The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race

Originally posted by googlefudge
ahh, so you meant the biosphere... well say so.


I don't think so.
I think it entirely possible we will massively change [and from most reasonable
perspectives adversely so] the biosphere.
It is very unlikely we will destroy it.

I support action to prevent this, and alleviate the problem.
But it requires high technology, it's just not possibl ...[text shortened]... to survive we have to go into space, which means high technology,
which means civilisation.

So it's a race to see if your vaunted technology liberates you before it destroys you. Well, I say that's a race you'll lose. You'll destroy the biosphere long before you've liberated yourselves from any terrestrial confines. Your 'space colony' is a pipe dream that relieves you from having to deal with the problem of biosphere destruction in a serious manner. Just push if off into the future and hope against all hope that technology will save you in the end.

But you don't get to pick and choose. A technological mode of thinking ALWAYS assumes that more technology is better. Just a little more technology will cure what ails us. It can conceive of no appropriate limitation to its breadth and scope. Every available technological pursuit must be followed to the end, regardless of where it may lead. One of the things I admire about the Amish and the Hutterites is that they do not accept this near deification of technology. They determine the effect technology will have on them and do not allow it to be the other way around.

Obviously, any solution toward sustainability is going to require either a reduction in the total number of people, or a reduction is their consumption levels. Probably both. Greater levels of technology ALWAYS lead to greater levels of consumption. Always. A space faring society will have levels of consumption that far exceed the bloated levels we have now. If our desires remained constant, then maybe an advancing technology might hope to meet them. But that's not the way it works. Advancing levels of technology breed ever increasing levels of consumption. It's a never ending cycle of technology trying vainly to outpace our growing desires. The end can only come when we're forced off of that cycle by a biosphere that is crashing all around us.

Your attempts to "alleviate" the problem are pathetic. For your attempts to relieve the problem are part of the problem itself. You've got to get off that runaway train, googlefudge, before it's too late. One way or another it's going to derail.

Originally posted by rwingett
You'll be like Charleton Heston in [b]The Omega Man, holed up in your impenetrable bunker, listening to classical music as the glorious world you created collapses in upon itself around you.[/b]

or the German officer who had a piano shipped to his bunker at Stalingrad and played
a soft sonata while the Russians were knocking at his door.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
or the German officer who had a piano shipped to his bunker at Stalingrad and played
a soft sonata while the Russians were knocking at his door.

Don't mix my movie references.

Originally posted by rwingett
Don't mix my movie references.

Lol, did you know that Flash Gordon was on the tv tonight? i just had to laugh at Mings
wedding vows, 'do you promise to take this women as an hourly bride and promise not
to blast her into space'.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
Lol, did you know that Flash Gordon was on the tv tonight? i just had to laugh at Mings
wedding vows, 'do you promise to take this women as an hourly bride and promise not
to blast her into space'.

No, I didn't see it. Those are vows I think I could abide by.

Originally posted by avalanchethecat
As a prehistorian, I consider this to be a 'no-brainer'. It puts me in mind of the famous story of the Native American Chief Two Eagles:

Indian Chief 'Two Eagles' was asked by a white government official, 'You have observed the white man for 90 years. You've seen his wars and his technological advances. You've seen his progress, and the damage he' ...[text shortened]... led.

'Only white man dumb enough to think he could improve system like that.'

Two Eagles, very wise. 🙂

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
Lol, did you know that Flash Gordon was on the tv tonight? i just had to laugh at Mings
wedding vows, 'do you promise to take this women as an hourly bride and promise not
to blast her into space'.

that's about the only movie which hasn't seen a remake. i don't know if that's a curse or a blessing.

This IS the spirituality forum, right?

Well! In that case let's talk about the real worst mistake ever made by man.

It involves agriculture indirectly I guess. I mean, there was a garden, a tree, an apple, and an eventual fig leaf. 🙄

Originally posted by rwingett
You'll be like Charleton Heston in [b]The Omega Man, holed up in your impenetrable bunker, listening to classical music as the glorious world you created collapses in upon itself around you.[/b]

Lol, nice image. I bet you see yourself as the Anthony Zerbe character?

Originally posted by sumydid
This IS the spirituality forum, right?

Well! In that case let's talk about the [b]real worst mistake ever made by man.

It involves agriculture indirectly I guess. I mean, there was a garden, a tree, an apple, and an eventual fig leaf. 🙄[/b]

The worst mistake made by man is choosing to try to kill mankind's belief in a god.

Originally posted by divegeester
Lol, nice image. I bet you see yourself as the Anthony Zerbe character?

Yes, absolutely. I've always loved Zerbe's portrayal of Matthias.

MATTHIAS: Well, now, Mr. Neville, we can talk for a little while. It's been a long time since you've talked -- except to yourself.

CLOSE SHOT - NEVILLE'S REACTION

Neville is surprised. He has assumed Matthias was truly and completely insane.

NEVILLE: So you don’t rant all the time? Why bother with it at all?

MED. SHOT - MATTHIAS

He LAUGHS, walks around the dark room.

MATTHIAS: Yes, you were a scientist. The kind of man who understood nothing until there was almost nothing left to understand.

NEVILLE: (surly) I'm getting along...

MATTHIAS: You're getting dead, Mr. Neville -- or doctor or colonel, whatever they called you. I have responsibility for the last tiny remnant of mankind ... I have that responsibility.

NEVILLE: Then why the hell don’t you live up to it? Why don't you throw away the costumes and get these people organized, try to work on a cure...

Matthias turns on him angrily.

MATTHIAS: Oh. we are organized. You know that well enough. A cure? There is none. In the early days ... Have you seen the ruins of the general hospital? Thousands of bodies littering the corridors, rooms jammed with the dead ... and finally... those pitiful few who were left, hopeless, going mad, lynching the doctors, the technicians who had betrayed them... By the way, why weren't you there... Doctor?

REACTION SHOT - NEVILLE

NEVILLE: I tried. There was a crash...

TWO SHOT - MATTHIAS AND NEVILLE,

MATTHIAS: It doesn't matter. There was no cure. Is none. The curse you people created, couldn't stop, is... forever. So I've turned that curse into a blessing.

CLOSE SHOT - NEVILLE'S REACTION

MATTHIAS (O.S.): No. now the Family has found its way. It can bear the burden -- the only curse left is -- you.

NEVILLE: You are insane. And before very damn long, you’ll be dead -- can't you see that?

CLOSE SHOT - MATTHIAS

MATTHIAS: (angrily) last night you killed how many? Three of us? And today We don't know yet. And before that? You've killed dozens...You’re the messenger of death, Doctor, not us.

TWO SHOT - NEVILLE AND MATTHIAS

OTHERS come INTO the room now, and Matthias manner changes. Once again he adopts the portentous pose of judge-prophet.

NEVILLE: I was defending myself ... You lunatics came after me...

MATTHIAS: He's confessed all, Brothers. Murder, use of forbidden tools, practice of proscribed rites. He admits science, medicine, weapons, machines, electricity. He has not shared the Punishment; he does not bear the Marks...

CLOSE SHOT - NEVILLE

NEVILLE: What is the Punishment? The Marks?

WIDE ANGLE GROUP SHOT - MATTHIAS AND GROUP OF FAMILY

As Neville speaks, the group stares at him. This is the first group appearance of the Family. WE SEE that they are of both sexes and all races. Some seem fairly young, however there are no children. In addition to the hoods, we find some wearing goggles, some helmets with dark visors, etc. Obviously, all these forms of eye guards have been scavenged in the empty city.

SERIES OF CLOSE SHOTS - INDIVIDUAL FAMILY MEMBERS

As CAMERA PANS from one to another, each removes his or her glasses, goggles, etc. revealing blank white eyes. CAMERA completes pan, stops on Matthias. He removes glasses, shows his own white eyes. For the first time, WE SEE the OPAQUE EYES of the Family.

MATTHIAS: (quietly) These are the Marks, Mr. Neville ... The Punishment is what you and those like you brought upon us...

CAMERA CLOSES on Matthias, closes slowly on his face, eyes, as he talks.

MATTHIAS: In the beginning, we tried to help one another, those that were left. We tried to clean things up, set them straight. We buried and burned. And it came to us that we were spared for just that work...

PAN SHOT - FAMILY MEMBERS LISTENING TO MATTHIAS

MATTHIAS (O.S.): ... to bury what was dead, to burn what was evil, dangerous...

Neville's VOICE breaks in harsh, angry.

NEVILLE (O.S.): So you burned libraries, laboratories...You wrecked computer centers, engineering facilities ... a herd of insane barbarians. Every night you go on burning.

PAN SHOT ENDS ON MATTHIAS. He still speaks very quietly.

MATTHIAS: You call us barbarians, Neville. Very well, it's an honorable name. We mean to cancel the world you made. We will simply erase history from the time that machinery and weapons began to threaten more than they offered.

CLOSE SHOT - NEVILLE

NEVILLE: You'll play hell...

CLOSE SHOT - MATTHIAS

MATTHIAS: No, you've played hell, you and your dead kinsmen of the car and the plane and the tank and the bomb ... and when you die, the-last living reminder of hell will be gone ... forever.

Originally posted by VoidSpirit
that's about the only movie which hasn't seen a remake. i don't know if that's a curse or a blessing.

it was the eighties, no real CGI, will, if there were it was in its infancy. The original
Flash Gordon made in the 1930's had envisioned technology that only now Apple are
making a reality. Those dudes that are plugged into the the computers 24/7 with the
vision goggles and baldy heads seem to pre-empt many an IT Geek today!

Originally posted by rwingett
No, I didn't see it. Those are vows I think I could abide by.

LOL, all hourly brides should come with a blaster your majesty, and just to keep it spiritual, Shia Muslims actually practice temporary marraige 🙂

Originally posted by rwingett
A hypocrite? Please! My dear twhitehead, it is no longer possible for mankind to give up agriculture. For better or for worse, we are stuck with the 'fruits' of the worst mistake in the history of the human race. We have been expelled from Eden and can never, ever re-enter it. We can't unlearn what we gained from the tree of knowledge. But we can try to re- ...[text shortened]... e damage that has been wrought before its too late. Therein lies our only hope for salvation.

Mankind may not be able to give up agriculture, but you can. What's to stop you selling everything you own, donating the money to charity and then marching off into the American mountains armed only with a fruit-knife and a spare pair of underpants to live out the rest of your days as a hunter-gatherer?

Originally posted by Proper Knob
Mankind may not be able to give up agriculture, but you can. What's to stop you selling everything you own, donating the money to charity and then marching off into the American mountains armed only with a fruit-knife and a spare pair of underpants to live out the rest of your days as a hunter-gatherer?

mountain lions?