"nothing ever happens."

The observation is, humans tend to think that annihilation is inevitable, it hasn't happened yet so therefore it will never be inevitable.

In fact, _anything_ could happen. Past performance does not guarantee future results.

If you need cognitive behavioral therapy, fine.

But to casually cite nuclear holocaust as something people irrationally believed in as a possibility is dishonest. That was (and still is) a real possible outcome.

Whats somewhat funny here is is if youre wrong, it doesnt matter. But that isnt the same as being right.

> Something in our makeup revels in the thought that we'll be the last generation of humans, that the future is gone and everything will come to a crashing stop

And yet there _will_ (eventually) be one generation that is right.

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chrisco255 4 days ago | parent [-]

> And yet there _will_ (eventually) be one generation that is right.

Most likely outcome would be that humans evolve into something altogether different rather than go extinct.

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toss1 4 days ago | parent [-]

The Fermi Paradox might want to have a word here...

Particularly considering the law of large numbers in play where incalculable large chances have so far shown only one sign of technologically-capable life —— ours, and zero signs of any other example of a tech species evolving into something else or even passing the Great Filter.

	▲	chrisco255 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		The Fermi Paradox overestimates the likelihood of intelligent life outside of earth. We haven't even found hard evidence of life anywhere outside of our planet. There's not even a verifiably hospitable planet for water-based lifeforms anywhere within dozens of lightyears from earth. Even if a hospitable planet exists within a range we can one day get to, unless it has the same volcanic properties and makeup as earth, it's most probable that life itself never even developed there. Even where life may have developed, it's incredibly unlikely that sentient intelligence developed. There was never any guarantee that sentience would develop on Earth and about a million unlikely events had to converge in order for that to occur. It's not a natural consequence of evolution, it's an accident of Earth's unique history and several near-extinction level events and drastic climate changes had to occur to make it possible. The "law of large numbers" is nothing when the odds of sentient intelligence developing are so close to zero. If such a thing occurred or occurs in the future at some location other than Earth, it's reasonably likely that it's outside of our own galaxy or so far from us that we will never meet them. The speed of light is a hell of a thing.