Serious question. Is there any hope for humanity or do you think all the sh*t that is going on right now in the Middle East and the real driving force behind all governments is kill or be killed or is that too cynical? Also, if you do see it as boiling down to kill or be killed, do you think there is any meaningful effort on the part of the powerful to remedy this situation or no? Interested to hear what others think.

If you study history you'll see that these times are not really much different than times past.

There is more than hope for humanity, there is the promise from God that after all is said and done, the world will be repopulated with HIS people, those who abide by his laws. Even Islam says after Judgement Day (and they do believe in Judgement Day) jihad will stop.

I don't think the powerful truly understand the world scenario that they are expected to mediate and manage. Some of the powerful are downright evil, war mongerers who want people to be enslaved and provide the cushy lifestyles they have. The average person works, pays taxes, the wealthy are invested in the companies the regular person works for, and they profit, every time you go to the gas pump, they get profits off those companies and everything else they are invested in.

There will be wars, serious wars that effect every country, they will be over many things, money, food, water [China and Pakistan's war will be over water and who controls the Indus River], oil. Man tries to control everything, but God will smite man, using one group/country against another, when the anti-Christ does rise, he will demand you give allegiance to him or be tortured, imprisoned or killed. People don't really understand that yet, but it will happen.

It is not cynical to comprehend that. The govts. as they are now are stepping up their surveillance and demanding compliance from their citizens, you hear about this all the time. They worry about insurgencies not just from people coming to their countries, but people in their countries getting fed up and demanding change. Look at the US, you can't have protest marches much anymore, they come out with sound cannons, tasers, drones. What right do people have to protest or even ask for change, much less demand it? It's almost getting the way it was before our Revolutionary War, people had to meet in secret, now those freedom fighters are regarded as heroes, at the time they were not. When Jesus himself tried to bring about fairness and change, the Romans declared him a terrorist, many of the apostles were put in prison.

Throughout history the governments have been at odds with people in their states/countries, and they try to put down rebellions. When private militias take over the streets of the USA it might come down to kill or be killed. It is a possibility. If there is a financial crash, it is likely to happen.

[Edited on 8/18/2015 by gina]

I personally believe that in the end it comes down to the money. Maybe in some far, far, far distant future things will get to the point technologically and communally where currency is no longer needed (i.e, the Star Trek Future) then something might change. But, until then, the song will remain the same. Material and monetary motivations, motivations of power and control, all too significant at this stage.

Billions of years of evolution have dictated that the organisms which adapt to changing conditions best will survive and prosper, while those that don't eventually fail. Whether that's from natural causes or the structures they create, it seems to be the universe's plan.

The smartest, the fastest, the most adaptable, the most capable pass on those characteristics which becomes the foundation for the future. Those characteristics are tested over and over again in a never-ending process.

I tend to think that our self-destructive nature will rule over our rational ability to figure out solutions, because there seems to be a lot more emotional/self-destructive actions than productive ones. But maybe the herd will be thinned of those with baser natures and reason will gain an upper hand. Who knows?

No

No

Why not? I need and would appreciate some reasons why not.

[Edited on 8/19/2015 by axeman]

Are we the problem?

Study: Humans are the 'superpredator'

By Elizabeth Armstrong Moore - Published August 21, 2015 – Newser

For tens of thousands of years, where humans go, animals are driven to extinction. We are the superpredator, killing animals—and adults ones at that—at a much higher rate than other predators.

And it's not sustainable. So say researchers at the University of Victoria in the journal Science after examining more than 300 studies and 2,125 predator-prey interactions on both land and sea to learn how much the adult population of their prey dwindles in a given year.
They found that humans "kill adult prey at much higher median rates than other predators (up to 14 times higher)." Removing so many animals in their reproductive prime has implications for future populations, both in terms of raw numbers that can survive and how species evolve to handle this extreme predation.

"We predicted that there would be difference, but we were surprised by the magnitude of that difference," lead author Chris Darimont tells the Los Angeles Times.

He goes on to call our hunting strategy "problematic," as we tend to kill adults while other predators naturally tend to target the "younger, smaller, weaker members of a species. ... Typically, human hunters remove one in 5 large carnivores from the planet each year, and ... most large carnivores do not have the reproductive ability to withstand that sort of mortality." But not everyone is ready to toss in the rifle and rod.

"I think it’s total rubbish," one ecologist tells Science magazine. In fishing, for instance, the human haul accounts for 40% of total natural predation, which is reasonable for feeding our huge population.

Fishing less, in his view, is not an option, thus this new study is "fuzzing up what we mean by sustainability." (Are fish evolving to escape our nets?)

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2015/08/21/study-humans-are-superpredator/

This article originally appeared on Newser: Which Animal Is the 'Superpredator'? We Are

If that was the formula, then we would have wiped ourselves out long ago. Altruism and cooperation are vastly more prevalent. Just observe the intricate.dance of automobile traffic for example. Everyone out on that road is ready to kill, and fully capable of it, and in a position to mete out death with impunity, yet they cooperate. If you look at the big picture of how we all work together to get through life, you will see that killing and war, and betrayal and robbery are actually the far lesser portion of our lives as a species.

The whole kill or be killed, fastest, strongest, idea is a very crude take on Darwinism. Survival of the fittest is far more dependent on species' ability to function as a team than it is on their ability to kill. Altruism is not uniquely human and not a product of abstract reasoning, it is evidenced in most species.

A really good read on this very topic is Carl Sagan's "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors".

[Edited on 8/21/2015 by BrerRabbit]