Star Trek (TOS): The Ultimate Computer

[Bernkastel]

Yep, those people always see the situation as though it's one of those movies where bad stuff happens, but the heroes (who they naturally are) win and they make the world better and everyone lives happily ever after, joyous in the knowledge that person x's philosophy was totally right and all the suffering was totally needed to wake them up and realise the righteous wisdom of person x. The idea that it might have a different ending for them and everyone they care about, like being trapped in a Mad Max world without anyone to overthrow Immortan Joe, or worse, like full on 1984 stomping on the face of humanity forever, is one they really do not consider.

[Robovski]

They always think they are Humongous or at least Chopper Guy when really they'd be skull #23 on the pile.

[Beastro]

Like I said, no one would would like what would happen.

Phew, that's good to hear you say. But there are people who think a massive disaster would be great. You've mentioned environmentalist misanthropy and, while not nearly as significant as some people make it out to be, is endorsed by some people. There's also the end times crowd and there are people in the fringe left who hope for an economic and social collapse because they think it would make people more ready to accept change. You also see people who use utilitarian ethics to justify horrible schemes, like killing this or that percent of the plants population or forceably sterilising certain groups for population control.

Perhaps I'm just unlucky, but I've encountered plenty of instances of people declaring "this horrible thing will happen and it will not be a bad thing, perhaps even helping overall". Sorry for lumping you in with those people.

I can see that streak being kinda tolerable in the young given that we all go through those moments of such things dawning on us when they're new to us and we don't know the long history of why they're terrible. In our days the typical ones are why democracy is such a crappy system of government and "imagine all the neat things we could do if we just took all the money from all the rich people?". The problem is when sense doesn't get knocked into our heads even by the simple passage of time and growing up to know better.

In the end, I think that kind of thinking is just immaturity at it's most immature.

I tried to play a bit of a counter balance of political leanings in the examples I used there. Women's Lib and the Left goes without saying, but you're average conservative in the West is the driving force behind higher age of consent laws. Suddenly finding themselves having to marry off their 13 year old children, especially if their daughter wound up being married to someone more than twice her age, would be a world too twisted and alien to live in, and yet they would.

Same would go for almost every profession, with the rare person like a doctor maintaining or improving their societal position. Most high end, prestigious careers would be dead, and given people's now irrelevant skills, they'd find themselves being good for little beyond the sheer manual labour they could do (or could not).

There's also the end times crowd and there are people in the fringe left who hope for an economic and social collapse because they think it would make people more ready to accept change.

Most such people I find twisted. many long for such an event not because of what good might come of it, but simply to show the world that they were right and they deserve this for ignoring and rewarding their greatness. There's a big streak of that in End Times people yes, but not all as odd as it sounds, some, other rather I'd say most, worry about the future and given their faith, they know what the End Times would be so they know the outcome.

Over the past couple decades I detected an air of that also in the Republican Establishment, that they'd gotten used to being the losing side and clung to principled purity even when it directly damaged their changes of getting elected and enacting some of their ideals.

Perhaps I'm just unlucky, but I've encountered plenty of instances of people declaring "this horrible thing will happen and it will not be a bad thing, perhaps even helping overall". Sorry for lumping you in with those people.

T'is the nature of the internet, and to echo what I said above, the internet shows how immature many are, or simply how cheap talk is.

All that talk I also find boils down to one assumption, a fantasy we all toy with with post-apocalyptic fiction, and I feel why zombies became such a fade over recent history, is that the person welcoming the end of the world will survive as a given so that they can enjoy whatever odd appealing thing tickles their fancy when they think about what they'd do in the ruin of world.

In a world where'd we'd collapse back to, at best, less than 100 million and most likely more, God knows who'd actually be a survivor to a degree that none could say and why so many rightfully fear it would be the end of Mankind.

They always think they are Humongous or at least Chopper Guy when really they'd be skull #23 on the pile.

If people acted like they do in fiction, yes.

The nagging bit about disasters and human nature is people get very passive when bad things happen, it's why the go to thing of dictators in failing nations is to start a war.

The true is their short life after the collapse, if they lived that long, wouldn't be neat (not even having their head on a pile) or glorious and neither would their death. They'd, like most would, die in a world without modern food supplies and medicine, quietly starving or dying from a simple infection with their remains joining the structural ruins of the civilization that was the only thing that permitted their body to exist and thrive in a world of billions.

[StrangeDevice]

"I am showing you the superhero syndrome and your own participation in it."

The author's on Dune and what's most interesting is that Paul does become the messiah, that is true, but in doing so becomes slaved to prophecy. He has no control over everything that happens around him and the results are on the whole horrific. It's this assumption of control over the environment and over the actions of others that human beings just don't seem to remember as an object lesson. It often gets us killed. Putting aside starvation and disease, human paranoia would also be a factor in this new environment. Raiding parties would likely shoot first and ask questions later. Eminently safer and even if they do roll around with the intent to talk, mistakes do occur.

On the upside though (and spinning this back round to Trek), it's been shown time and again that you don't need to set the world ablaze to foster communities or change a prevailing mindset. Nowadays more so than ever because of that emerging global community and digital technology like the internet. This thing. There are avenues of discussion that can be attempted now that would have been impossible otherwise before.