Fact or Fiction: Futurism, to infinity and beyond?

[Guest]

On 10/28/2018 at 2:25 AM, The Dryad said:

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.

Sounds pretty awesome.

 

Sadly, I think violent self-destruction, and collapse of nearly all infrastructure in a post-climate change, war-torn world (war being caused because there will be hundreds of millions of people forced to migrate to cooler and drier climates) to go back to pre-industrial survivors roughhousing life in small communities seems to be the more probable path we're heading down.

 

I mean, sure, if we stay with Star Trek - the humans pulled themselves up to the Federation utopia only after WW3, fought with nukes. Sadly, that mriaculous recovery has always been one of the aspects of the Trekverse that required the most suspension of disbelief.

 

 

(What, a grumpy pessimistic misanthrope? Me? ...yeah, yeah I do think that's what I've become. So sue me.)

[lapat67]

@davebWith only 1 datapoint we indeed have to be very circumspect, but we do have at least some information: Life appeared pretty much instantaneously once there was liquid water, but it then took about 3 billion years for multicellular animals to evolve. And in another billion years the output of the sun will have increased so much that the minimum temperature will be about 50 degrees Celsius and multicellular life will all die. So that's a relatively narrow window, and microbial life might be relatively common in the universe and, with a nod to @Mysticus Insanus, intelligent life entirely absent.

[uhtred]

13 hours ago, lapat67 said:

@davebWith only 1 datapoint we indeed have to be very circumspect, but we do have at least some information: Life appeared pretty much instantaneously once there was liquid water, but it then took about 3 billion years for multicellular animals to evolve. And in another billion years the output of the sun will have increased so much that the minimum temperature will be about 50 degrees Celsius and multicellular life will all die. So that's a relatively narrow window, and microbial life might be relatively common in the universe and, with a nod to @Mysticus Insanus, intelligent life entirely absent.

That is such a tough question.   I agree that the rapid appearance of life  soon after there was liquid water strongly suggests that its common - but the anthropic principal is so strong here that statistics are tricky .

 

I also agree that the long time between simple life and complex life *might* indicate that complex life is unlikely, but OTOH, there may be some sort of "clock", a series or evolutionary steps, and it just takes ~4 billion years.  

 

Science is providing some answers.  When I was growing up we didn't know if there were *any* other planets in the universe.  Now we know that a fair percentage of stars have planets in the habitable zone.  (assuming liquid water actually IS the most habitable zone). 

 

Soon we will be able to measure exoplanet atmospheres and finding free Oxygen (or other non-equilibrium chemistry) would be a fantastic discovery.  

 

 

 

 

[liaombro]

What I really hope for is biopunk. You know, the tweaking of genetics to enhance cognitive (and other) abilites. That would be very cool. The main hindrance on that way is bioethics. Can't experiment on humans, eh? That's lame.

[lapat67]

I don't think bioethics is the main hindrance, but that we don't have a clue how our cognitive abilities arise from our genetics. We even have only the vaguest idea how genetics defines the developmental pathway for the different organs.

 

"Dear Hilde,

If the human brain were simpler, we would still be so stupid that we couldn't understand it.

Love,

Dad"

Jostein Gaarder