!

[rage2]

Originally posted by Aleks
Media is everywhere and makes a big deal out of a lot of things. (not saying hurricanes are not a big deal) like yesterday with that plane, 3 hours of coverage and panic and whatnot for something that is a little more than a routine forced landing for an airliner. The probability of something going wrong with that landing was very very minimal!

Yep. So to the original thread poster, if you wanna save the world, stop watching the news .

[benyl]

Originally posted by Aleks
Media is everywhere and makes a big deal out of a lot of things. (not saying hurricanes are not a big deal) like yesterday with that plane, 3 hours of coverage and panic and whatnot for something that is a little more than a routine forced landing for an airliner. The probability of something going wrong with that landing was very very minimal!

Actually, the probably was quite high. Especially in the mid afternoon.

If there was some sort of disturbance of air near the runway (like a thermal kicking off), the nose could have easily touched down hard and broken the landing gear off.

The pilot did a great job and in the end, no drama. But don't kid yourself into thinking it was a 'routine' landing.

[Aleks]

Thermals happen at a higher altitude not near the runway like that. If you're thinking of windshear that happens in bad weather mostly and when it happens even a full functioning landing gear won't help any. The conditions were near perfect yesterday, winds were calm, excellent visibility. Even all the other pilots on CNN last nite said they didn't expect much to happen when the plane landed.
Furthermore had the nose strut broken off and the planes nose hit the ground the plane still would have been intact. They infact are designed to make belly landings in emergencies.

[Khyron]

What we need, is to free the life-stream.

Khyron

[benyl]

Originally posted by Aleks
Thermals happen at a higher altitude not near the runway like that.

Um no. I have had friends killed from the results of thermals kicking off. It was the result of them hitting the ground from a change in control due to the violent nature of the thermal they flew through.

Granted, this time of year at LAX, the air is very stable due to the inversion that occurs. You could see that with the smog in the air. Crazier things have happened.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal

Since this type of thing has never occured, people on CNN were just guessing. They were being positive in hopes that nothing would happen.

I am not arguing that the plane would have remained intact, I am sure it would have. I am just saying it wasn't routine.

Planes like that also have differential braking that allows them to steer.

[Aleks]

I am sorry to hear about your friends.

When I said higher altitudes I meant 1000ft and up kind of thing not right at the deck. Also thermals in my mind would lift a plane if anything and for such a big plane it would not be as much of an issue. I've flown thru a bunch of thermals and they are quite sudden so I can see how a small plane could possibly lose control going through one. Anyways my opinion still stands that on this particular occasion CNN made this into a bigger story than it had to be.

[rice_eater]

Originally posted by rage2

Yep. So to the original thread poster, if you wanna save the world, stop watching the news .

and open a book

[Carfanman]

The way the world is functioning isn’t going to change because the MAJORITY of the people in power aren’t doing jack sh1t to change it; all they’re doing is saying it’s a problem.

Until the majority of the people research this seriously and do something about it, we will be screwing our selves badly. So I've decided what I'll do. When I can, I'm going to move to a rural area. I'm going to live in a house made of wood from trees that I'll replant. I've going to move were I have fruit trees on my land, and I'm going to grow my own veggies. I'll use solar power mostly, and I'll only eat meat that isn’t full of artificial hormones and stuff like that. I already eat mostly organic foods anyway. I'm not going to become that stereotypical eccentric hermit, but that doesn’t mean I have to let man made society mess up my life. Until the rest of the world is willing to help them selves, screw them.

As for it being human nature, WHAT IN THE HELL ARE PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT? The natives in most countries lived off the land, didn’t have factories, didn’t mess up the world, and respected nature. The "cave people" didn’t mess up the land. Go to some islands in the middle of the ocean, they live great, fun, UNmaterialistic lives.

Its not human nature. It’s the nature of the western white man. And it’s only within the past few centuries.

It can be changed we just have to try. Until we do, I'm just going to do what I have to so that I don't have to live this fake reality, with our man-made society. Doesn’t mean I'll cut my self off from the man made society, I just wont contribute to it. It’s the western nature, not human nature.

[old&slow]

The End is Near!

[nhlfan]

we are on the tail end of a 10,000 year lull in hurracaines, they are starting to get stronger just about now.