Dealing with existential nihilism

[henryp]

I don't want to see the future, say maybe for things that might improve life and health but ultimately our species will go extinct like the dinosaurs long before our planet dies some 5 billion years from now. The way our species is acting now it is far more likely we will kill ourselves off with pollution and nuclear war, so no, I don't want to see that future. I still hold out some hope we might pull our heads out of our asses collectively as a species.

My opinion of our species is that your hope will only work out if punctuated evolution is possible-- that a single mutation or rapid evolutionary stage can introduce essentially a new species. I don't know whether this theory holds any scientific weight, but it seems to me that in extreme circumstances-- for example, with ice caps melting and snow being scarce, it seems likely that the color of polar bears could change to brown in just a couple hundred years due to massive pressure from the environment and really harsh selection rules (with also very high compensation for those with early variation that benefits them).


Perhaps a more likely source of punctuated evolution could be an artificially forced culling of stupid and violent through disease or direct genetic modification.

Right now, the problem is that those who COULD save the world are responsible-- they are less power hungry, reproduce less, and so on. We've clearly, with the election of a fucking orangutan to maybe the most powerful position in the world, and I suspect it's because Americans on average are genetically unable to think and make rational decisions.

Bummer, my response didn't get added on for some reason.

To repeat quickly and sloppily, I wonderif the Orangutan, and the move towards isolatiionism and even the disregard for climate change, is that some people sense that there is a standard of living bubble that is about to be popped. So like squirrels gathering nuts before the winter, the voters asked for a circling of the wagons as they recognize that resources are likely to get tight in the near future. Of course, killing off the poor is also part of the plan, but the poor don't seem to realize that. But practically speaking, if you view humanity as in dire shape, there is some evolutionary sense to selecting Donald as the leader.