The Future

Quoting Enrique

Will humanity overcome our current phase of transition, graduating to a higher form of civilization, or fall victim to natural disasters and unrest so that we'll have to pick of the pieces and rebound from a major setback comparable to the ancient Greek or Medieval dark age in Europe?

What sort of "higher form of civilization" do you have in mind?

The usual human pattern is for things to start, peak, stay that way for a while, and then fall apart. There are no civilizations that have not gone through that cycle. Note, though, that the cycle can require centuries to complete.

Quoting Enrique

Will space travel happen and if so how will it unfold?

To an extremely limited extent, it has happened. "The final frontier", though, is a very unfriendly, unforgiving place to travel, with no obvious benefit to be derived.

Quoting Enrique

Can the human population exercise enough self-regulation to sustain progress

We have exercised enough self-regulation or 'other-regulation', actually, to sustain progress for the last 5 centuries. Progress still leaves room for world wars, lots of small wars, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and various other entertainments of stupidity.

Quoting Enrique

will we have to adopt a new or revised ethical framework to reach long-term technological and organizational goals?

Might be a good idea but don't hold your breath. What sort of "new ethical framework" do you think we could devise that would make much difference?

Quoting Enrique

What kinds of events will culminate this tumultuous and uncertain era in history

That's the $64,000,000,000,000 question. I think it is safe to say that we will see many and severe changes in climate, weather, living conditions, food production, disease distribution, death rates, and so on. These events have happened before and everybody hated it. We will all hate it again. And again,

Quoting Enrique

where will we be in a hundred or a thousand years?

In 100 years... We will continue to occupy 1 planet in the universe. We will be right where we are now, but with fewer of us. How many fewer? If population decreased to the levels of only 1921, there would be about 6 billion fewer people, for a population of 2 billion. It might be more, might be less. Some areas will be depopulated, other places will receive population inflows.

If we mismanage CO2/methane production as much in the future as we are right now, in 1000 years we will probably live on a hot, humid, very diminished planet.

Despite that hell of a list of bad outcomes, some humans will probably survive because we are, up to a point, adaptable. Whether 2 billion will have enough resources to all be adaptable and successful is doubtful. Human population might well be diminished to a level well below 1 billion. Maybe our population will be in the low 100 millions, or in the 10s of millions in 1000 years.

I'm a climate pessimist. I might be wrong, but probably not.

Reply to Enrique As dreary as I see the future being, I don't blame people for creating the conditions leading to global warming. It is our nature to be a material-manipulative, risk-taking, inventive, resource-using species. We didn't decide to be what we are, we evolved. We are not good at long-term planning. Even if we recognize the risks before us, we don't have the cognitive traits needed to think and behave for the benefit of the distant future.

We may have caused our problems, but we didn't cause us.

Quoting Enrique

fall victim to natural disasters and unrest so that we'll have to pick of the pieces and rebound from a major setback comparable to the ancient Greek or Medieval dark age in Europe?

To be honest and I would sound pessimistic, this is what exactly will happen to us. A big natural disaster is coming and it looks like nobody wants to stop it. Our public administration is not facing with interesting or important deals. Well, you can already notice it on Greece’s fires and all over the Mediterranean Sea. Also, important to reflect how the temperature increased so much during the last decade. Here, where I am, is 06:19 and we all already have 22º grades. It isn’t crazy.

Quoting Enrique

What kinds of events will culminate this tumultuous and uncertain era in history, will society stagnate, and where will we be in a hundred or a thousand years?

Probably a big desertification that would lead us in big war which main objective could be the search of water. But who knows? There are some chanceándote that the richest businessmen would can afford trips to Mars...
I want to say that the future is so pessimist.

Quoting Bitter Crank

These events have happened before and everybody hated it. We will all hate it again. And again,

True, all of these bad events already happened but I can’t say if they got removed from water. If we are lack of water we have to prepare ourselves in order to experience big wars and many deaths.

Quoting Enrique

... but what about the distant future?

Thermodynamic equilibrium. (Is that "distant" enough in the future for you?)

Will humanity overcome our current phase of transition, graduating to a higher form of civilization, or fall victim to natural disasters and unrest so that we'll have to pick of the pieces and rebound from a major setback comparable to the ancient Greek or Medieval dark age in Europe?

Yes.

Will space travel happen and if so how will it unfold?

Yes, if it does, then it will be carried-out via fleets of self-replicating Bracewell probes. And fusion-powered space habitats, such as O'Neill / McKendree asteroid terraria, throughout the solar system (rather than planetary or lunar colonies), some of which also might be deployed as interstellar 'generation ships'.

Can the human population exercise enough self-regulation to sustain progress, and will we have to adopt a new or revised ethical framework to reach long-term technological and organizational goals?

I suspect that 99% of "the human population" will be left behind in order for 1% (or less) of humanity to "reach long-term technological and organizational goals" offworld.

What kinds of events will culminate this tumultuous and uncertain era in history, will society stagnate, and where will we be in a hundred or a thousand years?

Absent the predicted 'technological singularity' ...

In a century, civilizational collapse on a global scale – population crash to below 2 billion – due mostly to catastrophic climate instability and consisting mostly of failed states and "floating" transnational corporate enclaves.

In a thousand years, the descendants of those transnational enclaves will be nonterrestrial posthumans 'living' in permanent, autonomous, space habitats and, on an uninhabitable Earth, baseline humans will be all but extinct.

Perhaps Human intellect ("strong AI"?) will survive – emerge butterfly-like from its h. sapiens chrysalis – the self-inflicted extinction of Human life.

Reply to Enrique If the past history is the criteria for predicting the future, then the concrete prediction is that humanity will keep thriving and do well in the far distant future.

There have always been the doomsday sayers, and apocalyptic predictions countless times more intensely in the recent past and even at this moment, but it had never happened. It was all dreamy rumours and fancy speculations based on groundless assumptions.

Climate change can be critical, but humanity will cope with it fine by implementing a new lifestyle backed by the new science and technologies.

Reply to Bitter Crank I enjoyed reading your comments. I had a few of the same thoughts. I get the feeling you 'weren't born yesterday' and 'this isn't your first rodeo'.
I was remembering my history of the bad time the colonists of Jonestown (Virginia) had.
Edit: I think I meant Jamestown, Jonestown was the massacre.

Reply to Enrique Quoting Enrique

we'll have to pick of the pieces and rebound from a major setback comparable to the ancient Greek or Medieval dark age in Europe?

Quoting Enrique

will society stagnate, and where will we be in a hundred or a thousand years?

An awful lot of revisionist scholarship has been offered up in recent decades arguing against the idea that the medieval period was a time of stagnation or regression. They point out that every major innovation that we associate with the Renaissance and beyond can be traced to this alleged ‘dark’ time. Don’t discount the creative possibilities that crisis affords.

Quoting Joshs

An awful lot of revisionist scholarship has been offered up in recent decades arguing against the idea that the medieval period was a time of stagnation or regression. They point out that every major innovation that we associate with the Renaissance and beyond can be traced to this alleged ‘dark’ time.

By "Medieval" dark age I mean the 10th century: academically but perhaps not that politically backward. The entire period after was characterized by a rich academic, political and economic culture, though delayed incorporation of many new ideas proved a significant issue due to persistent attempts at a monopoly on institutional power, a long standing effort that crumbled during the 16th century Reformation.

I think we're starting to enter an ideological phase, hopefully temporary, that is similar to the Middle Ages, with philosophical innovation severely persecuted, pushed to the cultural and economic fringes, along with a profusion of excessively enforced beliefs and politically shortsighted approaches. We're basking in the afterglow of a relatively enlightened golden age of scholarship and progress that with our current pace of change in the material conditions of life is going to come crashing down from social unrest if we don't uphold tolerance for civic activism and adaptive reform.

Quoting Enrique

What kinds of events will culminate this tumultuous and uncertain era in history, will society stagnate, and where will we be in a hundred or a thousand years?

There are few if any times in history when the past has been by every means better than the time afterwards.

Usually things have gotten better, even if there have been some bumps in the road. I think we can extrapolate on that.

Reply to 180 Proof I think you been reading too much science fiction, man!

Quoting Enrique

A lot of talk at the forum centers around issues related to the near future, immediate concerns such as climate change, the application of information technology, political instability, logistical challenges that society faces, but what about the distant future? Will humanity overcome our current phase of transition, graduating to a higher form of civilization, or fall victim to natural disasters and unrest so that we'll have to pick of the pieces and rebound from a major setback comparable to the ancient Greek or Medieval dark age in Europe? Will space travel happen and if so how will it unfold? Can the human population exercise enough self-regulation to sustain progress, and will we have to adopt a new or revised ethical framework to reach long-term technological and organizational goals? What kinds of events will culminate this tumultuous and uncertain era in history, will society stagnate, and where will we be in a hundred or a thousand years?

I'll give you the optimistic version: I think we face rapidly increasing energy, food, water and general resource depletion exacerbated by global warming, relentless destruction of soils, habitats,fisheries and species extinction on a scale we haven't see yet. So I see a drastic reduction of population, and collapse of economies, and the whole infrastructure we have become accustomed to before the end of the century as being highly likely.

I don't believe we will achieve any higher form of civilization; I can't even imagine what such a thing would look like. (To my way of thinking the only human cultures that could qualify as "higher civilization" were hunter/ gatherer groups). On the energy issue the only hope for continuing prosperity such as we have enjoyed thanks to the cheap energy that is fossil fuels would be fusion, and I'm not optimistic about that ever becoming a workable reality.

Space travel won't ever happen beyond a few self-indulgent billionaires making spectacles of themselves wasting money and resources that could be put to far better use. If they put their money to those far better uses it would ensure their places in history as helpers of humankind, rather than as selfish wankers. but I don't see the elites changing their tune any time soon or ever.

Reply to Janus Maybe. Maybe not enough. Tell me where or how my speculations go wrong.

Quoting 180 Proof

Maybe. Maybe not enough. Tell me where or how my speculations go wrong.

Quoting 180 Proof

Yes, if it does, then it will be carryed-out by via fleets of self-replicating Bracewell probes. And fusion-powered, O'Neill / McKendree cylinder, asteroid habitats throughout the solar system (rather than planetary or lunar colonies), some of which also might be deployed as interstellar 'generation ships'.

Obviously, no one knows what the future will be. You seem to be much more confident that workable fusion will be achieved than I am. I don't deny it's possible. I just see it as being highly unlikely.

If it is achieved then I would say your vision may well be accurate. The elites will always serve themselves. If magically fusion was suddenly able to supply all the cheap energy we need to keep business as usual going on the manufacturing and administration side, that would not solve the problem of the energy needed for transportation. We would need some equally magical new battery technology for that which didn't rely on rare earth minerals.

And even if those problems were solved, and global warming was diminished because of there being no further need for burning fossil fuels, it still wouldn't solve the problems of over-population, soil depletion, collapse of wild habitats and fisheries, depletion of aquifers, species extinctions and so on.

So, as I said, fusion would likely be used to serve the elites, maybe enabling them to live permanently off-world as you suggest (although that seems a stretch) or else they might devise a way to drastically reduce the population. Would it be en ethcial solution (as in not actually killing people but rendering them sterile) as depicted in the British TV series Utopia ?

Reply to Janus Fusion would be optimal but not indispensable; fission is very much workable as a proven power generating technology. No "optimism" on my part, just a reasonable extrapolation from current ongoing developments. I'm pessimistic about h. sapiens' 'future prospects', not about our ratching-up 'tool-making tools' processes.

Reply to 180 Proof Yes but fission has its seemingly insurmountable downsides. Although I suppose waste disposal wouldn't be one of them out in space. :wink:

Reply to 180 Proof Reply to Janus

We've already got a fusion reactor, what the hell is wrong with solar power anyway?

Reply to Enrique A tranistion acnnot be made to solar power quickly enough. It doesn't solve the energy for tranporation problem unless coupled with batteries. By some accounts there are enough known deposits of rare earth metals to produce enough batteries to replace all the internal combustion cars with EVs once. But the batteries don't last that long and the materials are not recyclable as far I am aware. Solar power being usable on the grid scale relies on so-called base load power which can be ramped up and down fast, and the only alternatives for that are gas and nuclear.

Please supply a link to support your claim that we already have a workable fusion reactor.

Quoting Janus

Please supply a link to support your claim that we already have a workable fusion reactor.

I meant the sun of course lol I could provide a link that proves the sun exists if you like!

My idea is to install a bunch of solar panels everywhere and use the extra power for electric cars and greenhouses. We can probably advance battery technology such that the materials become more accessible. Perhaps sea water can be desalinated and purified to a degree sufficient for gardens, or hardier strains developed that don't need much water.

Reply to Enrique For an entire permanent space habitat populated by tens of thousands or more, solar power is auxiliary at best. Nuclear power (optimally fusion, otherwise fission) provides far more energy density per time unit continuously and is orders of magnitude more controllable than solar collection (re: space weather, micro-meteorite erosions of enormous collector-panels array, energy transport and batteries, etc).

Let's delimit the boundary of futorology between harming and curing. Everything else should fall in between.

The past.
We harmed each other with swords, flails, spears, axes, etc.

We cured each other with incantations, charms, herbs, etc.

The present.
We're harming each other with guns, tanks, missiles, etc.

We're curing each other with pills, jabs, etc.

The future.
We'll be harming each other with [exotic weapons]

We'll be curing each other with [exotic medicine]

The future will be the same (what we do will remain same) and yet not the same (what we use to do what we do will change).

If one picks out all the bad and negative bits from the past, present from some tiny parts of the whole world, and  predicts the future, then it is natural to arrive at the negativity.

Why ignore the good and positive parts of the world history?  Of course there had been the war times, but there have been more peace times in the history too.  There have been destructions and attacks, but there also had been inventions, creations, buildings, developments, constructions, discoveries, achievements and improvements and caring and good wills too in the world history.

And while there had been destructive wars going on in some parts of the world, there had been parts of the world where nothing like that had ever happened in the whole history.  It would be wrong to say, the whole world was under the destruction and killings of war, when huge part of the other side of the world was in peace and quiet.  

It is like saying, it is raining in my garden, so it must be raining in the whole world, which is logically false.

 If the past was all negative and destructive, then the world would have already gone apocalypse long ago.  But it still keeps going strong albeit with some negativity. Hence logical prediction for the long term future of humanity is positivity.

It is like looking at last year's newspaper, and picking out all the muggings and killings news, and making predictions for the collapse of the whole world, which is illogical.

Quoting Bitter Crank

What sort of "new ethical framework" do you think we could devise that would make much difference?

I'm glad you inquired, difficult to go into much detail with this message board format, but give my blog post The Ethics of Progress at my website philosophyofhumanism.com a look, its a quick read and I'd be interested to get your opinions about the ideas I discuss. May already be obsolete with the direction society has recently been going in, but I want to know what YOU think!

Reply to Enrique

Probably not. The ever increasing reality of climate change is simply too bad and so little is being done which is required to mitigate (not getting rid of) it, that I honestly don't see most us reaching the 22nd century.

Hope I'm proven wrong. The global response to the pandemic won't leave me holding my breath.

Quoting Manuel

I honestly don't see most us reaching the 22nd century.

Dark minds think alike ...Quoting 180 Proof

In a century, civilizational collapse on a global scale – population crash to below 2 billion – due mostly to catastrophic climate instability and consisting mostly of failed states and "floating" transnational corporate enclaves.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/368715 (re: surplus people)

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/560633 (re: population crash)

Reply to 180 Proof

:up:

It seems we tend to agree on most things. I'm a genetic-pessimist, which is to say I cannot help it, it's in my constitution. I think it's a minority position as people generally have an active "can-do" attitude all over the world. Generally.

But the issues you mention and climate change, plus the rarely mentioned and worst-than-ever (which is a fact, Doomsday clock is now using seconds, not minutes) situation concerning nuclear war is not connected with personal disposition.

We may speculate that there is intelligent life somewhere in the universe. Maybe. But evidence here seems to suggest intelligence is not a good mutation. Intelligent creatures are quite rare in nature.

We seem to be eager to prove this speculation correct.

While this forecast Reply to 180 Proof is more plausible though, no doubt, incalculably improbable, we can (should?) dream this dream as an aspirational summit for our far-descendants ...

far moreso than (e.g.) Star Trek's "Federation", Dune's "Imperium", The Hainish "League of All Worlds" or the galactic "Zones of Thought". :nerd:

Whatever mankind does to itself will ultimately be dwarfed by what nature does. Beyond looming climate change, which might be benign by comparison, the Yellowstone cauldron and similar eruptions, plus an asteroid or two can be truly catastrophic.

Quoting Enrique

Will humanity overcome our current phase of transition, graduating to a higher form of civilization, or fall victim to natural disasters and unrest so that we'll have to pick of the pieces and rebound from a major setback comparable to the ancient Greek or Medieval dark age in Europe?

Michio Kaku, in his book "The Future of Humanity," states that if the human race can survive another 200 years (from 2015, so another 193 years now), then we - meaning humanity - will survive indefinitely. He is basically saying that, in order to drastically increase our chances of survival, we need to make it to other planets and colonize, that way - and God forbid - if an asteroid takes out one planet, nuclear war happens, or some other mass extinction event occurs, at least there will be humans on other planets to continue the species.

Reply to Zolenskify

Humans might be tards, don't take it personally lol

Quoting Zolenskify

Michio Kaku, in his book "The Future of Humanity," states that if the human race can survive another 200 years (from 2015, so another 193 years now),

So we just have to make sure we survive the coming 193 years? Doesn't this sound...hmmm... funny maybe?

Reply to Raymond I hear you, but to a worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish. I fair that my generation has seen enough pain to understand how valuable our time here truly is, and that we will position future generations to live well.

Reply to Enrique Well, I am a human.

Your future is your children's past. The same goes for your children and their children and so on. :smile:

Someone on the forum, can't recall who, said: We can't even see the present because light has a finite speed. The best we can hope for is see the past as it happened just nanoseconds ago.

The mind, however, with its logical apparatus (deduction, induction, mathematics, ESP deserves a mention) can (actually) see the future.

Does this mean the mind can travel faster than light? Is the mind nonphysical?

Quoting 180 Proof

I honestly don't see most us reaching the 22nd century.
— Manuel
Dark minds think alike ...

In a century, civilizational collapse on a global scale – population crash to below 2 billion – due mostly to catastrophic climate instability and consisting mostly of failed states and "floating" transnational corporate enclaves.
— 180 Proof

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/368715 (re: surplus people)

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/560633 (re: population crash)

Maybe (above) I'm on to something ... An excerpt below from a recent book about elites prepping to escape the imminent catastrophes which in large part are caused by their accelerating concentrations of wealth which exacerbates global social inequality and its varies, "spontaneous", reactionary populist movements (i.e. geopolitical instability):

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prepper-bunkers-apocalypse-survival-richest-rushkoff

edit:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/751923 (re: sketch of my own, non-elite "rosy" forecast of our species-prospects)

Quoting 180 Proof

Yes, if it does, then it will be carried-out via fleets of self-replicating Bracewell probes.

My crystal ball agrees. Interstellar space travel and terraforming are going to be too difficult, too resource-intensive, even assuming vastly superior far-future technology. I expect we will (sooner or later) put astronauts on Mars, and probably develop a variety of space stations and research stations throughout the solar system, but we will not terraform Mars or Venus, we will not have permanent human settlements on either, and we will not be sending potential colonists to any other star systems. If interstellar exploration happens- and I believe it eventually will- it will be via remote probes and starsails and so forth. Which is still plenty exciting, imo. It just means the future won't look like most sci-fi movies you've ever seen.

I also believe, and this may be a bit of a hot take, that we will find compelling/persuasive evidence of the existence of extra-terrestrial life within the next several decades, probably from spectrographic analysis from Webb, or other future space telescopes.

I'm just hoping we can get to fusion soon enough. Cheap electricity is the best predictor for economic growth.

Reply to busycuttingcrap Given the abundant distribution of organic compounds observed in this galaxy alone, I'm confident bio-signatures in the atmospheres of exo-planets will be detected within decades by space-based telescopes, etc Detecting extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI), on the other hand, I suspect is far less likely, if ever, to happen for reasons pointed out in the post excerpted below:
Quoting 180 Proof

ETIs probably went "dark and silent" many many millennia ago just like Earth is now gradually transitioning from broadcast radio to fiber optic transmission barely a century after Bell, Edison & Marconi. (Assuming they started with EM broadcasting and then improved their IT like we are doing now.)

Just my 2 bit(coin)s. :nerd:

Reply to Shawn The recent "news" about "a fusion breakthrough" is mostly hype spun for the benefit of continued government funding and private investing. Ignition was achieved briefly whereby the fusion reaction produced net energy (Q_plasma) but that's orders of magnitude less than the electricity that the entire fusion generator had used. Total output of electricity (Q_total) must exceed total input of electricity for fusion generation to be a viable, cost-effective energy source. We're not there yet, nor even close, given the latest "breakthrough" news; I think we'll get there in a decade or two, but even then fusion won't be a magic bullet, just one component in.an array of renewable energy (+ advanced materials) technologies needed to ween global civilization off of oil, gas & coal.

Quoting 180 Proof

Given the abundant distribution of organic compounds observed in this galaxy alone, I'm confident bio-signatures in the atmospheres of exo-planets will be detected within decades by space-based telescopes, etc Detecting extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI), on the other hand, I suspect is far less likely, if ever, to happen for reasons pointed out in the post excerpted below

Yeah I agree. And not only organic compounds, but also the discovery of liquid water on many objects in our own solar system (Europa, Enceladus, etc). Not to mention our study of extreme-o-philes here on Earth. Its entirely possible that life is ubiquitous throughout the universe... just not intelligent/technological civilizations, which I agree are probably extremely rare and very well may never be conclusively shown to exist.

Quoting 180 Proof

ETIs probably went "dark and silent" many many millennia ago just like Earth is now gradually transitioning from broadcast radio to fiber optic transmission barely a century after Bell, Edison & Marconi. (Assuming they started with EM broadcasting and then improved their IT like we are doing now.)

Exactly. We're talking about VERY narrow windows in both time and space for communication to be possible, and even if intelligent technological civilizations are somewhat common, its still entirely possible that either they or we have gone extinct before that window opens. In terms of cosmic time-scales, humans have only been around for a minute (and we've been producing detectable bio/technological signatures for only a miniscule fraction of that). I suspect that the solution to Fermi's Paradox is rather depressing and mundane (but still interesting for all that).

Reply to busycuttingcrap :up: