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In case of apocalypse...

Started by Mathim, October 22, 2008, 12:42:50 PM

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Mathim

I agree with Ty the DN Guy, we're doomed no matter who gets voted in; a better candidate would just probably delay the inevitable.

I might get chided for asking this, but seriously, do any of you really want to live in a world where it's like a post-apocalyptic hellhole? I say fuck that, I'd borrow my friend's revolver and blow my brains out. All my life I've been struggling to work toward a meaningful future. If I find out that future's never going to happen and my life will be absolutely devoted to struggle just to keep myself alive, it's not going to be worth it.

I mean, my friend and I both firmly believe that within the next few years society is growing to crumble under the weight of overpopulation and poverty and it's going to be worse than a zombie apocalypse. And I pretty much believe that it's too late for even Obama to do any real good. We'll never be able to rebuild once we lose everything, what's the point in trying? We'll just be proving what failures we are by surviving.
Considering a permanent retirement from Elliquiy, but you can find me on Blue Moon (under the same username).

Valerian

Wow.  And I thought I was a pessimist.

You may be right about this imminent fate, you may be wrong.  But if you're seriously going to talk like that and live every day like disaster is a foregone conclusion, then you and your friend should find a nice hole to crawl into right now.  Why wait?
"To live honorably, to harm no one, to give to each his due."
~ Ulpian, c. 530 CE

Moondazed

Aren't you Suzie Sunshine! ;)

You're free to do what you feel is necessary as far as your life is concerned, but I think it's a pretty sad shirking of personal responsibility to take the easy way out and just throw up one's hands.  It's possible that a meteor will hit this planet at any point, what if our ancestors had done what you propose and just said, "Fuck it, what's the point?".  We wouldn't have computers, let alone forums like this to find people of like mind.  The trouble with pessimism is that it's no more right than optimism, the odds are the same either way, so what is the point of choosing the pessimistic path?  That's a rhetorical question, for the record.  I don't want to pull the thread off topic :)
~*~ Sexual Orientation: bi ~*~ BDSM Orientation: switch ~*~ Ons and Offs ~*~ Active Stories ~*~

The Overlord

Quote from: Mathim on October 22, 2008, 12:42:50 PM


I might get chided for asking this, but seriously, do any of you really want to live in a world where it's like a post-apocalyptic hellhole? I say fuck that, I'd borrow my friend's revolver and blow my brains out. All my life I've been struggling to work toward a meaningful future. If I find out that future's never going to happen and my life will be absolutely devoted to struggle just to keep myself alive, it's not going to be worth it.


I tend to agree here, and what I'm about to say is anything but pretty, but if it gets that bad, it's only going to be because as a species that we fracked things up. Only because the 'haves' of society messed it all up to Hell and back. If a future where we get back into synch with the planet and go to a space-faring species never happens, someone's going to pay dearly. I have plenty of plans myself.


If things degenerate to the point that suicide is an option, I'm not going out alone. You can bank on that shit.

Moondazed

Quote from: The Overlord on October 22, 2008, 02:01:04 PM
If things degenerate to the point that suicide is an option, I'm not going out alone. You can bank on that shit.

*eyeroll*  Very mature, OL.
~*~ Sexual Orientation: bi ~*~ BDSM Orientation: switch ~*~ Ons and Offs ~*~ Active Stories ~*~

The Overlord

Quote from: moondazed on October 22, 2008, 02:08:51 PM
*eyeroll*  Very mature, OL.

Yep. There's an unasked-for opinion.

Mature got nothing to do with it...hypothetically, if things get that bad, to a 'post-apocalyptic hellhole', none of this will matter anyway.


And you know it.

Moondazed

It's the implication that at the point your life seems meaningless you'll make that choice for others that I was referring to.
~*~ Sexual Orientation: bi ~*~ BDSM Orientation: switch ~*~ Ons and Offs ~*~ Active Stories ~*~

The Overlord

Quote from: moondazed on October 22, 2008, 02:17:24 PM
It's the implication that at the point your life seems meaningless you'll make that choice for others that I was referring to.

If we're all that bad off, then the choice of own lives will have been made by others. I'm talking the big business, big government etc. that are driving us there. The executives, leaders and soulless lawyers that are getting fat off it.

Two wrongs may indeed not make a right, but one good screw deserves another.


I won't debate a fully hypothetical situation any further....let's all hope none of us ever see it come to pass.

Valerian

Quote from: The Overlord on October 22, 2008, 02:31:36 PM
Two wrongs may indeed not make a right, but one good screw deserves another.
Yeah, because there's such a huge difference there.

However, the main thing I'd like to point out is that by posting your opinion here, you are by implication welcoming the opinions of others.  So no jumping on others for simply expressing those opinions, please.
"To live honorably, to harm no one, to give to each his due."
~ Ulpian, c. 530 CE

The Overlord

Quote from: Valerian on October 22, 2008, 03:01:59 PM
Yeah, because there's such a huge difference there.

However, the main thing I'd like to point out is that by posting your opinion here, you are by implication welcoming the opinions of others.  So no jumping on others for simply expressing those opinions, please.

No problem, but don't expect anyone to change my perspective on it. We are talking about the worst-case apocalyptic scenario here...it's not going to be a picnic by any means.

At that point nothing will be accountable anyway, unless you believe in an afterlife judgement...but if you ask me, at that point God will have forsaken us all anyway. Don't expect me to care, I've lost my father to people just like we're debating.


Zakharra

QuoteIf things degenerate to the point that suicide is an option, I'm not going out alone. You can bank on that shit.

So you will murder some people you lay the blame on, then kill yourself?   ???  Killing to defend your family is one thing, but for revenge? Not good.

Mathim

What I was trying to say was, I'd rather kill myself than let some thugs who are trying rob me when the population is starving do it for me, you know? That's all I meant. When people are rioting in the streets and murdering each other for what little scraps of food are left and the entire continent looks like one giant Escape From New York: the Unrated Version, I don't want to have to fight. It's pointless.

QuoteSo you will murder some people you lay the blame on, then kill yourself?     Killing to defend your family is one thing, but for revenge? Not good.

Says who? In the French Revolution, killing the aristocracy was the best thing the proles ever did. People who value money over human life deserve to be exterminated, and brutally. And in a world-ending scenario, there's no longer such a thing as morality.
Considering a permanent retirement from Elliquiy, but you can find me on Blue Moon (under the same username).

The Overlord

Quote from: Mathim on October 23, 2008, 11:49:31 AM



Says who? In the French Revolution, killing the aristocracy was the best thing the proles ever did. People who value money over human life deserve to be exterminated, and brutally. And in a world-ending scenario, there's no longer such a thing as morality.

For the record I tend to agree here. And yes, snuffing out despots like this might indeed be 'pushing your own moral values on someone else', but we're talking about people who have already done this to how many others, what is the alternative, to let them live and possibly do it again? Somebody has to make the hard choice sometimes.


Where I feel many people fail critically on this topic is that they always have to justify a 'we're better than them so we can't do that' philosophy...in a certain sense this is flawed because it's a lofty sense of personal moral importance and perhaps even a bit of keeping up with the Jones’s. It's a major failing of human civilization that people feel they have a better moral judgement, or have a deity on their side, etc.


Sometime grim necessity takes hold; sometimes you simply have to do what you have to do. In my view right versus wrong can't always be applied to all dilemmas. If we see a lion taking down a baby gazelle on a National Geographic episode we have the aww factor and say how bad nature can be, but nature isn't good or bad it just is. Likewise we can argue that this is simply human nature, despite how we simply love to distance ourselves from nature, we revert to that animal brain time and again.

Civilization, and the term civilized, are human constructs: As yet we have no idea if they are unique to us until we can meet another advanced species. I say the same with morality, with the sense of right vs. wrong; we have no clue if it 'really' exists, or is merely a human construct.

I realize this is a major derailment but I feel the need to say it. Sometime what is...just is.

Valerian

Mathim: So the French Revolution was a good thing, even though so many hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people who had nothing to do with oppressing anyone were also brutally killed?  Only a small fraction of those killed were actually aristocrats.

Quote from: The Overlord on October 23, 2008, 12:26:26 PM
Where I feel many people fail critically on this topic is that they always have to justify a 'we're better than them so we can't do that' philosophy...in a certain sense this is flawed because it's a lofty sense of personal moral importance and perhaps even a bit of keeping up with the Jones’s. It's a major failing of human civilization that people feel they have a better moral judgement, or have a deity on their side, etc.
Well, there's that view... and then there's my personal view, which is that I don't feel qualified to decide who's evil enough to be shot dead in the street or poisoned or guillotined.  My moral judgment is my own.  I don't impress my morals or values on other people.

What makes you feel that you would be qualified to decide who should live and who should die?  I realize that sounds sarcastic, but it's a genuine question.  Or is your argument that once civilization starts to crumble, anyone can decide because morality ceases to matter?
"To live honorably, to harm no one, to give to each his due."
~ Ulpian, c. 530 CE

Inkidu

Well I mean shooting yourself in case of post-apocalyptic hellhole is probably a good idea unless there really is a real hell (hole) then the former was looking pretty good now wasn't it? :D
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

MagicalPen

Well, the World is going to End on Dec 23rd, 2012....so does it really matter in the end? Zombies, Nuclear War, Asteroid, Overpopulation, World War III - pick your poison! Presently, with current Global Affairs (namely the situation in Russia/Georgia etc) I am leaning towards World War III resulting in a Nuclear Holocaust that will end things.

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The Overlord

Quote from: Valerian on October 23, 2008, 01:12:59 PM
Mathim: So the French Revolution was a good thing, even though so many hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people who had nothing to do with oppressing anyone were also brutally killed?  Only a small fraction of those killed were actually aristocrats.
Well, there's that view... and then there's my personal view, which is that I don't feel qualified to decide who's evil enough to be shot dead in the street or poisoned or guillotined.  My moral judgment is my own.  I don't impress my morals or values on other people.

What makes you feel that you would be qualified to decide who should live and who should die?  I realize that sounds sarcastic, but it's a genuine question.  Or is your argument that once civilization starts to crumble, anyone can decide because morality ceases to matter?



Oh it is a genuine question, but a lot of times people just don't want to bear the mental or psychological burden of it, so they push it off on something else, typically religion. Saying that God is ultimately going to judge us all in the end.


The problem is, we have absolutely no proof of this, not a single shred of evidence that this is so, only blind faith for some of us. In the meantime, what do we propose to do with them? Whether you call them wicked or not, at points we have people that simply offer no valuable asset to society, they are capable only of death and misery.

If civilization does crumble in a full-on apocalypse, I imply that morality will not matter at that point, because with that veneer of civilization pulled out from under us we'll have blown it. We'll have shown the universe that might be watching that we're really just animals after all.

We'll turn on each other like wolves, once we start running out of the basic essentials, food, water, shelter, etc. If we watch a bear and a lion maul each other for a carcass to feed on, we'll call it nature, and that's what we'll revert to in such a nightmarish scenario. Some of you may genuinely reason against that philosophy, but other simply won't accept it because it offends your sensibilities. Some of us can't deal with what rages just under the surface.


Even if some sense of goodwill prevails, it really won't matter...in a post-apocalyptic scenario, it will take us how long to get back just to where we are? Five hundred years? A thousand? More than a thousand? At that point we'll have our proof the human experiment has failed.

In such a situation, possibly a nuclear scenario, we'll not just have pushed ourselves to the brink of existence, but we'll likely have wiped out many other species in the process. At that point we'll have pretty much forfeit our right to continue as a species.

The Overlord

Quote from: Inkidu on October 23, 2008, 01:16:07 PM
Well I mean shooting yourself in case of post-apocalyptic hellhole is probably a good idea unless there really is a real hell (hole) then the former was looking pretty good now wasn't it? :D

If offing yourself to escape from one hell of existence only to be thrown into another by a creator is the case, then I must argue god is mad if not outright evil, and the cosmos at large is a joke.

Valerian

As an agnostic, I'm not especially concerned with divine judgment myself, only my own conscience -- even if it's only for my last few minutes on earth, before the zombies or roving bands of crazed survivors or whatever kill me for food.

You keep implying that you could kill if you had to, though, without any moral, religious, or psychological regrets if you felt it was truly necessary; so I was looking for clarification on that.
"To live honorably, to harm no one, to give to each his due."
~ Ulpian, c. 530 CE

Paradox

Just to break the argument cycle a bit..



"More than ever, the creation of the ridiculous is almost impossible because of the competition it receives from reality."-Robert A. Baker

Inkidu

Quote from: The Overlord on October 23, 2008, 01:43:32 PM
If offing yourself to escape from one hell of existence only to be thrown into another by a creator is the case, then I must argue god is mad if not outright evil, and the cosmos at large is a joke.
Well if it weren't for the fact that God doesn't throw you in hell. Yes he would be, but statements like your tend to hinge on the free will thing which God decidedly doesn't touch?
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

RubySlippers

I favor the even IF the world starts falling in around us is true and I won't go there since unless Dawn of the Dead happens the collapse could rally humanity as a race to our finest hour. Our species thrives on hardship and being tested its how we grow you can see that over and over.

As for the United States if we had to stand alone we could it would hurt but what nation is the worlds bread basket its not China or Russia or the EU its the United States - same with most other things we have enough coal reserves alone to keep us with power for several decades, uranium for nuclear power and we have oil. Oil could be rationed heavily and changes made to our society to allow travel without cars it would just have to be done thats all. I figure we keep Canada friendly, support Mexico and seal off the Central American land route we could have a nice Fortress North America going on where all the food is. Then use that to keep certain other threatening nations and areas friendly like the Middle East. Give us oil for food and we dictate the terms. Oil is kind of optional food is not. In the end we may have many cards to play as a nation in this case.


The Overlord

Quote from: Valerian on October 23, 2008, 01:56:09 PM


You keep implying that you could kill if you had to, though, without any moral, religious, or psychological regrets if you felt it was truly necessary; so I was looking for clarification on that.

I'm implying that once everything hits the fan, it really won't matter. Once the basic survival instinct kicks in, our civilized values will largely be kicked to the wayside...it ain't pretty, but there it is.

I'm not saying everyone will do it, but enough will. Shit, I see them announce what might be a hurricane pushing inland here and they all go bat loco nutz and start buying up bread and water. Now, factor in a truly nightmarish scenario, and then factor in that those basics will not be readily at hand.



...what happens next is no real stretch of the imagination. Who here knows the history of Donner Pass? When push comes to shove, we'll do some pretty alarming things to stay alive. Give us a good old-style fire & brimstone apocalypse scenario and once the food runs out, we'll start eating each other.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_party


The Overlord

Quote from: Inkidu on October 23, 2008, 03:24:19 PM
Well if it weren't for the fact that God doesn't throw you in hell. Yes he would be, but statements like your tend to hinge on the free will thing which God decidedly doesn't touch?

Of course, if free will doesn't exist, then I am drawn to ask how we can ever be truly accountable for our actions.

If there is a god and he made us automatons, then everything that goes down is on him.


If god made us without freewill then will condemn us for alleged wrongdoing…then he is a sick bastard.

Inkidu

Quote from: The Overlord on October 23, 2008, 03:57:26 PM
Of course, if free will doesn't exist, then I am drawn to ask how we can ever be truly accountable for our actions.

If there is a god and he made us automatons, then everything that goes down is on him.


If god made us without freewill then will condemn us for alleged wrongdoing…then he is a sick bastard.

It's a good thing He didn't then.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.