What is your view on humanity's future?

Bleak

 

Has anyone read the book, "The 4th Turning," by Strause and Howe? Half the book is great insight, the other half is buzz words.
Basicly, history (US, at least) seems divided into cycles of 4 'turnings'. By examining the recent cycle, one might make some broad predictions of the future:

Between the 1940s and 1960s, USA recovered from a crisis; the aging generation (eg, Pres Ike, Norman Rockwell) was tired but content at the state of the nation spreading a general feeling of traquility, organization and faith in institutions and community onto younger generations.

The 1960s-1980s, was a time of self-indulence. Americans were well recuped by this point and needed to push for outlets aggressively. The aging generation (WWII vets) had plenty of energy, but their overall lifetime acheivements seemed to have built complacence. Younger generations lost faith in institutions, communities started falling apart, but individuals became increasingly intellectual and artistic and were keen on experimentation and debate.

Since the 1980s, people seem to be coming back to earth, so to speak. The indulgence of the previous turning is costing younger generations. The aging generation (eg, the lack of presidents born between 1925 and 1945) is the wealthiest in the country, but they are showing, actively or passively, that pessimism is reasonable, but they can't seem to initiate much action. We know what problems could occur, but what can we do about it? Arguements bounce back and forth and more and more questions arise. 9/11/01 was the beginning of the end of this turning.

The decade of the 2000s is the threshold to the fourth turning. The current outlook is pretty bleak. A major crisis is due for the next 20-give-or-take years. If the exalted baby boomers lighten up their crusader attitudes and try to maintain, through example, a level of sanity; and if the nominal Generation Xers shelf their thrillseeker lust and apply their knowledge for pragmatic leadership, we will bring out the best in the following generation and make the distant future look bright.

 

Our utter destruction. Mu Ha Ha... Mu Ha Ha Ha...Ha? Oh wait a minute I am on this planet...

 

I vote neither.

Despair is only for those which know the outcome beyond doubt.

Who can tell what the future may hold?

 

Bleak!

 

We are all doomed. We have become Natures worst creation. We have multipled and we are using all the natural resources. We are creating new drugs and viruses, that will eliminate or mutate the Human Race.

 

*agrees with Jedi_Learner*
very, very bleak...

 

We'll all be dead before we see the end of our race.

 

its been bleak since we were spawned.