Doomsday scenarios: an appraisal

Abstract

Works foretelling the imminent demise of humanity due to resource depletion are reviewed. It is shown that this depletion and the accompanying growth of the human population is a consequence of man’s invention of the machine as an instrument to control and dominate nature. The proposed use of more advanced technologies to restore nature to its pristine state is, therefore, self-contradictory. Mankind is faced with a stark choice: to continue in more or less the same way until the doubtless bitter end; or to work towards creating a new, “thinking” civilization in which machines are wholly subordinate or even nonexistent.