[mntlblok]

Originally Posted by ThirdOfFive

True, though the 40,000 year mark might be a bit generous. I doubt the race can maintain itself as any kind of cohesive entity much beyond 200 years, given the finesse in mass killing that we develop war-to-war. Just 19 years after the "war to end all wars" mankind fought another war that made the first one look like a brushfire in comparison.

But on the off-chance we do manage to avoid offing each other and by some miracle DO make it that long, history itself has proven the-sky-is-falling crowd wrong time after time. Our race as lurched from "crisis" to "crisis" as defined by the aforesaid crowd, overcoming them all; and not just overcoming but coming out far the better on the other end. I vividly remember the 50s and the doleful warnings we were given that our planet was bursting at the seams trying to support the two billion five hundred thousand - odd people inhabiting it. But--guess what? We're well over three times that number now and starvation per capita is probably much less today than back in the 50's. Advancements in farming techniques, development of hardier crops, crop diversification, better land use, etc. etc. have come to the fore to prove just how empty the ramblings of the gloomers 70 years ago were. And not just food but disease as well. How many diseases in the past half century such as AIDS, Ebola, Bird Flu, SARS, and of course COVID were going to decimate the race? Not to minimize the danger of any disease but the various Armageddons that were going to be the result of any of them just didn't happen. Dispassionate science, pragmatism and common sense will disprove negative hype every time. And to be honest, the more I hear coming from the gloom-and-doomers, the more it reminds me of a convocation of fleas trying to decide what to do with the dog.

A review of the book "False Alarm: The Truth About The Epidemic of Fear" by Marc Siegel, MD, states the following: "Life today for citizens of the developed world is safer, easier, and healthier than for any other people in history thanks to modern medicine, science, technology, and intelligence. So why is an epidemic of fear sweeping America? The answer, according to nationally renowned health commentator Dr. Marc Siegel, is that we live in an artificially created culture of fear. In False Alarm, Siegel identifies three major catalysts of the culture of fear—government, the media, and big pharma. With fascinating, blow-by-blow analyses of the most sensational false alarms of the past few years, he shows how these fearmongers manipulate our most primitive instincts—often without our even realizing it. ". To be sure, there are those who will claim partisanship on the part of Dr. Siegel but just to claim it doesn't detract from the truth of the above quote.

Fear of something often seems to be just as debilitating, if not more so, than the "something" itself.

Dr. Marc lost my confidence early in 2020 when I saw him announce on TV that it certainly would *not* become a pandemic. Kinda makes it hard to determine how consistently he does his homework.