How Does Man Destroy Itself?

Question

Examples, please. Can either be from history or future predictions.

Answer 1

As a speices? As cultures? Or as individuals? As individuals there are myriad self destructive behaviors, and many ways to commit suicide. People do so every day. As a speices, not so much. We try. We try wars, we try fouling our own nest, we try straining the resources of our environment to the very limit, but we just keep multiplying. There are more than six billion of us now. Malthus couldn't even have imagined that many people living as well as we do. We've adapted to almost every environment on the planet. As far as multicellular organisms go, we're doing pretty damn good.

As cultures, we usually only seem to have destroyed ourselves in retrospect. In the process of a culture collapsing, really it's just changing and adapting to meet new circumstances. Now, cultures do readily destroy other cultures, but that is not your question. Hindsight isn't even twenty/twenty. People think Rome fell because of orgies and the high life. Actually (aside from the huns setting all the other germanic tribes on the move to the west), Christianity had a lot to do with the fall of Rome. Once Christianity was the official state religion of the Roman Empire, the empire ceased to the air of tolerance and inclusiveness that made it unique and expandable. Also, Christianity made it harder to justify a slave based economy. But did Roman Culture really destroy itself, or does it still, in certain forms, still exist today? I say the latter. We live in a country where government is a public thing or in latin, a res publica. That's right, a republic. Look at many of the trappings of the Catholic Church and you'll find old Rome alive and thriving.

Answer 2

With desire for all things. The will and powr to dominate everything we possibly can, ourselves included. Everyone wants more.

Answer 3

Stayup late, smoking
Air polution, using too much chemistry in food and beverages...
Are those things enough to kill people?

Answer 4

Haven't you been watching the news? We do it every day.

Answer 5

umm dono