The more you look at it on a paleontological timescale, the more ridiculous it seems to expect this Archived Message Posted by Rhisiart Gwilym on April 26, 2020, 4:53 pm, in reply to "Our Hunter-Gatherer Future" wild roller-coaster ride of industrial hitech 'civilisation to be anything more than what Dr. Richard Duncan called 'a Single Giant Pulse Event' in the planet's overall history: Flares up once only, irreversibly depleting the planetary endowment of vital energy and other essential commodities on which it's fatally dependent; and then a non-negotiable fall-back to a recovered and self-rewilded planet with a long kaleidoscope of evolution going into the future, as complex and iridescent as all that's gone before. Possibly with humans present for a while longer (average species-lifespan, perhaps), but in technologically and socially much smaller, simpler communities. No Startrek future at all. Life strictly on Earth only, until extinction. (What I'm stating here is the heinous Sin-Against-Progessforever, of course. ) That's a good possible outcome. And life for humans, and for our fellow Earthlings of all kinds, could certainly be much better than what we have now, the great array of wanky-toys and indolent lifestyles currently available - briefly - to the Pampered Twenty Percent notwithstanding. Not available for much longer though, one imagines, now that the pandemics are starting to kick the Long Descent into higher gear, just as adumbrated by the Dystopian Clear-Seers. Seven point something of us crowding the planet just now, and still rising a little more for a short while longer, comprising the ideal petri dish to bring the pandemics on... Message Thread: Our Hunter-Gatherer Future - Ian M April 26, 2020, 2:25 pm The more you look at it on a paleontological timescale, the more ridiculous it seems to expect this - Rhisiart Gwilym April 26, 2020, 4:53 pm Re: The more you look at it on a paleontological timescale, the more ridiculous it seems to expect this - Ian M April 26, 2020, 7:40 pm   Searching