BlueHeronDruid wrote: 
Not to mention a Rick-Rolled Filter

 BlueHeronDruid wrote: 

I'm hoping RP will have a "troll ignore" button by then.

 Xeric wrote: 
Yes, wall to wall people.  Imagine.

 romeotuma wrote: 
And then we'll all be totally fucked.  Unless . . . ever see Soylent Green? 

 manbirdexperiment wrote: 
And that, to me, is the grandest vision imaginable, far more wild and grand and noble and desirable than either any Biblical "heaven" (or "hell"), far more interesting than infinity in the recycling of reincarnation.  To be stardust! 

 hobiejoe wrote: 
Me, neither.  Despite a degree in English Lit and a Masters in English.  That is, "literature" as we and (particularly) the academy have always thought of it is certainly in for a long dry spell, if not outright extinction. 

The bright side, for me, is that I've never thought that "literature" is the important thing.  Story is the important thing—the stories we tell ourselves, from the grand ones about creation to the smaller-but-vital how-to-love stories (about, say, dying dogs).  Story is, I think, intrinsic to our humanity and it's not going away.  The ink-on-paper novel might be displaced by Twitter (or something that seems even goofier to us in the old guard), but story will remain.

 oldslabsides wrote: 
It's not all there is: We also become one with the planet and the universe as our bodies turn back into the elements we were made from. And that, hopefully, is that. I sure as hell don't want any more consciousness than I absolutely have to wade through. I just want long, dreamless sleep - as soon as can be arranged. But I can understand, in theory, not practice, why some people want the show to go on as loooooong as possible, that this existence isn't deep and profound enough, that it needs to be amended, validated and fortified with the promise of existence on a higher plane in some sort of afterlife. Because it is a bit of a bleedin' rip off, isn't it?

 manbirdexperiment wrote: 
I think we're far too attached to this world in the sense that we fear death as an end.  We feel as if the few years we get here are all there is.  Because of this, our vision is short and we act accordingly - live as if there is no tomorrow.  While that's a good thing in some ways, it also leads to a lot of not giving a damn about the planet or future generations.  Ultimately, this has made us terribly destructive to the only place we know of that can support us - and to each other.

I don't know what happens after this short mortal life, but I can't imagine that this is all there is to our existence.

 oldslabsides wrote: 
Well, along with self-awareness comes such traits as jealousy, regret, worry, hate, greed, selfishness, spite and other nasty human conditions. Yeah, animals rock.

 manbirdexperiment wrote: 
Perhaps it's our self-awareness that is our biggest problem.  We know our time is short, so our vision is as well.

 oldslabsides wrote: 
No, thankfully, she doesn't carry that burden. She simply reacts, according to her instincts, to external stimulus and the needs of the moment. She is not aware that her life is finite. She lives totally and blissfully in the moment. I wish I could learn to exist more in that fashion. I read a great story about a man whose dog had a fatal illness but wasn't very sick. The man suffered acutely from the prospect of his future loss while the dog lived every day in it's happiest possible state, without worry of the future or the concept of it's own imminent death. 

We'll survive because of the evolutionary benefits of opposable thumbs -  this time around though, evolution will favour probably already is favouring those teenagers whose speed and dexterity at texting on mobile 'phones gain them the most dates.
 
 
 

 
On the other hand, I don't hold out much hope for the future of literature.
 
 

 manbirdexperiment wrote: 
You don't think Griffy is self-aware?

 oldslabsides wrote: 
Yes! That'll show god he can't boss us around. He'll have to fly over to a different part of the universe and pick on some other self-aware life forms. 

Perhaps we will have managed to make ourselves extinct without utterly destroying the planet in the process.  The world will be on it's way to recovery.

 dionysius wrote: 
Don't forget to RSVP

We will, finally and at last, party like it's 1999.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
You are correct, sir!