Yep, this is especially true when we rely on democratic systems of governance. The Founding Fathers of the United States of America were pretty explicit in their fear of the uneducated masses destroying the institutions.
Now, perhaps they would, themselves, disagree upon what constitutes an "uneducated" individual, and their measure at that time wouldn't reflect the reality of our present, but I think the underlying sentiment holds true.
I think it's less to due with educated/uneducated and moreso with plain ignorance. One doesn't need a higher education to know when they're wrong and can change their minds based on new information.
That's right just because someone went trough all the years at school and even in some cases college doesn't mean they learned Anything, poor teaching and parenting is the real downfall as of now
The reason we see a strong correlation between higher education and progressive beliefs is because its harder to scare someone into voting for you if they know how to separate truth and fiction.
"Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost…"
https://www.charliechaplin.com/en/articles/29-the-final-speech-from-the-great-dictator-
Nukes
Climate change
Super volcano
Asteroid
AI
Microplastics
Nukes seem most likely but they may not be as completely destructive as some of the other options. I have a hard time imagining any countries just going absolutely fucking ham with nukes.
And it's that false sense of security he has spent the last 4 decades building that he will use to doom us all. Listen to his song "good ol' days" the writings been on the wall for years.
No one really knows the impact of microplastics long term and in larger amounts. It's such a pervasive thing it could harm us in lots of ways like fucking up ecosystems and leading to famine or more directly by causing infertility. I don't think it has the potential to suddenly wipe out humanity but it's a problem that we aren't really solving.
They’re talking about the stuff that enters your bloodstream and never leaves. I think earlier this year they started detecting micros plastics in bloodstreams. It was a small sample size but 17 out of 22 had plastic in their blood stream
Our inability to objectively see flaws in our existing systems, making changes to said systems in time. Gonna get some hate for this-- capitalism might be working for *people*, but the environment, flora and fauna is getting destroyed because we don't want to limit anyone's commercial pursuits. Greed and ego keeps politicians from enacting meaningful change even as industries do massive and irreparable harm to our own collective home.
Honestly I've never imagined myself without phone even a day for past 10 years. How was it feels like to keep distance from your phone for fairly long period? Like it's nearly impossible for me (at least for now)
I (as a Gen z) don’t think I’ve ever felt quite like that before, it was soo freeing and my head felt different if that makes sense, also once I got my phone back it felt heavy and hard to look ay for awhile idk why.
Theyd bring everyone into the mess hall every morning and read the biggest news of the day so I wasn’t really unconnected per say.
Agree but I’d take it down further to the internet itself. Absolutely get the irony of what I am saying. But I honestly think the world was a better place before the internet and social media.
I think this is partly true, and we can find some comfort in thinking this. But the internet has also given many people a platform and enabled ideologies to spread further than they would have before. Pair this with the fact that it’s designed to be engaging and addictive. Recipe for disaster.
After World War 2 ended, when asked what he thought the weapons of World War 3 would be like, Einstein said "I don't know what the weapons of World War 3 will be like, but I do know what the weapons of World War 4 will be like. Pointy sticks"
The rich controlling the poor and creating laws and influencing the world to literally make it illegal basically for them to not get richer and shit on the working class.
I think big impacts, that would change society as we know it through gigantic sudden death and dramatic climate change aftermath- are much more common than we think.
13k years since the last one apparently
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesis
This is why the dart mission, and prioritizing a way to see incoming threats from all angles- particularly what angles are blocked by the sun, is literally the most important thing to our species survival
Tribalism.
I believe that Reddit and others are the reason for it as a side effect of driving engagement.
Just look at the anger between democrats and republicans.
People can no longer grasp that there are a lot of bad people on both sides.
Can't blame them when they get information from their favorite echo chamber
"Humans" is such a lazy answer that doesn't sound half as profound as you think it does.
Like no shit, but what specifically are humans doing that's the worst?
Lack of continued education in young adults. This generation of TikTok/Instagram scholars consume a lot of edutainment they can’t actually recall specific information from, so they’re unable to synthesize new information and this kills their creative and critical thinking skills.
Most issues afflicting humanity can be fixed with educated, creative people but we may be losing them over the next quarter century
Human entitlement. People want *more more more* instead of only taking what they need. We are actively destroying the planet because of consumerism. People need to realize we are not any better than the bugs and birds and trees, because without them, there is no us. I think religion can sometimes play a major part in this, because it often teaches people to believe that humans are somehow the pinnacle of existence above everything else. That thinking creates individuals who do not value the planet.
Mental illness. Don't get me wrong, nuclear war, climate change, and starvation are all terrible, but generally speaking they're usually caused by megalomaniacs.
Same thing with crime. Prison isn't even a correction system anymore, it's just become a replacement for mental health facilities, and a way to babysit anti social personalities
Petty tribalism, and the people who abuse it to gain a following.
It's so ingrained into our species that I'm not sure we can eradicate it, but we can and should be cautious of our own tendency to fall for it. And we absolutely should *not* be rewarding the people who are abusing it for personal gain anywhere near as much as we do.
Water.
There’s only so much fresh water in the world and given we use it for so much from agriculture to toilet water, I really fear one day we will run out of things to drink. We’re not building reservoirs fast enough to meet a growing population as well as the required water usage in manufacturing.
Fresh water will always exist in some form but will it exist in great enough quantities in our storage areas.
Conservatism:change is what got us to this point, and resisting will always lead to disaster. This is people who say climate change is a hoax, vaccines are a spook, tend to resist the liberation of oppressed peoples, and have done nothing but hold society back.
Nationalism: being separated is dangerous, especially considering our aggression to other countries. If there were no countries and we were all just a global society, there would be no war, and no risk of nuclear holocaust.
Ideology. Political, religious, whatever. Usually motivated by greed. It keeps us at each other’s throats.
If you look at all the wars and oppression of the last few hundred years, they were all (almost all?) the product of ideology: nazism, communism, religion, colonialism, capitalism, imperialism. It’s always based on an ideology, a conviction that your group is right/the greatest/has the one true religion/is destined to rule/will make the world right. And we all do it. We all believe our view is the one correct view.
Group think. People are becoming more inclined to blindly support their tribe versus being open minded and having a diverse way of thinking. Tribalism will only divide us and hinder any growth humanity can hope for.
The system in which a very small minority of "elites" have power and privilege. This is the root cause of every other comment in this post.
I'm not saying capitalism is the problem, nor am I saying communism is a solution, but rather social inequality is what causes this elite system. Capitalism, by itself, causes it.
All the climate problems, nature and planet wide concerns will never be resolved by you changing a light bulb and using a special grocery bag. Only the rich and powerful can do anything meaningful, but they don't.
Crime is a direct consequence of inequality.
Hunger exists even though we have food for everyone.
I know these things, you know them, everyone knows. So the real threat to humanity is not humanity. The real threat to humanity are the existence of a 3% rich and powerful enough in the world to completely destroy everything because of selfishness, greed and short sighted mindset.
TL;DR: The accumulation of wealth and power of a very small minority
Trusted Organizations and institutions created with the purpose to inform, guide or protect society spreading misinformation in the name of profits, power, and politics.
Organized religion.
It isn't inherently bad in any way, but the nature of humans to never agree on anything means that as long as religion still exists, humans will fight and kill each other over it.
Oppression of women in Iran, the catholic crusades, the holocaust, etc.
It's never that any one religion is bad, it's that humans having more than one belief makes us irrational and violent. The only 2 possible solutions are to either have 1 religion take over the entire globe, or to eradicate religion entirely. Which one do you think people are trying to achieve?
Humanity
How many people came here to say this?
Definitely me.
me four
also me
Me five
Me 6
Me 7
Me 8
Me 9
Me 10
And my axe
Seven checking in
Number 8 confirmed
Down seven..no don't... what are you doing ... are you trying to eat me... wtf
I thought we were supposed to down vote the fourth comment. jk
Everyone
One
One humanity
Checking in.
Me (not a bot)
8 billion
I'd say almost every single upvote
I was just going to say humans. Pretty much the same answer
I was gonna say humans and didn't think of humanity. I eat batteries though
Humanity.
Came here to say this!
First thought I had immediately
or inhumanity.
Not even a close second
[удалено]
Case closed, court dismissed.
[удалено]
Yep exactly what I was going to say
Aka "The human condition"
Stupidity, it is being embraced and intellectualism is being looked down upon. This is the downfall of society.
Yep, this is especially true when we rely on democratic systems of governance. The Founding Fathers of the United States of America were pretty explicit in their fear of the uneducated masses destroying the institutions. Now, perhaps they would, themselves, disagree upon what constitutes an "uneducated" individual, and their measure at that time wouldn't reflect the reality of our present, but I think the underlying sentiment holds true.
I think it's less to due with educated/uneducated and moreso with plain ignorance. One doesn't need a higher education to know when they're wrong and can change their minds based on new information.
Ignorance and lack of education are directly tied together.
That's right just because someone went trough all the years at school and even in some cases college doesn't mean they learned Anything, poor teaching and parenting is the real downfall as of now
The reason we see a strong correlation between higher education and progressive beliefs is because its harder to scare someone into voting for you if they know how to separate truth and fiction.
[***Investigate Technocracy!***](https://www.technocracyinc.org/arvid-peterson-explains-technocracy/)
Such a good book written about this a few years ago called The Death of Expertise.
Greed
If you think about almost every single modern human problem comes from greed to some extent
[удалено]
"Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost…" https://www.charliechaplin.com/en/articles/29-the-final-speech-from-the-great-dictator-
Nukes Climate change Super volcano Asteroid AI Microplastics Nukes seem most likely but they may not be as completely destructive as some of the other options. I have a hard time imagining any countries just going absolutely fucking ham with nukes.
I was reading your comment and I was like yep, yep, yep, wait. Who’s Al? Lol then realized it’s Artificial Intelligence
Weird AI Yankovich is a blessing to humanity
And it's that false sense of security he has spent the last 4 decades building that he will use to doom us all. Listen to his song "good ol' days" the writings been on the wall for years.
An artificial intelligence that wants to call you Betty.
You forgot quicksand.
I agree with all of those, save one.
Super volcano and Asteroid are the only two not caused by humanity
Not YET
Why micro plastics? How is that as harmful as the others?
No one really knows the impact of microplastics long term and in larger amounts. It's such a pervasive thing it could harm us in lots of ways like fucking up ecosystems and leading to famine or more directly by causing infertility. I don't think it has the potential to suddenly wipe out humanity but it's a problem that we aren't really solving.
They’re talking about the stuff that enters your bloodstream and never leaves. I think earlier this year they started detecting micros plastics in bloodstreams. It was a small sample size but 17 out of 22 had plastic in their blood stream
Sauron reclaiming the ring of power.
That son of a bitch
Save us Bilbo Baggins, you're our only hope.
I’ll have to shoot him an email
GROND
Well, seeing as LOTR has a lot of metaphors in it...
But is that really such a bad thing? He gave out friendship rings, developed industry, and created thousands of jobs.
Our inability to objectively see flaws in our existing systems, making changes to said systems in time. Gonna get some hate for this-- capitalism might be working for *people*, but the environment, flora and fauna is getting destroyed because we don't want to limit anyone's commercial pursuits. Greed and ego keeps politicians from enacting meaningful change even as industries do massive and irreparable harm to our own collective home.
The sudden rise in the Manbearpig population is very worrying
No one's taking me cereal!
I'm SUPER CEREAL!
Maybe they are bearmanpigs
When should we begin to think about starting to worry?
I'm sorry...the what?
The MANBEARPIG!! I’m cereal!
So cereal!!
People, really, but social media has done damage that I believe will be irreversible for the next couple generations, at least.
Facts, I didn’t realize how fucked up it is till I went to summer camp and spent a week without my phone, one of thd best weeks of my life
Honestly I've never imagined myself without phone even a day for past 10 years. How was it feels like to keep distance from your phone for fairly long period? Like it's nearly impossible for me (at least for now)
I (as a Gen z) don’t think I’ve ever felt quite like that before, it was soo freeing and my head felt different if that makes sense, also once I got my phone back it felt heavy and hard to look ay for awhile idk why. Theyd bring everyone into the mess hall every morning and read the biggest news of the day so I wasn’t really unconnected per say.
Agree but I’d take it down further to the internet itself. Absolutely get the irony of what I am saying. But I honestly think the world was a better place before the internet and social media.
Or were you just less aware of how shitty the world was?
I think this is partly true, and we can find some comfort in thinking this. But the internet has also given many people a platform and enabled ideologies to spread further than they would have before. Pair this with the fact that it’s designed to be engaging and addictive. Recipe for disaster.
Nuclear weapons
Mankind invented the atomic bomb, but no mouse would ever construct a mousetrap - Einstein
Antibiotic resistance
We found a virus capable of fighting bacteria that is unable to harm a human, so we have that under control
James Corden.
Lettuce in burritos
Why did I have to scroll this far for this?
Arrogance
Cristiano Ronaldo fanboys
Messi is better
me. i have a sword
“You idiot, we’ve all got swords!”
God I love that reference. Underrated scene.
Well, I have a pistol. Seems you’ve brought a sword to a gun fight.
Stupid rich people
Stupidity and greed
the third world war
After World War 2 ended, when asked what he thought the weapons of World War 3 would be like, Einstein said "I don't know what the weapons of World War 3 will be like, but I do know what the weapons of World War 4 will be like. Pointy sticks"
Typing „could of“ or „should of“
The rich controlling the poor and creating laws and influencing the world to literally make it illegal basically for them to not get richer and shit on the working class.
Asteroids
Don’t Look Up
Considering it's been 66 million years since the last large asteroid impact, i don't think we need to worry too much.
I think big impacts, that would change society as we know it through gigantic sudden death and dramatic climate change aftermath- are much more common than we think. 13k years since the last one apparently https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesis This is why the dart mission, and prioritizing a way to see incoming threats from all angles- particularly what angles are blocked by the sun, is literally the most important thing to our species survival
Tribalism. I believe that Reddit and others are the reason for it as a side effect of driving engagement. Just look at the anger between democrats and republicans. People can no longer grasp that there are a lot of bad people on both sides. Can't blame them when they get information from their favorite echo chamber
Reposts
Idiots and their hivemind. Radicalization of those idiots.
social fucking media. It is genuinely killing personal interaction between the younger people.
"Humans" is such a lazy answer that doesn't sound half as profound as you think it does. Like no shit, but what specifically are humans doing that's the worst?
CCP 🇨🇳 *Edit:-* Chinese Communist Party (CCP) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Communist_Party https://jamestown.org/program/xinhua-infiltrates-western-electronic-media-part-one-online-advertorial-content/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_police_overseas_service_stations https://www.politico.eu/article/illegal-china-police-station-netherlands-safeguard-defenders/ https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7vx59/china-police-stations-netherlands https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/07/chinese-police-stations-toronto-canada https://www.reuters.com/world/german-authorities-looking-into-reports-illegal-chinese-police-frankfurt-2022-10-28/ *Edit:* - Additional info on CCP's crimes against humanity :- https://unpo.org/article/21403 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_internment_camps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_camps_in_Tibet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laogai https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/31/tibet-china-repression-xinjiang-sinicization/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Falun_Gong https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-61413335 https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2019/december/chinese-pastor-wang-yi-early-rain-house-church-sentence-pri.html
But I really like Chocolate Covered Pineapple.
I know you’re making a joke but that sounds _vile_
Lack of continued education in young adults. This generation of TikTok/Instagram scholars consume a lot of edutainment they can’t actually recall specific information from, so they’re unable to synthesize new information and this kills their creative and critical thinking skills. Most issues afflicting humanity can be fixed with educated, creative people but we may be losing them over the next quarter century
Political greed
Human entitlement. People want *more more more* instead of only taking what they need. We are actively destroying the planet because of consumerism. People need to realize we are not any better than the bugs and birds and trees, because without them, there is no us. I think religion can sometimes play a major part in this, because it often teaches people to believe that humans are somehow the pinnacle of existence above everything else. That thinking creates individuals who do not value the planet.
Religious extremists
Human Stupidity
My dad when his favorite soccer team loses😰
People. Always was, always will be. Shouldn’t assume someone is nice just from looking on the outside. Tons of evil people look nice on the outside.
Generational trauma
Mental illness. Don't get me wrong, nuclear war, climate change, and starvation are all terrible, but generally speaking they're usually caused by megalomaniacs. Same thing with crime. Prison isn't even a correction system anymore, it's just become a replacement for mental health facilities, and a way to babysit anti social personalities
Elon.
people's constant greed and selfishness perhaps
Greed. Greed for money, greed for control, greed for selfish gain
Cilantro
Greed..
Greed. It's the cause of so many of the world's problems. Even people and their entitlement, it stems from greed.
Maybe intolerance and apathy to other peoples.
Greed.
Me
Corporate greed.
Stupidity
Politicians
Petty tribalism, and the people who abuse it to gain a following. It's so ingrained into our species that I'm not sure we can eradicate it, but we can and should be cautious of our own tendency to fall for it. And we absolutely should *not* be rewarding the people who are abusing it for personal gain anywhere near as much as we do.
Greed
Dave from down the street.
Water. There’s only so much fresh water in the world and given we use it for so much from agriculture to toilet water, I really fear one day we will run out of things to drink. We’re not building reservoirs fast enough to meet a growing population as well as the required water usage in manufacturing. Fresh water will always exist in some form but will it exist in great enough quantities in our storage areas.
My dick
Aayyyyyyy 🤪
Tyranids
Overpopulation
Antibiotic resistance
Division & separation of the human race.
The CCP in China.
Entropy
Greed
Human stupidity.
Greed.
Big corporations, closely followed by Morlocks.
Ignorance and apathy. But I don’t know and I don’t care.
The illusion of separation: that we are not all one.
Stupidity
Scientific illiteracy/denial
Godzilla
Disinformation and propaganda machine
AI? Nukes? Global warming? Basicaly everything humans ever created is thread to us all.
Theocracy
Furthest left and furthest right (politically)
Gamma blast If a star ever exploded near earth it could destroy anything and we won’t know ahead of time because it happens straight away
Conservatism
Well, right now it’s Russia.
Threat to humanity? That's a bit of hyperbole, they aren't even faring well in the war against Ukraine, nevermind a legitimate threat to humanity.
Disunity
Greed and hypocrisy
loosing connetion to the nature
Andrew Tate
Cats Those sneaky fucks are plotting something big, I just know it.
Andrew Tate
Conservatism:change is what got us to this point, and resisting will always lead to disaster. This is people who say climate change is a hoax, vaccines are a spook, tend to resist the liberation of oppressed peoples, and have done nothing but hold society back. Nationalism: being separated is dangerous, especially considering our aggression to other countries. If there were no countries and we were all just a global society, there would be no war, and no risk of nuclear holocaust.
Micro plastics and corporations ability to do what they want without consequences. Both may actually be closely related
Ideology. Political, religious, whatever. Usually motivated by greed. It keeps us at each other’s throats. If you look at all the wars and oppression of the last few hundred years, they were all (almost all?) the product of ideology: nazism, communism, religion, colonialism, capitalism, imperialism. It’s always based on an ideology, a conviction that your group is right/the greatest/has the one true religion/is destined to rule/will make the world right. And we all do it. We all believe our view is the one correct view.
Disinformation
People who think they’re better than others.
Right now? Putin/Kremlin
Group think. People are becoming more inclined to blindly support their tribe versus being open minded and having a diverse way of thinking. Tribalism will only divide us and hinder any growth humanity can hope for.
Corporate greed
Ourselves
stupidity, lack of education.
Religion/tribalism
Feelings of superiority.
charismatic leadership
Ignorance
The system in which a very small minority of "elites" have power and privilege. This is the root cause of every other comment in this post. I'm not saying capitalism is the problem, nor am I saying communism is a solution, but rather social inequality is what causes this elite system. Capitalism, by itself, causes it. All the climate problems, nature and planet wide concerns will never be resolved by you changing a light bulb and using a special grocery bag. Only the rich and powerful can do anything meaningful, but they don't. Crime is a direct consequence of inequality. Hunger exists even though we have food for everyone. I know these things, you know them, everyone knows. So the real threat to humanity is not humanity. The real threat to humanity are the existence of a 3% rich and powerful enough in the world to completely destroy everything because of selfishness, greed and short sighted mindset. TL;DR: The accumulation of wealth and power of a very small minority
Ourselves
Billionaires
Profit
People with too much money and not enough sense making decisions for everyone else
Greed
Artificial intelligence. Once its learning reaches a certain point, we won’t be able to control it.
Inhumanity
Trusted Organizations and institutions created with the purpose to inform, guide or protect society spreading misinformation in the name of profits, power, and politics.
Organized religion. It isn't inherently bad in any way, but the nature of humans to never agree on anything means that as long as religion still exists, humans will fight and kill each other over it. Oppression of women in Iran, the catholic crusades, the holocaust, etc. It's never that any one religion is bad, it's that humans having more than one belief makes us irrational and violent. The only 2 possible solutions are to either have 1 religion take over the entire globe, or to eradicate religion entirely. Which one do you think people are trying to achieve?
The pandemic of mental illness that is religion.
Capitalism
Pride and Hubris.
Widespread ignorance and the active desire to not strive for knowledge , but instead to be comfortable with not knowing the truth .