Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/06/2019 03:28AM by anybody.

I spent a third of the 20th century waiting for the world to blow up. It didn’t.

In retrospect, it's amazing it didn't. However, atom bombs are old technology, which means even developing countries now have them. The next nuclear war might be between India and Pakistan, or Israel and Iran rather than the Big Three.

Given the close calls, pretty amazing. But if there are time travelers from the future, in the style of Bruce Willis in “12 Monkeys”, maybe not so amazing. How do you know you’re not one?

For perspective:

My grandfather was born in the late 1800s.

He saw the first airplane, helicopter, moon landing, satelite tv, radio, television, telephone, moving pictures, cars, trucks, motorized farm equipment, VCR, etc.

That was a time of change.

I think it's amazing that my dad was alive for the first airplane flight through to the moon landing. I was a young girl during our race to the moon. I hope to see a manned landing on Mars.

I've enjoyed the rise of the personal computer and the internet. How about a shout out for the microwave oven? It's made cooking so much easier. I appreciate the advances in medical science. I appreciate all of my entertainment options, many of which can be enjoyed in my own home.

I think the future will hold many interesting things, although the U.S. will be far more crowded and the water will be lapping a bit higher on the coastlines.

No

I don't fear change--I fear the big bills.

Fear is a friend who ensures you use all your senses, take careful stock of your surroundings, and keep your eyes on the boulders and fallen trees as you navigate the white water.

So, yes I fear change and I fear the future because I have no control over it. Eight billion people on the planet each with their own agenda. Eight billion boulders rolling behind you as you run down the mountain as you realize all the self help books you read are bull. One day your favorite word is funny and the next it will make you lose your job. One day you can pat someone on the shoulder and say good job and the next you will be looked at with disdain for the same.

When I was a kid the only thing I could do on a phone was wind the handle on the side of the black box and ask the operator to connect me with my cousin. Now I'm expected to open my garage door with the phone, lock the front door, buy coffee in advance of even getting to the Starbucks as I buy an airline ticket and a pair of pants, and see which Uber is closest to my house and click on an app that reminds me the exact best way to act in an Uber so I get a good rating, and then click on the right photo to find a new spouse.

It's all too much. I feel like I'm headed over the falls.

I had a grand life. I guess because I got out young (23) that I feel like having started life as a TBM Mormon and then figuring it out, that I was gifted a vantage point to survey all else that was very useful. I had something to measure life against. I still have that vantage point so I guess as long as I can trick the kids into continually showing me how to use my phone I'll be alright.

So I fear----for the animals, for the planet, for the helpless. But the fear is not change, it's that we won't change. We won't learn. We won't change and work together.

That was quite an elegant bit of prose.

Thanks for hosing me down with guilt for looking at it from the "Me" standpoint rather than the "We" point of view.

You will always be the "We" as you wrap that corkscrew wit around the truth and yank it out of the bottle leaving us all to wonder, "How'd he do that?"

What'd you have for breakfast and where can I get me some?




(I'm hoping you say Porto's!)

OH MAN! Portos! If only. Never been but people bring stuff from there to work. The guava pastries. OMG

Next you're going to tell me you've never been to Damon's, on Brand...

Why yes. This is getting scary. haha. Spinning salad anyone?

I fear ever-increasing environmental toxins, traffic and out-of-control population.

--Drugs that are poorly tested, that are freely prescribed in the United States yet banned in Europe.

--The increasing risks for Alzheimers.

I fear for my children and the poisonous environment of Utah--poisoned by mining; a dangerous, greedy cult, and genetically poisoned by polygamy.

Kathleen, you hit on something that I'm troubled about too. I've been working for BIG pharma a while now. I've seen first hand how they will take short cuts if the regulators are not strong.

Let me say I've had many frustrations with the FDA, but we need strong oversight.

I believe that one reason for the stock market rise is because corporations are enjoying the political climate of anti-regulation. They are making hay while they can at the expense of our environment, safety and fair pricing/wages. So, yeah, the economy is booming but at what cost? Sure, I've made a lot in the stock market but it feels dirty. Fueling stockholder's pockets and CEO golden parachutes makes the economy look good but it is taking a toll on what is really important.

That’s the thing that bothers me the most. The parts of the economy that have been gutted are gone for good. There’s this idea that things can be restored. They can’t. The wealth of nations takes generations to rebuild. You don’t just un-destroy an economy. If I were a millennial, I’d be pissed.

+1! To all of you.

Some things can't be undone no matter who gets in next. It's all gone too far. Big PHarma scares the hell out of me. Big Guns scare the hell out of me. Big mega corporations scare the hell out of me. Money equals control equals money equals control and everyone needs money and power so they can get the most beautiful mates in spite of being ugly.

Yep.

I'm an Independent. I basically vote against whoever is scaring me the most. Sometimes it is big government. Sometimes it is big corporations. Sometimes it religion overreach.

I'm creeped out by Big Food too and Big corporation everything. Corporations prevent entrepreneurs and small businesses by keeping workers hostage through health care availability. Corporate lobbyists own many politicians. Maybe it's always been this way and I'm only just now noticing since I care about what the world will be like for my grandkids. It seems to be getting worse.

I have never been excited about the prospect of grandchildren as I think that I'll be okay, my kids barely, but grandchildren? No. I wouldn't want to stop my daughter from having kids. My son doesn't want any. BUT I worry about it. She is 33 and just got married and not yet thinking of getting pregnant. Good for her. I don't think she'll handle children well.

But, yes, so many things.

I guess they had a talk in conference sometime in the recent past about this, about members putting off having children because of their fears.

How can they possibly afford to have children? I didn't pay 1 cent to have my twins as we both had good insurance that was very inexpensive. Mine was 95 cents a paycheck. I'm very cynical of the medical community, not just big pharma. I'm so glad I am not on Lipitor, the most recent recall. Since I type the stuff, I can't believe how many meds doctors prescribe. I feel the worst for the people who have mental health issues and how they prescribe meds. Even my therapist, who I consider brilliant, hates how they prescribe psychiatric meds.

But, yes, I do fear for my children. I fear dying and leaving them behind.

My sister who is 17 months older than I am has 8 grandchildren who are 22 to 10 in age. I have zero. And I'm relieved. Fewer members of my family to worry about.

Something I have been shocked to learn is that we send our recyclables to China??? HUH??? What good does recycling do if we have to SHIP it to China to get taken care of?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/07/2019 10:33AM by cl2.

I'm still waiting for my flying car.

Dave, what about a flying train?

I've wanted a flying sub ever since the "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" television series.

Patience, please. I'm still working in creating the catalyst whose mere presence splits water into its two component elements, which in turn will be combusted back together again to create a close to endless cycle of "free" energy. At which point a gallon of water will propel your car-boat-submarine-plane around the world six times and still keep the windshield clean at the same time.

This is a really good idea.

If it could work, it would be an immensely good idea for the entire planet.

Look up the word "entropy".

Entropy is a fine word, but nobody mentions the sun in the same sentence.

You'll see!

Of course I'm still working on how to keep my catalyst from accidentally "boiling" away all the rivers, lakes and oceans, not to mention your blood. But these are just details that the marketing people will work out.

The Quakers living on the moon had the same problem. Check with President Nelson for contact info.

I just can't believe the overpopulation problems, and that nobody seems to even talk about birth control. What I see, besides the pollution and the devastation to other species, is that stuff that used to be easy, like driving to the beach, now, because of the millions of people, is almost impossible, traffic, crowds, and as Done says: bills! Charges for parking, charges for access.

Stuff that used to be easy is now difficult or impossible due to crowding and traffic.

Most,if not all the world's problems can be traced to overpopulation. Mother nature is a bitch and will fix the problem the hard way.

Do your research. Most of the forthcoming population problems in the U.S. will come through immigration. Which is why, IMO, we need to reduce the total number of immigrants. We can't easily help to solve the world's problems, but we can solve our own. As it is, IIRC, we will be in excess of 450 million people by 2050. Do we really want to go to a billion, like China? That's the direction in which we are headed. And most of the growth will come through immigration -- not births.

I kind of expect a limited nuclear war between India and Pakistan. About half of Bangladesh is only a few feet above sea level. When the ocean rises a few feet, a few dozen million people will need a place to live, and India's right next door. I don't expect that will go well.

Birthrates are dropping like a rock. I expect the earth human population will peak at about 9 billion, then start to drop. This would have been unimaginable in 1970.

World levels of abject poverty are are also dropping like a rock. This is good.

The invention of printing turned the world upside down for about 300 years, ending the Catholic hegemony in Europe, creating the Reformation and later the nation state with the Treaty of Westphalia, ushering in what is essentially "our world".

I think that something similar will happen because of the democratization of information via the internet. How that is going to play out I hesitate to even guess. I was starting as a CS student in Utah when the UofU was one of the first 4 nodes on DARPANet, which later was renamed as the internet. My reaction was "BFD, you can send a file to LA electronically, instead of as a box of cards."

Let's say I wildly underestimated how the internet was going to change society. My predictions on the next hundred years would likely be no better than my predictions on the last 50.

I did take one look at the 1984 Macintosh and immediately knew I was fed up with typing UNIX/MS-DOS command gibberish, and that graphical user interfaces and menus were the way to go. I got that one right.

Here's one I got wrong -- a former boyfriend of mine gave up a solid job with a top corporation. I thought he was nuts. He went into Spanish-language media when it was just getting off the ground. Think Telemundo and Univision. He saw it. I didn't!

Dave,

I fear you are right about Mother Nature!

BoJ,

I hope you are right about birthrates dropping but I sure don't see it where I'm at. Land continually being cleared and built up for more and more housing developments.

Funny about your first knowledge of Darpanet and the Internet!

No way, man. I'm super excited about the 21st century!

It's already amazing and it's only looking up.

Given that I'm almost 71 I don't know how much more of it I must endure....but as long as I'm out here in the country I'm OK. Not looking forward to whenever I have to move to town and actually have neighbors. Yuck!

I get tired of people bitching about the coming catastrophes, but don't do anything about it. Hell, Al Gore writes a book about how burning fossil fuels will wipe us out, then he flies around burning fossil fuels to tell us about it, before retreating to his mansions.

Generally, people don't understand or don't care. And people are lazy by nature, so will do as little as possible, and spend as little as possible. You can blame the corporations and government, but they are just giving people what they want.

I had a 40 foot row of carrots last year, when my wife came home with a 10 pound bag of carrots from Costco, because they were cheap, and clean and ready to eat.

I butchered a couple grassfed steers a couple years ago and tried selling them, but nobody called. People don't want the inconvenience or cost, so support the big corporations instead. I mean, why not eat cheaper beef fed on corn, grown with chemical fertilizer made with cheap energy, which is a benefit of spending trillions on wars in oil rich countries. As Bush I said, we had to go to war because Saddam "threatened our way of life" (later changed to fighting for our freedom, blah, blah).

You can blame big pharma, but people would rather take a pill than get off their asses and do something, and eat better food. Like maybe some they raised.

Average screen time is now 11 hours a day, and expect it to rise. Which will result in more obesity, etc, needing more pills.

The fear of war will be forever with us, as without advertising such a threat, hard for corporations to sell bombs, ships, fighter jets. And the troops also make money.

I wish more countries had nukes. Note that we blew 6 trillion bucks invading nukeless Iraq, while we leave North Korea alone.

We've been told Iran almost has a bomb.....since 1978. I see in tonight's news we're still hoping to get in a war with them. Of course, we've messed with them, doing the coup in the 50's, then supplying Saddam with WMD's to use against them, then imposing sanctions - gee, can't understand why they don't like us.

As for population, thank the liberals (of both parties) who offer benefits to immigrants, and also pay women to have kids. I have a niece who has had 4 kids from 3 different guys with state aid. Yes, dads share blame, but why should they stick around when they aren't needed? After welfare started in the 60's, illegitimacy rate has more than doubled, now 70% among blacks.
So, yeah, pretty much nobody cares. Not enough care enough to make more effort or spend more money, so why worry?
And the asteroid will get us anyway.....

This is why I could not be more disappointed in humans. I've lowered my expectations down to zero.

We (as humans) will never agree on the best way to solve problems and shape the world since we all have different values. It's been disappointing to realize humans will consume everything they can as fast as they can with as little effort as they can.

When the people of Easter Island killed their last trees to move their giant monuments what were they thinking? We are no different. The monuments are not going to fix anything.

If it came to a vote between saving the last species and having cheaper airline tickets I already know who would win by a landslide. The entitlement to have everything and the ability to have everything due to "credit" is what spawned the out of control consumption of humans.

I am horrified at young 20 something couples on fixer-up-shows walking into a perfectly functional kitchen, turning their noses up and saying with arrogance, "Well this would have to be updated."

The planet is not fixable any more. You think herding cats is hard---try changing 8 billion people. Catastrophe is the planet's only chance.

^^^ Yes !!!