Does it really matter?  Who really cares about the future after we all die?  I personally think that the human race will eventually destroy itself inadvertently.  If it isn’t from nuclear war, then it will probably be from just using all the natural resources that the earth provides for us.  We have an estimated 120 years of oil left.  But that estimation is always changing, always getting smaller.  If oil supplies do run out, we will have others means of fuel for power, but many other resources are on the brink of extinction. This may ultimately be the downfall of the human race.  So if we accept that the human race will eventually become extinct, we also have to realize that we all die. It is almost the same concept.  Every individual will someday die, and therefore the entire species will also. We have to prepare and accept this.

But the entire species dying is not really that significant if you really think about it.  Would you like to be the only one alive if everyone else died?  Probably not.  So then you would ask for death.  But if everyone else lived, you would want to be alive also.  That is why you hear a lot of old people talking about how they aren’t afraid of dying.  Everyone has to do it, so they don’t mind that much; besides, many of their friends have died or are in the process.  Younger people are more afraid of death because it is not really a prevalent thing in their life.  But acceptance of death makes one not care too much about death or extinction as a whole.  If half of the people in the world had to die, a random half, I would not mind being in that half, because I think it would be hard to live through half of my friends dying.  That seems like it would b the general opinion of most, as the human race was coming to an end.  If everyone else is jumping into the fire, why not?

And then there is the other thought:  who really cares?  If everyone dies, or the human race goes on forever, we all individually are going to die.  If I die, it doesn’t matter if everyone else lives or dies or whatever.  My friends will be dying before or soon after me, so I will see them all in heaven or whatever.  It doesn’t matter what happens to all the people I don’t know.  If the entire human race becomes extinct, everyone I know will die too, and that’s really all that matters.  It would not really bother me if everyone in the world died at the same time that I did.  I would not promote to end others lives early, but I am not going to benefit in anyway from alive people when I die. If nobody buries my body, I wont take it personal.

Of course, I don’t condone any worldly destruction that would make other people’s lives worse, but if accidentally we destroy ourselves, it doesn’t really bother me too much.  I’ll be around anyway, and if I die, everyone is pretty much going down with me.  And if I didn’t die and everyone else did, it would just not be optimum.  The question I ask everyone, is should we turn the world over to machines?  Would artificial intelligence eventually create natural life, and get taken over by it?  Then I guess humans may restart many years later.  Its kind of confusing and very unpredictable, but either way, it does not matter to me, because the future will come without us or not.  We are in control of our own destiny, not machines or technology.  Our own greed, carelessness, and stupidity are the only things that can bring about our downfall.

By: Tom Zubrzycki     ZubrzyT@Clemson.edu