Comment Re:Humanity is Sick and Twisted (Score 0) 608
No, I think you are essentially correct.
And this is the "Great Filter."
A successful escape from the gravity well requires a lot of cooperation. It's much easier to simply take the resources you wish, scarce as they are on the planet, than to expand and colonize off-planet. That's a dead-end route, of course, you and your descendents for a few generations rule a dying world, until it dies, and you with it. Whether you manage to hold out until the world dies naturally, or you purify it with nuclear fire, the outcome is essentially the same.
And those dead-end routes are the odds on favorites for any species in our position. Just a few minutes reviewing the news on any randomly chosen day should make that clear. Many nasty characteristics that have been selected for prior to this point suddenly become liabilities. Physical technology has improved dramatically, but our social tech level is little if any improved from its state 10k years ago. If we do not improve the social tech dramatically and very very quickly then we are extremely likely to exterminate ourselves with our physical technology.
I suspect there ARE other species that have crossed this threshold already, actually, but if there are the last thing they would do is let a primitive, violent race like ours know of their existence.
And this is the "Great Filter."
A successful escape from the gravity well requires a lot of cooperation. It's much easier to simply take the resources you wish, scarce as they are on the planet, than to expand and colonize off-planet. That's a dead-end route, of course, you and your descendents for a few generations rule a dying world, until it dies, and you with it. Whether you manage to hold out until the world dies naturally, or you purify it with nuclear fire, the outcome is essentially the same.
And those dead-end routes are the odds on favorites for any species in our position. Just a few minutes reviewing the news on any randomly chosen day should make that clear. Many nasty characteristics that have been selected for prior to this point suddenly become liabilities. Physical technology has improved dramatically, but our social tech level is little if any improved from its state 10k years ago. If we do not improve the social tech dramatically and very very quickly then we are extremely likely to exterminate ourselves with our physical technology.
I suspect there ARE other species that have crossed this threshold already, actually, but if there are the last thing they would do is let a primitive, violent race like ours know of their existence.
