Will modern civilizations lead to the downfall of humans?

You completely misunderstand the process of natural selection if you think that natural selection has stopped. The environment has changed. As a result, the traits that make one "fit" have changed. Different traits are selected for today, but that doesn't mean that natural selection has gone away.

East Africans are still being selected to run faster Marathons than anyone else.

The freckled guardians of the galaxy will unite and awaken their instincts and knowledge to great cosmic truths and prosperities I hope In the meantime, I'm shifting my paradigms and that includes dating. You gotta have stable dreams and feelings for training to not be impacted negatively. Too much social drama is no good, stick with the freckled ones. America, the beautiful, the cradle of handsome children of the sun. Value-added investments--you bet I'm guarding my own freckle portfolio. Wear sunscreen! btw

*humming* "Mother Nature's Song... (Beatles)"

You are right and this is the reason why people from barbarian countries are stronger than civilized people.

Snivilized people undergo civilized selection, not natural selection. The people who tend to survive in snivilized societies are sedentary, fat, and docile. The kind of people who don't rock the boat or say or do much. A snivilized population is a giant pool of mediocre genes.

Barbarian people undergo natural selection. They have to hunt and gather and are not into eating grass, so they have to move around. This requires them to be strong, healthy and aggressive to survive. A barbarian population is a small pool of exceptional genes.

Look how many athletics superstars have come from the longest-snivilized places - Egypt, Iraq, India, Greece, Mesoamerica. Not very many. Barbarian places like Finland and Kenya? Too many to count. Much stronger people.

Some people are okay with this gradual weakening of the population, but the problem with that is snivilizations always collapse. It will be like domesticated animals trying to survive in the wild. Fortunately the third world remains barbarian enough to handle it.

Nonsense.

The (civilised) British SAS, Marines and Paras and the (civilised) US Special Forces, if they were allowed to, would go through the barbarian ISIS like a dose of salts.

They could also make mincemeat of any so-called barbarian forces you care to mention.

In some ways I agree with the OP. We, the Americans in particular have become very large, soft and immobile. Meanwhile Asian countries are constantly building their armies, stressing fitness and competition on sports and science as a status for family, and putting 'shame' on your family for failure. Where is there shame on a family here if your son fails to get into a nice college, and settles for a safety school? It's a totally different atmosphere.

I have made the following statement on several posts: We Americans are becoming increasingly obese in a larger percentage each year, and so, it does not seem unreasonable that in 50 or 60 years, some country can invade our country and too many fat people will be immobile to stand guard.

The military has even softened their approach to get more recruits. soon, the days of boot camp will be gone due to a lawsuit.

Natural selection will be looked at in history books as an ancient way of life and the scenes of fat people on hovers like the movie 'Wallie' will be realistic.

RunninFree wrote:

On my run today I began to wonder about the effects of our civilized lives on the future of the human race. It seems as if we have completely stopped the process of natural selection and thus the beneficial adaptations that can come along with it. We no longer have to worry about the unknown as we are mostly protected from nature and its elements. No longer are the weak at a disadvantage, and no longer are those traits being slowly erased from the population.

Do undeveloped places of the world stand a chance of evolving into a more powerful group over time? Are civilized societies creating a problem for themselves in the long run by not getting rid of the less fit individuals? Maybe I'm crazy, probably am actually, but I was just wondering if anyone else had opinions on this?

You are on the right path, but you are avoiding the obvious and I’m afraid it is simple demography is dooming western civilisation from the onslaught of the low IQ barbarians.

When one see idiots like Bill Gates poring billions into eradicating malaria from Africa - one despairs.

Talk about digging one’s own grave.

Despite our charities regularly having campaigns for ‘starving’ Africans, one observes that despite famine, wars, tribal conflicts and disease, the populations of sub-Saharan countries rise at a far greater pace to any other continent in the world.

According to the latest study, there will be over 4 billion of them by 2100.

And yet even now, there are boats loaded up top the gunwales with black Africans desperate to get across the Mediterranean into Europe - sub-Saharan Africa is a place an awful lot of people want to escape from.

Reminds me of the tale about Ali, after his ‘Rumble in the Jungle,’ back in Sese Seko’s madhouse Zaire.

Muhammad Ali was famously asked: 'Champ, what did you think of Africa?'

To which the Champ replied, 'Thank God my granddaddy got on that boat.'”

And yet, almost all of Africa's population gain can be attributed to Western science, medicine, agriculture, animal husbandry and charity.

(And all we have got in return is AIDS and ebola)

Take that away and the Hobbesian state of nature returns vengefully within a century.

Now we reach your query - you are on the right track - the host is dying.

White Europeans (Americans) to whom we owe our present way of life, are not producing sufficient children to even maintain our current numbers and we will probably be virtually extinct (or killed off) by 2100.

You face a USA with old Whites and young non-Whites - and that is not a recipe for vitality, stability or even maintaining the façade of a civilised society.

Even worse is a Europe with old Whites and young Muslims.

I’m afraid the horrors and slaughters of 21st century will surpass by multiples what happened in the 20th century.

It'll be aliens.

The problem is that we now have the technology for obliteration should a world war break out.

With regard to the effect of civilised lives, there's less incentive to stay fit and healthy. The more problems can be fixed, the less people worry about getting them or taking preventative action.

There will always be changes - lesser developed places gaining more power, other places losing power. The greatest danger is that we will destroy each other and our habitat.

Modern civilization is based on the idea that we need to keep consuming more and more resources to continue being viable. In a world with finite resources, this necessarily means that modern civilization will fail. It's not rocket science. It's not a matter of if, but when.

You Are What You Is wrote:

Modern civilization is based on the idea that we need to keep consuming more and more resources to continue being viable. In a world with finite resources, this necessarily means that modern civilization will fail. It's not rocket science. It's not a matter of if, but when.

It is not at all obvious that this is THE idea, or even AN idea upon which modern civilization is based. It would be more accurate to say that modern civilization is based on the idea that we should continually strive to improve the human condition. Yes, this takes resources but not necessarily increasing levels of resources.

So, no none of this necessarily means that modern civilization will fail (at least not necessarily for MANY millions of years until there become much larger issues such as the Sun expanding, the Universe imploding...).

Life is a process.

Joe Binks wrote:

Nonsense.

The (civilised) British SAS, Marines and Paras and the (civilised) US Special Forces, if they were allowed to, would go through the barbarian ISIS like a dose of salts.

They could also make mincemeat of any so-called barbarian forces you care to mention.

Arguing with Bad W. is like having a discussion with a tree but without the positive aspects such as shade, oxygen and aesthetic considerations.

We find value in our loved ones just by knowing them so we take care of the ones that can't take care of themselves.

We spend a vast amount of resources on the elderly for reasons of compassion and the thought that we will someday be in their shoes.

Physical fitness is certainly not a necessity to thrive.

The downfall will be a climate change, with or without assistance from humans.