Similar to heroin. Useful substance, can be processed into all manner of pain relievers, makes many surgical processes possible. Wonderful benefits.

And mankind can become addicted, use the drug unwisely and in a manner which leads to the demise of people.

Or guns. The FBI reports that 25 innocent people are killed by personal weapons for every one badguy. There’s no doubt that they kill badguys, but at what cost?

I’m simply suggesting that mankind probably knows more than we can handle wisely, and it’s leading to our being a very short-lived species.

Technology is cumulative, wisdom needs to be learned by each individual and is rarely done. An adolescent attitude tends to run things, preferring to use force rather than negotiate.

We’ve come close before. Imagine if Bush-Cheney had been in power during the Cuban missile crisis. Nuclear war. That would be the fast way.

And global warming is the slow way. Mankind is smart, curious and unwise.

Different worlds. The thought is that if Julius Caesar had not forced his way into Egypt and had not ignited the papyrus tomes in the Library of Alexandria, we might today be headed for the stars.

Undreamed of dreams, unknowingly lost…

There will always be those who know less and don’t care that they know less, but they are fewer now than a hundred years ago and they know more now than they did then.

Mankind is certainly a work in progress but I tend to think that our moral progress has been measurable if not equal to our technical advancement.

For all the pessimism and self hatred we see, it is worth noticing that we have kept the nuclear genie in the bottle for nearly 70 years. Would the worlds of Napoleon or Genghis Khan been able to say the same. I doubt the fear of mutual destruction would have fazed either of them. Wars of conquest are things of the past. Slavery is illegal everywhere and while racial prejudice exists, at least the principle of equality is generally accepted as a matter of policy. All this and much more in a hundred years.

Maybe global warming will end us. I doubt it but neither Bowser or I will live to see how it turns out. We can both die with the certainty that we were right.

As long as we continue to overpopulate, life on Earth will become more and more volatile regardless of our moral progress. All the more reason that, as a species, we need to learn all that we can about everything.

Mankind does not deserve extinction for our misdeeds but our civilization will crumble if we don’t get off of this rock and sooner or later some ELE outside our control will take us out.

The answer, my friend, is never. The question will remain, and the digging will continue, now and always, until the searched for is finally found. We will never reach the limit you profess, though there will be things we will not have the time to answer, for all things apparently do come to an end, and generally when the end would be the least convenient.

Your post asks more questions — of this group and of the world — so you continue your personal search for your personal answers, many of which can only be answered by you. Individually, people throw in the towel all the time and take that rest. Collectively, we all continue our strive for solution and resolution, all hoping to one day take that dreamed of rest, which never comes.

Well, time to get up and dust myself off again.

Cheers, all.

The Gods Must Be Crazy.

This is the way it is.