What do you think the end of Western civilisation will look like?

[curiousabouttheaesthetics]

Am hopeful it won't be for a good while yet

But with the whole world being so uncertain at the moment, with climate change and resource wars and mass migration on the horizon, I guess who knows what the coming decades could be like?

Hopefully though human ingenuity can find ways of muddling along as long as possible. If we can't, and if in 100 years high wet bulb temperatures and flooding and antimicrobial resistance has pretty much whittled down half or more of the world's population - do you think then the remaining people would set aside geopolitical differences? To get their smartest people working together to solve environmental problems? And with the rich everywhere pitching in resources?

Or do you think rich countries will just continue to try to hog resources until the bitter end of humanity?

If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, it probably is a duck. Who said only person can have an opinion? I must have missed that.

I agreed with your deleted post, along with others.

Absolutely this👏

@StarDolphins your post should not have been deleted, agree with every word.

Me too.

That link explains the future we face very well. Upsetting, I think grieving is definitely the right word for anyone who trying to process what's coming. More people here should definitely be reading that

Of course it's getting better, every metric you can measure shows this to be true, sure there's some bumps in the road but that's just the way it is! Progress isn't always linear but the trend is up. If you compare the present day to 50 years ago it's a black and white difference to which is better.

With all the extinction level threats IE climate change its in no one's interest not to sort the problem and some boffin will figure it out as there's trillions of pounds on the line.

I blame 24 hour rolling news for the majority of the sentiments people have shown on this thread, misery is more interesting to show than reports on how many people were lifted out of poverty yesterday, the medical discovery that could save millions of lives or the scientist working on battery tech without using rare earth minerals.

I'd recommend reading books by Steven Pinker it will make you feel a lot more positive about the present and future.

@wesurecouldstandgladioli where did I say I wanted protests banned, let alone peaceful protests?

I said scenes of people calling for jihad against Israel on the streets of London and being defended by the Met police scared me. And I stand by it.

@user746016 glad to see you’re stalking me from other threads.

you are obviously questioning whether what I say is true, because I’m not behaving as you think a asian/Muslim woman should. I could tell you my background in precise detail and you’d still reject it as lies to cover up my “bigotry” because it doesn’t suit your narrative.

I am exceptionally grateful to live in this country and be able to be an atheist and not stoned to death for apostasy. I am incredibly grateful not to have to cover my hair or wear a burqa. I have a degree and a senior job and I’m in a same sex relationship. Why wouldn’t I love this country and think it’s better? Why wouldn’t I find scenes of Islamic extremism in this country terrifying? And frankly (assuming you’re a woman) if you don’t you’re extremely naive.

I agree with this. I agree that we all ( and particularly governments ) need to stall climate change but yes, things are happening on that front, the global population is by some predictions set to drop quite drastically by 2050. The main reason for population growth is not birthrate ( the global birthrate has been fairly stable since the 1970s), but because people are living longer. That's because of improved wealth and healthcare. Once the post war boomer generation die off, the generations after them are much smaller. Political unrest- its not even as bad as its been in my lifetime and I'm only 50! The West may fall but that's because other countries want what we have. I don't think the human race will live as ling as the dinosaurs but it's very arrogant to assume we are big enough to kill off the planet. We will kill ourselves off, probably trigger an ice age and then in a few 100,000 years something else will turn up.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67332791

This is a news story from today. Have a look at the graph.

The next 10 years are going to be 'interesting'.

@Vegetus and @Angrycat2768 - I'd love to be more optimistic - however I completely disagree that everything is going to turn out just fine.

The reason I think that isn't because of rolling 24 hour news.
It's because of the facts of global warming. Greta Thunberg does have a point (obviously) that people are totally ignoring.

So long as people continue to play the "my religion is better than yours" game, nothing is going to change. So long as people keep overcrowding the planet, it will only get worse. And that's not a dig at people having children - it's about countries that are already over populated putting reasonable actions in place. There are too many children being born to those who don't have the means to raise them, in countries that are already behind the rest of the world when it comes to the basics (like sanitation, clean water and enough food, etc.).

I don’t think it will be pleasant unless you have a lot of money. I think the only way for the non rich to protect your future family members from starving to death is probably to accumulate land that can be used to grow food on. For people like me who can’t afford to do even that I expect there will be a lot of hard poverty and mass starvation.

BIL - who works in AI - told me well all be dead in 5 years in a terminator style way.

Cheerful but possibly true the way the world is going.

I don't think ' everything will be just fine' without intervention at least, but in the history of the planet, we are a tiny, tiny spec. Even in human history, power balances have changed. People in the West were living in caves while ancient civilisations were building pyramids and temples. Even the climate has changed in the relatively small time we have been here. People adapt. Malthus thought we would all starve to death through population growth 200 years ago, but what happened was that new farming methods were developed and we can feed many more people. Maybe AI will innovate more than we can imagine. Its not pessimism that will save us but people coming up with solutions. Politically it's ridiculous to say political unrest is worse now than during 2 World wars, the Crusades, the Napoleonic Wars the reformation, the Civil wars, the French and Russian Revolutions etc etc etc

Can anyone explain what the deleted post was in such a way that it doesn’t get deleted. I am especially intrigued because I am not white though born here, my Dad is from an ex commonwealth country and settled here in the 1950’s. I see a lot of debate shut down everywhere if any criticism of any ethnic minority and it’s very wrong to do this.

I can't tell you how much I dislike religious identity becoming so visible in the U.K. It divides immediately like nothing else. I hate it. There is a lot to be said for religious being a strictly private matter in terms of politics and public life. @HermioneWeasley touched on this and was branded some sort of hate monger, and I got asked whether I was white. Except it's about religion, not race. You've only got to look at te history of the U.K. to see what religion does when it's allowed to become a dominant narrative mixed with politics. It's the road to hell.

Agree. The reason France can ban the Hijab is because they are a secular state so can ban all overt religious symbols. We have a State religion so can't. We should be secular but can't be because that woukd presumably have implications for the Monarchy.

@bombastix Yep - they say that money is the root of all evil, but it seems religion fits the bill for that also.

I'm actually a practicing Christian (Anglican, but not high church crap), but I don't go around throwing that at people. I don't even talk about it unless someone asks me a faith-based question. My faith is mine alone, nobody else's concern, just me and God. I am very disturbed by what's currently happening in the world and, from my 'church-lite' perspective, I actually can't understand what some religious factions are wanting or hoping for. It literally doesn't compute in my brain that people think they need to kill those of another religion.

I am being very careful what I say here, because I do hold a bias towards one particular religion. I simply cannot understand how someone who accepts the glory of God and all that he gives can then say, "oh, but that person's a (insert opposing religion here) - they all must DIE!"

It's kind of overwhelming to me, to be honest.

To be fair I do think religion's just used as a trojjan horse for territorial advancement and tribalism, which is something that is inate to all animals. We wouldn't live in harmony if only it wasn't for religion. We would fight over land or race or tribe or a million other things. Otherwise why should you care about other peoples eternal souls? Evangelical and fundamentalists from all religions try and force themselves, and their views on others. That can't be just because they are do concerned about other people following the same God in a different way or whether some people they don't know are going to hell because they are Hindu or atheists. Its because they want territory and to expand thrir own power. Which is a human thing, not a religion thing. Governments should be saying no to that while respecting everyone's freedom of worship.

Many countries in western Europe are going to be absolute shitshow in 20 years too little too late now, why on earth we let in so many people who hate us and our way of living is beyond me, God help the LGBT etc in decades to come we are going backwards fast.

Things that have happened whuch would have been headline news for weeks are just seenas par for the course now with the news cycle just moving on.

I still cant believe people moving to the UK and Canada and the protesting when schools teach its okay to be gay in school.

And graze animals on areas not suitable for growing food.

After witnessing the protest matches recently, I dread to think what is in store for society. People can no longer critically think for themselves and go with the herd mentality. I can only assume it's ignorance and naivety. People want to do the ' right thing' without questioning if they're in possession of the full facts or being exploited to push someone else's agenda.

Yep, @Angrycat2768 , it's all about territory. Mostly. There are still some religious doctrines that profess they won't be happy until all are followers, though.

It makes me really glad I live at the arse end of the earth in Australia, to be honest. It's probably a false sense of safety, but it's comforting when there's unrest in the world.