You guys think we're fucked?

Okay, makes sense and I see how what I said that you had quoted ties into that now.

 

I'm pretty sure that emotion/feeling/attitude has been with humans for as long as there have been humans.

Yeah things seem to be "on the brink", but then again many said the same thing at the start of WWII as well as WWI, and I think I would be safe to assume that that has been the feeling of some group or society somewhere in the world at every point in time for as far back as you care to go.

Humans are very myopic and tend to only consider things relative to their own miniscule lifespan. Civilizations have come and gone, and the same fate will befall every civilization on the planet currently.

In reality we are always "on the brink" and civilizations and political ideologies die and morph continuously giving rise to "new" ones that are also fated to rise and fall.

What is a relatively new development in the course of human civilization is the rapidity with which information is shared and the ready access to it.
Looking back through history, there does appear to be a direct correlation between the efficiency of communication technologies and the longevity and strength of any given civilization. Civilizations that were able to develop a communications infrastructure while at the same time suppressing any competitors as well as the citizenry's ability to communicate held power over larger areas for longer periods.

What we have now is pretty much free access to information regardless of geographic location or social status. So we see things like what happened in Egypt and other places recently, political/societal change fueled and quickly implemented via immediate and global access to information.
One reason we are seeing more and more infringements on the free access and spread of information, it can often pose a threat to the established governing/societal body/infrastructure.

Civil war in America is very unlikely, a revolution of sorts is more probable if anything.

Of all possible scenarios the only one that really concerns me, a lot because it's not a matter of "if" it happens, it's a matter of "when", because there is a 100% probability that it will happen, just always a roll of the dice when and how bad.
But if this thing does happen now or anytime in the foreseeable future, we could really, truly be fucked, as a country, hemisphere and very possibly the planet.
What I'm talking about is a big CME or Coronal Mass Ejection.
It's more or less a big belch from the sun and if pointed in our direction and big enough, has the power to take out the planets power grids, literally fry the wires and circuitry.
The first recorded big one to make a good direct hit on Earth was in Sep. 1,1859 and was powerful enough to burn the telegraph wires, start fires from the wires and shocked telegraph operators.
Could you imagine if one that big or larger hit today? Any satellites in it's path would be dead, a lot of the electrical and communications infrastructure would be dead, Hell if powerful enough, even your cell phone and TV would be fried. Luckily it only poses a health risk if you are outside the planets atmosphere or high up in it. Wouldn't want to be in a plane, may get radiation exposure up there, but ground level it's safe, unless you are a robot. LOL!

2013/14 is supposed to be a rather active year for the sun with increased chance of getting bitch slapped.....hard.
Estimates say it could be anywhere from weeks to years before getting things working again, depending on how big and how direct of a hit.

So think about doing without electricity for a few months or years, and not just you but the water purification plants, food producers, law enforcement, etc, etc.

Or consider what could result if it only wiped out a portion of the planet and left other areas unscathed. Would we see altruistic behaviors or opportunistic invasions?
When it happens I'll bet all those folks who are opposed to private gun ownership will sing a different tune.

Like I said, it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when and how hard.




But if we consider everything from a planetary time frame, it's one helluva show, ain't it folks.:sunny:



sorry, rambling again.....

 

So, a solar flare? Solar flares and the grid going down is one of the things I think are most likely to happen.

 

Not a solar flare, a related but much bigger event spewing a shit-ton more matter and energy than a solar flare.
It sends so many charged particles hurling out into space that if it hits us it overwhelms and penetrates the Earth's magneto-sphere and can overload circuits with energy and literally cause them to burn.

We usually get hit with glancing blows that result in things like seeing the auroras much lower south than normal. The big one I mentioned earlier there are reports of people seeing the auroras as far south as the equator and in places like Alaska it was so bright many thought it was sunrise.
Many of the power outages that happen in the northern hemisphere are the result of weak CME's or glancing blows.

 

Yeah, I hate the holiday season too!

 

Haha.

 

I think it is a good idea to take your life seriously because no one else will.

 

Yeah, we're fucked. If Jesus Christ or Aliens don't come save us, we're fucked.

 

I don't know which one would be better.

I guess it would be best if Jesus Christ showed up for his second coming in Alien form

 

It's entirely likely that Jesus Christ was an Alien in human form the last time he was here.

 

If I step outside of myself and try to view this era logically, I feel as if humans have felt like this quite often throughout the history of mankind. Imagine living through WWI and WWII. I'm sure everyone thought they were on the brink of something HUGE, even beyond the war, but instead the 50s happened. Mankind is surprisingly resilient, although I think our dependence on technology has rendered us extremely vulnerable. We're completely out of touch with nature at a time when nature is shifting and changing. I think a lot of people will potentially die in the next few decades either from war or lack of resources, but either way the earth will continue and mankind, albeit with a smaller population, will continue with it.

That is one way of looking at it. The other is far more personal, painful, and scary. It is easy for us to stand back and consider major events such as WWII and recognize them as just another blip in human history. It is easy to recognize that logically, mankind could very well persevere. It is far harder to have hope for the future on an individual level. Life is long though, and it goes through periods of stagnation and upheaval. I do sense that something major is about to happen, but some of us will be lucky enough to live out completely normal, mundane lives when the dust settles.

to sum it up, I think everything will be okay.

 

The one thing that is close to happening, is another bear market accompanied by a possible correction. But this bear market should be shorter than many of them, and it will hit its bottom sometime next year----2014.

I say this because there is a very consistent cycle in bear market bottoms. The market has already shown signs of too much optimism--and the Dow has broken through its 120-Day Moving Average which is very significant in determining a bear market vs a correction. However other indices have not broken through this key indicator. The S&P 500 is sitting on its 120-Day and as long as that is support, the market will probably bounce back up. If there is a spike up with a very strong bullish sentiment---that will be the top.

But that is the cyclical nature of the economy, and the market----these things happen and we have had a very good run from the last bottom.

On the other hand, it doesn't mean it will be a bad bear market or a large impact to our economy. Some bear markets can be fairly mild.

 

I think the two would come hand in hand.

 

I think we are fucked...

Yup.... we're pretty well fucked, ​

but wait... it gets worse.​

.

 

I agree that humanity, as a whole, is resilient. If there is anything we, as a species, have shown it is our ability to adapt and survive. I believe catastrophic events are in our future, just as they were in our past. Many of us will die but I firmly believe that there will be survivors and that we will endure.

 

As a student of history, I had to bite my tongue to refrain from posting something similar, as there is no arguing that our species suffers from an acute spell of myopia; I'd even go so far as to add diplopia and amnesia to this diagnosis (and by amnesia, I am not just talking about history repeating itself, but I am referring to our notions of 'deep time', as we seem to have had our collective memory erased during the last great glaciation, leaving us with only our mythological archetypes and gutteral rumblings in response to reading stories of a catholic deluge).

However, there is something new under the sun here, something which we can only vaguely apprehend as it is not yet tangible; what I mean is that we do seem to have approached a sort of eschatological benchmark in self reflection. We see this in the ideologies established to deal with it, our postmodernism, the end of 'art', the growing awareness (in the West) of the Earth as an organism. Absurdism reigns supreme across all familiar artistic medium because the inclination toward primitivism itself has, that is to say, 'gotten old'. Are we going to rehash the peak of ancient Greece, and vote on the hill? Remodel ourselves after the initiation rites of Elysium? But how many times can a culture reach a brick wall only to then discover the brilliancy of that from which it originated?

Think about what the discovery of electricity (which was likely, by some at least, perceived as an inevitability) did for just music alone. Certainly there are far more qualified people than I considering the present situation and offering ideas toward its resolve, but in my opinion, there is a lull in our compulsion, a lack of ambition to drive us toward a meaningful future, and this is reflected in our art and our mental condition (one largely of neuroticism and anxiety). Ennui levelled on the populace while the stirrings of the exteriorizing of the unconscious bubble at the threshold. I believe that psychedelic drugs are pacifiers, natural antidotes to the dillema of a species in crisis. I don't anticipate the apocalypse, nor world war, but there is no denying that our culture is in the throes of death. It is convulsing as we type! An exogenesis is likely not possible; the official closing of the NASA Space Shuttle program signalled that harsh reality. But something "is" coming, only it will be unrecognizable and incomprehensible for some time, because in my opinion, it is 'effeminate'. Deep down in our psyche, we are all androgynous, and the idyllic representative God of the Self has long been acknowledged to be bisexual. Our local imbalance is tilting back toward a geocentric model, as our culture grows ever more receptive to the irrational.

 

The male and female creative principle is ubiquitous, hot to cold. The human psyche is anthropomorphic analogue to purely physical rather than abstract forces. It is the
mind that is naturally abstract. Matter has three properties absorptive, reflective, and polarity. Yes, no, and the apparent balance between. To be in sync let your answer be yes or no but let your yes be yes, (no sacrifice,) and let your no be yes as well, (negate the things you do not want,) do not deny your self. You deny yourself if you do not pay attention.
Finding no help at large we need learn to be truly helpful.

 

Hence my addition of diplopia to the communal diagnosis.

 

A split mind then. I would say that the diagnosis is yours and mine, the communal diagnosis is everyone else is an asshole and no asshole can keep his shit straight. I don't believe that.
I think the choices we reflect on are co-opted by cultural indoctrination which at it's core involves the instilling of hero worship and taboo. These two diametrically opposed intents shatter our comprehension of whole things and we are left with vagrant beliefs.