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View Full Version : Where do you think we'll be in 1000 years?



danzibr
2012-03-16, 09:38 PM
And really, there's nothing special about the number 1000.

I was talking to my brother the other day and we were pondering whether the world is becoming a better place or not. I think yes and he thinks no. It may not be a continual increase, maybe two steps forward and one step back, but I think overall we're going forward as a race.

So in 1000 years do you think poverty will be nearly ended? Life better as a whole? Worldwide, or only in first-world countries?

Or maybe the world's ended by then (hey, it's not even 2013 yet)? Perhaps we got wiped out by a solar flare or meteor or something, or maybe we wiped ourselves out, or maybe we've reduced our society back to tribal stuff through war.

How about if we change the number? 500 years, 2000 years?

An Enemy Spy
2012-03-16, 09:41 PM
Technology changes. Human nature doesn't. Poverty will never be wiped out because the people on top will always find a way to keep the people on bottom from rising to their level. If everyone has wealth, you have less power.

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll
2012-03-16, 09:43 PM
We'll be dead.

OH YOU MEANT HUMANITY AS A WHOLE.

We'll be dead.

danzibr
2012-03-16, 09:47 PM
We'll be dead.

OH YOU MEANT HUMANITY AS A WHOLE.

We'll be dead.
Dang you beat me to it. I was about to write an edit saying something like, "*prepares for obligatory we'll be dead line*".

LaZodiac
2012-03-16, 09:57 PM
Really, that's too vague a question. In all honesty I imagine we'll just be the same as we are now. People will still be people, tech will still be tech. It may become fancier, but I doubt we're becoming the Jettsons in a mere 1000 years.

An Enemy Spy
2012-03-16, 10:05 PM
Really, that's too vague a question. In all honesty I imagine we'll just be the same as we are now. People will still be people, tech will still be tech. It may become fancier, but I doubt we're becoming the Jettsons in a mere 1000 years.

You do realize that a thousand years ago, we still thought the Earth was the center of the universe, basic healthcare meant wearing flowers because good smells warded off disease, and you could tell if someone was a witch because they could swim, right? Look ow far we've advanced in just one century, and the rate of advancement is growing.

LaZodiac
2012-03-16, 10:16 PM
You do realize that a thousand years ago, we still thought the Earth was the center of the universe, basic healthcare meant wearing flowers because good smells warded off disease, and you could tell if someone was a witch because they could swim, right? Look ow far we've advanced in just one century, and the rate of advancement is growing.

I blame the dark ages for that. The intentional holding back of tech can lead to sudden leaps once it's no longer held back.

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll
2012-03-16, 10:20 PM
Hardly the INTENTIONAL holding back of technology. When great empires fall, the knowledge of the great empire falls with it, or flees elsewhere. Besides, things weren't quite so bad as people generally think. It's just a DIFFERENT set of problems than the ones we have today. Not necessarily that many more, that much worse.

I blame the Victorians for trying to portray EVERYONE who wasn't them, whether in a different culture or in a different time, as savages.

Luka
2012-03-16, 10:25 PM
In 1000 years we'll be flipping off thermodynamics and using bullets in wars, solidified laser-magnetically-electrically charged-antimatter payload bullets.

We'll also know what does 42 really answer

Lord Raziere
2012-03-16, 10:29 PM
actually, it was only a dark age in Europe. The rest of the world was doing just fine.

during this European "dark age" the middle east meanwhile was creating an empire bigger than the roman one, using the same knowledge, and furthermore reaching out to distant civilizations in Asia, and was more multicultural than rome.

also, said middle eastern empire had the guy that invented the zero. and other stuff….like the printing press.

and I can't even remember its name. what kind of history nerd am I? I am a disgrace to my own interests! :smallfrown:

An Enemy Spy
2012-03-16, 10:31 PM
actually, it was only a dark age in Europe. The rest of the world was doing just fine.

during this European "dark age" the middle east meanwhile was creating an empire bigger than the roman one, using the same knowledge, and furthermore reaching out to distant civilizations in Asia, and was more multicultural than rome.

also, said middle eastern empire had the guy that invented the zero. and other stuff….like the printing press.

and I can't even remember its name. what kind of history nerd am I? I am a disgrace to my own interests! :smallfrown:

Was that the Byzantine Empire?

erikun
2012-03-16, 10:39 PM
You do realize that a thousand years ago, we still thought the Earth was the center of the universe, basic healthcare meant wearing flowers because good smells warded off disease, and you could tell if someone was a witch because they could swim, right? Look ow far we've advanced in just one century, and the rate of advancement is growing.
We've been aware that the earth is round since 300 BC, possibly as early as 500 BC. That's 2500 years ago; people in the dark ages were quite aware that the earth was round. A dark-ages layman might not have known that, but that's like a person who could not point out Africa on a map; due to lack of education, not general ignorance.


As for the question though, it is really hard to tell. Human civilization is only around 10,000 years old, so the amount of change you'd see in one thousand years is huge. I can only assume that if we haven't killed ourselves or driven ourselves into the stone age through resource consumption, that we'll have space travel available and pretty much personal-demand manufacturing for whatever we could think up.

It would be hard to tell what new innovations will appear that would be incorporated into our lives - 30 years ago, everyone thought that computers would be large dumb machines that would take up entire wallspaces. 30 years before that, the idea of typewriters controlling things would be the ramblings of a madman.

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll
2012-03-16, 11:13 PM
actually, it was only a dark age in Europe. The rest of the world was doing just fine.

during this European "dark age" the middle east meanwhile was creating an empire bigger than the roman one, using the same knowledge, and furthermore reaching out to distant civilizations in Asia, and was more multicultural than rome.

also, said middle eastern empire had the guy that invented the zero. and other stuff….like the printing press.

and I can't even remember its name. what kind of history nerd am I? I am a disgrace to my own interests! :smallfrown:

The Caliphate, aye. Muslim civilization really was something special, up until the Mongols came. Well, it was on the decline by then, but still. The Turks weren't as progressive as the Arabs were, but it's still one helluva civilization!

If I had to live anywhere in the middle ages, I'd want to live in Egypt.

Elemental
2012-03-16, 11:32 PM
Everyone forgets the mathematical accomplishments of medieval India.
I mean... They came up with the sine ratio!
Plus, they came up with a number of scientific theories before the Europeans, but we've all decided to forget about them for some reason...

Lord Raziere
2012-03-16, 11:51 PM
Was that the Byzantine Empire?

Nope. Byzantine was in slow decline. It held for quite a while, but it eventually lost land to the Caliphate and other European nations, probably during the Crusades.

Caliphate was where it was at. At the height of its power, it controlled Spain.

@ Elemental: yea….look closely enough and the history of the world is basically a long list of people stealing ideas from other people who stole other peoples ideas. a prime example of this is written language. the only two original languages in the world are cuneiform and whatever ancient native american civilization thought up a few thousand years later. All else is copied and mutated.

An Enemy Spy
2012-03-16, 11:55 PM
We've been aware that the earth is round since 300 BC, possibly as early as 500 BC. That's 2500 years ago; people in the dark ages were quite aware that the earth was round. A dark-ages layman might not have known that, but that's like a person who could not point out Africa on a map; due to lack of education, not general ignorance.


I'm sorry, did I say people thought the earth was flat? Because I certainly don't remember saying that. In fact, I said nothing even close to that. If your going to argue with somebody, at the very least make sure you remember what their point was.

erikun
2012-03-16, 11:58 PM
I'm sorry, did I say people thought the earth was flat? Because I certainly don't remember saying that. In fact, I said nothing even close to that. If your going to argue with somebody, at the very least make sure you remember what their point was.
Aha, whoops. Sorry about that.

Starscream
2012-03-17, 12:26 AM
It will turn out that Futurama is a 100% accurate portrayal of things to come. All glory to the hypnotoad.

Mercenary Pen
2012-03-17, 07:30 AM
It will turn out that Futurama is a 100% accurate portrayal of things to come. All glory to the hypnotoad.

Mr. Flibble (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKHLOo1WgDQ) is very upset that you think Futurama will be accurate- the truth is that Red Dwarf is the more accurate portrayal.

Edit: Wrong link.

Elemental
2012-03-17, 07:42 AM
Mr. Flibble (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObSZR83bx8Q) is very upset that you think Futurama will be accurate- the truth is that Red Dwarf is the more accurate portrayal.

Nonsense. The likely result is that science will invent a method generating nigh infinite amounts of energy, and as such, society will grow completely complacent as everything is provided to us with a high degree of efficiency.
And then, something happens that causes the collapse of this system, and billions starve and there's fighting in the streets. Society rapidly falls apart and society is reduced to something similar to Paranoia as the powerful AIs that run the machinery are damaged by lack of effective maintenance and turn insane.
The AIs, of course, care more the survival of civilisation as a whole, so turn a blind eye to individual concerns, such as disease and crime. However, they do not trust anyone to approach them in order to effect repairs, and as such, they break down one by one after centuries. What's left of the global infrastructure effectively breaks down at this point and the power generation facilities overload without proper supervision.
Humankind is left to rebuild among the ruins, and all knowledge of science is deemed heretical, and the period prior to the invention of the computer is viewed as an idyllic golden age.

But then again, that's highly pessimistic... Therefore, I declare that they will have invented an effective arthritis cream and glasses that don't get smudged.

shawnhcorey
2012-03-17, 08:01 AM
We'll also know what does 42 really answer

We already know that: How many angels can dance on a head of a pin? :smallwink:

Elemental
2012-03-17, 09:10 AM
We already know that: How many angels can dance on a head of a pin? :smallwink:

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that they calculated that as forty-two-point-eight-six. But where would you find point-eight-six of an angel?

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll
2012-03-17, 11:12 AM
a prime example of this is written language. the only two original languages in the world are cuneiform and whatever ancient native american civilization thought up a few thousand years later. All else is copied and mutated.

Well, there's Chinese writing and Sumerian cuneiform, which are completely separate. So, 3. But other than that, you're right.

Elemental
2012-03-17, 11:18 AM
We could list more completely separate scripts, but I can't really be bothered to think of any, except for Easter Island Script, whatever the name for that is.

Edit: Oh, and maybe Linear A and B, but probably not because the Minoans were avid seafarers.
And the Scandinavians liked to trade so they probably borrowed the general idea behind runes from someone else.
Never mind, can't think of any more.

noparlpf
2012-03-17, 11:19 AM
I don't know about you, but I know I'll be spread throughout the planet, if not further. Considering I'm only not-quite-eighteen and there are bits of me all over the place already, once I'm actually dead and fully decayed, I expect to be all over the place.

Madara
2012-03-17, 12:23 PM
We'll be dead.

OH YOU MEANT HUMANITY AS A WHOLE.

We'll be dead.

This, definitely. I won't go into politics or any such thing, but this. Total world population won't continue to climb with less families, and those families only have 2 children.

I just hope we last a few hundred years more, enough to invent something cool like teleportation.

Elemental
2012-03-17, 12:31 PM
I for one, can't wake for sturdier umbrellas.
And cheaply extracted titanium. Seriously, that stuff is everywhere. It's more common than copper!

Traab
2012-03-17, 01:06 PM
We already know that: How many angels can dance on a head of a pin? :smallwink:

No, no, no, Its, "How many roads, must a man walk down?"

Raddish
2012-03-17, 03:42 PM
We will still be asking "Where do you think we'll be in 1000 years?"

shawnhcorey
2012-03-17, 04:43 PM
We will still be asking "Where do you think we'll be in 1000 years?"

time += 1000y;
location = query.where( humans );
print location;

Dr.Epic
2012-03-18, 07:27 PM
I think the apes will take us over, then the monkeys will take over the apes. Can you imagine it? A bizarre world where apes are enslaved to monkeys.:smalleek:

Ravens_cry
2012-03-18, 09:28 PM
I've often said that predictions tell more about the predictor than they necessarily will tell about the future itself.
For when someone makes a prediction, they expose their hopes, their fears, their optimism, their pessimism.
That being said, I hope we have expanded into the solar system, if resource wise if nothing else, and perhaps even sent a probe or two to the nearer stars. I wonder what discoveries the explorers of the next thousand years will make?
I hope we have discovered life on other worlds and maybe even other minds by then, though I doubt we will have met in person.
I don't think we will have changed much fundamentally, what makes us human, both our flaws and our strengths, I think will still be pretty much the same.
Culturally? Who knows?
I wonder what language spoken now, if any, will be the progenitor of the most common tongue of those years.
I doubt it will be Mandarin.
Despite a large number of users, it really hasn't spread much beyond its national borders.
Perhaps some form of some East Indian language?
Of course, if electronic translators are perfected, which they may very well be on the way to being, the days of a lingua franca may be over.
Technologically, I couldn't even dream.
Nuclear power, Genetic Engineering, Nanotechnology, all could seem as quaint and as cute as steam enthusiasts. or flint knapping.
A fascinating relic of the past that has become a hobby.
From a scientific viewpoint. I think we will have seen a few new moves on the chess board by then that will overturn previously conceived notions of space and time and even the universe itself, but what those moves will be? No idea.
I hope we find a way to beat Einstein.
No one deserves a throne of over a thousand years, though those laws look pretty solid so far.
But then, so did Newton until Mercury showed signs of not moving as predicted.

Elemental
2012-03-18, 10:14 PM
Removed for length.

I too hope that we will grow beyond the Earth and discover things that help us better understand the Universe.
I particularly hope that in future centuries, technology will have progressed to the point where the beauty of nature can be preserved for all time.

Coidzor
2012-03-18, 10:28 PM
Hmm... Might finally have some rough equality between races and sexes in that much time.

If we're really lucky, someone will have found a way to clear up low earth orbit.

If my knowledge of current trends is correct and those trends hold out, we'll be capable of making houses that power themselves, are properly insulated so that they retain heat in the winter and don't become ovens in the summer, and don't even need to have electrical wiring, which would theoretically greatly reduce the number of house fires.

Hopefully game design will even be understood by that point by the people who do it for a living.

CGforever!
2012-03-18, 10:50 PM
One thing that always kinda bothers me about this kind of discussion is the sentence "Human nature doesn't change."

It can change.

Humans act the way we do because of the way our brains are. We have (or soon will have) the means to change our brains, either directly through methods like genetic engineering (or even more directly through surgery or implanting stuff), or indirectly through controlling our environment. You might be surprised the effect your environment has on your brain development.

Physically, the only thing keeping you from being a baby-eating psychopath is a tiny lump of brain tissue. Take that out and suddenly every single thing besides yourself becomes an object that exists solely for your pleasure and amusement.

In a 1000 years, me might be unrecognizably different, both in mind and body, from what we are today. We might not even have "bodies".

If Vinge's singularity happens, the future will be unrecognizable. If it doesn't, well, just imagine being a person from 1012 who gets transported to 2012.

AsteriskAmp
2012-03-18, 10:56 PM
SERN will discover time travel and start a dystopia.

On a more serious note:

We'll have reached the technological singularity.
We'll have discovered some form of tachyon and ways to abuse it to hell and back.
We'll find a way to artificially stimulate the brain without tons of wiring and electrodes.
We'll make chambers for that.
Humanity will depend on those and eventually stop living outside all together.
Humanity extinguishes.

SaintRidley
2012-03-19, 12:54 AM
Extinct or well on our way to it.

Either that or we'll have proved our worth by actually becoming an exception to the Fermi paradox.

I hope for the latter.





Nonsense. The likely result is that science will invent a method generating nigh infinite amounts of energy, and as such, society will grow completely complacent as everything is provided to us with a high degree of efficiency.
And then, something happens that causes the collapse of this system, and billions starve and there's fighting in the streets. Society rapidly falls apart and society is reduced to something similar to Paranoia as the powerful AIs that run the machinery are damaged by lack of effective maintenance and turn insane.
The AIs, of course, care more the survival of civilisation as a whole, so turn a blind eye to individual concerns, such as disease and crime. However, they do not trust anyone to approach them in order to effect repairs, and as such, they break down one by one after centuries. What's left of the global infrastructure effectively breaks down at this point and the power generation facilities overload without proper supervision.
Humankind is left to rebuild among the ruins, and all knowledge of science is deemed heretical, and the period prior to the invention of the computer is viewed as an idyllic golden age.


So... The Butlerian Jihad?

Elemental
2012-03-19, 01:02 AM
Perhaps people who discuss these kinds of matters will be less pessimistic and cynical?
...
...
Sorry, couldn't help it.

I for one, don't believe that we'll wreck everything so much we as a species will die out. Or at least, not all of us. The Andaman Islanders have been fine on their own for about sixty-thousand years. They won't notice the passing of the rest of humanity, and neither will similar highly isolated communities.

Coidzor
2012-03-19, 01:13 AM
There'll be a Twilight. For Everything. (http://www.sorceress-orc.com/2011/04/27/chapter-1-3/)

Ravens_cry
2012-03-19, 09:56 AM
I too hope that we will grow beyond the Earth and discover things that help us better understand the Universe.
I particularly hope that in future centuries, technology will have progressed to the point where the beauty of nature can be preserved for all time.
Indeed. I call that , the "Final trick".
I love the beauty and wonder of nature, yet given the immense good technology and science has given us, I refuse to be any kind of Luddite either.
If we can do both, be both a technologically sophisticated culture yet also one that preserves and encourages the wonders of the natural world, that would make me very happy.

danzibr
2012-03-19, 12:19 PM
[...]
Interesting, interesting. In particular (at least, to me) the language and nanotechnology bits. I really wonder if some form of English will be #1. Right now other countries are interested in learning it (at least from what I've experienced), but who knows if that will last?

This reminds me of an interview I saw once. Some tech guy was talking about how someday he thinks our iPad/iPhone/laptop/whatever will be the size of a contact lens. We just put it in our eye and can make calls and do whatever we wish (well, so to speak).

Ravens_cry
2012-03-19, 12:49 PM
I always found that a little silly as a mass market item on the level of smart phones.
Oh, I can see it having uses, but you can turn off a a cell phone with the push of a button, while removing a contact lens is an involved process not to be done while driving.
It could even be used as a murder weapon. Hack their 'eye' to putting an opaque, or even just really distracting, image while they are driving, just at a critical point ,like a sharp curve on a cliff side highway.
Balm, over the edge, with little if any evidence of foul play.
It would literally look like an accident.
Slightly less sinister is the spam possibilities. And you thought spam texting and pop-ups were annoying.

Trekkin
2012-03-19, 07:25 PM
Dead from the combination of climate change and the collapse of all our sources of energy.

I just can't see it any other way, as much as it bothers me.

Truth be told, I can't imagine us as a species lasting another hundred years, yet alone another thousand.

warty goblin
2012-03-19, 07:33 PM
Dead from the combination of climate change and the collapse of all our sources of energy.

I just can't see it any other way, as much as it bothers me.

Truth be told, I can't imagine us as a species lasting another hundred years, yet alone another thousand.

I suspect the species will last. I seriously wonder about anything more advanced than mid-iron age technology though. Lots of civilizations have burned through their natural resources and collapsed before, the only difference now is that the fall will be larger, and cover much, much more of the globe.

Fortunately this is not inevitable, and with the proper technological and societal developments now it's not impossible to avert.

Ravens_cry
2012-03-19, 07:49 PM
There is still the sun, and will be almost certainly for magnatudes longer than 1000 years, and if we ever figure out controlled fusion, there's a lot potential energy there, and if not, breeder reactors could make what we call nuclear waste back into fuel.
And, if we get desperate enough and if our space capability and infrastructure improves enough, there is always the rest of the solar system.

Traab
2012-03-19, 08:08 PM
They say necessity is the mother of invention, so imo, when the day finally comes that the oil wells all run dry, (not that I expect it to happen in my lifetime) and we are running off our combined reserves, we will finally get around to creating a real alternative to fossil fuels. Well, assuming the world doesnt dissolve into war as we invade each other to try and claim each others reserve supply. Which it probably will to a certain extent. But after that whoever is left will work on creating a new fuel alternative and figure it out.

Mauve Shirt
2012-03-19, 08:09 PM
"I don't know, but I hope the Trololololo video is still popular!" - my mother

Lord Raziere
2012-03-19, 08:10 PM
Indeed. I call that , the "Final trick".
I love the beauty and wonder of nature, yet given the immense good technology and science has given us, I refuse to be any kind of Luddite either.
If we can do both, be both a technologically sophisticated culture yet also one that preserves and encourages the wonders of the natural world, that would make me very happy.

Our only worry then will be making sure we don't turn into elves once we encounter less advanced races, if they exist.

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll
2012-03-19, 08:16 PM
"I don't know, but I hope the Trololololo video is still popular!" - my mother

Your mother is awesome.

Traab
2012-03-19, 08:26 PM
Our only worry then will be making sure we don't turn into elves once we encounter less advanced races, if they exist.

Id be more worried about becoming that race on stargate that takes over worlds via biological weapons then turns them into farm planets. Basically wiping out whoever used to live there and forcing the remnants to produce their resources for our consumption. Im trying to think of the name but I cant.

Ravens_cry
2012-03-19, 08:41 PM
If we need extra farming space, some variant of an O'Neill cylinder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_Three)would probably be more efficient than doing something that evil.

Traab
2012-03-19, 08:56 PM
If we need extra farming space, some variant of an O'Neill cylinder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_Three)would probably be more efficient than doing something that evil.

I dunno, turning an entire planet into a large farm/mining colony seems like it would be pretty simple overall. After all, we would still have to take care of those oneil cylinders ourselves, and it would only produce food, whereas the worlds we take over would produce massive amounts of food and mineral deposits. Oh sure we would be evil monsters, but we would be evil monsters with a buttload of supplies constantly pouring in. ASCHEN! (http://www.gateworld.net/omnipedia/races/a/aschen.shtml) Thats the one I was thinking of.

Ravens_cry
2012-03-19, 09:05 PM
Why take minerals from the bottom of a deep gravity well when asteroids and comets can provide both that and the CHON (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHON) for the O'Neill Farms for far less Delta-V.
No matter how cheap space travel gets, deep gravity wells, especially with atmospheres, are more costly to transit than shallower ones.
Also, we will have complete control over the climate conditions on the O'Neills, while I personally doubt we will find life bearing planets that are so exactly like Earth that we can just dump some seeds and raise a crop, which basically means terraforming the places. That's a pretty insane under taking in it's own right and will, even with advanced technology, likely take centuries or more.

warty goblin
2012-03-19, 09:42 PM
Why take minerals from the bottom of a deep gravity well when asteroids and comets can provide both that and the CHON (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHON) for the O'Neill Farms for far less Delta-V.
No matter how cheap space travel gets, deep gravity wells, especially with atmospheres, are more costly to transit than shallower ones.
Also, we will have complete control over the climate conditions on the O'Neills, while I personally doubt we will find life bearing planets that are so exactly like Earth that we can just dump some seeds and raise a crop, which basically means terraforming the places. That's a pretty insane under taking in it's own right and will, even with advanced technology, likely take centuries or more.

The entire question strikes me as fairly irrelevant. Space is too damn big and too damn inhospitable. Nobody is going anywhere.

Dr.Epic
2012-03-19, 09:44 PM
Can you imagine it?:smalleek:

"Get you hands off me you damn dirty monkey!"

How bizarre!:smalleek:

Ravens_cry
2012-03-19, 09:47 PM
The entire question strikes me as fairly irrelevant. Space is too damn big and too damn inhospitable. Nobody is going anywhere.
I fear this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12859620&postcount=266), but I do not hope for it.
I don't want us to be wiped out, Mind wiped out, Life wiped out, because some asteroid or comet thought a permanent vacation Earthside looked inviting.

Coidzor
2012-03-19, 09:52 PM
The entire question strikes me as fairly irrelevant. Space is too damn big and too damn inhospitable. Nobody is going anywhere.

Unless one subscribes to the belief that human immortality is going to come within one's life time and that one will be part of the group that gets it, yes, any and every question about the future beyond our deaths is irrelevant.

Did you have some kind of actual point or were you just annoyed at seeing pessimism below quota? :smalltongue:

warty goblin
2012-03-19, 10:33 PM
I fear this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12859620&postcount=266), but I do not hope for it.
I don't want us to be wiped out, Mind wiped out, Life wiped out, because some asteroid or comet thought a permanent vacation Earthside looked inviting.

That seems both incredibly meledromatic, and solvable with a much more feasible sort of space capacity. Bumping an asteroid into a different orbit is a vastly more practical solution to extinction level impacts than colonizing other solar systems, in roughly the same sense that 1 is a smaller number than ten million.


Unless one subscribes to the belief that human immortality is going to come within one's life time and that one will be part of the group that gets it, yes, any and every question about the future beyond our deaths is irrelevant.

Did you have some kind of actual point or were you just annoyed at seeing pessimism below quota? :smalltongue:

No, that really doesn't follow from what I said. My case is that space travel, particularly of the interstellar colonization variety, is impractical to the point of being irrelevant when it comes to thinking about the future of the species, not that thinking about the future of the species beyond one's own death is meaningless. That is far, far more pessimistic than my observation.

Ravens_cry
2012-03-19, 10:43 PM
That seems both incredibly meledromatic, and solvable with a much more feasible sort of space capacity. Bumping an asteroid into a different orbit is a vastly more practical solution to extinction level impacts than colonizing other solar systems, in roughly the same sense that 1 is a smaller number than ten million.
Comet or asteroid, nuclear war, biological disaster, unknown technological or natural nightmare, take your pick.
The post you originally quoted was laying down alternatives to going all genocidal other Minds and wiping out ecosystems in the event we need more food growing area.
I do hope we expand out of the solar system eventually, if not in a thousand years, as, in a long, long time, this solar system is doomed.
I sincerely hope we live to see it.

Traab
2012-03-19, 11:02 PM
Comet or asteroid, nuclear war, biological disaster, unknown technological or natural nightmare, take your pick.
The post you originally quoted was laying down alternatives to going all genocidal other Minds and wiping out ecosystems in the event we need more food growing area.
I do hope we expand out of the solar system eventually, if not in a thousand years, as, in a long, long time, this solar system is doomed.
I sincerely hope we live to see it.

The obvious solution is to build super turbines which we shall place in that big red hurricane on jupiter. Those turbines will produce enough power to fuel the world. In fact, we could produce millions of turbines and fit them there, as well as on other worlds with near permanent storms. Now that I figured out the hard part, how to produce unlimited energy, you guys take the easy bit and figure out how we transport it back to earth. Im thinking really really long wires.

Ravens_cry
2012-03-19, 11:12 PM
@Traab:
Well, one could always take the idea from orbiting solar power stations and beam it via microwaves, though my sarcasm sensor tells me you are likely less than serious.

Elemental
2012-03-19, 11:14 PM
The obvious solution is to build super turbines which we shall place in that big red hurricane on jupiter. Those turbines will produce enough power to fuel the world. In fact, we could produce millions of turbines and fit them there, as well as on other worlds with near permanent storms. Now that I figured out the hard part, how to produce unlimited energy, you guys take the easy bit and figure out how we transport it back to earth. Im thinking really really long wires.

Or lasers. Lasers could work.

But the whole thing is impractical. There is no way we could engineer something to survive in the atmospheric conditions of Jupiter.
They're just too harsh.

Ravens_cry
2012-03-19, 11:24 PM
Or lasers. Lasers could work.

But the whole thing is impractical. There is no way we could engineer something to survive in the atmospheric conditions of Jupiter.
They're just too harsh.
The radiation conditions aren't exactly friendly to electronics either.

Elemental
2012-03-20, 12:33 AM
Indeed. The physical conditions of Jupiter probably make it the second most harsh place in the entire solar system except for the sun.

Traab
2012-03-20, 05:31 AM
Indeed. The physical conditions of Jupiter probably make it the second most harsh place in the entire solar system except for the sun.

Ah! You know about phase 2? Coat the entire surface of mercury in solar panels and wait for the good old electricity to start rolling in. I figure a little asbestos lining should do fine for heat insulation, and its not like there is anyone on mercury to get poisoned by the stuff.

(Seriously though, I have no idea if being on a closer planet would effect the amount of solar energy converted or not, ignoring the logistics of creating panels that would survive there)

As for ravens, why beam it anywhere? Use them as interplanetary refueling stations. Once we figure out how to translate the energy produced into an effective engine for spaceships, we could use those solar stations to act as recharging areas so our bigger ships wouldnt have to return to earth. Perhaps as a start they could work as a pony express style of travel. Ships working in relays from station to station to get to wherever you want to go, and recharging while they wait.

Elemental
2012-03-20, 05:39 AM
Ah! You know about phase 2? Coat the entire surface of mercury in solar panels and wait for the good old electricity to start rolling in. I figure a little asbestos lining should do fine for heat insulation, and its not like there is anyone on mercury to get poisoned by the stuff.

(Seriously though, I have no idea if being on a closer planet would effect the amount of solar energy converted or not, ignoring the logistics of creating panels that would survive there)

As for ravens, why beam it anywhere? Use them as interplanetary refueling stations. Once we figure out how to translate the energy produced into an effective engine for spaceships, we could use those solar stations to act as recharging areas so our bigger ships wouldnt have to return to earth. Perhaps as a start they could work as a pony express style of travel. Ships working in relays from station to station to get to wherever you want to go, and recharging while they wait.

It does indeed increase the amount of energy produced, due to simple fact that sunlight is a lot stronger on Mercury. The planet also has very little atmosphere, which is useful too.

The ultimate advantage of being able to transmit the power to any place in the solar system, is that we don't have to risk the difficulties of going to Mercury for energy. You could recharge a ship mid flight, provided there's a direct line of sight between the transmitter and the receiver.
It is difficult to get into orbit around Mercury after all. And then there's all the charged particles and the possibility of solar flares...
It would be just so much easier if we beamed the power to where it's needed.

Actually, we wouldn't even need to put the solar panels on Mercury. You can already get forty-something times as much energy by putting them in orbit around the Earth.

Traab
2012-03-20, 05:44 AM
It does indeed increase the amount of energy produced, due to simple fact that sunlight is a lot stronger on Mercury. The planet also has very little atmosphere, which is useful too.

The ultimate advantage of being able to transmit the power to any place in the solar system, is that we don't have to risk the difficulties of going to Mercury for energy. You could recharge a ship mid flight, provided there's a direct line of sight between the transmitter and the receiver.
It is difficult to get into orbit around Mercury after all. And then there's all the charged particles and the possibility of solar flares...
It would be just so much easier if we beamed the power to where it's needed.

Actually, we wouldn't even need to put the solar panels on Mercury. You can already get forty-something times as much energy by putting them in orbit around the Earth.

The problem with that would be setting them up in such a way that they arent colliding with the obscene amount of space trash and satellites already around earth in orbit.

Elemental
2012-03-20, 05:48 AM
The problem with that would be setting them up in such a way that they arent colliding with the obscene amount of space trash and satellites already around earth in orbit.

Easily solved by the simple expedient of putting them in a really high orbit.
The added advantage of that is they spend more time out of the Earth's shadow.

polity4life
2012-03-20, 06:53 AM
Ideally, we will figure out how to convert ourselves into some odd form of sentient energy.

Realistically, we will be severely suffering from never achieving the goal of removing all possibilities of a Malthusian catastrophe.

Traab
2012-03-20, 07:02 AM
Ideally, we will figure out how to convert ourselves into some odd form of sentient energy.

Realistically, we will be severely suffering from never achieving the goal of removing all possibilities of a Malthusian catastrophe.

Those of us who evolve into energy shall be locked into machines to generate power for those of us who haven't.

Skeppio
2012-03-20, 07:09 AM
1000 years, huh?

Yep, I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for Futurama to become reality. :smallamused:

Traab
2012-03-20, 08:39 AM
1000 years, huh?

Yep, I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for Futurama to become reality. :smallamused:

Doesnt that involve two alien invasions obliterating civilization before that time frame?

pendell
2012-03-20, 09:05 AM
Sorry to come to this late ...

Where will we be in 1000 years? Well, if we are spared, this is the quote that comes to mind ...

""If man survives for as long as the least successful of the dinosaurs – those creatures whom we often deride as nature's failures – then we may be certain of this: for all but a vanishingly brief instant near the dawn of history, the word 'ship' will mean – 'spaceship'." – Arthur C Clarke

I do not believe we will solve the population curve. Therefore, we require more resources. This will mean expanding to the ocean floor and to the skies. Maybe we won't have interstellar travel, but we can live in the solar system. Mine comets for water, solar energy from the sun, minerals from the asteroids and the rings of saturn. Bacteria from earth to create soil, and we have a million cities in and throughout the solar system.

Yes, space is cold and inhospitable. But when people are desperate enough people will do what needs doing to survive. People live in Antartica and Scandinavia and Iceland. When there's enough impetus, people do what needs doing.

And of course one way or another the people in a thousand years will not call themselves by the names we have today. We humans have an inborn self-destructive streak. That's why few civilizations last for very long, and those that have -- Egypt and China -- have fallen and been rebuilt on the ruins. Time and again, human beings believe they have achieved the perfect society and they can now ignore both the physical laws and the laws of human nature. Time and again, the laws of nature catch up with us and another civilization falls to rack and ruin. The survivors build on the ruins. It is a pattern we have followed again and again and again, which is why there is such a thing as a 'Tel' in the Middle east. Ruins upon ruins of cities, which time and again rose and fell and rose again.

Doubtless the humans of the year 3000 will see the remains of our civilization and scoff at us for stupid primitives. They will look at our scientific ideas and laugh. They will probably also condemn us for our morals because our idea and way of life don't meet up with their idea of what is good and right. Perhaps, like the Marxists of the 20th century, they will have some new "theory" of understanding the way the world works and will write new histories where all the events of our era are explained through some new theoretical lens that we never heard of or cared about.

But they will certainly laugh at us, for we will be the old-time people who knew and understood nothing while *they* are the modern, the new, the elite, the ones who have all knowledge and encompass all destinies. And so they too will go to their end as the cycle continues.

I believe this cycle has continued and will continue until humans are either all dead or are all -- transformed? transfigured ? -- such that they are not recognizable as what we would consider human.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Ravens_cry
2012-03-20, 12:37 PM
Indeed. The physical conditions of Jupiter probably make it the second most harsh place in the entire solar system except for the sun.
Well, the surface of Io or Venus are probably worse than Jupiter, Io being Jupiter plus molten sulphur hell.
But yes, it's not exactly fun times for the body electronica.

Caledonian
2012-03-20, 04:14 PM
A thousand years from now? One way or another, I don't think there will be any humans extant then.

I make no predictions about the specific cause.

If there *are* still humans, I think there will be very few of them (millions at most) and they'll have reverted to what we would consider a basic level of technology. Rudimentary farming, hunting, and gathering.

Xondoure
2012-03-21, 02:28 AM
Out of curiosity, how are so many people convinced that in a thousand years 7 billion + creatures will have been completely wiped out? Yes things go extinct. Yes, even very successful things go extinct. But barring some truly bizarre circumstances humanity will not vanish over night, or in the next thousand years. Quite possibly the next million, and almost definitely the next hundred million, but a thousand is less than nothing on this sort of scale.

pendell
2012-03-21, 07:50 AM
Out of curiosity, how are so many people convinced that in a thousand years 7 billion + creatures will have been completely wiped out? Yes things go extinct. Yes, even very successful things go extinct. But barring some truly bizarre circumstances humanity will not vanish over night, or in the next thousand years. Quite possibly the next million, and almost definitely the next hundred million, but a thousand is less than nothing on this sort of scale.

Not I. Realistically, humans are as hard to kill as cockroaches and sewer rats. We may not continue to have a civilization on our current level but I don't see humans going extinct unless the entire planet gets swallowed by the sun or something like that. Even then, only perhaps. We're a very adaptable species.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Alchemistmerlin
2012-03-21, 11:04 AM
Gone, wiped out. Leaving behind nothing but dust and radiation to indicate our time here.

Boom.

Ravens_cry
2012-03-21, 11:16 AM
Gone, wiped out. Leaving behind nothing but dust and radiation to indicate our time here.

Boom.
You've forgotten we are a space exploring species, in however limited a way. High orbiting satellites, the descent stages of the Apollo lunar modules and the LRV, the unmanned landers and rovers, the solar orbit satellites, Pioneer 10 and 11, Voyager 1 & 2, even if we erased all trace of humanity from the Earth, those, and others, would still remain as testament to our existence.

Alchemistmerlin
2012-03-21, 01:02 PM
You've forgotten we are a space exploring species, in however limited a way. High orbiting satellites, the descent stages of the Apollo lunar modules and the LRV, the unmanned landers and rovers, the solar orbit satellites, Pioneer 10 and 11, Voyager 1 & 2, even if we erased all trace of humanity from the Earth, those, and others, would still remain as testament to our existence.

I guess you're right, so dust, radiation, and various bits of irradiated debris both on earth and in space.

Ravens_cry
2012-03-21, 01:24 PM
I guess you're right, so dust, radiation, and various bits of irradiated debris both on earth and in space.
Oh more than that.
A golden record with sounds and sights of Earth, or 6 aluminium plaques saying in one of our languages telling we came to a moon "in peace for all mankind."
We have a legacy that will outlast mountains.

warty goblin
2012-03-21, 02:42 PM
I guess you're right, so dust, radiation, and various bits of irradiated debris both on earth and in space.

Our legacy: a radioactive wasteland and a nimbus of garbage expanding into the cosmos. It's even odds whether the aliens find this pathetic, hilarious or simply good riddance to a species of vast and dangerous stupidity.

Traab
2012-03-21, 05:48 PM
Our legacy: a radioactive wasteland and a nimbus of garbage expanding into the cosmos. It's even odds whether the aliens find this pathetic, hilarious or simply good riddance to a species of vast and dangerous stupidity.

Meh, assuming said aliens have been exploring for some time, they would likely sigh sadly that yet another people managed to wipe itself out while on the cusp of reaching for the stars. I wouldnt be surprised if galaxy exploring aliens would have stumbled across numerous worlds whose intelligent races died out at various stages of development.

Elemental
2012-03-21, 06:50 PM
Meh, assuming said aliens have been exploring for some time, they would likely sigh sadly that yet another people managed to wipe itself out while on the cusp of reaching for the stars. I wouldnt be surprised if galaxy exploring aliens would have stumbled across numerous worlds whose intelligent races died out at various stages of development.

At least it gives their archaeologists a lot of work.
So that's something good that will come out of our civilisation falling into complete and utter ruin and our species going extinct.

Not that I think that will happen.
As was said earlier, we're harder to kill off that sewer rats. (We have fewer predators for one thing)

hamishspence
2012-03-21, 06:54 PM
Out of curiosity, how are so many people convinced that in a thousand years 7 billion + creatures will have been completely wiped out? Yes things go extinct. Yes, even very successful things go extinct. But barring some truly bizarre circumstances humanity will not vanish over night, or in the next thousand years.

The passenger pigeon went from "commonest bird on earth" to "extinct" in less than a century.

That said- that might be exceptional circumstances.



We humans have an inborn self-destructive streak. That's why few civilizations last for very long, and those that have -- Egypt and China -- have fallen and been rebuilt on the ruins. Time and again, human beings believe they have achieved the perfect society and they can now ignore both the physical laws and the laws of human nature. Time and again, the laws of nature catch up with us and another civilization falls to rack and ruin. The survivors build on the ruins. It is a pattern we have followed again and again and again, which is why there is such a thing as a 'Tel' in the Middle east. Ruins upon ruins of cities, which time and again rose and fell and rose again. =

makes me think of Kipling's "The Gods of the Copybook Headings"


And that after this is accomplished and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

late for dinner
2012-03-21, 07:27 PM
I am thinking one of 3 things.

1)One of the worlds religions with "End times" turns out to be true and hits its "End times" moment

2) I don't think humanity, no matter how dumb we think we are/will be will let itself die off. It might get down to low population, but Humanity will survive. One thing we know, People will always be "Doing it"

3) Zombie apocolypse

noparlpf
2012-03-21, 07:32 PM
I am thinking one of 3 things.

1)One of the worlds religions with "End times" turns out to be true and hits its "End times" moment

2) I don't think humanity, no matter how dumb we think we are/will be will let itself die off. It might get down to low population, but Humanity will survive. One thing we know, People will always be "Doing it"

Actually, one of my goals in life is to become a computer-mind overlord. Then, I'll invent a viable means of growing "test-tube babies", and I'll breed sexuality out of the species because I consider it a waste of time.[/wannabesupervillain]


3) Zombie apocolypse

If that happens it'll be way sooner than a millennium from now.

Traab
2012-03-21, 08:02 PM
I think the odds of all human life ending are very very low. It would literally take the destruction of earth to have a shot at it. Im talking at minimum the simultaneous total removal of the earths crust, and destruction of the atmosphere before id be willing to state, "Yeah, im pretty sure noone will survive." Even global nuclear war wouldnt do it. There would be survivors. Im not saying life would be pleasant for the next several generations, but there would be life. Lets face it, there are people everywhere, and there are also going to be places that arent worth nuking where people will be. Thats ignoring bomb shelter groups and the statistical anomalies that tend to survive when they shouldnt. There are always some of those in every disaster. "Oh, I was cleaning my old time cast iron bathtub when the bomb went off. The blast wave sent the tub flying and it landed on me, protecting me from random debris of my house exploding from right to left!"

noparlpf
2012-03-21, 08:05 PM
Radioactive fallout isn't all that hospitable to human life.

Traab
2012-03-21, 08:40 PM
Radioactive fallout isn't all that hospitable to human life.

But its also something that isnt necessarily instantly fatal. Its something that can be shielded against, something that can be compensated for. It wouldnt surprise me at all to hear that 12 generations after global thermonuclear war happened, that "humans" look very different from how they do now due to genetic mutations from the altered environment. But they would still exist.

Ravens_cry
2012-03-22, 10:50 AM
Our legacy: a radioactive wasteland and a nimbus of garbage expanding into the cosmos. It's even odds whether the aliens find this pathetic, hilarious or simply good riddance to a species of vast and dangerous stupidity.
Of course, because aliens will be oh, so much wiser than humanity ever could be, will be perfect, immortal little godlings who never do anything rash or shortsighted. </sarcasm>
Any aliens will be people.
Different people, people of physiology and psychology unknown in ways unknown, but people nonetheless.
And people make mistakes, people screw up, people have foibles and often go for short sighted gain over future good.
In short, people, even people with eyes at the end of a dozen tentacles whose manipulator is a tongue that was once a reproductive organ that was once a parasite, are flawed.

noparlpf
2012-03-22, 11:05 AM
Of course, because aliens will be oh, so much wiser than humanity ever could be, will be perfect, immortal little godlings who never do anything rash or shortsighted. </sarcasm>
Any aliens will be people.
Different people, people of physiology and psychology unknown in ways unknown, but people nonetheless.
And people make mistakes, people screw up, people have foibles and often go for short sighted gain over future good.
In short, people, even people with eyes at the end of a dozen tentacles whose manipulator is a tongue that was once a reproductive organ that was once a parasite, are flawed.

That's not evolutionarily beneficial. Natural selection has a way of weeding those out, or at least not allowing them to become as dominant and successful as they think they are.
Think about it. Humans have only been around for a few thousand years--what is it, fifty thousand years or so? And sure, we're doing pretty well, but we're far from a cohesive species that could manage serious space travel, and we won't be able to as long as we retain our short-sightedness and poor cooperation.
I believe that any species capable of interstellar travel on a practical timescale and/or practical cryogenic preservation must have evolved past the shortsightedness you quite rightly ascribe to humans. Of course, that goes even more so for a species capable of interstellar travel at a slower speed; they could potentially have multiple generations of individuals running a single mission.

Lord Raziere
2012-03-22, 11:15 AM
Even imperfection is flawed. No matter how much imperfection tries to completely destroy humanity, imperfection itself never quite succeeds…

sure humans are flawed, but somehow the flaws never quite engineer our complete downfall….

all the world is imperfection built on top of imperfection, even the imperfections themselves.

warty goblin
2012-03-22, 11:22 AM
Of course, because aliens will be oh, so much wiser than humanity ever could be, will be perfect, immortal little godlings who never do anything rash or shortsighted. </sarcasm>
Any aliens will be people.
Different people, people of physiology and psychology unknown in ways unknown, but people nonetheless.
And people make mistakes, people screw up, people have foibles and often go for short sighted gain over future good.
In short, people, even people with eyes at the end of a dozen tentacles whose manipulator is a tongue that was once a reproductive organ that was once a parasite, are flawed.
A few points:

1) I never claimed alien perfection. Merely that implicitly, if they're looking, they obviously haven't killed all of themselves which, under the hypothesis, humanity had. Also, since they're looking, they have not. Entertaining the notion that said aliens have some idea of something similar to rational self-interest or anything like our moral code, noting that hard radiation BBQing the entire species is stupid, tragic, and probably makes the universe that much safer for everybody else seems fairly reasonable.

Of course they could also be nonviolent beings descended from a species of particularly non-confrontational rabbit-thing without any notion of killing their own species. Perhaps to such creatures our nuclear exit stage left would be just as enduring a mystery as their not killing each other is to us.

2) The only thing that can be said about aliens with any certainty is that we know next to nothing about them. When it comes to intelligent life we have a single data point, and with a single data point you cannot do good inference. Even if we assume that humanity is close to some sort of 'mean value' for intelligent life in the cosmos, there is no way to even begin to measure the diversity of said without more data.

3) If they have different psychology and physiology, they won't be people. My dog is flawed and quirky, doesn't make him a person, because physically and mentally he isn't human. And again, we cannot with any degree of confidence say anything about alien life, and how they might appear to our calculus of morality and rationality is just as completely unknowable as the converse.

Ravens_cry
2012-03-22, 11:28 AM
I consider any technology and language using and developing species to be people.
Your dog does not qualify, but an alien that built a starship almost certainly qualifies.
Aliens will be people.

Telonius
2012-03-22, 12:41 PM
I'm not very concerned about humanity ending in a massive nuclear war anytime soon. Most wars are fought over territory and resources, and nuclear exchanges would tend to destroy both of those. That kind of "doomsday device" is really only useful (or used) when only one side has it.

Prolonged increases in carbon emissions also isn't on my big concern list. Five minutes after the price of fossil fuels exceeds the price of renewables due to scarcity, the whole world will make the switch. Most of the damage has already been done, and I'm afraid it's not going to be easy to get back to what it was; but people will adapt. The problems will be stupid, expensive (in time, money, and lives), and (would have been) avoidable, but people will adapt.

Likewise, overpopulation is not a primary concern of mine. Across the board, in the past few hundred years, as societies advance their technology and economy, the population booms. But then the fertility rate takes a nosedive as soon as they reach a certain tech/econ plateau. The biggest increases in population over the past few decades have come in exactly the places where technology and economy are increasing fastest. As the "First World" expands, and people become as concerned with passing on money as they are with passing on their own genes, the population growth rate will flatten.

In a thousand years, poverty will still exist. But what counts for "poverty" will be a good deal richer than what we consider it to be.

I expect tremendous advances in medicine, especially in genetic therapies, neuroscience, and psychology.

I wouldn't be surprised if we have a moon colony by 3012, but it would be for mining and/or communication, not purely research or exploration; and it won't happen nearly as soon as a lot of people would hope. Of course that's assuming that we don't find out some incredible new power or food source (dark matter reactor, photosynthetic exoskins, or something equally silly and game-changing). Something like that would totally skew the field and either force either a major colonization effort or far more dense living than we'd ever seen before.

warty goblin
2012-03-22, 03:42 PM
I consider any technology and language using and developing species to be people.
Your dog does not qualify, but an alien that built a starship almost certainly qualifies.
Aliens will be people.

By that definition, depending how flexible one is when it comes to defining language, probably yes, aliens will be people.

Flawed still doesn't follow though. And certainly not flawed in the ways humanity thinks itself flawed. It could be that the aliens are descended from a species of overgrown vegetarian pseudo-sea cucumbers for whom the idea of wholesale murder is as nonsensical as puking out our lungs in self defense is to us. That is to say we appreciate that other things can do that, but it's really not in our makeup.

Ravens_cry
2012-03-22, 03:55 PM
By that definition, depending how flexible one is when it comes to defining language, probably yes, aliens will be people.

Flawed still doesn't follow though. And certainly not flawed in the ways humanity thinks itself flawed. It could be that the aliens are descended from a species of overgrown vegetarian pseudo-sea cucumbers for whom the idea of wholesale murder is as nonsensical as puking out our lungs in self defense is to us. That is to say we appreciate that other things can do that, but it's really not in our makeup.
A lifeform requires energy. This is a basic thermodynamic fact. If you intake energy, that energy is not available to another life form.
Also a basic thermodynamic fact.
Some flaws will be universal.

noparlpf
2012-03-22, 03:59 PM
I consider any technology and language using and developing species to be people.
Your dog does not qualify, but an alien that built a starship almost certainly qualifies.
Aliens will be people.

Crows count as people, too, then!


A lifeform requires energy. This is a basic thermodynamic fact. If you intake energy, that energy is not available to another life form.
Also a basic thermodynamic fact.
Some flaws will be universal.

But they could be photosynthetic or something. That's a passive mechanism of obtaining energy, and doesn't involve the "choice" to deprive something else of life. (Also they're a lot more efficient.)
Herbivores are also better in that regard than omnivores or carnivores, which actively destroy life to obtain energy. (And waste a lot of that energy. Darned inefficient things. Maybe I should become a vegetarian just because they're slightly more efficient than omnivores.)

Edit: Also, requiring energy to live isn't a flaw. Killing other things to survive isn't necessarily a flaw either, and definitely isn't a character flaw, just a design flaw, and you can't blame things just for being what they are. Wantonly killing things is a character flaw, not a design flaw.
And don't try to argue that wanton destruction is an intrinsic human trait. It is an unfortunate character flaw in many members of the species, generally brought about by a (fascinating) interaction between self-awareness, intelligence, and poor environmental conditions. I know that I would not work to harm another human without good reason (such as the other human attempting to hurt me, or somebody close to me, and in fact, I would try to work together with other humans if that would allow us to reach a mutually beneficial goal.

Ravens_cry
2012-03-22, 04:26 PM
Crows count as people, too, then!

Perhaps they do. They apparently even have names for each other.


But they could be photosynthetic or something. That's a passive mechanism of obtaining energy, and doesn't involve the "choice" to deprive something else of life. (Also they're a lot more efficient.)
Herbivores are also better in that regard than omnivores or carnivores, which actively destroy life to obtain energy. (And waste a lot of that energy. Darned inefficient things. Maybe I should become a vegetarian just because they're slightly more efficient than omnivores.)

I am sure any plants would disagree about herbivores not destroying life to survive, but I doubt there is much in the way of naturally occurring photosynthetic intelligence, if any. Intelligence isn't some grand goal of life, it's a survival mechanism, like a poison dart frogs poison or leopards spots.
What drives intelligence evolving is an excellent question, but a photosynthesis is a low density energy source. It doesn't leave much of a margin for energy expensive measures like moving much, much less thinking.
When is the last time you saw a plant run away?



Edit: Also, requiring energy to live isn't a flaw. Killing other things to survive isn't necessarily a flaw either, and definitely isn't a character flaw, just a design flaw, and you can't blame things just for being what they are. Wantonly killing things is a character flaw, not a design flaw.
And don't try to argue that wanton destruction is an intrinsic human trait. It is an unfortunate character flaw in many members of the species, generally brought about by a (fascinating) interaction between self-awareness, intelligence, and poor environmental conditions. I know that I would not work to harm another human without good reason (such as the other human attempting to hurt me, or somebody close to me, and in fact, I would try to work together with other humans if that would allow us to reach a mutually beneficial goal.
No, it isn't a flaw, but it drives many of the 'flaws'. After all, what is greed and selfishness but desiring more than what the group considers ones fair share of some resource, one either directly related or able to be liquidated into energy or some other primary goal.
However, we are thinking beings, by acknowledging our flaws we can work to temper them, put them to constructive uses.

noparlpf
2012-03-22, 04:38 PM
I am sure any plants would disagree about herbivores not destroying life to survive, but I doubt there is much in the way of naturally occurring photosynthetic intelligence, if any. Intelligence isn't some grand goal of life, it's a survival mechanism, like a poison dart frogs poison or leopards spots.
What drives intelligence evolving is an excellent question, but a photosynthesis is a low density energy source. It doesn't leave much of a margin for energy expensive measures like moving much, much less thinking.
When is the last time you saw a plant run away?

No terrestrial plants are intelligent, and therefore can't consider herbivores to be destructive.
And I see no reason for photosynthetic critters to develop, potentially leading to intelligence.

Edit: I meant "I see no reason for photosynthetic critters NOT to develop."

Ravens_cry
2012-03-22, 04:43 PM
No terrestrial plants are intelligent, and therefore can't consider herbivores to be destructive.
And I see no reason for photosynthetic critters to develop, potentially leading to intelligence.
Well, yes, that was rather my point.

Mutant Sheep
2012-03-22, 04:58 PM
In a thousand years? Hopefully, not on a nuclear wasteland. :smallwink: But since I think humanity is not actually a species of idiots, that's insanely unlikely. Probably, we'll be experimenting with Jupiter's core and messing around with asteroids, putting some colonies on a moving one and letting those adventurous souls go explore the *insert name here* galaxy.:smallsmile:

Copper
2012-03-22, 05:28 PM
Hmm... I'd say either we'd all be dead, or we'd be a lot better off than we are now. Most likely the latter. It may just be me, but are others getting tired of dystopian futures? I used to like them, but now I've grown tired of it. Honestly guys the human race isn't degenerating. Besides form global warming and overpopulation (which admittedly, are huge problems) we're improving as a species. We're more tolerant than ever, we have more medicine for diseases, we have better technology, better journalism techniques, less war and violence than ever. Generally, the world gets better as time goes on. In fits and starts of course, but it does.

Pokonic
2012-03-22, 05:36 PM
My guess? The primitive decendents of uplifted Crows and Parrots will fight with the giant cockroachs for remaining land, while the cuttlefish extend there undersea empire from the sunken city of N'w Yur'k. :smalltongue:

Ravens_cry
2012-03-22, 05:37 PM
My guess? The primitive decendents of uplifted Crows and Parrots will fight with the giant cockroachs for remaining land, while the cuttlefish extend there undersea empire from the sunken city of N'w Yur'k. :smalltongue:
It's only a thousand years. That's barely more than 1066 and all that to the present day. Evolution just doesn't move at that kind of speeds with multicellular creatures.

noparlpf
2012-03-22, 05:39 PM
Well, yes, that was rather my point.

I meant "I see no reason that they would NOT develop." My bad. Bloody double-negatives. I can't think in this heat. It's up above twenty degrees regularly now. ;-;

Coidzor
2012-03-22, 05:46 PM
I meant "I see no reason that they would NOT develop." My bad. Bloody double-negatives. I can't think in this heat. It's up above twenty degrees regularly now. ;-;

Now imagine trying to do that with a plant brain. :smalltongue:

Pokonic
2012-03-22, 05:46 PM
It's only a thousand years. That's barely more than 1066 and all that to the present day. Evolution just doesn't move at that kind of speeds with multicellular creatures.

Hey, now, a few foolish scientists there and a few breeding projects there.....:smalltongue:
/endfoolishideas

Besides, crows already use tools, have individual identifications for each other, and mourn there dead (or so I have heard). Parrots are inteligent to the point that I would rather not even begin. The whole range of squid-thinges are smarter than what most people are already aware of, too. Hence, in the case of mankind suddenly kicking the bucket, and assuming that apes retaking the planet is boring, these guys are the ones that seem likely to expand in horizons inteligance-wise. Also, yeah, know that evolution takes a bloody long time. Funny thing is, that i you ask your average person around where I live, they either have no idea about the actual complexites around it or have a utterly biased view about it. "sigh"

noparlpf
2012-03-22, 06:00 PM
Now imagine trying to do that with a plant brain. :smalltongue:

Dude, the pond is literally just outside my window. I could step out and absorb some water to counteract the wilting from the bright sun, and then I'd be fine.
And I wouldn't necessarily have to be a plant to photosynthesise. There's some kind of single-celled eucaryote that has traits of both plants and animals, including chloroplasts.


Hey, now, a few foolish scientists there and a few breeding projects there.....:smalltongue:
/endfoolishideas

Besides, crows already use tools, have individual identifications for each other, and mourn there dead (or so I have heard). Parrots are inteligent to the point that I would rather not even begin. The whole range of squid-thinges are smarter than what most people are already aware of, too. Hence, in the case of mankind suddenly kicking the bucket, and assuming that apes retaking the planet is boring, these guys are the ones that seem likely to expand in horizons inteligance-wise. Also, yeah, know that evolution takes a bloody long time. Funny thing is, that i you ask your average person around where I live, they either have no idea about the actual complexites around it or have a utterly biased view about it. "sigh"

Crows are smarter than parrots, I think. The Cracked article on them is really neat.
And although squids and the like have the requisite level of dexterity to build neat things, they have one major disadvantage: No fire.

Ravens_cry
2012-03-22, 06:06 PM
Actually, considering that Squid can survive fairly extended periods out of water, that's not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is they live quite short lives and tend to die very soon after breeding. This means culture and technological improvements would have a hard time passing beyond a single generation.

Pokonic
2012-03-22, 06:23 PM
Crows are smarter than parrots, I think. The Cracked article on them is really neat.
And although squids and the like have the requisite level of dexterity to build neat things, they have one major disadvantage: No fire.

The one which had the crows disabling the fire alarm? Yeah, that one was great.



Actually, considering that Squid can survive fairly extended periods out of water, that's not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is they live quite short lives and tend to die very soon after breeding. This means culture and technological improvements would have a hard time passing beyond a single generation.
Yeah, this. Unless the females start having there mateing periods in a more varied length of time, stuff beyond the (admitly amazing) qualites they already have will have issues in any sort of long-term civilization building. Also, they might have to start being, you know, sociable with each other.

Half the reason why reptiles and such are less common than mammals now a days is because mammels seemingly tend to congragate, while reptiles, beyond a group of crocadiles or a pack of moniter lizerds, almost never actualy help one ane other do tasks. Crows, on the other hand, activly work together on things (like getting something stuck in somthing loose.)

Ravens_cry
2012-03-22, 06:42 PM
Yeah, this. Unless the females start having there mateing periods in a more varied length of time, stuff beyond the (admitly amazing) qualites they already have will have issues in any sort of long-term civilization building. Also, they might have to start being, you know, sociable with each other.

I believe certain squid are social (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldt_squid), so that's a start at least, communicating through colour changes and bioluminescence I think.
Octopuses are quite amazing, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod_intelligence) but are not social, and so cultural changes has an even greater difficulty in passing on.

noparlpf
2012-03-22, 06:45 PM
I believe certain squid are social (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldt_squid), so that's a start at least, communicating through colour changes and bioluminescence I think.

Such a cooler language than ours.

Edit: How would you write that?

Ravens_cry
2012-03-22, 06:53 PM
Such a cooler language than ours.

Edit: How would you write that?
Well, pictograms would be one way.
Depending on how the language worked, you could even have an alphabet, with different symbols representing different colour patterns rather than different sounds. After all, either way it's just symbols.

Pokonic
2012-03-22, 07:45 PM
I believe certain squid are social (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldt_squid), so that's a start at least, communicating through colour changes and bioluminescence I think.
Octopuses are quite amazing, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod_intelligence) but are not social, and so cultural changes has an even greater difficulty in passing on.

Ah, it t'was Octopi I was talking about, and utterly ignored Squid in my thinking whatsoever. :smallsigh:

Also, the first link: Who will take over the ocean faster, the Humboldt swarms or the Dolphin hordes?



Edit: How would you write that?

Vi MS Paint. :smalltongue:

Ravens_cry
2012-03-22, 07:48 PM
Pfft, easy, encephalopods, they have manipulators.
Dolphins may be smart, but having no hands hampers their technological development.

noparlpf
2012-03-22, 08:05 PM
I changed my mind. (http://clientsfromhell.net) Ten pages in and I'm nearly in tears.
We're going to Heck in a handbasket. I give us until 2007, tops.
This is humour, I'm making fun of the people this site is making fun of. The problem with satire is that it is nigh indistinguishable from idiocy, hence this explanation of my estimate that we're all screwed by 2007.

Ravens_cry
2012-03-22, 08:25 PM
I changed my mind. (http://clientsfromhell.net) Ten pages in and I'm nearly in tears.
We're going to Heck in a handbasket. I give us until 2007, tops.
This is humour, I'm making fun of the people this site is making fun of. The problem with satire is that it is nigh indistinguishable from idiocy, hence this explanation of my estimate that we're all screwed by 2007.
Human stupidity is as old as humans. People have been complaining about it just as long. I think we got a few years.:smallamused:

noparlpf
2012-03-22, 08:33 PM
Yeah but now the stupid humans have nukes.

Pokonic
2012-03-22, 08:36 PM
I changed my mind. (http://clientsfromhell.net) Ten pages in and I'm nearly in tears.
We're going to Heck in a handbasket. I give us until 2007, tops.
This is humour, I'm making fun of the people this site is making fun of. The problem with satire is that it is nigh indistinguishable from idiocy, hence this explanation of my estimate that we're all screwed by 2007.

I gave up somewhere around Feburary. God, this is going in my favorite's.:smallbiggrin:

Ravens_cry
2012-03-22, 08:39 PM
Yeah but now the stupid humans have nukes.
I know it's a long shot, but we've had nukes for over 50 years.
So far, they've only been used twice.

H Birchgrove
2012-03-25, 07:21 AM
I know it's a long shot, but we've had nukes for over 50 years.
So far, they've only been used twice.

Not counting testing. :smallwink:

Elemental
2012-03-25, 07:29 AM
Not counting testing. :smallwink:

Admittedly, they have been tested a lot... But testing a weapon is a lot different than employing it in warfare.
Whether or not they'll use such weapons again, is tangentially the purpose of this thread, but the discussion would be too political.

The only point I think I can make without invoking a political discussion is to claim that no one would ever waste nukes on Australia. I mean... In the grand scheme of things, we're not all that important.
Our country is just better than all the others.

Trog
2012-03-25, 09:18 AM
Spoilered for length.

Advances in medicine and genetic engineering will allow people to live very long lives. Overpopulation would have become problematic long ago and the morality we have today to reproduce as we wish will be seen as archaic. Sperm will be "turned off" genetically from conception so that it cannot reproduce. Meaning you would have to get it turned on again to conceive a child. Since this would be a costly procedure (to help limit the population) the very rich will still be able to have multiple children while the poor might only be able to have one or possibly none at all. This won't be seen as wrong due to overpopulation - people who can afford to have a child will be glad others who cannot afford to raise one will not be able to do so.

There will be no such thing as privacy or the right to it as it will be seen as something which encourages illegal behavior. Courts rulings will be done by a sophisticated computer system which uses the world-wide-eye and genome detection to see precisely what happened and to render a verdict in a matter of hours if not minutes. Fines will be syphoned from the offender's credits automatically. Death penalty will be enacted for all non-state sponsored killings.

Prisons will exist but unless the perpetrator of a crime poses a real threat to the populace at large prison time will be taken as time off of your allotted lifespan. Money can buy you more years to live or make up for time lost due to past crimes.

Discrimination will be a crime and the world-wide-eye and genome detection will fine the individual who practices it. Groups which will be shown to discriminate will be financially and legally phased out of existence. Incentives will exist to reproduce with someone of another ethnic group, slowly homogenizing the population of earth, genetically. By this time homogenizing will only be in its infancy.

UV-blocking or UV-absorbing clothing will exist for different regions of the earth where there is higher or lower UV radiation than one's skin tone and genetic needs can account for.

There will be only several countries on earth but many regional states within them. The specifics of the above laws will vary slightly from country to country. Wars will still be fought over idealogical differences in laws. Extremists such as those who think like we do now in the 21st century will commit acts of violence for various causes but the world-wide-eye will limit their ability to collect into a group cause. This system will remarkably resemble the way the body fights off infection by blocking the infections means of reproducing (throttling certain rhetoric-based electronic communication, for example, for that individual or fining those that are found responding to the rhetoric of that individual in person via tracking of the world-wide-eye and its genomic ID system).

Putting another to death due to prison sentences and other expiration dates will be done by robotic law enforcement units, easily able to overpower and outrun even the strongest man. It will not take over the world, however, because its computational circuitry and programming will be engineered to seek out only one individual at a time and return that individual to the incinerator (likely some composting bin, really, in order to rapidly process the body into soil). Rational reasoning will not be needed save for pursuit. That said it will be programmed and engineered to give the appearance of being gentle and compassionate in this deed - doing what might be difficult for humans to deal with, emotionally. All robots will be very advanced, functionally, but their mental abilities will always be truncated in order to limit them to their task, preventing them from being fully human and taking over. Remote shutdown will be done by another system similar to the world-wide-eye which will have the sole function of turning off machines that do not follow their programing.

All entertainment and communication devices will be replaced with contact lenses that act as a high-resolution display and an ear implant for audio.

A single food cooking device will replace the oven, microwave, refrigerator, etc. and will prepare food automatically. People can make out their menu for the upcoming days and the information will be sent off to a grocery store that sends out robotic delivery of the items needed to make the recipes. This will be more efficient than grocery shopping which needs to produce the fuel to transport not only the items to be purchased but also the purchaser, there and back, and thus will make more sense fuel-economy-wise. This delivery system will function in the manner of current robotic warehouses combined with self-driving vehicles. Food will be placed in the storage facility of the home which keeps the food fresh according to the ingredient's needs. The cooking device will transfer the foodstuff to the preparation area where it prepares it for transfer to the cooking device. People can always do a manual override on this system to still "cook" if they like.

Advanced roomba-type robots will clean the floor of any debris or dirt, cleaning only the part where dirt appears. Clothing will be washed at the end of the day by placing the worn clothes in a device that will clean them individually and ready them for wear the next day. Organic LEDs will be the default lighting method. Toilet/Bidets will be the norm in all bathrooms. Greywater systems will be the norm.

Sex, no longer in need of taboos to limit reproduction, will remain, as it always was, a chief source of entertainment. Spas where devices to automate one's optimal pleasure will exist and be used by the post-pubescent as entertainment.

Colonization of the moon and possibly mars will be under way and will develop into prime vacation spots. Life will have been detected on other planets and attempts will be made to try and communicate with them through light beacons. None will have communicated back to date, leaving us unsure of the existence, yet, of life as intelligent as our own.

OR we will detect such a beacon elsewhere in the universe and will be in the process of establishing a language to relay information. This will be a slow ongoing process. One day we will hope to be able to send images to one another but it will take some years to do yet. People will wonder if they will be able to see images of these aliens before they die.

That's uh... all the brainstorming I can do this morning without coffee. >>

*shuffles off to find coffee* ---(≈.≈)>

H Birchgrove
2012-03-25, 09:52 AM
Admittedly, they have been tested a lot... But testing a weapon is a lot different than employing it in warfare.
Whether or not they'll use such weapons again, is tangentially the purpose of this thread, but the discussion would be too political.

The only point I think I can make without invoking a political discussion is to claim that no one would ever waste nukes on Australia. I mean... In the grand scheme of things, we're not all that important.
Our country is just better than all the others.

Hence why Lex Luthor wants to rule you. :smalltongue:

Solaris
2012-03-25, 12:28 PM
Spoilered for length.

Advances in medicine and genetic engineering will allow people to live very long lives. Overpopulation would have become problematic long ago and the morality we have today to reproduce as we wish will be seen as archaic. Sperm will be "turned off" genetically from conception so that it cannot reproduce. Meaning you would have to get it turned on again to conceive a child. Since this would be a costly procedure (to help limit the population) the very rich will still be able to have multiple children while the poor might only be able to have one or possibly none at all. This won't be seen as wrong due to overpopulation - people who can afford to have a child will be glad others who cannot afford to raise one will not be able to do so.

There will be no such thing as privacy or the right to it as it will be seen as something which encourages illegal behavior. Courts rulings will be done by a sophisticated computer system which uses the world-wide-eye and genome detection to see precisely what happened and to render a verdict in a matter of hours if not minutes. Fines will be syphoned from the offender's credits automatically. Death penalty will be enacted for all non-state sponsored killings.

Prisons will exist but unless the perpetrator of a crime poses a real threat to the populace at large prison time will be taken as time off of your allotted lifespan. Money can buy you more years to live or make up for time lost due to past crimes.

Discrimination will be a crime and the world-wide-eye and genome detection will fine the individual who practices it. Groups which will be shown to discriminate will be financially and legally phased out of existence. Incentives will exist to reproduce with someone of another ethnic group, slowly homogenizing the population of earth, genetically. By this time homogenizing will only be in its infancy.

UV-blocking or UV-absorbing clothing will exist for different regions of the earth where there is higher or lower UV radiation than one's skin tone and genetic needs can account for.

There will be only several countries on earth but many regional states within them. The specifics of the above laws will vary slightly from country to country. Wars will still be fought over idealogical differences in laws. Extremists such as those who think like we do now in the 21st century will commit acts of violence for various causes but the world-wide-eye will limit their ability to collect into a group cause. This system will remarkably resemble the way the body fights off infection by blocking the infections means of reproducing (throttling certain rhetoric-based electronic communication, for example, for that individual or fining those that are found responding to the rhetoric of that individual in person via tracking of the world-wide-eye and its genomic ID system).

Putting another to death due to prison sentences and other expiration dates will be done by robotic law enforcement units, easily able to overpower and outrun even the strongest man. It will not take over the world, however, because its computational circuitry and programming will be engineered to seek out only one individual at a time and return that individual to the incinerator (likely some composting bin, really, in order to rapidly process the body into soil). Rational reasoning will not be needed save for pursuit. That said it will be programmed and engineered to give the appearance of being gentle and compassionate in this deed - doing what might be difficult for humans to deal with, emotionally. All robots will be very advanced, functionally, but their mental abilities will always be truncated in order to limit them to their task, preventing them from being fully human and taking over. Remote shutdown will be done by another system similar to the world-wide-eye which will have the sole function of turning off machines that do not follow their programing.

All entertainment and communication devices will be replaced with contact lenses that act as a high-resolution display and an ear implant for audio.

A single food cooking device will replace the oven, microwave, refrigerator, etc. and will prepare food automatically. People can make out their menu for the upcoming days and the information will be sent off to a grocery store that sends out robotic delivery of the items needed to make the recipes. This will be more efficient than grocery shopping which needs to produce the fuel to transport not only the items to be purchased but also the purchaser, there and back, and thus will make more sense fuel-economy-wise. This delivery system will function in the manner of current robotic warehouses combined with self-driving vehicles. Food will be placed in the storage facility of the home which keeps the food fresh according to the ingredient's needs. The cooking device will transfer the foodstuff to the preparation area where it prepares it for transfer to the cooking device. People can always do a manual override on this system to still "cook" if they like.

Advanced roomba-type robots will clean the floor of any debris or dirt, cleaning only the part where dirt appears. Clothing will be washed at the end of the day by placing the worn clothes in a device that will clean them individually and ready them for wear the next day. Organic LEDs will be the default lighting method. Toilet/Bidets will be the norm in all bathrooms. Greywater systems will be the norm.

Sex, no longer in need of taboos to limit reproduction, will remain, as it always was, a chief source of entertainment. Spas where devices to automate one's optimal pleasure will exist and be used by the post-pubescent as entertainment.

Colonization of the moon and possibly mars will be under way and will develop into prime vacation spots. Life will have been detected on other planets and attempts will be made to try and communicate with them through light beacons. None will have communicated back to date, leaving us unsure of the existence, yet, of life as intelligent as our own.

OR we will detect such a beacon elsewhere in the universe and will be in the process of establishing a language to relay information. This will be a slow ongoing process. One day we will hope to be able to send images to one another but it will take some years to do yet. People will wonder if they will be able to see images of these aliens before they die.

That's uh... all the brainstorming I can do this morning without coffee. >>

*shuffles off to find coffee* ---(≈.≈)>

This.


Technology changes. Human nature doesn't. Poverty will never be wiped out because the people on top will always find a way to keep the people on bottom from rising to their level. If everyone has wealth, you have less power.

That's not how it works. Stop listening to the guys at the bottom and start doing what the guys at the top are doing, you might make it somewhere.
You'd be amazed what a post-scarcity economy would look like.


Dead from the combination of climate change and the collapse of all our sources of energy.

I just can't see it any other way, as much as it bothers me.

Truth be told, I can't imagine us as a species lasting another hundred years, yet alone another thousand.

ManBearPig is really real!

Seriously, dude, we've weathered more severe climate changes than anything that's going to happen (why yes, it does all look like the end of an ice age), and even if we were to lose every single source of nonrenewable energy we'd still be at the hunter-gatherer level. Those cats have lived for thousands of years without fossil fuels.

All of you saying we'd be extinct? Mother Nature has tried to wipe us out since day one. We've had at least two near-extinctions that I can think of off the top of my head. If Nature can't pull it off when we're just in the thousands and Stone Age tech, what makes you think some piddly nuclear war will wipe out billions of us with Space Age tech? What makes you think a nuclear war will happen? (Try not to go too in-depth with that answer, lest we run into politics).

I can't imagine where we'll be - in my science fiction setting, I had to put in effectively deus ex machina to keep humans from being godlike beings just five hundred years from now. Look what we've done in a hundred years. It took us just a few generations to go from "No powered flight" to "Walking on the moon". Less than a hundred years from discovering the atom to splitting it. Less than fifty years from the invention of the computer to nascent artificial intelligences. Most of the modern world was once thought impossible by people in the last thousand years. Intelligent, learned, very smart people in 1012 would have looked at the laptop computer I'm typing this on, looked at the way I'm communicating wirelessly with you folks on the other side of the world, and been at a complete and utter loss to explain how it works.

pendell
2012-03-26, 08:02 AM
Less than fifty years from the invention of the computer to nascent artificial intelligences.


Wait, what? Got a link there? My understanding is that we're still quite far from "strong" AI. We've made computer programs smart enough to beat chess grandmasters but we're still working on "Go".

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Elemental
2012-03-26, 08:06 AM
Wait, what? Got a link there? My understanding is that we're still quite far from "strong" AI. We've made computer programs smart enough to beat chess grandmasters but we're still working on "Go".

Respectfully,

Brian P.

The only reason computers can beat chess grandmasters is because a computer can theoretically calculate every single possible move in a chess game and act accordingly.
Humans can't do that no matter how skilled they are.

And the main reason we will never be completely overthrown by computers in my opinion is that; it may be possible to teach a computer everything we know, but it won't necessarily be able to teach other computers.
That's the one thing we have that they don't. Oh, and we don't need electrical power.

warty goblin
2012-03-26, 08:54 AM
And the main reason we will never be completely overthrown by computers in my opinion is that; it may be possible to teach a computer everything we know, but it won't necessarily be able to teach other computers.
That's the one thing we have that they don't.

I'd think computers have a significant advantage when it comes to teaching each other. Just exchange files for perfect, rapid dissemination of complete information. If B wants to know what A did last Saturday, A can just send B the video and audio files. If B wants to know how to pilot a jet aircraft, A can send B the relevant technical information along with logs of all pertinent first hand experience.

Elemental
2012-03-26, 09:10 AM
I'd think computers have a significant advantage when it comes to teaching each other. Just exchange files for perfect, rapid dissemination of complete information. If B wants to know what A did last Saturday, A can just send B the video and audio files. If B wants to know how to pilot a jet aircraft, A can send B the relevant technical information along with logs of all pertinent first hand experience.

Yes, but transferal of information is not teaching.
It is in the most basic sense of the word, but it's not really.

A good teacher not only has to provide information, they have to explain what it means and its purpose.
And then there's the whole application of knowledge which is the true aim of any teaching exercise.
...
...
And I've made absolutely no sense, haven't I?
Oh well... I can't seem to explain my point, so I'm just going to admit failure as an educator in this situation.

pendell
2012-03-26, 09:56 AM
I agree. The purpose of teaching is to allow a student to grok (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok) a subject. It's not merely a matter of having a great deal of material downloaded which is then repeated verbatim back to the teacher. The material must be understood, it must be wrestled with, it must be meditated upon and practiced with and applied to situations. Not only does the student then understand the material, they are ready to teach themselves.

I don't yet know whether we have yet brought a computer to the point where it can grok anything, as opposed to simply repeated instructions. Even advanced neural networks have yet to reach that point. I won't debate whether it's possible at all -- it's worth a try -- but I don't believe we've reached that point yet. But even when we do, 'teaching' is not just a matter of downloading information.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Zelkon
2012-03-26, 10:29 AM
Read Ismael. Blow your mind.

warty goblin
2012-03-26, 11:55 AM
I agree. The purpose of teaching is to allow a student to grok (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok) a subject. It's not merely a matter of having a great deal of material downloaded which is then repeated verbatim back to the teacher. The material must be understood, it must be wrestled with, it must be meditated upon and practiced with and applied to situations. Not only does the student then understand the material, they are ready to teach themselves.

I don't yet know whether we have yet brought a computer to the point where it can grok anything, as opposed to simply repeated instructions. Even advanced neural networks have yet to reach that point. I won't debate whether it's possible at all -- it's worth a try -- but I don't believe we've reached that point yet. But even when we do, 'teaching' is not just a matter of downloading information.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Teaching for people is all of those things, I absolutely agree. But a human teacher cannot give a human student all the information they have about how they understand the subject. They can explain the mechanics, the terminology and all of that, but the actual mental process is, as you observe not something directly communicable.

But I don't see that as being the case for a machine. Supposing for a moment that we had a computer that could truly grok a subject, all it needs to do to teach another computer is to transfer a copy of itself at the moment it grokked so long as the second computer has enough hardware power to process it. Computer B can then go through exactly the same process, and thereby gain the same understanding.

Concrete example: A while ago I looked up how to make chainmail. I found instructions, and went to work. The instructions worked, and after a bit of practice I became quite adept. Later on I taught somebody else how to make chainmail. I could tell them what to do, show them what to do, but I could not actually give them my experience because human language isn't powerful or precise enough to convey that level of detail. If I could transfer my entire state of being however, I could teach much more quickly.

Now whether or not a computer with what we think of as understanding is really possible or not I don't know. I suspect it is however, and I suspect we're getting significantly closer all the time.

edit: forgot to finish example.

Ravens_cry
2012-03-26, 12:05 PM
One theory I had for a story is that artificial intelligence based on a particular species psychology is can only really be developed by another sentient species, only the Other can look at us so completely from the outside, and not be infatuated by our strength nor overwhelmed by our weaknesses but take a truly objective view.
This works both ways.

Solaris
2012-03-26, 12:18 PM
Wait, what? Got a link there? My understanding is that we're still quite far from "strong" AI. We've made computer programs smart enough to beat chess grandmasters but we're still working on "Go".

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Hence the use of the word 'nascent'. They're only about as smart as an ant colony.

paddyfool
2012-03-26, 12:57 PM
I strongly distrust predictions more than 10 years in advance. Far too much can change, and in unexpected ways.

But yeah... things I'd expect if things don't go thoroughly wrong very soon:

Likely
- Population stabilising somewhere around 10 billion people mid-21st century
- Humans increasingly staying healthy a very long time
- Things getting less warlike, possibly even extending to longish periods of world peace. Seriously. You wouldn't know it from the news, but things are generally trending more-and-more peaceful. Look how long it is since there's been a proper war in Europe, the Americas, and much of Asia.
- Transitioning away from fossil fuels to some other form of power. Maybe fusion.
- Very, very smart AI
- Cyborgs with very, very smart AI
- Self-sustaining space colonies (e.g. at Lagrange points, on the moon, on ceres/vesta, etc.)
- A terraformed Mars

Possible
- Discovery of (probably non-sentient) life elsewhere in the solar system.
- Contact with sentient aliens. Probably very, very different from us.
- Yellowstone popping
- Sleeper ships or generation ships embarking to some other solar system. (Probes with very smart AI would be more probable, however).

What can I say, I'm an optimist.

Telonius
2012-03-26, 02:21 PM
That's not how it works. Stop listening to the guys at the bottom and start doing what the guys at the top are doing, you might make it somewhere.
You'd be amazed what a post-scarcity economy would look like.


Within a few years, remarkably like a scarcity economy. Unless we figure out how to turn off the "get moar stuff" impulse that's present in most humans, we'll always expand consumption of any material up to the point of scarcity, given enough time. If we find some kind of wonder power source that lasts forever and is plentiful, we'll take all we can of it and use the rest for decoration and status markers and postmodern art, and create some kind of artificial scarcity with the leftovers. Unless we really can figure out how to make matter or energy from nothing, or raise the speed of light, or fiddle with the universal constants, there are always going to be fundamental limits on what we can do with the time and resources we have available.

Lord Raziere
2012-03-26, 10:22 PM
Spoilered for length.

*snipped for length*

I doubt it will be that clean or smooth.

Ravens_cry
2012-03-26, 10:27 PM
Apelings, I love 'em, and I bet in a thousand years, we'll still be making most of the same mistakes and, if we're lucky, invented a few new ones.
I hope for the best as we stand on the shore of eternity, taking our first tentative steps into the universe. Will we go further, will we breach the gulf of space that stands between us and the wider world?
Only time will tell, but I hope so.

Trog
2012-03-26, 11:34 PM
I doubt it will be that clean or smooth.
As do I but the factors which would likely contribute to it being so involve topics forbidden on the forums. Just a brainstorming session when I woke up on the weekend. The world now is not that clean or smooth but I'm not likely to put all that into one single post either. At least not before my morning coffee. :smalltongue:

Riverdance
2012-03-28, 04:37 PM
Futurists (people who've tried to actually predict where we will be in x number of years) have come up with some really crazy things. One I read from the fifties went something like, "It is likely we will have nuclear powered vacuums within the next 10 years."

In the 1800's: "The spoken voice will never be carried by wire, and if it were it would be of no practical value." (although that's really just skepticism)

Frozen_Feet
2012-03-28, 07:07 PM
Human population will collapse, perhaps several times, until it stabilizes or is stabilized by remaining sociological engineers. First one of these will be the most cataclysmic and end human civilizations as we know it. It's combination of one or more causes: a) Yellowstone erupting, b) civil unrest and war caused by climate refugees, c) nuclear war, d) diminishing of fossil fuels causing a temporary dip in our ability to produce and distribute food, leading to mass famine and more unrest.

Before this happens, though, humanity will see an age of prosperity unrivalled by anything before it. Actually, we're living it now.

Civilization will decide to keep human population around 1 billion people to keep stress caused to our environment manageable.

Fossil fuels will practically have run out. Technically there's some left, but there's almost no incentive for anyone to use them, either because they're prohibitively expensive or technology utilizing them doesn't exist anymore.

World War 2 and several other historical events that are still close to our hearts will have passed into myths. People debate whether Hitler actually existed.

Dinosaurs will be a subject of myth as well. All easily findable fossils have long since been dug out, and the evidence has slowly been destroyed as museums holding them have been wiped from face of earth.

Most of human population will be concentrated around the Northern hemisphere, because climate change has made southern landmasses near-uninhabitable. On the other hand, Syberia and several other ever-frozen hellholes have become milder in climate, allowing people to settle there.

Many places of Earth that are currently densely populated will have been mostly abandoned by humans, either because they've been swallowed by the sea (Japan), rendered into desertland by erosion, overuse of resources and rising temperature (Much of Africa and China, all of India). Some places have been purposedly left to recover from human inhabitation.

Most of civilization's electricity is supplied by solar power, supplemented by geothermal, wind and tidal power. Electricity is abundant to all remaining humans, and is used to create solid fuels for those things that still need them. Fresh water is also abundant and more can be made from seawater.

Famine will be nearly non-existent. This is mostly due to vastly improved logistics and more systematically concentrated population rather than improvements in farming. Those have happened, but aren't nearly as big of a deal.

90% of species that exist now have gone extinct. Reasons for this ecological collapse are varied. In case of seas, it's unfortunate logical conclusion of overfishing - at a point during the 1000 years, oceans will entirely run out of worthwhile haul. Seas have been recovering for centuries now, but still very few people fish and no-one makes real living out of it, as alternative food production methods have come to stay.

Sea levels will be higher as arctic and antarctic glacier have melted. Antarctic is much more temperate and slowly turning into lush wilderness. Humans are likely to overtake the freed space eventually.

All uranium, copper, rare earth metals, and many other precious minerals have been dug from Earth's crust. They can no longer be mined, and only source of them is scraps of past civilizations.

Electronical decives will be based mostly on organics due to the above. Computers are, effectively, intelligent plants, creating much of their own energy through photosynthesis. Self-replicating robots are a reality. It should be noted these robots are, however, basically syntethic plants and animals.

There are no satellites. Old ones have deteriorated to uselessness, and space debris fills orbits of Earth to the point it is impossible to put up new ones. Likewise, take-off from the surface is impossible. Any vessel trying it will be destroyed by scrap moving at ridiculous velocities, and as insult to injury, will add to the debris by its destruction.

People will have a massive gap in their knowledge about the early 2000s, or as some might call it, start of the "information age". This, because it turns out that electronic ways of data storage are piss-poor in the long run, and almost all digital data from that period has eroded to uselessness. Ironically, this means that of the age when humans produced the most information, least remains.

There will be self-sustaining colonies on Moon and Mars. However, they are independent of Earthly nations. While they sometimes drop down materials from space to Earth, this is practically charity, as earthlings have nothing to give them anymore. (And couldn't due to aforementiond problems with space debris.) Life on these colonies is very strictly regulated, because both food supplies and living space are limited and need to be carefully rationed. Long-term sustainability of these colonies is still suspect.

Non-terrestrial humans are slowly become, well, not-humans. Improvements in genetic technology are used to hasten nature's processes and make people more suited to the hostile environments they live in. Moon and Mars aren't as much made comfortable for people to live in, as people are made to live comfortably on Moon and Mars.

Back on Earth, same technology will allow for biological immortality. However, since population must be kept stable, people face a choice between having children or living arbitrarily long themselves. A high percentage of people still opt for the former. However, much of the population is still made of 1st generation immortals.

Using the same technology as people use to program computers, it's possible to program humans. This is used liberally to rehabilitate criminals and treat psychological illnesses. Humans still aren't pre-emptively "fixed", however, due to concerns about free will. It's mostly done as after-the-fact "punishment".

Extensive use of medical tech and especially genetic engineering creates massive pressures on natural selection, leading to radical changes in human genome within few generations, long as those generations may be. In another thousand years, we probably have another human species replacing, or even alongside, H. Sapiens.

Ravens_cry
2012-03-28, 07:13 PM
You know, if you can be 'reprogrammed' for good, you can also be reprogrammed for evil.
That should lead to some interesting crimes and defences.
"Yes, I robbed the bank, killed the guy, did the terrorist act, but I was programmed to do it."
They could even be telling the truth.:smalleek:

Frozen_Feet
2012-03-28, 07:47 PM
Isn't much of defence, though. If your problem is "faulty programming" and the punishment for your crime is reprogramming in any case... yeah.

Ravens_cry
2012-03-28, 08:08 PM
Isn't much of defence, though. If your problem is "faulty programming" and the punishment for your crime is reprogramming in any case... yeah.
It means you're not guilty because you are not responsible, like the Insanity Defence.
And, if true, it means the real responsible one is still at large.
Background checks and other security measures are useless if anyone can be turned into a Manchurian agent.

pendell
2012-03-29, 08:51 AM
Fossil fuels will practically have run out. Technically there's some left, but there's almost no incentive for anyone to use them, either because they're prohibitively expensive or technology utilizing them doesn't exist anymore.


That may not actually be true. (http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/294693/second-oil-revolution-victor-davis-hanson). There's plenty of demand for oil, there's untapped reserves that can be uncovered through 'fracking' and other means, and while the modern west looks askance at such things for environmental reasons, I'll be curious to see whether those scruples will hold when the choice is stark between more energy and a petroleum-free economy.

That's assuming the choice ever reaches such an "either-or" break-even point. There have also been experiments with ethanol and alcohol made from grain, which is renewable.

Consider, after all, the reason we use petroleum in the first place. I was recently reading a history book which explained that back in the 1800s whales were hunted nearly to extinction for their whale oil, which was used to light lamps. When the supply of whales dropped and the consequent price of whale oil went through the roof, the hunt was on to a substitute. The substitute which was discovered was what was then called "rock oil" and we now call petroleum. The result was oil lamps and later kerosene, which as a cheaper alternative to whale oil soon supplanted it. The constant use of this led to explorations of OTHER uses of the chemical, and today we have a petroleum based economy.

I don't know how much fossil fuel the earth has left. I grew up in the 1970s and the Malthusians at the time were predicting that the world would A) run out of food B) run out of oil and C) fall to a population of 1 billion by the year 2000. It didn't happen. If there's one thing we humans cannot do, it's accurately estimate the total natural resources and carrying capacity of Terra. At this point, anyway.

But even if it does, it does not follow we will then revert to a gatherer-hunter or even agricultural society. Loss of natural resources have happened before, and the result was a continuation of society because society found substitute materials. In addition to the whale oil example above, consider the end of the Bronze age (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Age_collapse#Ironworking). Contrary to what you may have heard, I'm informed the bronze tools were superior in quality to iron weapons. But bronze requires copper and tin to make, and this became difficult after copper supplies were exhausted and war disrupted the trade routes. A bronze society was no longer possible.

But rather than revert to the stone age, bronze age civilizations instead took a lateral step to the iron age (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_age). I'm given to understand that the early iron tools were inferior to bronze, but new technology made the iron readily accessible while bronze was not. The result is that a bronze age society devolved in the short term to inferior iron copies, until the tech caught up and ironworking surpassed bronze again.

To my mind societies rarely fail because they are lacking one or more critical elements. They fail because of widespread environmental disaster (example : Mayans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Maya_collapse)) or because the world changes but society doesn't : (See: Rome, which tried to live as a bread and circus empire even after they lost the Egyptian granaries which made the Roman Annona (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grain_supply_to_the_city_of_Rome) possible).

So: Societies collapse because we foul our own nest in a systemic way, or because we get too clever for our own good and build a 'machine' which eventually falls apart. But the loss of a natural resource or two *by itself* is not enough to trigger societal or population collapse. In my view.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

mattrwh
2012-03-29, 09:07 AM
The thing I worry about most is how long this planet's ecosystem will be able to absorb the impact of rampant capitalism. This isn't to say that a capitalist economy is inherently bad, but the one we currently employ can only work in an environment with unlimited resources. I don't think this will change anytime soon though, given that the resistance to this claim is mainly rooted in religious beliefs. Many global warming/climate change/ environment naysayers on the right have used the argument that earth is temporary anyway. Since Armageddon is right around the corner it doesn't matter if we use up all our resources. God put it here for us to use. This type of thinking terrifies me and if it doesn't stop there won't be much of a planet left for us in the future.

Ah well, at least I'll be dead I suppose.

Traab
2012-03-29, 09:15 AM
Pendell is right. Even if we did run out of oil, all that would do is push us towards an alternate energy source. You only think we are working hard on developing them now. But with the vast fortunes and entire economies across the world dependent on oil based income, its really not that big of an effort as of yet. As soon as it gets more expensive to produce oil than its worth due to smaller supplies, we will see a world wide shift of epic proportions to produce some source of fuel that makes current solar/wind/ethanol style garbage look pathetic. But it likely wont happen until then. And there is no way to tell when we will run out of oil. Its been predicted that we would run out of oil going back as far as before my parents were born. If we run out of oil, or it otherwise becomes prohibitive to use in my childrens lifetime, ill be surprised.

pendell
2012-03-29, 04:08 PM
Well, this is a solution I hadn't considered (http://www.livescience.com/19357-engineering-humans-climate-change.html)




So far, conventional solutions to global warming — new government policies and changes in individual behavior — haven't delivered. And more radical options, such as pumping sulfur into the atmosphere to counteract warming, pose a great deal of risk.

There may be another route to avoid the potentially disastrous effects of climate change: We can deliberately alter ourselves, three researchers suggest.

Human engineering, as they call it, poses less danger than altering our planet through geoengineering, and it could augment changes to personal behavior or policies to mitigate climate change, they write in an article to be published in the journal Ethics, Policy and the Environment.

...

n their article, they put forward a series of suggestions, intended as examples of the sorts of human engineering measures that people could voluntarily adopt. These include:

-Induce intolerance to red meat (think lactose intolerance), since livestock farming accounts for a significant portion of greenhouse gas emissions.

-Make humans smaller to reduce the amount of energy we each need to consume. This could be done by selecting smaller embryos through preimplantation genetic diagnosis, a technique already in use to screen for genetic diseases. "Human engineering could therefore give people the choice between having a greater number of smaller children or a smaller number of larger children," they write.

-Reduce birthrates by making people smarter, since higher cognitive ability appears linked to lower birthrates. This could be achieved through a variety of means, including better schooling, electrical stimulation of the brain and drugs designed to improve cognitive ability, they propose.

-Treat people with hormones, such as oxytocin, to make us more altruistic and empathetic. As a result, people would be more willing to act as a group and more sensitive to the suffering of animals and other people caused by climate change.


My initial thought is that this has 'unintended consequences' written all over it. I suspect no amount of engineering could duplicate the natural processes which makes humans the adaptable apex predators we are today, and the end result might be considerably worse than if we allow development to proceed on its natural course.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Ravens_cry
2012-03-29, 05:26 PM
Yeah, that sounds like the most practical solution.
I'm not saying climate change isn't a big deal, it is, it could make bread baskets infertile, flood coastal areas which form the bulk of our cities, not to mention just generally screwing around with ecosystems the world over at an alarming rate, but, honestly?:smallconfused:

What I see in the future is oil from carbon neutral sources, like potentially oil from algae (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel).
A much faster turnover rate than corn or soybeans, and potentially much more efficient as every cell is helping produce oil and not just the fruiting body.
Genetic engineering can make this even more the case and algaculture can use areas that are not suitable for conventional agriculture.
After all, even when oil runs out we are still going to need plastic, medicine, fertilizer and other products of the petrochemical industry.
In the Caves of Steel, Asimov imagined a future based on yeast; I imagine one based on algae, though perhaps not for food as much as he imagined.

Solaris
2012-03-30, 06:23 AM
Yeah, that sounds like the most practical solution.
I'm not saying climate change isn't a big deal, it is, it could make bread baskets infertile, flood coastal areas which form the bulk of our cities, not to mention just generally screwing around with ecosystems the world over at an alarming rate, but, honestly?:smallconfused:

What I see in the future is oil from carbon neutral sources, like potentially oil from algae (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel).
A much faster turnover rate than corn or soybeans, and potentially much more efficient as every cell is helping produce oil and not just the fruiting body.
Genetic engineering can make this even more the case and algaculture can use areas that are not suitable for conventional agriculture.
After all, even when oil runs out we are still going to need plastic, medicine, fertilizer and other products of the petrochemical industry.
In the Caves of Steel, Asimov imagined a future based on yeast; I imagine one based on algae, though perhaps not for food as much as he imagined.

I must be a natural optimist, 'cause I've always seen old breadbaskets closing down as meaning new breadbaskets are opening up. Sure, it sucks if we don't adapt, but if humans are good at anything...

Frozen_Feet
2012-03-30, 07:25 AM
@Pendell: A millenium is a long time. Even the most optimistic estimates for untapped fossil fuel reserves push back their "best before" date by a few centuries. EDIT2: Ergo, the second oil revolution happens, runs its course, and we still run out of oil.

I also included lateral shifts in technology in my estimates. The part "technology utilizing them doesn't exist anymore" refers to exactly that: by that time, fossil-fuel based technology will have been obsoleted. That's also why "technically there's some left" - some hard to tap reserves might exist, but economic pressure to utilize them never comes to exist because people will switch away to some more sensible technology.

As for why I think diminishing of fossil fuels will contribute to collapse of human population: there is a huge amount of infrastructure relying on oil. This infrastructure includes efforts to get more oil.

This is why bronze is not-so-good parallel. Once mined and refined into products, the bronze doesn't just vanish. Old tools can be melted down and recast. If some bronze is spend on making mining tools, once the mine runs out, those tools can be made into something else.

Not so in case of oil. Our current ability to produce enough oil to meet demand is based on burning the very same substance into smoke. So is our ability to retrofit our oil-based infrastructure into non-oil-based.

As such, the problem isn't that we're running out of oil. Absolute amount of resources is not the problem. The problem is logistics, and you can get a scope of how bad this problem could become by looking at our current global food distribution: wealthy nations produce enough food for roughly 15 billion people, yet out of "merely" 7 billion people alive, 1 billion are suffering from famine. And those 7 billion are estimated to become 9 billion (or more) in matter of decades.

Before the collapse, I believe majority of people who are currently benefiting from fossil-fuel-based benefits will still be benefiting of them. But there will be a massively larger amount of people who are also starving. And it is this growing imbalance that will lead to societal unrest that will topple the system.

There's also a political dimension to the subject, relating to people who are producing most of our oil now and who would be severely screwed and pissed about it if their buyers switched producers. But that can't be talked of here.

EDIT: My main point here is that "lateral shift in technology away from fossil fuels" and "disaster due to there not being enough fossil fuels" are not mutually exclusive. I'm fairly sure shortages of bronze toppled several then-important economies and relegated them to insignifigance.

pendell
2012-03-30, 08:48 AM
Oh, I can certainly agree that we'll suffer from civilizational collapse at some point, most likely sooner rather than later. Civilization is a fragile thing. ISTR that every city is only something like 3 meals away from starvation and food riots. It doesn't happen because the supply networks hum 24-7 to keep food on the table, people at work, power on, etc.

I believe that civilizational collapse, whether due to fossil fuels or anything else, is inevitable. Human extinction, however , is not. I've tried to exterminate cockroaches and mice in my apartment, and it's very difficult because they are adaptable. Humans have been trying to exterminate rats for thousands of years, but my understanding is that the rat population is bigger than it's ever been.

I can imagine civilizational collapse would mean a mass die-off of lots of humans who can't function without society to keep them alive. But "lots of people die" isn't the same thing as "extinction".




I'm fairly sure shortages of bronze toppled several then-important economies and relegated them to insignifigance.


I'm quite sure you are right.

And then the next day, the sun came up, and people began to rebuild.

It's our entire history. We've been through ice ages and environmental calamity and loss of resources and poor government and wars of mutual annihilation. There's a tremendous strength in the common man, one that continually rises up no matter how often its knocked down. Our history is not a history of continual progress, but of progress followed by destruction followed by rebuilding. We in the west are lucky in that we haven't been reset to zero since 476 AD. But if it does happen, unless it's a calamity like an asteroid that kills everyone at once, there will be survivors and those survivors will rebuild.

It may be that our descendents in a thousand years will be an agricultural people who look back on the ruins of our buildings as a lost golden age. Or they may have gone to the solar system and look back on us as primitive savages. But I would bet on us having descendents, and they'll still be the same greedy, cheating, scam artists we know today. After all, we've been metaphorically cheating both death and the gods since Prometheus came down the mountain with fire from Zeus. That "trickster" aspect has served us well and may be an evolutionary benefit. I strongly doubt it will disappear from the species anytime soon. Even if it does ... well, a thousand years isn't a very long time on an evolutionary time scale, is it? Not unless we artificially engineer ourselves, as the scientist in the article I posted suggested.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Frozen_Feet
2012-03-30, 09:01 AM
Which is why human extinction wasn't on my list of predictions, though plenty of others were. We are too numerous for that. There are also pockets of people spread throughout the world who receive little to no benefit from "modern" civilization even now, and wouldn't be all that bothered if rest of the world ceased to exist.

EDIT: there may be more mice and roaches now than ever, but that's in part because humans have created such perfect conditions for them. Were human population to take a hit, those species would take a hit as well.

Locally, populations of roaches and mice come and go due to lack of resources. They thrive where there is people because people keep bringing vastly more resources to the area than roaches or mice ever could on their own.

pendell
2012-03-30, 09:53 AM
Why is this giving me an idea for a kiddie cartoon?

PLOT: The human race is threatened by extinction. Our cute talking mice and cockroaches (with the big anime eyes, of course), race to halt this threat because the loss of so many humans means a loss of all the white sugar, refined flour, and peanut butter that *they* hold dear as well. So our band of misfits sets out to save a world in which every human will kill them on sight.

Hmm .. potential, neh? Maybe Miyazaki or Pixar will go for it.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Traab
2012-03-30, 09:00 PM
Why is this giving me an idea for a kiddie cartoon?

PLOT: The human race is threatened by extinction. Our cute talking mice and cockroaches (with the big anime eyes, of course), race to halt this threat because the loss of so many humans means a loss of all the white sugar, refined flour, and peanut butter that *they* hold dear as well. So our band of misfits sets out to save a world in which every human will kill them on sight.

Hmm .. potential, neh? Maybe Miyazaki or Pixar will go for it.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Hmm, it could work. It might be interesting if only to see whether they go for a political statement and explain WHY the humans in that movie are going to die out without the help of our fuzzy and buggy friends.

Elemental
2012-03-31, 10:03 AM
Never fear my fellow Internet worriers!
Wikipedia has a plan for rapid transferal of its archives in the event of emergence.
I give to you the: Terminal Event Management Policy! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Terminal_Event_Management_Policy)






Yes, I'm aware it's an April Fool's prank, but it's still funny.

I blame TVTropes for directing me to it.


Oh, and that movie would never work. Cockroaches are too difficult to make loveable. But then again... They managed to in WALL-E...

Ravens_cry
2012-03-31, 10:58 AM
That wasn't a cockroach, that was a dog that looked like a cockroach.
Still, making bugs cute isn't impossible, look at A Bugs Life.
On the other hand, look at Antz, some fairly intense uncanny valley there, almost a 3D Syncro-Vox look.

Rob Roy
2012-04-03, 07:21 PM
Probable Developments
Earth won't be politically united, or even close to it. Unless something unfortunate happens, like a nuclear war, and that's fairly unlikely. Compare how countries act toward each other before and after nuclear weapons. We've gotten a lot smarter after we realized that we have the power to scrape the crust off the planet.
We won't be dependent on fossil fuels, by sheer necessity. We'll probably be able to synthesize plastic (if can't well, good-bye one of the most used materials we have access to). The market for geothermal power will develop, which is good for all the people who'll be jobless after oil reserves are used up. I expect that we'll start producing more nuclear reactors too. Solar powers a bit iffy, but it'll be used in the areas that get sun, and by some survivalists who don't want to be dependent on electric companies.
Poverty wont be gone, just because of the fact that some people don't have the abilities that are required to be successful. Not necessarily a bad thing though, as the most successful business men usually start out as dirt poor.
The political map of the world wont be recognizable, some ares will be more unified while others will be balkanized. Some of the modern day countries will still be here, albeit worse for wear. Rome* survived a thousand years after the fall of the west, after all.
The world will generally be a better place. Some form a space travel is guaranteed, and we will most likely be colonizing the solar system. A couple of sleep ships might even be sent to other stars. No ideology believed in today will be believed in. They'll almost certainly go the way of Stoicism, though who knows what will replace them.
Genetic engineering will take off, though probably not to Transhuman Space or Orion's Arm levels.
Possible, but Unlikely
Life discovered on Europa
A post-scarcity society develops.
The machine revolution happens, we are all made slaves to our robot overlords.
We nuke ourselves into the dust.


*Both the Empire and the City!

distant quasar
2012-04-05, 02:36 PM
I'd guess that we'll have Quantum Computers, room-temperature (or higher) superconducters, and have sufficiently mastered parallel computing to be able to transfer our consciousness into artificial bodies. We'll probably spend most of our time hooked up on some sort of future-internet.

There will likely a one world government of sorts, although it I figure it'll be closer to the UN than, say, one unified nation.

Religion will still be around.

There will probably be no shortage of new discoveries and theories in the scientific world. We may discover new life, or them discover us, but I'm not putting my money on it. Even if we do discover life, I would bet that it own't be self-aware.

We'll probably have a space elevator. We'll probably also be very proficient with nanotechnology, as well and fusion (which will supply energy) Space travel is a given, but I'm not going to venture as the extent. We may use hyperspace, wormholes, find a way to break the light barrier, or be stuck with sleeper ships.

That's my guesswork :smallsmile:

Solaris
2012-04-06, 10:05 AM
There will likely a one world government of sorts, although it I figure it'll be closer to the UN than, say, one unified nation.

So clearly, you're positing we evolve from being a species adapted to tribal groups to a species adapted to global groups, 'cause there's no way humans would unite into one effective world government without some serious social engineering and psychological alteration.

Frozen_Feet
2012-04-06, 02:24 PM
He's also positing we'll be in quantum-computer bodies, though. Primary difference between tribe, nation or human civilization as a whole is number of people involved. You probably wouldn't need to change anything else if you can increase the amount of people a human can think of as persons from ~200 to 2 billion.

Cobalt
2012-04-07, 02:16 PM
In 3012 I will be the computer I am using right now.

I will be the computer.

Ravens_cry
2012-04-07, 02:39 PM
Well, unless Quantum Immortality is a thing, I think it unlikely I will see 3012.
I don't know what it will be like, but I do know I want to see it.

Solaris
2012-04-09, 08:35 AM
He's also positing we'll be in quantum-computer bodies, though. Primary difference between tribe, nation or human civilization as a whole is number of people involved. You probably wouldn't need to change anything else if you can increase the amount of people a human can think of as persons from ~200 to 2 billion.

I think that's what I said. I was just wondering if he'd thought that out.

Ravens_cry
2012-04-09, 01:14 PM
Well, the separation points of the Internet are not so much of national boundaries, but of language.
Personally, I think 'uploading' to a computer is a foolish endeavour, if it is even possible. Given the rapid change of technological progress, what happens if the format you uploaded with, the software and hardware that runs you, becomes obsolete, not supported?
Not to mention you are completely dependant to technology staying in practically perfect running order to stay alive.
You know how your computer goes glitch, how annoying it is? At least you're not dependent on it to exist.
You can't repair it or replace it if it completely fails you don't have an independent existence to it.

Elemental
2012-04-09, 11:24 PM
I am in agreement. I wouldn't want to be dependant upon technology for my very life.
I'd rather grow old and die than have the potential of accidentally being deleted by a software glitch.

distant quasar
2012-04-10, 12:38 PM
Well, the separation points of the Internet are not so much of national boundaries, but of language.
Personally, I think 'uploading' to a computer is a foolish endeavour, if it is even possible. Given the rapid change of technological progress, what happens if the format you uploaded with, the software and hardware that runs you, becomes obsolete, not supported?
Not to mention you are completely dependant to technology staying in practically perfect running order to stay alive.
You know how your computer goes glitch, how annoying it is? At least you're not dependent on it to exist.
You can't repair it or replace it if it completely fails you don't have an independent existence to it.


I am in agreement. I wouldn't want to be dependant upon technology for my very life.
I'd rather grow old and die than have the potential of accidentally being deleted by a software glitch.

I didn't say I would want that for myself, but I can see that being the state of humanity in 1,000 years

And to be fair, you have the potential to get sick and die, be born with genetic defects, etc. I'd imagine that the techniques to fix computers will be far more advanced than medicine can ever become, unless computer viruses begin to evolve like present day viruses of their own accord, keeping up with the pace of technological advancement.

Also, if you've been 'uploaded' into a computer body, how hard would it be to have an unactivated copy of yourself stored somewhere else, that gets updated every so often and will activate if you die?

I agree, I wouldn't enjoy that kind of life, but that's mainly because of of what other people would do in such a society. If we think we have a problem with identity theft now...

Solaris
2012-04-11, 08:52 AM
Well, the separation points of the Internet are not so much of national boundaries, but of language.
Personally, I think 'uploading' to a computer is a foolish endeavour, if it is even possible. Given the rapid change of technological progress, what happens if the format you uploaded with, the software and hardware that runs you, becomes obsolete, not supported?

Never heard of an emulator? If there's a program that's not supported, someone, somewhere, has come up with a way to run it on the current operating systems. The trick is simply to find that program.


Not to mention you are completely dependant to technology staying in practically perfect running order to stay alive.

You already are. Three meals away, remember? It's just less obvious right now, but I assure you - modern civilization is a fragile thing.


You know how your computer goes glitch, how annoying it is? At least you're not dependent on it to exist.
You can't repair it or replace it if it completely fails you don't have an independent existence to it.

You're already dependent on buggy components to exist. You can't repair or replace your brain if it even partially fails, and you don't have an existence independent from it. Short of unloading a firearm into the hard drive, even in the instance of a system collapse you can at least salvage something from a dead computer.

pendell
2012-04-11, 01:06 PM
Nit pick: Actually, even if you unload a firearm into a hard drive, you can still salvage some data from it. The parts that don't actually have bullet holes in them are still readable with the proper equipment. The only way to ensure the drive is totally unsalvageable is to overwrite it electronically with a pattern such 0xff or to physically destroy the drive such that there is no salvageable magnetic media.

Say, toss it into a blast furnace and melt it down.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Ravens_cry
2012-04-11, 03:12 PM
Never heard of an emulator? If there's a program that's not supported, someone, somewhere, has come up with a way to run it on the current operating systems. The trick is simply to find that program.

If it's popular enough, sure, but what if you were an 'early adaptor' who decided to upload with the equivalent of an Osborne.


You already are. Three meals away, remember? It's just less obvious right now, but I assure you - modern civilization is a fragile thing.

Civilisation is not humanity. It is a product of humanity. Destroy civilisation and, yeah, it would suck, but we as a species would still survive, potentially to build again.



You're already dependent on buggy components to exist. You can't repair or replace your brain if it even partially fails, and you don't have an existence independent from it. Short of unloading a firearm into the hard drive, even in the instance of a system collapse you can at least salvage something from a dead computer.
Something, but can you salvage the mind? Sure, my brain not be the best hardware in the world, but at least I don't have to worry "gee, did I pay the power bill this month." as a life or death question.

warty goblin
2012-04-11, 04:05 PM
Something, but can you salvage the mind? Sure, my brain not be the best hardware in the world, but at least I don't have to worry "gee, did I pay the power bill this month." as a life or death question.
There is that pesky food bill though.

The better question along these lines is how a digitized person would earn the money to pay the power bill in the first place.

Assuming at least one group had to remain corporeal, I'd think they'd have an awful lot of power. Sure there'd be laws against, say, flipping the breakers and turning off Cyber Hive Tower 334, but who'd enforce them? The virtualized people in Cyber Hive Tower 334 or 335? How? They don't have any physical agency.

Solaris
2012-04-11, 04:16 PM
Nit pick: Actually, even if you unload a firearm into a hard drive, you can still salvage some data from it. The parts that don't actually have bullet holes in them are still readable with the proper equipment. The only way to ensure the drive is totally unsalvageable is to overwrite it electronically with a pattern such 0xff or to physically destroy the drive such that there is no salvageable magnetic media.

Say, toss it into a blast furnace and melt it down.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Yeah, you're right.
I count this as a point in favor of computers being more durable than brains.


If it's popular enough, sure, but what if you were an 'early adaptor' who decided to upload with the equivalent of an Osborne.

Then upload from the Osborne to the next-gen. You went from meatspace to cyberspace, how big of a jump could one platform to another be?

Frankly, if you're an early adapter, that means you probably have the funds and resources to make a way to adapt from one platform to the next. If not? Well, you've got time to make one yourself, and plenty of it.


Civilisation is not humanity. It is a product of humanity. Destroy civilisation and, yeah, it would suck, but we as a species would still survive, potentially to build again.

And computers in general survive my going berserk on my laptop, but it really sucks to be that laptop. There are a multiplicity of ways for you to die. The individual human is, while not exactly soft, still quite easy to kill. Many of those come out when civilization ends.

A complete lack of food, for example.


Something, but can you salvage the mind? Sure, my brain not be the best hardware in the world, but at least I don't have to worry "gee, did I pay the power bill this month." as a life or death question.

Starve to death and die forever, or be shut off and in stasis until someone plugs you back in, you mean.
'Cause... I mean, you already pay for your food. Concern about whether or not you have to pay a bill is not something to be worried about in the switchover from brain to computer. Loss of humanity, soul, anything else - pick that and I'll agree, or at least see your point, but worrying about how fragile computers are?

This, of course, assumes there's no such thing as free energy in a thousand years. I can't imagine it being terribly expensive, what with how energy has gotten cheaper and cheaper over the last couple of centuries.

Ravens_cry
2012-04-11, 04:46 PM
I don't have to pay for my food. At least a few humans could survive by hunting and foraging. In fact, for tens of thousands of years, that's what we did.
Was it better? Oh heck, no. I'm no Luddite, I'm not dreaming for this, but my point stands that humanity, as a species, could survive total civilisation collapse. It could survive, say a coronal mass ejection (http://science.howstuffworks.com/solar-flare-electronics.htm) that could wipe out all electronics on the planet.
It could even survive an EMP nuke attack.
It would not be pretty, millions and likely billions would die, myself among them most likely, but we would still survive enough to keep going, to keep making more humans.
But a computer uploaded society would be beyond vulnerable or decimated to such an attack or natural disaster.
It would end not just the society, but the individuals in it.
All of them.
Even smaller scale problems, like a power surge, could still end you.

Solaris
2012-04-11, 07:00 PM
You don't have to pay for it, but there's just about no place CONUS that can really support its local population.

The military can harden electronics against relatively close nuclear blasts. Pretty much all of them are, actually. It's something they used to plan for. Heck, you can build a Faraday cage out of really easy-to-acquire materials. My computer's sitting on an adapter that can take pretty much any power surge it has business encountering, and even if it can't I have everything backed up on another location. We're developing ways of transmitting electricity wirelessly, which reduces the effects of magnetic events (ironically, using magnetic fields to transmit the electricity) because the wires aren't as big as they are with our current method of conduction.
That's all stuff we can do right now. Imagine what we'd do with a thousand years of advancement - heck, you're still assuming we're going to be operating with electronic circuitry. Why would we be?

A computer society would do a better job surviving, say, a plague than a human society would. It'd be really, really easy to end all human life, save perhaps the most isolated and the random immunes. We have the power to do that right now, without a massive project. When Yellowstone goes, it'll take North America with it and probably effectively end food production on a lot of the planet. There'll be some survivors of that one, of course... just like there would be in any realistic CME or EMP event. A planet-killer asteroid could wipe out just about everything on this Earth, and though a computer society would take massive casualties, survivors would be possible - whereas with a human society there wouldn't be without serious luck.

Elemental
2012-04-12, 06:12 AM
I'm still against it.
Our physical form is part of who we are. As a computer, you can't sit in the shade of a tree and feel the breeze against your skin...
Being stuck on life support where you can at least get a window is bad enough. In a computer, how could that be properly simulated? Yes, it may be possible one day to simulate everything physical, but you'd know it to be a facsimile.

I'm not sure if we are psychologically capable of living that way.

Solaris
2012-04-12, 02:08 PM
I'm still against it.
Our physical form is part of who we are. As a computer, you can't sit in the shade of a tree and feel the breeze against your skin...
Being stuck on life support where you can at least get a window is bad enough. In a computer, how could that be properly simulated? Yes, it may be possible one day to simulate everything physical, but you'd know it to be a facsimile.

I'm not sure if we are psychologically capable of living that way.

Why couldn't you? We're developing prosthesis that have a sense of touch even now. In a thousand years, prosthesis are likely to be virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. Why would the computerized 'you' not have a robot body (or several, even) for the express purpose of going out and doing those very things?

Elemental
2012-04-13, 04:01 AM
I'm not saying I wouldn't be able to experience.
Technology is advancing at a great pace after all.

It's just that... Deep down, I'd know my sensations are computer generated. That may be okay for other people, but I don't think I could cope.

Solaris
2012-04-13, 07:39 AM
I look at it this way: I wouldn't want to do the switch while I'm still relatively healthy. When I'm old and my body's failing, then perhaps the computer life is better than none at all.

Elemental
2012-04-13, 07:41 AM
I don't think I could do it even then.
But I'm not going to stop anyone else from going through with it.

Xondoure
2012-04-13, 01:11 PM
I don't think I could do it even then.
But I'm not going to stop anyone else from going through with it.

Chances are if we do get to the level of transferring consciousnesses than our new bodies could be somewhere between machine and clones. Biological bodies subtly reinforced to be stronger and more durable (nanobots in the blood stream fighting off disease and all that.) I say this because if it's truly a transfer than we will have mastered the human brain, and if we have done that then the rest will be parlor tricks.

As for the fundamental problem of knowing it's artificial, to be honest, I have that problem in this body. The longer I think about a sensation I'm having the more surreal it gets for me. It's all just signals after all, who is to say it's real when by definition there can be no secondary source with which I can confirm it?

Traab
2012-04-13, 04:45 PM
I honestly cant guess what will happen in a thousand years. I can only hope and pray that I live long enough to see at the very least scientific outposts built on the moon or mars, if not full colonies. I would love to have the chance to visit outer space before I die.

Solaris
2012-04-14, 01:44 PM
I don't think I could do it even then.
But I'm not going to stop anyone else from going through with it.


Chances are if we do get to the level of transferring consciousnesses than our new bodies could be somewhere between machine and clones. Biological bodies subtly reinforced to be stronger and more durable (nanobots in the blood stream fighting off disease and all that.) I say this because if it's truly a transfer than we will have mastered the human brain, and if we have done that then the rest will be parlor tricks.

As for the fundamental problem of knowing it's artificial, to be honest, I have that problem in this body. The longer I think about a sensation I'm having the more surreal it gets for me. It's all just signals after all, who is to say it's real when by definition there can be no secondary source with which I can confirm it?

After all, how do you not know you're already a brain in a jar?

Hbgplayer
2012-04-14, 04:25 PM
I honestly cant guess what will happen in a thousand years. I can only hope and pray that I live long enough to see at the very least scientific outposts built on the moon or mars, if not full colonies. I would love to have the chance to visit outer space before I die.

I completely agree with this setiment, especially the last sentence. I think it is definately worth the ticket price for one of Virgin Galactic's rides into space, even if I would have to take out several mortgages at this time to pay for it. :smallfrown:

Tonal Architect
2012-04-17, 09:37 PM
I know it's a long shot, but we've had nukes for over 50 years.
So far, they've only been used twice.

Late reply, especially so given that the conversation seems to be moving to a "we'll survive" consensus, but still worth mentioning:

Nukes have actually contributed a lot to peace, I believe; I can't seem to recall a single instance when a nuclear-capable country has come to blows with another possessing equal capability, if not through proxies, as during the cold war.

In pre-nuclear history, an easy (and somewhat natural) way to decrease population pressures was to merely, say, "unload" the excess human mass onto a neighboring country and let them deal with it (think of the wars we could be staging at a population of 7 billions!). Also, our very psychology points to such a solution being somewhat instinctive, given that humans become violent when under pressure.

Unfortunately (or not, really [or not, really]), this is no longer a worthwhile option, considering that either through diplomacy of direct possession of nuclear capabilities, most acts of war, especially so when involving or originating from countries in prosperous continents, will eventually become a sore to a country which can actually erase another from the maps. In a MAD scenario, this becomes an even worst possibility.

This likely froze most of the population regulation mechanisms that humans come built-in with, I believe, while also curbing a lot of the bloodshed. It's also no wonder most nuclear-capable countries don't want others possessing nukes, as it makes direct warfare a non-option to them, and it's far cheaper to wipe a country out than to deal with it in other ways.

So yeah, for good or for bad, nukes have actually contributed to peace. Now, say, had a single nation achieved nuclear capabilities a few decades before any other... Ho ho, boy, now That would have been a ride.

distant quasar
2012-04-29, 05:18 PM
I don't think I could do it even then.
But I'm not going to stop anyone else from going through with it.

A long time ago, you wouldn't have been okay with living in the city instead of out in the country. The Industrial Revolution wasn't a fun time and it oculd have bben done a lot better, but I don't think anyone would say the disconnection from nature has left us less human, and few would claim it hasn't benefited us in the long run.

To be honest, I expect that if this technology does become available, the majority won't have a problem with it, and after a few generations everyone will be doing it. I figure that we'll have control of robots to do most of our work for us, which would make up the 'material' portion of population. There may be some who don't cave in and get mech. brains, but I wouldn't think any noticable percentage.

I also expect that we'll have artificial bodies before minds, which would help take away the psychological barrier in such a transition.

Starwulf
2012-04-29, 06:31 PM
I look at it this way: I wouldn't want to do the switch while I'm still relatively healthy. When I'm old and my body's failing, then perhaps the computer life is better than none at all.

I'd rather not live forever, or even longer then what is normally considered "old" for a human. We just aren't equipped to deal with that kind of longevity. Who wants to keep dealing with the mundane problems of day to day life for hundreds of years? I'm only 30 and I'm already tired of day to day problems, I can't imagine being 300 and still dealing with them(or their future equivalent).

ArlEammon
2012-04-29, 08:52 PM
And really, there's nothing special about the number 1000.

I was talking to my brother the other day and we were pondering whether the world is becoming a better place or not. I think yes and he thinks no. It may not be a continual increase, maybe two steps forward and one step back, but I think overall we're going forward as a race.

So in 1000 years do you think poverty will be nearly ended? Life better as a whole? Worldwide, or only in first-world countries?

Or maybe the world's ended by then (hey, it's not even 2013 yet)? Perhaps we got wiped out by a solar flare or meteor or something, or maybe we wiped ourselves out, or maybe we've reduced our society back to tribal stuff through war.

How about if we change the number? 500 years, 2000 years?

{Scrubbed.}

Starwulf
2012-04-29, 11:55 PM
{Scrubbed the post, scrub the quote.}

{Scrubbed.}

Solaris
2012-04-30, 05:00 AM
I'd rather not live forever, or even longer then what is normally considered "old" for a human. We just aren't equipped to deal with that kind of longevity. Who wants to keep dealing with the mundane problems of day to day life for hundreds of years? I'm only 30 and I'm already tired of day to day problems, I can't imagine being 300 and still dealing with them(or their future equivalent).

My day to day keeps finding new and exciting ways to piss me off.
But that doesn't mean some folks wouldn't want to live longer. I know I wouldn't mind a few extra years to burn between one star and the next.

pendell
2012-04-30, 02:08 PM
My day to day keeps finding new and exciting ways to piss me off.
But that doesn't mean some folks wouldn't want to live longer. I know I wouldn't mind a few extra years to burn between one star and the next.

For myself, I would prefer to live forever or else a normal life span. I like living, but if I have to find out what's next I don't see any reason to put it off longer than necessary.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Solaris
2012-05-02, 02:52 PM
For myself, I would prefer to live forever or else a normal life span. I like living, but if I have to find out what's next I don't see any reason to put it off longer than necessary.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Speak for yourself. If my experience with this life is any indication, it'll only be worse in the next.