Fact or Fiction: Futurism, to infinity and beyond?

[The Dryad]

Hey, so what are your thoughts, hopes and wishes for the future? 

 

Are you looking forward to space travel like in Star Trek? What type of government do you think we'll have, economics?

 

What about the most exciting aspect, the tech? Augmented/virtual reality, holograms, human tech (human modifications), transportation?

 

 

 

 

For me, if technology becomes what I imagine it to be-

 

humans are idle while we have robot avatars that provide income for us or universal basic income for humans while corporations use cheaper and more efficient robot labor

 

Infrastructure is a mix of nature and technology- current infrastructure is uninspiring and unappealing to humans, even though it's more efficient, like the vertical forest's design, which provides health benefits to humans.

 

Even though it's not ideal, the government is global, eliminating borders of countries hence no illegal immigrants, economics is a mix of capitalism and socialism. 

 

Universal basic income is mandatory and housing is free for the public for private ownership. Basic necessities for living are taken care of, but to take of desires one must work.

 

Humans, especially wealthy humans frequently use body modifications- to change hair (texture, color), skin tone, and avoid illness. Common tech is holographic.

 

Wealthy humans have the best food and best air, and the most freedoms ,probably live in floating castles, if not in a space kingdom or other celestial body colony.

 

Even though this type of society is thought to inspire a large amount of laziness, there will most likely be a population that always works, and that population (most likely the scientists and teachers along with politicians and CEOs) will be the most wealthy.

 

 

[Epitaph]

Glad something like this was posted here. I've been reading a book lately composed of short stories by the same author, and oh man do I love how he writes.

 

In a lot of his shorts, humanity has branched outwards into the stars, but they can't overcome the iron barrier of the speed of light. So their solution is simple. Extend their lifespans. In his particular visions, humanity branches outwards in all directions and splinters into many variations, all adapting to the environment of other worlds either through biological or technological engineering. Cultures rise and fall and splinter from world to world, and the very oldest remnants of human origin are so advanced that they're practically immortal. They travel the galaxy at a fraction of the speed of light for thirty thousand years, and in that timespan, entire human civilizations rise and go extinct, and to them it's an eye blink as if they're just rolling down the road for a pit stop at a gas station. He's just got a really great way of describing the immensity of the scale of everything and a very real problem that we as a species might one day face if we make it that far. This is just ramblings on my part though. Will type up something more substantial later.

 

 

[The Dryad]

11 hours ago, E said:

Glad something like this was posted here. I've been reading a book lately composed of short stories by the same author, and oh man do I love how he writes.

 

In a lot of his shorts, humanity has branched outwards into the stars, but they can't overcome the iron barrier of the speed of light. So their solution is simple. Extend their lifespans. In his particular visions, humanity branches outwards in all directions and splinters into many variations, all adapting to the environment of other worlds either through biological or technological engineering. Cultures rise and fall and splinter from world to world, and the very oldest remnants of human origin are so advanced that they're practically immortal. They travel the galaxy at a fraction of the speed of light for thirty thousand years, and in that timespan, entire human civilizations rise and go extinct, and to them it's an eye blink as if they're just rolling down the road for a pit stop at a gas station. He's just got a really great way of describing the immensity of the scale of everything and a very real problem that we as a species might one day face if we make it that far. This is just ramblings on my part though. Will type up something more substantial later.

 

 

I've read that Elon Musk and a few others are working on "immortality" which absolutely makes sense if humans are going to colonize other celestial bodies, which I'm sure will involve some genetic modifications and technology that I don't understand.

[lapat67]

I see us moving in the opposite direction, where we continue running out of resources, enter some sort of middle ages, or, if you will, where we, the rich 10%, join the rest of humanity in living from the land after burning through 500 million years of fossil fuels, biodiversity and what have you not in a mere 300 years. I do wonder how much of the technical revolution we will be able to adapt to that situation and how much will be lost because, well, if it's unsustainable, that means it won't be sustained.

[Homer]

It's going to be sticks and stones again in less than 100 years.

[Skycaptain]

The "haves" will have the weaponry to wipe out the "have not" 

[daveb]

Going by history and trends over time I think people will find ways to improve things and solve issues, even if we do let them get to crisis level before acting. There may be set-backs along the way, as has been the case in the past, but the overall trend seems to be better lives for more and more people, looking at the broader scope.

[The Dryad]

41 minutes ago, Homer said:

It's going to be sticks and stones again in less than 100 years.

 

29 minutes ago, Skycaptain said:

The "haves" will have the weaponry to wipe out the "have not" 

So only the survival of the 'fittest'? It seems that humanity is moving towards something more inclusive for prosperity. 

[Homer]

6 hours ago, The Dryad said:

It seems that humanity is moving towards something more inclusive for prosperity. 

Does it? How so?

[Skycaptain]

@The Dryad, Being realist no. Should either a rising population or rising sea levels result in a scarcity of food, water, arable land etc, those with weapons will just kill off those without. It's not do much "survival of the fittest" as survival of the most ruthless "

[The Dryad]

6 hours ago, Homer said:

Does it? How so?

Universal basic income is a guard against poverty, and many European countries are testing it out, here in the US, people/counties are building tiny houses for the homeless because it's more cost effective to give people houses, Democrats are trying to pass new taxes for free college tuition, and trying to standardize a government health insurance, which means less money going into the pockets of corporate insurance companies. 

[The Dryad]

5 hours ago, Skycaptain said:

@The Dryad, Being realist no. Should either a rising population or rising sea levels result in a scarcity of food, water, arable land etc, those with weapons will just kill off those without. It's not do much "survival of the fittest" as survival of the most ruthless "

True.

[lapat67]

19 hours ago, daveb said:

trends over time

That is contested. For instance Steven Pinker is one of those who have argued for decreasing violence over time, and e.g. Brian Ferguson has looked at his examples in great detail to show that he cherry picked his data to support this wishful thinking. Just because the collapse of our civilisation has only progressed to the point where we, the overdeveloped <10% of the global population still have quite comfortable lives, and have seen huge improvements over the previous few generations, doesn't mean that all is sweetness for the other 90%. Or that it's likely to last.

[Epitaph]

Quick commentary on my part. The charts created by the World3 think tank hold up almost exactly as the models predicted almost fifty years after they were published. Within the next thirty years we're looking at an economic and environmental crisis that crushes our industry and agriculture productivity and pushes living conditions back to early 1900's levels. I'm not an optimist when it comes to people. I hold these projections as the most likely outcome.

 

However, personally I think that within the next hundred years, there's going to be a massive push towards the asteroid belt in our solar system. As resources start to dwindle, people are going to look for ways out. The asteroid fields out there are a lucrative way out.

[The Dryad]

On 11/4/2018 at 1:12 PM, lapat67 said:

That is contested. For instance Steven Pinker is one of those who have argued for decreasing violence over time, and e.g. Brian Ferguson has looked at his examples in great detail to show that he cherry picked his data to support this wishful thinking. Just because the collapse of our civilisation has only progressed to the point where we, the overdeveloped <10% of the global population still have quite comfortable lives, and have seen huge improvements over the previous few generations, doesn't mean that all is sweetness for the other 90%. Or that it's likely to last.

This holds some truth, I suppose one way to view it is that, where the most developed infrastructure is is also where we have conditioned ourselves to "be more civil", which doesn't make other populations necessarily uncivilized, but we do have a different way of living that isn't universal, I can actually think of several examples of this...which is sad. I think humans overall need to be reconditioned though, which sounds super futuristic and scary, but I really think in order to survive the times humans need to become less prejudiced, and the only way that I can think of it working is mandatory conditioning- like those old listening programs for people trying to learn a new language, but with visual aids, because humans tend to be more visual.

[Epitaph]

Anyway. Now that I have a moment to actually talk without rush....

 

Resuming onto the point of the asteroid belt. I'm going to assume for a second that we divert course from the projected outline of the world3 think tank. The environmental pressures and dwindling resources would still be hitting us. But for the first person or corporation to pioneer an efficient way out to the asteroid belt to harvest all the abundant resources there, our planet would be set for a good long number of years. Hundreds of thousands if our population does not boom. It'd be the new age gold rush of the Yukon.

 

And if that became a reality, then our technological growth would advance, assuming that we do not slow at the hurdles. And that's another problem. Even though we advance, the hurdles become larger. Eventually the hurdles will be beyond our level of understanding to influence unless we evolve beyond what we are now. But I can in no way accurately predict that.

 

I keep my vision of the future limited to my lifespan or slightly farther. I don't think people will change much. We'll still have cities. Things might be "greener." No doubt corporations will have a massive hold over everything. As I said, the first corporation to pioneer a way out to the asteroid field will be an absolute juggernaut akin to the early fathers of industry like Ford or the Roch Brothers. And it'll be this corporation, whoever it is, who'll control our fate for the future.

 

If you want my honest opinion, I think the fellow who owns Tesla knows this. 

[The Dryad]

On 11/9/2018 at 2:49 AM, E said:

Anyway. Now that I have a moment to actually talk without rush....

 

Resuming onto the point of the asteroid belt. I'm going to assume for a second that we divert course from the projected outline of the world3 think tank. The environmental pressures and dwindling resources would still be hitting us. But for the first person or corporation to pioneer an efficient way out to the asteroid belt to harvest all the abundant resources there, our planet would be set for a good long number of years. Hundreds of thousands if our population does not boom. It'd be the new age gold rush of the Yukon.

 

And if that became a reality, then our technological growth would advance, assuming that we do not slow at the hurdles. And that's another problem. Even though we advance, the hurdles become larger. Eventually the hurdles will be beyond our level of understanding to influence unless we evolve beyond what we are now. But I can in no way accurately predict that.

 

I keep my vision of the future limited to my lifespan or slightly farther. I don't think people will change much. We'll still have cities. Things might be "greener." No doubt corporations will have a massive hold over everything. As I said, the first corporation to pioneer a way out to the asteroid field will be an absolute juggernaut akin to the early fathers of industry like Ford or the Roch Brothers. And it'll be this corporation, whoever it is, who'll control our fate for the future.

 

If you want my honest opinion, I think the fellow who owns Tesla knows this. 

I want a meteoroid for my birthday, *bats eyes prettily., Lol. (If you find a meteoroid, can you keep it?)

 

I think Elon Musk is aware of things like this, and that's one of the main reasons he's created all the programs he has- he sees the future instead of this politically constipated world we're living in.

 

I think you're right that humans will never change, and the political games may change is humans actually invest in harvesting from the asteroid belt and humans become wealthy enough to build a host of Androids to do our bidding (anyone see the Chinese news anchor robot that debuted a couple days ago?)

 

Certain people will always be wealthier/hold more power and they will be the ones who control our fate, plus we have no guarantees that wealth would be distributed at all (which would be Uber sad for everyone because with inflation, pretty much no one except those who had the wealth could afford to survive).

[lapat67]

On 11/9/2018 at 8:49 AM, E said:

I'm going to assume for a second that we divert course from the projected outline of the world3 think tank.

Based on what? We're much closer to the world3 projections than the uncertainties when they built the model suggested.

 

E. said:

But for the first person or corporation to pioneer an efficient way out to the asteroid belt to harvest all the abundant resources there, our planet would be set for a good long number of years. Hundreds of thousands if our population does not boom. It'd be the new age gold rush of the Yukon.

 

We have made essentially no progress on extraterrestrial exploration in the last ~20 years. We're still at the stage where we're sending a few people to Earth orbit at the time, at astronomical costs (pun intended). And you talk about factory scale populations, machinery, life support, the whole shebang. And we're at or near peak fossil fuels, in fact, peak everything, and we've borrowed so much from the future in the last 10 years alone just to maintain the status quo. So we're not going up there. It's downhill from here until we shrink back to carrying capacity.

 

On 11/10/2018 at 7:47 PM, The Dryad said:

 humans become wealthy enough to build a host of Androids to do our bidding

When is that supposed to happen? My line manager gets woken up at 3 in the morning when the "intelligent" heating system decides it's time to turn on the boiler. I suggest you read "A woman looking at men looking at women" by Siri Hustvedt, who convinced me that we're nowhere near creating AI, that we haven't even got an idea of how to get there. Not to mention that humans are in fact both energy efficient and really versatile. Or, as Korzybski wrote: when we speak of manual labour, we're actually relying in the first place on the human nervous system; otherwise we'd be breeding apes to do this labour.

[Epitaph]

6 hours ago, lapat67 said:

Based on what? We're much closer to the world3 projections than the uncertainties when they built the model suggested.

 

E. said:

But for the first person or corporation to pioneer an efficient way out to the asteroid belt to harvest all the abundant resources there, our planet would be set for a good long number of years. Hundreds of thousands if our population does not boom. It'd be the new age gold rush of the Yukon.

 

We have made essentially no progress on extraterrestrial exploration in the last ~20 years. We're still at the stage where we're sending a few people to Earth orbit at the time, at astronomical costs (pun intended). And you talk about factory scale populations, machinery, life support, the whole shebang. And we're at or near peak fossil fuels, in fact, peak everything, and we've borrowed so much from the future in the last 10 years alone just to maintain the status quo. So we're not going up there. It's downhill from here until we shrink back to carrying capacity.

 

When is that supposed to happen? My line manager gets woken up at 3 in the morning when the "intelligent" heating system decides it's time to turn on the boiler. I suggest you read "A woman looking at men looking at women" by Siri Hustvedt, who convinced me that we're nowhere near creating AI, that we haven't even got an idea of how to get there. Not to mention that humans are in fact both energy efficient and really versatile. Or, as Korzybski wrote: when we speak of manual labour, we're actually relying in the first place on the human nervous system; otherwise we'd be breeding apes to do this labour.

 

Most likely. I only assumed as such for the sake of discussion. I'd figure that at least there'd be a wanting push to the asteroid belt for the resources with automated tech, but as it stands, I figure we're too far into the red zone now unless we get some massive miracle tier breakthroughs.

[The Dryad]

8 hours ago, lapat67 said:

Based on what? We're much closer to the world3 projections than the uncertainties when they built the model suggested.

 

E. said:

But for the first person or corporation to pioneer an efficient way out to the asteroid belt to harvest all the abundant resources there, our planet would be set for a good long number of years. Hundreds of thousands if our population does not boom. It'd be the new age gold rush of the Yukon.

 

We have made essentially no progress on extraterrestrial exploration in the last ~20 years. We're still at the stage where we're sending a few people to Earth orbit at the time, at astronomical costs (pun intended). And you talk about factory scale populations, machinery, life support, the whole shebang. And we're at or near peak fossil fuels, in fact, peak everything, and we've borrowed so much from the future in the last 10 years alone just to maintain the status quo. So we're not going up there. It's downhill from here until we shrink back to carrying capacity.

 

When is that supposed to happen? My line manager gets woken up at 3 in the morning when the "intelligent" heating system decides it's time to turn on the boiler. I suggest you read "A woman looking at men looking at women" by Siri Hustvedt, who convinced me that we're nowhere near creating AI, that we haven't even got an idea of how to get there. Not to mention that humans are in fact both energy efficient and really versatile. Or, as Korzybski wrote: when we speak of manual labour, we're actually relying in the first place on the human nervous system; otherwise we'd be breeding apes to do this labour.

You're right of course, but @E and I usually talk about idealistic circumstances with some speculation mixed in about these types of things, not truly exact.

[lapat67]

@The Dryad, I keep talking about the projected circumstances of our actions, because the idealistic circumstances divert attention from what is happening right before our eyes and that requires all the attention we can muster: the 6th mass extinction, our climate going the interglacial-to-glacial distance but in the opposite direction, the neo-colonial robbing of the global poor, by us, the rich minority.

[The Dryad]

Did anyone else read that NASA "possible alien visits" 

 

https://amp.livescience.com/64237-nasa-aliens-fox-news.html

 

Wasn't there a Canadian politician a couple of years ago who said the US government was working with aliens? The plot thickens....

[Skycaptain]

I saw that article. If you read closely, the author of the original article just didn't say that it was impossible, and the journalist has spun this to say that it is likely. 

Two different interpretations of the same fact. Zero evidence neither proves nor disproves anything 

[The Dryad]

4 hours ago, Sleighcaptain said:

I saw that article. If you read closely, the author of the original article just didn't say that it was impossible, and the journalist has spun this to say that it is likely. 

Two different interpretations of the same fact. Zero evidence neither proves nor disproves anything 

True, however the fact that aliens aka extraterrestrials were even mentioned says alot, yes it's saying "anything's a possibility at the point", but I still find it telling.

[Gizamaluke]

 

This image made a real connect with me. The idea of cities walking through nuclear wastelands collecting resources and competing with one another, but unlike Immortal Engines, the interiors are like luxury cruise liners. Imagine spending the apocalypse on board a walking titanic, like something out of Metropolis, steam workers down below, leisure up above. I love the but like designs of the ship's themselves, like the machines in early Studio Ghibli movies.

[daveb]

1 hour ago, The Dryad said:

telling

Telling what?

 

The universe is huge. At this point we can't say with 100% certainty that aliens have not visited the Earth, but the chances any aliens have may be very very very very small. They could be so small as to be practically 0%. If there is no way to travel faster than the speed of light, for example, what are the chances some aliens would have taken the time and effort and resources to travel to the Earth of all places in the universe? Would they have done it multiple times? Would most of those times have been mostly only since humanity has taken to space? Seems very unlikely to me (but not totally impossible).

[Guest Jetsun Milarepa]

There's a saying in Scotland 'Ye'll look at the moon till ye alight in the midden'...no use at all going to Mars, for example-what;s there? Red stones. Oh, yes, rich guys can mine it- but, where's the good if the Earth is just made into a polluted dungheap?

[uhtred]

On 12/6/2018 at 2:54 PM, daveb said:

Telling what?

 

The universe is huge. At this point we can't say with 100% certainty that aliens have not visited the Earth, but the chances any aliens have may be very very very very small. They could be so small as to be practically 0%. If there is no way to travel faster than the speed of light, for example, what are the chances some aliens would have taken the time and effort and resources to travel to the Earth of all places in the universe? Would they have done it multiple times? Would most of those times have been mostly only since humanity has taken to space? Seems very unlikely to me (but not totally impossible).

The Drake equation has certainly gotten a lot shorter over the last couple of decades.  Its almost certain that the universe is full of earth-like worlds - though we have no idea if they are all lifeless.  We don't even know if earth-like is the best place for life to evolved. 

 

Would we even recognize aliens if they were here?  I like to think of the "ants on the tarmac" analogy.  Imagine an ant colony that lives in a crack in a big flat rock.  They would have no idea that rock is concrete, and part of the runway system of a major airport.  An unimaginably (to them) complex civilization would be all around them, would have constructed their "world", but they would be completely unaware of it. 

[Skycaptain]

If species from other planets have advanced to the point where they can travel between galaxies, it wouldn't be unreasonable to suppose that they'd also previously developed highly advanced observation technology and, like we are beginning to be able to do, make a reasonable guess as to which planets may support life 

[daveb]

At this point the best information we have says that FTL travel is not possible. That means anyone traveling from one star to another is going to take a long time to get there, with the commensurate costs in time and resources. I would think there would have to be some pretty compelling reasons to do that. Or do people really think aliens are traveling all the way here just to buzz the skies, abduct random humans, mush down crops, and play various other pranks and/or "experiments"? I just don't find it credible or likely.

 

If there are any aliens with such advanced technology I guess they would probably have ways to observe without being detected (especially not by the average "joe" or ufo enthusiast).

 

The fact is we don't know enough to say aliens are visiting earth. The so-called Drake "equation" makes a LOT of assumptions which we have very little data to back up. Sure, we know now that "earth"-like planets are out there, and we may be getting an idea of how common they probably are, but so far we only have one known data point of life (although I do think life is pretty tenacious, and it seems likely to me that it will arise given the right conditions, but we don't know how strict those conditions are).

 

Bottom line is that so far it's all speculative, and there is no proof of alien visitations, or at least none that holds up to scientific examination. That doesn't mean aliens have not visited. But so far we can't definitively say they have. I think it would be really cool if we ever find real proof of an alien visitation. At this point we don't even know if there is any kind of life beyond the life that exists on this planet. I hope I live long enough to see us find undisputed life on another world.