@clousems said in #11:
> GWAR, obviously
I don't know, without Orderus' leadership they might not do it anymore
> GWAR, obviously
I don't know, without Orderus' leadership they might not do it anymore
@dstne said in #14:
> Thanks for clarifying at the end there. [...]
My apologies, I only realised that my post might sound a bit more adversarial than intended when I read it for a second time. I'm sure you're a good person and I shouldn't have drifted off into "oughts" that may sound personal in my pursuit to warn against the possible threat of apathy I perceive in apocalypticism.
> [...] what people believe has little to no bearing on what will happen. For example, if I were to have lived in the first century, and said that some form of world ending weapon would be developed in my lifetime, and that doesn't happen (which it didn't), that is not good evidence to site that a weapon such as this would never be developed (such as the nuclear bomb). Similarly, just because everyone has been saying that the end times would be soon for thousands of years has no bearing on the actual date of the end times. [...]
That's a good counterpoint!
Albeit to an argument I didn't quite make although I can see how it might come across that way.
True, people wrongly believing how or when something will happen does not imply that said something will not happen. But crucially it also doesn't imply that it will happen. Future events are uncertain, that's the point. Predictions that come out of thin air (or are based on numerology or astrology) are very unlikely to pan out (if the predicted event itself is very unlikely to occur within that timeframe). And if the same prediction has been made hundreds of times before (and always failed) it's not unreasonable to assume that it will fail again, given that the circumstances haven't changed. As I tried to show, humans throughout history have regularly perceived their times as the end times and have regularly complained about the (moral) decline of their world (and its youth). So I'd argue that nothing much as changed since the last (listed) failed prediction (made in 2012) that indicated that the end of the world would occur no later than 2021 (three years ago). And nothing much has changed since some of the earliest predictions of impending doom (in the first century).
Put another way, if there was somebody who (based upon no tangible evidence) claimed every night that: "Tomorrow the sun will rise in the west! I'm telling you, I had the worst day today, this can only mean one thing: The sun has to rise in the west.", how many sunrises would it take to figure out that this doesn't seem to be a very good prediction? The prediction is falsified by observation every single morning. Of course it's not impossible for the sun to rise in the west, the retrograde rotation of planet Venus is a good example. And one cannot conclude from the failed predictions that it can never happen on Earth. But one can conclude that it's reasonable to doubt any singular prediction as well as the overall quality of the predictions that SOON the sun will rise in the west (as viewed from planet Earth). Because, well, it doesn't. And never has. And there's no indication that anything has meaningfully changed.
Furthermore I didn't assert that the world definitely will never end. Depending on what one means by "the world", it might end when humanity goes extinct from an asteroid impact (perhaps within the next 100 million years?), when the sun enters its red giant phase and probably swallows the Earth alongside the inner solar system. Or it might end when the entire universe eventually reaches thermodynamic equilibrium, i.e. maximum entropy (a state known as the heat death of the universe), if the universe is actually a closed system (in which entropy can only increase or stay the same) and other objections to the proposed heat death of the universe turn out to be wrong. Nobody knows.
In the first case, a major extinction event on Earth will statistically occur within the next 100 million years or so (assuming there's nothing we do to prevent that), in the second case the Earth as a planet will probably not be around a few billion years from now (if not for some unexpected perturbation{1} significantly altering Earth's orbit) and in the third case a truly unimaginable amount of time would need to pass (and its actual occurrence is much more uncertain than the former two). But there's uncertainty to all of them.
Instead I tried to convey the fact that
> [...] nobody knows for certain when (or even if) the world will ever end (at all) [...]
Emphasis should have been on the "for certain". I fully support everybody's freedom to believe whatever they choose, I'm arguing against those who claim to know for certain (as most astrologers, self proclaimed prophets, psychics, doomsday alien cultists etc. from the list did) and in retrospect am able to provide ample evidence that they in fact did not know. The world is still around, even after the 21st of December 2012. Some at least had the intellectual honesty (or – phrasing it less charitably – the ironically good foresight to include a loophole in case their prediction should fail) to phrase their prediction as "It's not certain when the world will end, but the year YYYY is the 'most likely' year for it to happen." Better than nothing I guess but still based on grounds that are at best described as flimsy.
I also wrote (using an impersonal "you"):
> Why not live your life as if yours was but one of trillions of human lives to come (maybe more), as if the world would never ever end?
Here the "as if" was meant to signify that I don't exclude the possibility for the world to eventually end.
Footnote:
{1} by a rogue planet perhaps?
> Thanks for clarifying at the end there. [...]
My apologies, I only realised that my post might sound a bit more adversarial than intended when I read it for a second time. I'm sure you're a good person and I shouldn't have drifted off into "oughts" that may sound personal in my pursuit to warn against the possible threat of apathy I perceive in apocalypticism.
> [...] what people believe has little to no bearing on what will happen. For example, if I were to have lived in the first century, and said that some form of world ending weapon would be developed in my lifetime, and that doesn't happen (which it didn't), that is not good evidence to site that a weapon such as this would never be developed (such as the nuclear bomb). Similarly, just because everyone has been saying that the end times would be soon for thousands of years has no bearing on the actual date of the end times. [...]
That's a good counterpoint!
Albeit to an argument I didn't quite make although I can see how it might come across that way.
True, people wrongly believing how or when something will happen does not imply that said something will not happen. But crucially it also doesn't imply that it will happen. Future events are uncertain, that's the point. Predictions that come out of thin air (or are based on numerology or astrology) are very unlikely to pan out (if the predicted event itself is very unlikely to occur within that timeframe). And if the same prediction has been made hundreds of times before (and always failed) it's not unreasonable to assume that it will fail again, given that the circumstances haven't changed. As I tried to show, humans throughout history have regularly perceived their times as the end times and have regularly complained about the (moral) decline of their world (and its youth). So I'd argue that nothing much as changed since the last (listed) failed prediction (made in 2012) that indicated that the end of the world would occur no later than 2021 (three years ago). And nothing much has changed since some of the earliest predictions of impending doom (in the first century).
Put another way, if there was somebody who (based upon no tangible evidence) claimed every night that: "Tomorrow the sun will rise in the west! I'm telling you, I had the worst day today, this can only mean one thing: The sun has to rise in the west.", how many sunrises would it take to figure out that this doesn't seem to be a very good prediction? The prediction is falsified by observation every single morning. Of course it's not impossible for the sun to rise in the west, the retrograde rotation of planet Venus is a good example. And one cannot conclude from the failed predictions that it can never happen on Earth. But one can conclude that it's reasonable to doubt any singular prediction as well as the overall quality of the predictions that SOON the sun will rise in the west (as viewed from planet Earth). Because, well, it doesn't. And never has. And there's no indication that anything has meaningfully changed.
Furthermore I didn't assert that the world definitely will never end. Depending on what one means by "the world", it might end when humanity goes extinct from an asteroid impact (perhaps within the next 100 million years?), when the sun enters its red giant phase and probably swallows the Earth alongside the inner solar system. Or it might end when the entire universe eventually reaches thermodynamic equilibrium, i.e. maximum entropy (a state known as the heat death of the universe), if the universe is actually a closed system (in which entropy can only increase or stay the same) and other objections to the proposed heat death of the universe turn out to be wrong. Nobody knows.
In the first case, a major extinction event on Earth will statistically occur within the next 100 million years or so (assuming there's nothing we do to prevent that), in the second case the Earth as a planet will probably not be around a few billion years from now (if not for some unexpected perturbation{1} significantly altering Earth's orbit) and in the third case a truly unimaginable amount of time would need to pass (and its actual occurrence is much more uncertain than the former two). But there's uncertainty to all of them.
Instead I tried to convey the fact that
> [...] nobody knows for certain when (or even if) the world will ever end (at all) [...]
Emphasis should have been on the "for certain". I fully support everybody's freedom to believe whatever they choose, I'm arguing against those who claim to know for certain (as most astrologers, self proclaimed prophets, psychics, doomsday alien cultists etc. from the list did) and in retrospect am able to provide ample evidence that they in fact did not know. The world is still around, even after the 21st of December 2012. Some at least had the intellectual honesty (or – phrasing it less charitably – the ironically good foresight to include a loophole in case their prediction should fail) to phrase their prediction as "It's not certain when the world will end, but the year YYYY is the 'most likely' year for it to happen." Better than nothing I guess but still based on grounds that are at best described as flimsy.
I also wrote (using an impersonal "you"):
> Why not live your life as if yours was but one of trillions of human lives to come (maybe more), as if the world would never ever end?
Here the "as if" was meant to signify that I don't exclude the possibility for the world to eventually end.
Footnote:
{1} by a rogue planet perhaps?
Mans downfall is arrogance.
Ego
The end of man will be that it wasnt cost effective enough to save ourselves. So, money .....
@SimonBirch said in #26:
> The end of man will be that it wasnt cost effective enough to save ourselves. So, money .....
Or the belief thereof.
> The end of man will be that it wasnt cost effective enough to save ourselves. So, money .....
Or the belief thereof.
@what_game_is_this said in #27:
> Or the belief thereof.
Come on people, we just have to believe more in Money!
youtu.be/3If5AWP5eL4?feature=shared
> Or the belief thereof.
Come on people, we just have to believe more in Money!
youtu.be/3If5AWP5eL4?feature=shared
When the Crude Oil runs out, and not just because it makes gasoline, jet fuel, or diesel, but that it is used in the manufacturing of so many of things we 'need' and use. It's going to be a big problem. - :]
I was going to say Woman but someone beat me to it ;-;