I want to know about the soon-to-come final days of mankind. I feel like I'm going to see the end of it all within my lifetime, so if somebody has read a non-fiction book that explores the ideas of overpopulation, scarcity of resources, etc, please share. Not interested on WW3, nuclear winters, and such. Interested on the negligent abuse of power, human reluctance to change its ways, climate change, etc (more tangible, closer, actuality).
>Thinking the world is going to end in his lifetime
you know 60% of everybody who has ever lived has thought this right? If you seriously think mankind is going to become extinct within your lifetime you are living in a dream.
>>7459767
>it can never happen because everyone has thought about it (???)
>pulls out 60% statistic out of thin air
ok
How is Utopia?
>>7459780
Starts out GREAT, but degrades itself a little with every episode by having too many over-the-top scenarios and inconceivable advances of plot. If you saw Breaking Bad, you know what kind of thing I'm talking about, but here it's worse because there are so few episodes it's more contained. I'm on the half of the second (and final) season, and though it's still enjoyable, all the forced aspects that made the first one worse and worse are more present than ever.
Still, overall 5 or 6/10 on my fairly severe scale. Worth a watch for sure, and touches the topics I mentioned in OP, if you are interested in that.
The Sense of an Ending - Frank Kermode
The Pursuit of the Millennium - Norman Cohn
Our Posthuman Future - Francis Fukuyama
An Essay on the Principle of Population - Thomas Malthus
The World Without Us - Alan Weisman60% of that list is theory-intensive and both Fukuyama and Malthus have been proven wrong, but I'll enable your apocalypse fetish, Anon
>>7459776
well, his statement has no more credence than yours.
>>7459684
I highly encourage you to read this
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
If it interests you, the man who wrote this is connected to a large community of thinkers mostly outside the public view that focus on things like preventing existential risk and how to do the maximal good in the world (effective altruism). Ask me if you're interested and I can point you in the right direction
You sound a little like you've lost hope, buddy. There's some very smart, very kind people out there working to save us.
>>7459767
No they didn't think that you fucking spaz.
>>7460713
thanks
>you sound a little like you've lost hope, buddy. There's some very smart, very kind people out there working to save us.
it doesnt seem like this is enough. i dont even know if i want humanity to be saved to begin with anyway
le club of rome face
>>7460281
It's tremendously unlikely that ALL humans will die.
Some will live, even if it's just a handful of isolated tribes.
>>7460155
I would add The Peripheral by William Gibson as a seemingly plausible portrayal of a post-apocalypse humanity.
>bad things happen (climate change/pollution/resource depletion/wars etc)
>population is reduced to a tiny fraction of pre-apocalypse levels
>singularity-tier super technology still exists
>people are either post-human freaks that do post-human freak things and live in debauched self-indulgent hedonistic enclaves in the emptied cities
>or they are mutant tribal Luddites who are genetically damaged due to exposure to environmental contaminants and are regressing to ape-like conditions
>everything is shit oh well
Civilization will cease to exist except in a few small places. As long as the climate doesn't deteriorate to Permian extinction-tier, we will probably live on for a few more million years. I hope that I'll get to see the return of wildlife to abandoned cities, but that likely won't be happening until the 2080s or so.
>>7464113
>a few more million years
we're mostly likely going to be living in largely artifical environments by then
>>7464125
*most
