Poll: Which Would You Rather See In The Future?

[MHR]

I couldn't give a crap about people's marriages.

I would give a crap about finding aliens.

Not to mention the discovery of a true alien species could spark far more interest in the sciences and space exploration.

Space insects wouldn't cause problems unless they were the locust kind, which is unlikely if we were the ones that went and discovered them. Interest in the sciences, by the very nature of science, would solve many problems.

 

[sweetylnumb]

Anyone who seriously doesn't believe that life exists on other planets is silly. Silly Silly Silly. There are so many other planets in the universe and the odds of there being NO other planet with the conditions to support life is probably somewhere around zero. I'm more interested in how life actually gets there in the first place.

And i don't really give a shit about marriage so neither option really appeals to me :/

 

[davidmc1158_v1legacy]

I'll take the lowered divorce rate assuming it's due to people being happier in their relationships (which seems to be the spirit of the question) because:

need to fix our own problems before we go looking for new ones out in the cosmos

The only problem I have with that attitude (the one in your quote) is that quite often the two choices are NOT mutually exclusive. Indeed, pursuit of one goal often allows for options to be found that aid in the pursuit of other goals. Space exploration has been one of the greatest investments mankind has made for itself. It has allowed for advancements in so many other areas.

OT: Insects as proof of life on other planets? Hell yeah! If we become scientifically advanced enough to find out there is life on other planets, we would probably be so much closer to solving our resource problems here on our home world. Hell, some of those solutions would also probably be driving down that which causes couples to divorce.

 

[Ghadente]

Discovering life on another planet is waaaaaaay more meaningful, than frivolous divorce percentages. lower divorce % doesn't necessarily mean happy marriages either, could just be less couples have the courage to end what isn't working, or just less couples are getting married. In any case, none of that would matter next to discovering other life in the universe. Bigger picture here people... bigger picture.

 

[Saetha]

I picked divorce because of it's larger implications - it's not that I really care if a lot of people get married or divorced or not (Though I would like the divorce rate to go down because people are sobering up and only getting married when they really want it) but because what it's getting at, and what I feel is a very important concern in our society, is that we should hash out our social, non-scientific based problems before really progressing society further, because there's a good chance that technological progression won't fix our problems, but only make them worse (Global warming, resource depletion, and wealth disparity haven't exactly gotten better, even with all the progress we've made)

I can't help but feel that things such as space exploration serves sort of like a delaying tactic: a "Yeah, things might not be so great in our society right now, but I bet it'll all be fixed if we build a colony on Mars!" People turn to scientific progress and claim it makes us more advanced as a species when... really, we're just as dumb and backwards, only now we're dumb and backwards and have laser cannons, too.

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

Proof that insects (or any kind of extraterrestrial life) exists out there. That sounds ultimately more interesting than divorces, which is something I don't care about and think anyone else other than those directly affected shouldn't care about either.

 

[HardkorSB]

I think that divorce is a good thing in general.
If you're fed up with the person you're married to or perhaps over the years you both have changed so much that you're no longer compatible (which happens a lot), it's better to split up than to stay together, don't you think?
I don't find the concept of marriage all that appealing anyway.
Humans would be just fine without it.

Alien life is much more important.

 

[MHR]

^

When my parents got divorced when I was about 9 I didn't give a damn. I thought to myself "they did nothing but argue and shout anyway, this will improve things." And that it did, for my mother and brother and I anyway.

 

[Happiness Assassin]

I thought this would be something along the lines of "would you like jet packs or holo-porn in the future?" but alas it isn't (for full disclosure it is holo-porn).

Well, if I had to choose it would have to be... LIFE ON OTHER PLANETS!!!

Seriously, if all we have to do is sacrifice a lower divorce rates, I will personally insure that 100% of marriages end in divorce. Life on other planets is just too damn important.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Broken options.

Proof of insect life on another planet == Life on other planets. Very exciting find, very little wiggle room in interpretation.

Divorce rate plummet == More marriages are happy and don't seek divorce || Legal process for acquiring divorce is rendered harder, thus lowering the divorce rate by virtue of impracticality alone || Social stigma makes divorce less socially acceptable leading to less pursuing it for fear of vilification || Less people get married leading to lower divorce rates by virtue of divorce not being required for a break up...lots of wiggle room, with many of the possibilities involving unsavory methods for the desired result.


And seriously, what on earth spawned this choice between two very disparate thoughts? And why specify 'insect life' instead of the more general 'life' as used in the OP?

This.

With a little more WTF? for the OP's choices, but mostly this.

Seriously, why make this poll?

 

[Hazy992]

So the choice is between potentially the most exciting scientific discovery of all time, or less people doing a thing that is solely between themselves in the first place? Seems like a bit of a no-brainer to me ¬_¬

Question: Why does the divorce rate matter?
What do other people's marriages have to do with you?

Exactly. It has no bearing on your life whatsoever, so why do you care?

 

[GabeZhul]

As many have pointed out before, why in the nine layers of hell are you bothered by divorce rates to begin with? It's a thing between too consenting adults who are not you and their decision to not be trapped in a failed relationship is their and theirs alone and has exactly nothing to do with anyone outside of said family, let alone a stranger who only sees the statistics.

As for the other option... why insects of all things? Isn't that weirdly specific? 0_o?

 

[Zhukov]

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?

...

What the hell?

Sorry, I'm just a bit flabbergasted by the notion that a low divorce rate of all fucking things is somehow an absolute measure of human happiness.

Just... just... what the fuck? What kind of world do you live in that your vision of a bright future is best embodied by a low divorce rate?

I mean, if it was a choice between finding some dust mites on Mars and bringing about an end to warfare/hunger/scarcity/diseases then sure, I see your point. Clean up our house before making a mess of the neighbourhood, fine.

But lowered divorce? Yeah, y'know, somehow I think the human species can cope with a few signed divorce papers and single parents as we hit the stars.

 

[SmallHatLogan]

I couldn't even begin to give a crap about divorce rates. I have no idea what they are now and if they dropped to 5% I'd probably still have no idea.

 

[Thaluikhain]

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?

...

What the hell?

Sorry, I'm just a bit flabbergasted by the notion that a low divorce rate of all fucking things is somehow an absolute measure of human happiness.

Just... just... what the fuck? What kind of world do you live in that your vision of a bright future is best embodied by a low divorce rate?

I mean, if it was a choice between finding some dust mites on Mars and bringing about an end to warfare/hunger/scarcity/diseases then sure, I see your point. Clean up our house before making a mess of the neighbourhood, fine.

But lowered divorce? Yeah, y'know, somehow I think the human species can cope with a few signed divorce papers and single parents as we hit the stars.

Seconded. Might as well say "everyone prefers their fences to be white and picketed, and bakes pies".

 

[Phasmal]

Question: Why does the divorce rate matter?
What do other people's marriages have to do with you?

Maybe it's nothing to us who childless adults are married to (or not), but plenty of divorces break up families with children and that really is a tragedy, even if it's often a better solution than the adults involved staying in an unhappy relationship. No-one's saying we should force people to stay married but it'd be a worthwhile goal for more parents to want to stay married and give a secure home for their kids until they're grown up.

That said, discovering alien life would be the scientific highlight of my life and so I really can't choose between the two! I wouldn't even mind if they're insect-like, bugs are cool

I dunno, IS is a tragedy every time? Why?
I never got the remotest feeling that my parents splitting up was a tragedy when I was a child, though all the adults around me were falling over themselves to declare it a tragedy that would surely ruin my adult life.
And I'm not alone in that, I know many people whose parents divorced when they were young who don't feel it was particularly tragic.

 

[Pseudonym]

Well, I don't really see why divorces are such horrible things. Sure they suck for the people involved but divorces are the problem of people who divorce and maybe their kids. Nobody else is harmed by divorce in the slightest. I'm all in favour of learning more about the universe we live in and I believe researching that is at least as valuable as fighting poverty, starvation etc. (the two often go hand in hand)

 

[Qwurty2.0]

Question: Why does the divorce rate matter?
What do other people's marriages have to do with you?

Maybe it's nothing to us who childless adults are married to (or not), but plenty of divorces break up families with children and that really is a tragedy, even if it's often a better solution than the adults involved staying in an unhappy relationship. No-one's saying we should force people to stay married but it'd be a worthwhile goal for more parents to want to stay married and give a secure home for their kids until they're grown up.

That said, discovering alien life would be the scientific highlight of my life and so I really can't choose between the two! I wouldn't even mind if they're insect-like, bugs are cool

I dunno, IS is a tragedy every time? Why?
I never got the remotest feeling that my parents splitting up was a tragedy when I was a child, though all the adults around me were falling over themselves to declare it a tragedy that would surely ruin my adult life.
And I'm not alone in that, I know many people whose parents divorced when they were young who don't feel it was particularly tragic.

It's not tragic because deep down they know the divorce was best, but that doesn't mean a good chunk of them wouldn't take the chance to have grown up with a healthy family unit if given the chance. People whose parents divorce young don't usually grasp the gravity of what a divorce really means until they are older, and some of them look to as an exciting time of change and possibly improvement (as I did).

As people get older, they realize that it was a good choice but wish it hadn't been necessary in the first place. That is what the OP is trying to get at: implying the divorce rate drops because people find healthy, happy relationships that stay that way for most of/the rest of their lives.

 

[Foolery]

I went with insects. I don't give a damn about other people's marriages. From a personal standpoint, I wish my parents had split up sooner. It would have spared my siblings and I, a lot of abuse from my father.

 

[Tom_green_day]

I'd rather be happy with someone in a smaller, closed-minded world than be unhappy and single while knowing that some creepy-crawlies were having fun elsewhere.