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chiefmors t1_iwvvmj4 wrote

Reply to comment by glass_superman in For world philosophy day 13 thinkers share the philosophical questions that will define this century | Including Noam Chomsky on destruction, Naomi Oreskes on climate crisis and Carissa Veliz on innovation by IAI_Admin

Certainly religious traditions all have some sort of eschatological collapse in their narratives (with many hoping in a renewal the other side as well).

I think on the scientific / humanist side we've seen the following all come and go as apocalyptic concerns that never played out as they were originally prophesied:

  • Fear of overpopulation / food scarcity
  • Fossil fuel scarcity
  • Nuclear war
  • Ice age
  • The original round of global warming concerns in the 80s and 90 (after the ice age scare ended). Most of it in the 80s and 90s said we'd be hosed by now)

That doesn't mean that existential threats to humanity can't exist just because we seem to be horrible at actually identifying them and rarely factor in continued scientific development and improvements.

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glass_superman t1_iwvz4i8 wrote

That list is all quite modern. Those things have concerned us, some continue to, some don't. But they are concerns and distractions.

Did similar concerns exist hundreds of years ago? Did people take breaks from moral philosophy because they're like, "Ah, who cares, no one will be alive in 100 years anyway."?

I'm wondering if this feeling that humanity might end is new.

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chiefmors t1_iwvzq6u wrote

I grew up devoutly Christian, and there's a strong, storied strand of their beliefs that everything ends and gets wrapped up in the next generation or two. Augustine to Edwards, plenty of people thought they were living in the end times and thinking super longterm was less relevant.

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glass_superman t1_iww1kip wrote

That's true. And there are probably even more instances than we know because if some Rabbi declared that the world would end in seventy years and then it didn't happen they probably adjusted it while passing down the text generation to generation.

The book of Daniel is maybe the most famous of the apocalyptic one.

So we've always had a fairly popular belief that humanity is on the way out?

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GETitOFFmeNOW t1_iwxono5 wrote

Everyone wants to get to the end of the story since their unchosen favorite fantasy has promised such a wonderful epilogue.

It's not those poor wretches who are to blame for having paid 10% of their lifetime incomes in exchange for a return they don't receive before death.

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ScaleneWangPole t1_iwxnhvz wrote

I believe there was a guy in the mid to late 1800s who started some apocalyptic cult in upstate NY, that obviously didn't happen. I'm not sure the cult made it after the prediction didn't pan out.

I'd say the thought of groups living in end times is a common theme for all of human history. I mean, just in modern times alone there was the Jonestown cult, Heaven's Gate cult, the Branch Davidians.

I think this thought stems from arrogance; both exuded by the leader and embodied in the follower seeking greater meaning to their lives than just being the product of sex by their parents. Not that their is anything wrong with being merely the product of sex, but expecting or demanding more for yourself seems futile.

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