| "The End is Coming", right?
The end's been coming for a long time. Pessimism dominates human nature, especially when looking at long range predictions. I don't pretend to know why.
How will the apocalypse come? Most people point to technology, saying that it destroys our planet and leads us into a world that frightens them.
We are at a crux in our race's evolution. We can proceed, towards the next frontier, skywards, spacewards. We can continue accelarating our progress and continue to learn more about this world and how we can better bend it to our will. That is the path we've taken ever since we first set flint to wood.
Alternatively, we can regress. We can 'go back to our roots' and abandon all we have gained. We can give up penicillin, automobiles, computers, books, denim, steel, rubber, plastic, eyeglasses, and everything else that makes life easier, longer, and better. Give it all up in exchange for a 'simple life'. A life where we aren't in a 'rat race', working 40 hours (or more!) a week just to get material things. No, we'll be working every second of every day to just perpetuate our meager existence, trying to beat our life-expectancy of 22 years, cowering from the noises in the night.
I don't like that second option.
Technology will destroy the planet? I don't think so. I think it will save it, in ways we can hardly grasp right now. Someone from a hundred years ago could not start to grasp the things we can do now. Particle physics, materials science, neurology, biomedicine, aviation, space travel, satellites, things we take for granted and don't even think about would be completely alien to someone from 1900. Technology is accelarating. What will we have in 2050? 2100? I think cancer, AIDS, and most other diseases will be cured within 15 years. Probably less. How about detecting and curing Mutliple Sclerosis before the baby's even born? How about the thousands of things we can't even conceive of?
Machines to rebuild the ozone layer. Projects to terraform Mars and Venus into habitable planets. Pie in the Sky? Yes, of course it is. But, a hundred years ago, flight was laughed at. Now it's absolutely common place to send shuttles into orbit, and airlines are the way most people travel long distances.
We can go back to the mud, or we can shoot the moon. We cannot stand still. That is not an option, and never really was. I choose to shoot the moon. You can make your own choice, but don't dare think of trying to stop me in making mine.
If the apocalypse does come, it will probably be a result of pessimistic thinking and fatalistic tendencies. The future is bright, as long as we do not set upon it a blight our own making. | 
