The future of humanity.

[Mad Scientist]

Well it seems a big issue where humanity is going. Is humanity making such a royal screw up of things, that its only a matter of time before the earth is uninhabitable, or the nukes start flying? Is civilisation going to crumble in the not to distant future? Or are we going to overcome our problems, and rise to the challenge. To put it simply, Is the future of humanity looking prosperous and plentiful? or is it looking dark and grim?

I will elaborate on my own opinions of the matter as the topic progresses. However, i will start the ball rolling by saying i personally have faith in humanity to solve whatever problems it comes across. However there are still some rough times ahead before we are out of the woods.

[Chrille]

I don't know what will happen with humans in the future, but I don't think The Earth is going to be totally deserted, maybe for 100,000 years, maybe a 1,000,000 years, but life will go on, and living creatures will start popping up again.

[Mad Scientist]

Oh indubitably. Life will go on with or without humanity. However, this thread is about whether or not humanity will go on.

[DarkFlood]

I'm pretty sure that most of humanity will be sent to oblivion, be it nukes, or (natural) disaster. What we're seeing right now is only the tip of the iceberg. It may seem a bit pessimistic, but there is still hope for the survivors of whatever tragedy befalls our race in the future.

[rtanger]

While I would love to have a positive vision for the future of humanity, and see what we can accomplish as we discover new tochnologies, there exists a small part of me that wants a great cataclysm to occur, just to see what the results would be.

I've just wondered who can actually survive without their modern conveniences...

[Natoksane]

We will evolve and our better and more improved selves will put us in cages like we do every other animal at the Zoo.

Anyway, we'll probably just get more and more efficient with technology -to a point that I think we'll reduce pollution in many ways. I don't think we're going to over pollute until this place can no longer be inhabited by us.

I can see us destroying each other in a nuclear war though. That wouldn't be suprising at all.

The most probable future would just be us getting better with technology to the point that we can extend life. We'll soon become too populated and have to move from earth to another area because of these new population issues, and that will be that.

[Fuzzy]

I believe that some time soon (2,000-5,000 years, maybe alot sooner) humanity will start to just crumble away. There are so many ways that we are destroying our environment and so many people not doing anything about it. There is global warming, natural disasters, nuclear wars might happen(as mentioned above), and I just watched a show on TV about dramatic decreases in our population, plus many more things that can't be stopped by humanity alone.
It's actually pretty scary if you think about it. Some scientists believe it will actually happen in 50-200 years. So the big question is: when? And there is a slight possibility that all of us might be living by then to experience it. Thus making it REALLY creepy to think about.

[Urbanebula]

A recent advertising campaign thats hit the UK about global warming stated: "If we continue to pollute our atmosphere with greenhouse gases, our planet will become a more hostile place to live."

Makes you think.

I think we really have made a right and royal F**k-up of things. I try not to think too far ahead about these things because to be honest is scares the s**t outta me. But hey, I guess ignoring the problem is whats got us here in the first place. I don't want my kids to have to deal with this thats for damn sure.

However I do strongly believe that society and pollitics will destroy humanity with nuclear weapons and such before nature does.

On the whole, as a race, we have failed.

(Grim i know, but thats my opinion and all I can do is apolgize to those who disagree)

[gcool]

I saw an article in new sceintist (or something cooler *shifty eyes*) about several different ways humanity could head. I found most of them laughable.

One thing to think about, though; if there is a large catastrophy, which then spills off into a clear spell, it will more than likley be the third world countries that survive.
1) 'modern', 'civilised' countries are now SO dependant on our machines, many people couldn't live without them, in some cases - litterally. Most of our farming has moved into technological age, as a sub-race most people are now too scared to eat food a day over it's artificialy inhanced sell-by-date, if not so ignorant they won't eat anything that has more than 1 healthy item in it.
2) We arnt adapted to survive in harshness, we all have centeral heating and stable habitats. Even emos, with their constant bickering about being so bad off in life, probably don't have an idea how hard it is to live in 'undeveloped' countries.
3) Most of the third world countries and 'un-developed' countries arn't likley to be caught in a war, EMP-disastor or accidental nuclear explosion.

If they do survive, they would be left in an even more hostile world, so would anyone lucky enough to survive well over here, so pretty soon evolution would take it's rightfull foothold once again and soon humans would be FAR more developed than we are now.
At the moment, we ARE at a standstill in evolution. It is very unlikley that we will evolve larger brains, and any im-perfections in the genepool that would be weeded out are now left in, due to modern science.

[DarkFlood]

unfortunately, most 3rd world countries are warring against neighboring countries, or in a state of civil war themselves.

[El]

I don't know why everybody thinks the world is going to hell!

Well, it is. Whatever happens, I hope it happens soon.

Apocalypse Please*






*That's the name of a song by Muse

[Ares]

I generally have faith in the world's leaders to realize that humanity's survival as a whole is much more important than the extermination of their group's enemies.

With human technology expanding at a faster and faster rate, I'm quite certain that we'll be able to solve most problems that present themselves.

[Dr.Aaron]

omg leik guys thers liek hydogen carz cuming out in liek a cople of yrs so were lkike safe lollol

[-58]

There were working hydrogen cars in the '70s that ran about as well as any other contemporary petroleum-powered vehicle. A whole thirty years, and apparently not much development isn't very encouraging, eh?

http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/4817/waterforfuelyr1.jpg
http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/3653/paulharvey1977dt3.jpg
http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/5712/paulharvey1976uk2.jpg

Personally, I believe we'll pull through. Humanity as a whole is still too frightened from Nagasaki and Hiroshima to nuke each other, and those folk who are crazed enough to do it either don't have access to nuclear arms or are constricted enough by bigger, more heavily armed countries that they're much less of a threat.

Even in the case of an all-out nuclear war, I think humanity, on the whole, will be fine. There are thousands of small communities of a couple thousand people across the United States and Canada, not to mention Europe, that would not make good targets for a nuclear missile - as dependent as we are upon technology, those small settlements would still survive.

Although, for you folk who think that we're in trouble in the next two thousand years . . . by that time, we'll be on the moon and elsewhere, and the threat of world-wide thermonuclear war will be much less worrisome.

[Trigger_happy]

No one can survive a full scale nuclear conflict outside.Just think of the high radiation levels and the nuclear winter.And probably if they all launch nukes they won't stand back from using biohazardous weapons(half of the deadly viruses on Earth were created in labs during the Cold War).Just the USSR alone has around 16,000 warheads(6000 active).

Worst case scenario:
NATO invades Iran.
After witnessing Ahmadinejad's fall,N.Koreea launches a nuke hitting Seoul.Casualties:5,000,000(10 mil total),many others wounded and contaminated.
USA invades North Koreea and China sends in the PLA to defend their ally.
Russians strike Europe.
Status is changed to DEFCON 1 in the US and they launch ICBMs for major targets in Russia and China.
All the other 7 countries launch their nuclear arsenal.

But I don't think this would happen.Maybe a huge asteroid or the next ice age will get us.

[grega t]

i doubt humanity will pull through if the current government's ect are the same as always...

[Mad Scientist]

Personally, i have a great deal of faith in humanity. I'm sensing a great deal of negative predictions about the fate of humanity here, however i do not really agree with them.

Firstly, there are two major threats to humanity: internal threats (nuclear war type scenarios) and external ones (asteroid strike, supervolcano, etc). External ones do not pose a signifcant problem in my opinion. The reason is that unlike other animals on the planet, our ability to cope with external threats advances exponentialy as we discover more technologies. If an asteroid was inbound, then we have suffcient nuclear capacity to blast it off course, or turn it to rubble. Any other "natural" problem can be solved with a sufficently advanced aplication of technology. Even the worst predictions of global warming show economic upheaval, rather than massive and sudden death tolls. It is true that humanity is extremely dependant upon technology, but i fail to see why this is a problem. The most basic artifacts of technoloy (sharpened rocks and sticks) are something that any human can make with a little practice. Our minds are very good at finding ways to manipulate simple objects into more usefull devices. With the most primitive technology, mankind can survive as it has for most of its existance. And now, data storage has become so ubiquitous that there is no way we could loose all the information we have learnt over the years. The shear volume of information distrubuted in books, pictures, and even more advanced data storage media is staggering, and it only takes a few facts about physics, chemistry and biology, to get humanity back to some form of civilisation again.

However, i doubt it will come to that.

As for an internal threat? Humanity has nearly wiped itself out several times in the past, but it never quite manages to go through with it. The reason why is simply that there is no benefit to humanity in the long run. I believe that the fear of nuclear war is so ingrained in us now, that nobody would ever be idiotic enough to actually push the button. Of course this is a point of faith, but my justifications for this are long and numerous, and this post is getting long enough as it is. As for economic forces ruining humanity (oil shortages leading to war and such) there is little cause for concern. This kind of problem has happened so many times in the past before and a technological solution always arrives in the nick of time. The reason for this is simply that it is the easiest thing to do. Consider a ball rolling down a bumpy hill. The ball will take the path of least resisitance to the bottom of the hill. Humanity, is similar in that it will always move forwards, in the path with the least resistance for it to do so. It is far easier for governments and corporations to dump money into research, then face a total collapse of civilisation. Indeed, to someone who keeps an eye on scientific developments, i can already see the systems gearing up to producing a solution to global warming. This is no different from any other problem humanity has faced in its past, so logically i would not expect its solution to play out any differently.

To put it simply, humanity has always been walking on a tightrope over a pit of distruction. Sometimes we've wobbled a bit, but there is always a deus ex machina that we pull out of the bag before falling. Nobody wants to loose all we have built up over the past 2000 years. I feel that this desire to improve is the greatest driving force that will push us through the cryses we face today, and every one we will face in the future.

As far as i am concerend, humanity is here to stay.

[Chrille]

Russians strike Europe.

The Soviet Union dissolved 15 years ago, Russia aren't our enemy anymore.

[gcool]

"The ball will take the path of least resisitance to the bottom of the hill. Humanity, is similar in that it will always move forwards, in the path with the least resistance for it to do so. "

Humanity dosn't take the path of least resistance. It creates the pah of least resistance...

[Mad Scientist]

Possible, but i would like to point out that people really arn't that stupid. Leaders may not inform the public of such an asteroid strike, however they would most certainly make sure the leaders of other countries knew. There really is no advantage to anyone gained by keeping such a secret entirly to yourself.

[Trigger_happy]

I agree with what you've said.External threats do not pose a serious threat.Some threats would maybe lead to huge casualties but not the extinction of humanity.

[Trigger_happy]

The Soviet Union dissolved 15 years ago, Russia aren't our enemy anymore.
They aren't NATO's enemy anymore but NATO is Russia's enemy.If a huge war breaks out I seriously doubt Russia will step aside.
I say again:that is the worst case scenario.

[Mad Scientist]

Currently, any scenario that results in a direct confrontatation between the USA and China would likly be the worst case. People have even claimed that there is a potential flashpoint for this conflict in Taiwan. Apparently, the Taiwanese wish to declare independance from china at the 2008 beijing olympics, something that America would wholeheartedly support, and china would wholehardedly oppose. However, if this is so, then the Taiwanese have cleverly selected a most excellent time to break away, as the eyes of the world would be on china at that point, and it is unlikly that china would respond with force to such a declaration, given it would go down VERY badly with the rest of the world.

[Trigger_happy]

Americans blackmailed the chinese back in '99 when an E-2C aircraft collided with a chinese fighter.The US was acused of espionage.In exchange of the photos taken from the plane,the chinese delivered some weapons to the taiwanese.

[Stene]

Well, as some people have seen here in north (Finland and so on), the atmossphere is changing really much because of all this gas and other. The winter is much different, its no snow here, just cold and rains and its dark. Everything just looks so dead, some years ago it was nice white winter with snow all around.

And in the summer there was much hotter temperature, about 35 Celsius. That was hottest summer since the 1985. You may think that it is really cold here still when you live in somewhere like Spain or Italy, but it is much more warm here than before.

About the future, if we people keep driving petrol-cars and trashing the streets, Im not excited if it will be really really warm here.


About my expects to future are these:

USA will start attacking to Russia because of it being more corrupted, like it is right now when they kill everyone that says something against Putin.
Russia will start nuclear war against US. When all the poisons fly to North Korea and other, they will attack to Russia. The radiotion level goes too high and some people will be put to quarantine. People will evacuate themselves to out of Europe to South America and Africa.

While the people in there will not get really happy for it the Civil War will start. This will be World War III. While everyone is nuking Russia and US is getting also raped with some missiles, people in Australia can live well without joining war. Radition level in Japan and India is also going high and they will stop all traffic to their countries...

Blablabalabla funny to think about this.

[mike016256]

In the year 2045, the human race will pass through the technological singularity and our knowledge will instantly increase our knowledge at an almost infinate rate. Speculation says that we will develop machines that can think beyond us.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

[redgrassbridge]

@mike016256: The singularity you refer to is meant to describe the intelligence of AI, not humans. If AI was created, it would excede our technology level quickly once it reached the level we are at, because of its ability to augment its own knowledge.

As for the topic:

I feel that there are a great number of stellar, motivated, clever individuals among us who have the capacity to help the race weather incredible hardship. I also feel there are a great number of self-serving, opportunistic fools as well. Both have examples that hold great power in our world today, and I think our technology makes it so painfully simple to ruin everything with one poor decision.

Damage to the race doesn't need to be quick and flashy, like it is in Mutually Assured Destruction. It can be a slow, downward stagnation as well. Look at the Roman Empite: they reached insane hights of prosperity on the backs of the civilizations the conquered, and their civilization became completely decedent, with gladiator battles, vomitoriums to accompany the overly rich meals they ate, downright disturbing fashion (discriptions tastefully excluded), and the whole time, the government passed out free bread and circus to cover up the fact that they were losing control of foreign provinces and the economy was collapsing. The result: the Dark Ages. With corporate-controled media, nothing will stop the same thing happening in a few generations from today.

Humans are programmed to think of themselves as capable, enduring, and special-- this is the motivational part of the reproductive instinct. And it is true that there are special individuals in our race. But we are not a master species, and life is not protected by any sort of divine shield. The universe does not require our enduring existance, and it isn't going to let us off easy. Survival will be a constant struggle with no definite end, and nothing says we will always be up to the challenge.

...So have a nice day:P

[Chrille]

Long words.


Global Warming, eh?

The climate here on Earth, changes all the time, sometimes it get warmer, sometimes it get colder. The Triassic was extremely hot, but the climate got cooler trough the Jurassic, and the Cretaceous periods were much colder, and then at last the Ice Age came. I personally think that it's going retro forever and ever.

I might be wrong, but still because of this Global Warming, it's not like the climate is going to change the entire world into a giant desert, atleast not in our time. You will experience a snowy christmas again, don't worry.

On topic: I don't think that there will be a major war soon, or maybe not at all.

[cowfish13]

The human race already establish what is evil so probally less than 1% of people do something totally evil. We may have corrupt power but they aren't stupid enough to do something evil that would lead to their downfall.

[Mad Scientist]

With corporate-controled media, nothing will stop the same thing happening in a few generations from today.


The key issue here is the flow of information. If those in power can cover up their flaws, then there is little hope. However, we live in the information age, and as the leaders (in the UK at least. I cannot speak for elsewhere in the developed world), are beginning to understand, there is very little chance that any skeletons will stay hidden in the closet for long. Especially with the advent of the internet, and the accompanying uncensored, uncontolable flood of information (china excluded. And that system is already begining to crumble), then i have faith that those in power will soon be in a very poor position if they want to hide any unplesant information.

And as for a major war? I think this is fairly likly, however i doubt nuclear weapons will be exchanged. Their usage would mean there is no chance of victory, making them an extremly foolish choice of weapon. What is likly is that the economic force that ignites the war? Energy.

The economic maneuvering of the major powers at the moment is remarkably similar to the political maneuvers of the european countries prior to world war one. With a significantly great push, i believe the world could tip into a seires of brief, yet brutal "energy wars" over oil and other energy resources. These would not be like the world wars of the last century, but more like a sieres of far smaller wars, often fought indirectly, and across wide ranging fronts. The advent of the internet would also lead to a potentially crippling form of electronic warfare being waged in parrallel to the conventional weapons.

And as the war reaches its creshendo, i am fairly certain that the stablising, technological deus ex machina will arise, and make the possibility of continued warfare unviable, the same way that nuclear weaponry forshortened world war two. Technology will smash the status quo once again as it always does, when one side discovers an unmistakable advantage. In the case of the energy wars, this advantage will come in the form of cheap clean energy, and the provider of such energy will be nuclear fusion. Whoever gets it will have access to the very thing everyone else is fighting over so much, and will therefore be in an extremly powerfull position regaurding who they grant this technology to. CUrrently, the leader in fusion sciences is europe considering that europe has both the worlds current largest experimental fusion reactor (i have seen it), and will also be the site of the next one. Of course, this could all change, but there would have to be some fairly major restructuring of the status quo.

I beleive fusion WILL arrive, and it WILL solve a great many problems regaurding, energy and political contentions (fusion would certainly make oil less valuble, taking a lot of the attraction out of warring over the middle east). The question is when, and will it be soon enough?

[-58]

Humanity dosn't take the path of least resistance. It creates the pah of least resistance...

I chuckled at this - a very good quote, and worthy of notation.

. . . Nobody wants to loose all we have built up over the past 2000 years . . . .

Last time I checked, human civilization has existed for about five thousand years.

Apart from those two things, I have very little to add to this argument, except that I heartily agree with Mad Scientist on pretty much every point.

[jambo]

Earth will survive until the year 5.5/Apple/26 (5 billion or so), but the human race will have moved on and out into the universe, where it will breed with a race of space chickens, producing Chikenoids! O_O

[Mercer]

I also have faith in humanity.

With coming Environmental changes, the biggest loss will be in economics like MadSci says. And you know, countries come and go but that doesn't mean the whole of humanity cumbles without them! The West may fall some day, but that doesn't mean that's the end of the world. Maybe it's the end of many of our worlds but not all.

In any case, Humanity can look forward to a long life, unless something extremely catestropic happens

[mike016256]

@mike016256: The singularity you refer to is meant to describe the intelligence of AI, not humans. If AI was created, it would excede our technology level quickly once it reached the level we are at, because of its ability to augment its own knowledge.

I was not saying that OUR knowledge will increase directly by passing through the singularity. I was saying that the intelligence of the machines will be used as a tool to think in abstract ways which the human mind cannot. We will learn from the machines and our knowledge would expand infinitely.

[rtanger]

Actually, I would think that the computer would be used to think in concrete ways as opposed to the typically more symbolic, abstracted human point of view.

When a computer is asked "What is Life?" it will return a number.

When a man is asked "What is Life?" he will form a religion.

I'm getting the sneaking suspicion someone famous might have said this, or something similar. If some great man did, I don't know his name. Let me know if you do.

[DarkFlood]

Humankind has existed about 30,000 years. The Hindu religion which was the first organized religion, predates christianity by 3,000 years alone, and there is evidence of tools and objects that predate that. But our earth is most likely going to be swallowed by the sun when it gets to the red giant stage of its lifecycle.

[TheTaxidermist]

Humankind has existed about 30,000 years. The Hindu religion which was the first organized religion, predates christianity by 3,000 years alone, and there is evidence of tools and objects that predate that. But our earth is most likely going to be swallowed by the sun when it gets to the red giant stage of its lifecycle.

You know what else predates Christianity by several thousand years? Judaism. And for me I don't know what the future will hold, I'll just go where it leads me.

[rtanger]

The sun ain't swallowing the Earth for a few million/billion years yet. I highly doubt that's a concern.