Why does it feel like the near future is going to suck hard? Let's see:

- The climate is going so bad that in 50 to 100 years we will most probably
be totally screwed, if not even sooner. And humanity is doing little to help
this, even though it's a very well known problem.

- There's little question anymore that the global economy is going to crash
hard in the very near future. We are most probably facing an economic crisis
which will rival or even surpass the big one in the 1920's. At least here in
Finland there have already been prospects of Finland going back to the old
currency (Finnish marks) if the euro plummets. And what's worse, rather than
trying to do something about it, apparently the big money institutions are
doing all this *on purpose*.

- We are going to run out of oil in the near fugure. We know this, and we
know that when it happens, the economy will collapse even harder. The
economic crisis of the 1920's will be child's play in comparison. Yet we
are not doing anything about it.

- One of the most influential countries in the world (a country that
heavily influences the economy and politics of the rest of the world),
namely the United States, seems to be going down hard in politics,
science and education. It's showing troubling signs of turning into a
theocracy-like totalitarian state in the near future. The very basics
of constituational freedoms in the US have been eroded one by one during
the last decade, and it seems to only be spiraling down. (Just as one
example, seems like most of the presidential candidates are religious
nutjobs who want to make it legal for states to outlaw same-sex
relationships, abortions, the teaching of evolution, and so on.)

- European countries have also been steadily going downwards in terms of
freedom, democracy and the wellbeing of its citizens, also mostly for
religious reasons. However, in this case the religion is not Christianity
but naive multiculturalism. A revolution (to either direction of the
political spectrum) is inevitable in the near future.

- Large companies, especially those ones having intellectual properties,
and especially the American ones, are slowly trying to take over the world.
The SOPA is just one of the latest and most egregious attempts at controlling
and even shutting down the internet. These companies have even gone so far
as to demand a foreign country to extradit one of that country's citizens
because he *linked* to copyrighted material. That's right: He didn't even
*distribute* copyrighted material, he simply *linked* to it, and now the
property owners are demanding a foreign country to extradit this person so
that he can be put in jail in the United States. This is how bold and
egregious these companies have become about copyright.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_O%27Dwyer)

  Sometimes I'm glad I don't have children. I don't have to worry about
them growing in a world that is plummeting fast into total chaos.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Wed, 28 Dec 2011 06:18:52 -0500, Warp wrote:

> - The climate is going so bad that in 50 to 100 years we will most
> probably be totally screwed, if not even sooner. And humanity is doing
> little to help this, even though it's a very well known problem.

You seem to have forgotten that any problems there are in the world can 
just be wished away.  Nobody has to do anything, just pray hard enough 
and the problem will be solved.

That's what works here in the US.  I guess the rest of the world just 
hasn't caught up with us.  *Faith* is the one true solution to any 
problem, not hard work or study/evaluation of alternative solutions.

Just wait and the problem will solve itself.

Jim

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On 12/28/2011 1:59 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Dec 2011 06:18:52 -0500, Warp wrote:
>
>> - The climate is going so bad that in 50 to 100 years we will most
>> probably be totally screwed, if not even sooner. And humanity is doing
>> little to help this, even though it's a very well known problem.
>
> You seem to have forgotten that any problems there are in the world can
> just be wished away.  Nobody has to do anything, just pray hard enough
> and the problem will be solved.
>
> That's what works here in the US.  I guess the rest of the world just
> hasn't caught up with us.  *Faith* is the one true solution to any
> problem, not hard work or study/evaluation of alternative solutions.
>
> Just wait and the problem will solve itself.
>
> Jim
Largest growing denominations in the US are the "I don't feel like 
telling you what my religion is", and, atheist. The people that most 
strongly agree with corporate personhood, big oil, and the non-existence 
of climate change are currently doing a damn fine job of looking like 
the circus clowns, all trying to jam into a clown car, and the biggest 
worry is that the unpredictability of voters will mean that, with no 
sane alternative, they will vote for the insane one, just to get rid of 
the one that has been blocked, challenged, lied about, lied too, etc., 
since before he even got in office.

So.. Its really a case of, "Is it too little awareness, too late.", or 
worse, "With the ship sinking, will the population decide that the best 
solution is to drill holes in the bottom, to let the water out." One 
almost hopes that its neither, but would very much prefer the first 
option, since at least *something* might be salvaged, even if its late 
starting, where as the last option... well, we are a species that, as 
the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series points out, have to put 
instructions on a box of damn toothpicks.

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On 12/28/2011 6:18 AM, Warp wrote:
>    Why does it feel like the near future is going to suck hard? Let's see:
>
> - The climate is going so bad that in 50 to 100 years we will most probably
> be totally screwed, if not even sooner. And humanity is doing little to help
> this, even though it's a very well known problem.

I see no *conclusive* evidence that the world's climate will behave any 
differently in the next fifty years than it has in the previous fifty. 
The doom-and-gloom predictors have oscillated between "global warming" 
and "impending ice age" at least three times in the past century alone.

> - There's little question anymore that the global economy is going to crash
> hard in the very near future. We are most probably facing an economic crisis
> which will rival or even surpass the big one in the 1920's. At least here in
> Finland there have already been prospects of Finland going back to the old
> currency (Finnish marks) if the euro plummets. And what's worse, rather than
> trying to do something about it, apparently the big money institutions are
> doing all this *on purpose*.

The odd thing is that the very people who predicted that this is exactly 
what would happen are still being denounced as cranks.

> - We are going to run out of oil in the near fugure.

In spite of having more identified reserves than at any point in history.

> - One of the most influential countries in the world (a country that
> heavily influences the economy and politics of the rest of the world),
> namely the United States, seems to be going down hard in politics,
> science and education. It's showing troubling signs of turning into a
> theocracy-like totalitarian state in the near future.

This is a false appearance created by heavily biased news institutions. 
  We are farther away from a theocracy than at any other time in our 
history.

> The very basics
> of constituational freedoms in the US have been eroded one by one during
> the last decade, and it seems to only be spiraling down. (Just as one
> example, seems like most of the presidential candidates are religious
> nutjobs who want to make it legal for states to outlaw same-sex
> relationships, abortions, the teaching of evolution, and so on.)

Actually, the totalitarian states of the century past were all creatures 
of socialism (whether of a nationalistic or Marxist flavor has made no 
real difference).  While the right has been guilty of eroding our 
Constitutional rights, the left has been historically worse.  The news 
does not report this because they are heavily left-leaning.

> - European countries have also been steadily going downwards in terms of
> freedom, democracy and the well being of its citizens, also mostly for
> religious reasons. However, in this case the religion is not Christianity
> but naive multiculturalism. A revolution (to either direction of the
> political spectrum) is inevitable in the near future.

With the odd exception that in most of Europe, one particular religous 
group has not been tasked with embracing multiculturism.  They have been 
allowed to stick to their old ways.

> - Large companies, especially those ones having intellectual properties,
> and especially the American ones, are slowly trying to take over the world.
> The SOPA is just one of the latest and most egregious attempts at controlling
> and even shutting down the internet. These companies have even gone so far
> as to demand a foreign country to extradit one of that country's citizens
> because he *linked* to copyrighted material. That's right: He didn't even
> *distribute* copyrighted material, he simply *linked* to it, and now the
> property owners are demanding a foreign country to extradit this person so
> that he can be put in jail in the United States. This is how bold and
> egregious these companies have become about copyright.
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_O%27Dwyer)

Again, the element which argue against giving the government power to 
grant favors to corporations was shouted down, and is still dismissed as 
impractical cranks, even though what they predicted has come to pass.

Regards,
John

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On 28/12/2011 11:18 AM, Warp wrote:
>    Why does it feel like the near future is going to suck hard? Let's see:

You forgot to mention geomagnetic reversal. That will be a bummer!

But on the other hand 40 to 50 years ago we were all going to disappear 
in a cloud of radioactive dust and we were entering a mini ice age as 
well. There was also mention of a Megatsunami originating in the Canary 
Islands.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatsunami#Canary_Islands

The world has always been going to hell in a hand cart. I suppose that 
it always will.


-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On 12/29/2011 9:31 AM, John VanSickle wrote:
> On 12/28/2011 6:18 AM, Warp wrote:
>> Why does it feel like the near future is going to suck hard? Let's see:
>>
>> - The climate is going so bad that in 50 to 100 years we will most
>> probably
>> be totally screwed, if not even sooner. And humanity is doing little
>> to help
>> this, even though it's a very well known problem.
>
> I see no *conclusive* evidence that the world's climate will behave any
> differently in the next fifty years than it has in the previous fifty.
> The doom-and-gloom predictors have oscillated between "global warming"
> and "impending ice age" at least three times in the past century alone.
>
Wrong.. In actual point of fact, for the most part the scientific 
community has said "warming" all along. The media, and some TV movie 
people, where the ones that introduced the absurd claims about 
"impending ice age", probably confusing it with the, at the time, still 
semi-worrisome idea of nuclear winter. For the most part, only the 
fringe, and some TV movie makers, have been running "doom and gloom" 
either. What has been said is:

1. Weather will get more complex, and probably more radical.
2. Ice caps will melt.
3. We *might*, maybe, see a slowing, or reversal of ocean flow paths, 
which *could* cause a temporary mini-ice age, in areas effected, as 
warmer water failed to travel north, and keep the ice melted.

In the third case, its possible, but if we get things bad enough, it 
won't last long, and everyone else is going to get the rest of the hell 
from the resulting weather. Its also not going to happen if there isn't 
enough cold there to freeze anything. Temps in most of the world have 
risen less than a degree. In some northern climates, its risen 5 
degrees, enough to raise the ground temp *over* the melting point. 
Globally, its its rising, but not "yet" as high as some have warned, but 
its not slowing either.

 From the other side we have:

1. Denial of whole communities disappearing due to permafrost melting 
(and the land being nothing but permafrost with some dust over it).
2. Editing of documents to remove data, charts, and mentions of rising 
tide levels in areas that where predicted to be effected.
3. Just general denial.
4. A lot of misinformation. The biggest one is that they ignore 200+ 
years of data, multiple sources of data collected from sources that can 
trace trends back thousands of years, and most of what has happened in 
the last 50 too, to harp on a small window of a few years, when, due to 
other factors, there was a "temporary" decline in temperatures, in order 
to claim that nothing at all has changed over time, its just another 
"fluctuation".

Pretty much everyone that isn't paid by an energy company, or working 
for some place like Kato, which is funded by the Koch brothers, and 
other people with an incentive for it to not be true, thinks it *is* 
conclusive. Which makes.. Nearly all of the climate scientists who are 
not paid to not see anything, cranks, or not actually climate experts 
(i.e., not climate scientists at all).

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John VanSickle <evi### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> I see no *conclusive* evidence that the world's climate will behave any 
> differently in the next fifty years than it has in the previous fifty. 
> The doom-and-gloom predictors have oscillated between "global warming" 
> and "impending ice age" at least three times in the past century alone.

  *sigh*

  And man has never went to the Moon, 9/11 was an inside job, Kennedy was
killed by the FBI and the Bavarian Illuminati is trying to establish the
One World Order alongside the Freemasons.

> > - We are going to run out of oil in the near fugure.

> In spite of having more identified reserves than at any point in history.

  You clearly don't understand exponential growth.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> writes:

>   And man has never went to the Moon, 9/11 was an inside job, Kennedy was
> killed by the FBI and the Bavarian Illuminati is trying to establish the

Kennedy was killed by the CIA, not the FBI. Get your facts straight.

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On 12/30/2011 01:52 PM, Neeum Zawan wrote:
> Warp<war### [at] tagpovrayorg>  writes:
>
>>    And man has never went to the Moon, 9/11 was an inside job, Kennedy was
>> killed by the FBI and the Bavarian Illuminati is trying to establish the
>
> Kennedy was killed by the CIA, not the FBI. Get your facts straight.
>
you are most likely correct ... but J Edgar and Robert weren't exactly 
buddies either ;-)

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On 30/12/2011 8:18 PM, Jim Holsenback wrote:
> you are most likely correct ... but J Edgar and Robert weren't exactly
> buddies either ;-)

Is that because JKK did not dress as woman ;-)

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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