Is there any hope left for the world?

Sorry if this is a depressing topic, but…let’s face it, everything’s going down the shitter. We’re running out of energy, our pollution is killing the environment and raising global temperatures, we’ve got too many people and not enough food, each generation is getting dumber (at least in the US), and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of drive to fix the mess we’ve all created. Instead, we have religious nutcases and political fascists using these fatal dangers to their own benefits, nations and peoples pointing the fingers at everyone but themselves, and a general disinterest in actually doing anything monumentally different.

New sources of energy are possible, but there won’t be an even remotely cleaner fuel source for at least another twenty years. By this point, we will have either run out of oil completely, or (in the case of biofuels) used up our food supply, speeding up the upcoming population crash and starving billions to death.

We’re fighting wars everywhere, all in the name of profit. Ironically, it’s partially because of this latest disaster that the US’s economy is dead for good; we’re pouring trillions into defending some damn oil in another country, while the price of gas keeps going up AND our dollar goes down. Meanwhile, China and India are rapidly industrializing, which means an increase in demand for the same resources. Furthermore, both countries are still in a stage two population development; they have better access to medicine and health care, but have yet to slow down on their population growth.

Nobody gives a damn. It’s even hard for me to care, even after seeing all of this. Sometimes I think it’d be better just to fucking shoot myself and escape this shit before it really hits the fan.

Sorry about this wall of depression. I’m gonna go hang myself or something.

Does this, by any chance, have anything to do with today being your birthday?

1- You’re exagerating a bit. Pollution won’t kill off humanity, it 'll reform the planet and present a different set of challenges we’ll have to adapt to. When people get their heads out of their asses about genetically modified crops, you’ll see a whole lot fewer problems with the food situation. As for the rest, been there, done that historically. Sure a few million people died along the way, but it didn’t wipe out the planet. A lot of what you talked about is a reflection of human nature and I agree it fucking sucks, but I think we’ve been through worse. No one’s threatning to launch enough nuclear missiles to destroy the Earth 50 times over yet, for one thing.

2- Happy birthday.

<i>Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate.

um… o_o

Well, if you’re still alive, in the words of Monty Python, look on the bright side of life.
We are at least acknowledging we’re in an energy crisis and need to pick up alternative methods other than the ones that have been screwing up the environment for decades. If we utilize the greymatter that sits in our cavernous skulls, I’m sure we’ll find a way out of it. If that Segway guy ever makes a car that can run on practically nothing, we’ll have it made.
The US is in debt out its ass because of the war over nothing and the rich morons getting tax breaks…trickle down didn’t work in the 80s, and it’s not working now. If we can get someone who doesn’t feel the need to extend his e-penis by bombing the shit out of other countries, we can stabilize, albeit VERY slowly. As for wars…well, we’ll always have those because it’s our nature to fight over things, no matter how stupid they are. The only thing we can do there is negotiating before killing people.

Ah, and happy birthday. >.>

I have exactly your depression at least once a year, too. I know how it feels.

But as Trill said, at least it’s being acknowledged that there’s a problem, and a environmental awareness has been on the rise for quite some time now.

There are solutions to the crisis, they just need to be found out properly. There are already neat things popping up. Like, I believe it’s Volvo are working on a car which will run partly on electricity generated when the driver uses the brakes and hits the gas.

In the meantime, walk or ride your bike if possible. It might feel that what just YOU are doing can’t have much impact, but if only a few more people thought about and did it… well, one has to start somewhere.

Happy birthday.

Endure.

In enduring, grow strong.

We’ve been in worse fits before - We adapted and pulled through. HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

What’s better than an existential crisis to begin a new year, eh? Happy Birthday!

We’ll probably have let the shit almost hit the fan before we get our act together (seems the modern Greek attitude is taking over the world) but we’ll make do. The higher the price of oil, the more business sense it makes upping the research budgets on alternative sources of energy. In the meantime perhaps we’ll nuclear up and throw the waste out of orbit. But when I visit my grandma and she starts telling stories about ww2, eh, I think we’ll manage. We’re adaptive after all.

And remember, that’s about mankind. The world won’t care a bit; that is not dead which can eternal lie.

It’s not all bad, humanity has come back from worse.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080424/ap_on_sc/close_call

Nope.

The quickest way to overcome any bout of despair over the modern world is to do a quick read-through of either A) Greek tragedy or B) Thucydides, especially the part about the plague hitting Athens.

Sure, maybe our politics are messed up (as they always are and have been), but at least your genitals aren’t shrunken from a virulent and fatal disease, yeah?

(Wow. Sinistral offering a positive World view? Maybe The End IS coming! :hahaha;)

Ahem. First of all, Happy Birthday Gallo. Second, like Sin said, we HAVE been through worse. I used to be deeply depressed as well (around your age, too) but that was before I took a REALLY good look at history and realized how much WORSE Life used to be, and how bad it STILL is in some parts of the World. Just the very fact that you CAN complain about things is a BIG step up from the old days. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to enjoy EVERY FREAKING SECOND OF LIFE while I have it. I’m pretty sure the world will still be here long after I’m gone.

Now have a cookie. :slight_smile:

Happy birthday. Don’t let the stupid bugs bite. shrug

I have little to say. Everybody else essentially summed up my thoughts and feelings on the issue.

If you feel this hopeless now, think of how you would have felt during the Thirty Years’ War! <_< Happy birthday, and always look at the bright side of life. Earth needs to be saved, as it appears to be the only planet with chocolate on it. :o

Educate your children

Humanity will recover, after we’ve made all our current problems so ridiculously bad that its impossible to ignore them anymore. We’ll probably be in our 40s-50s by that point, so I can see why you’re angry.

Talk like a pirate, for it is the day, ye scurvy son of a silly person! Now walk the plank for the script says so, matey! (And happy birthday.)

(Well, shoot. Looks like our parrrrrrrrty arrrrrranging parrrrty made ours a faux talk like a pirate day. But it was like a bottle of finest rum and a beauty of a lass on ye lap - Good?)

Sorry about this depressing mess, guys. I’ve just been in a funk for the last few weeks. I can’t even watch the fucking news anymore because it makes me want to throw myself onto a highway.

The thing is, I can’t explain why it suddenly started bothering me. I mean, I knew it was bad already, but nowadays I can’t get it off my mind. The worst part is, I know there’s nothing I can do about the world’s state. Even if we started right now, it would take generations to get humanity back on the right track. And, after working with the most fucking broken education system known to mankind, I know that isn’t going to happen, because our kids are being indoctrinated into whatever the government wants them to believe.

That being said, I want to find a silver lining somewhere. I like to think that, somehow, people will start taking a better look at what they’re doing with their lives, how they’re spending their finances, how much needless driving they do in a single day, etc. Maybe we can reverse some of this generation’s needless waste and stupidity, even if just a little. Too bad that isn’t going to happen, the world’s gonna get a lot worse, and I’ll wish death upon myself every single day.

But hey, Happy Birthday!

“Humanity’s ability to pull answers out of their asses, is matched only by their curiosity about what they can shove back up them.” - something I always tell myself when I’m too depressed.