Personally I'd feel completely hopeless right now if not for my children and their generation's determination to rise above division and come together to save us from what we've created.
I hope it's not too late for them to care enough to take action to make the kinds of changes we'll need to survive, now, 100yrs since Einstein came up with E=mc2 and we weaponized it and given that power to eliminate humanity to 9 different countries.

And that list is growing.

RUSSIA 6,600
USA 6,450
FRANCE 300
CHINA 270
UK 215
PAKISTAN 130
INDIA 120
ISRAEL 80
NK 15
TOTAL : 14,175

https://www.globalzero.org/blog/how-many-nukes-would-it-take-render-earth-uninhabitable

The top 7 countries could all end human life on Earth.
What's stopped them over the past 70yrs from one of them hitting the big red reset button?

How many so-called Evangelical "Christians" and "Latter-Day" Saints voted the way they did last year, because they'd welcome Armageddon, believing this would bring about a self fulfilling prophecy of Armageddon?

What can my kids generation do to stop one of the leaders of those 9 countries from hitting the big red reset button?

While we could sterilize the Earth, that's not how the nukes are targeted. The survivability thinking I've read is that the worst case is 30% live on. Likely many more would in most scenarios.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/2018 05:13PM by dogblogger.

I hope it is the latter days of mormonism.

One thing that gives me "hope" is realizing there are no "latter days," that the entire premise of that idea is nonsense.

Another is that, despite the number of nukes you list, nobody has used them for 73 years. Given the propensities of human beings, that's a damn fine bit of self-restraint. And reason for "hope."

Otherwise, what "hope" I do or don't have isn't tied to world politics, religions, or anything of the sort. It's found in the sparkling innocence of my 2 year-old, in the boundless optimism of my 17 year-old, and the dogged determination of my 21 year-old college student son -- who, despite being a typical somewhat-irresponsible young adult, wants to make a career out of bringing bad guys to justice, and making justice racially/economically blind. They all give me boundless "hope."

I have little hope that we will not see nuclear conflict in my time. I believe we will and I hate how badly my generation fucked it up for my grandkids. However, as far as hope, I get a lot of satisfaction from bringing it in, closer to home. There are thousands of people right now who would give almost anything to have what little I have. So I have no use for people whose only joy is derived from trying to make sure they have more than everyone else and trying to convince themselves that everyone is jealous of them and their stuff.

I love to see the joy other people get when you give them a little hope. There is no "stuff" in the world, no mansion, no notoriety that could be as satisfying. To me, anyway, but I'm weird. I feel so much hope for the world when involved in an adult literacy program and just listening to someone who is so freakin proud of what they just read to me. Good God, the last thing I care about then is nuclear war. I care that someone's dream is to have the ability to read an invoice or job application. They give me hope for the future because I know they will pay it forward. I see the young generations now wanting to make a difference.

And I've seen by a program I'm involved in to give homeless people a warm place to sleep on the coldest nights, that they feel the same way--they can't worry about what their power-hungry leaders are doing, they derive hope from activism, from giving hope to others. So many of our volunteers are under 30. When and if I ever retire (from paid work) I will have so much fun with the things I want to have the time to be involved in. When the bombs drop, I won't have to feel like all my time and money was spent on something that just got obliterated. Maybe someone will weather it better because it was spent on something tangible.