Are We Doomed!

[bodebliss]

Have we opened the door to Armageddon? Is mass extinction around the corner?

Has overpopulation and around the clock media reporting put us in an oversensitive position to mass destruction when it is located in over populated areas?

[Young William]

Bode,

I think that many folks (that term meaning all walks of life), have considered your premise and quite frankily are somewhat concerned about the idea of over-population. This may be for many reasons. China of course is the most populated "nation," and "they," seem to be growing both economically and socially, which could end up being a good thing in a sense.

When we talk about over-population there seems to be in many debates, a fear of a resource shortage, more specifically with regard to energy and food. This is an area that is debated so heavily and with such passion, that folks, that pride themselves on eloquence, will sometimes curse, and thus embarrass themselves.

This is a sensitive topic of course, and I like your point regarding the sense of emergency that the 24-hour news-cycle has promoted since 9/11.

Aside from that, your posting makes me think about the latest offerings of physicist Hawking as he has recently cited our eventual need to re-populate another habital planet, thus assuming that we as a people live long enough to do so.

[Young William]

I'll also add that the media (and that as you may know is a 'big" word that means a lot of things) has evolved into a very confused organization of folks who have stubbornly stuck with the sensationilism approach, something which has obviously served to keep the masses hyper-vigilant in their own personal hedonistic pursuits.

[bodebliss]

It's not about resources so much as there are unlimited resources on Earth and between here and half-way to Alpha Centauri. More resources than the human race can use between now and the end of the Sun's lifetime 5-7 billion years from now. Energy, material, spaces to live in are endless. These are just awaiting development.

It is as you say our focus on Earth only as our home. Any natural or manmade disasters effect all of us now, emotionally or physically, and media amplifies it, like ants to a magnifying glass.

[Mark]

The urgency, although an accelerating crescendo of news, has been building for quite some years.

One has to wonder to what end, if one exists.

After all, is our so called 'decline' any worse than anywhere else in the world?

And even if just about the population, as in any terrarium, life only exists where it can. And when life can not be supported, the terrarium seems to limit the level of life. IE, life expectancy decreases until somewhere sustainable.