State of our civilization in...

[AbZurrrd]

10 years?
100 years?
1000 years?

Contrary to the general consensus, our technology never stagnates and is going higher and higher. Think about 1950 to 2000, and even 2000 to 2007.

What kind of achievement (technical) do you think the humanity can reach by 2017? 2107? 3007 and up?

Our only limits are:
1) the lifetime of our solar system (~4.5 billion yrs remaining)
2) an external extinction (meteor rather than aliens)
3) an internal extinction (most likely war or pollution)

beyond the dates I suggested, do you think it's conceivable (hear: can we picture ourselves) our civilization in 100,000 yrs+ and beyond?

What are the odds against our total extinction in a 100,000 yrs timeframe? What about 1,000,000yrs?

[Leaky Eye]

[AbZurrrd]

meh, I disagree. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

NOTE: if you are right, I'd set 2007 <=> x = -2

[tolbiny]

[ QUOTE ]


Contrary to the general consensus, our technology never stagnates and is going higher and higher.

[/ QUOTE ]

How many dudes in ancient Rome felt the same way? 3-400 years of growth and prosperity and I'm sure they were looking back at the Athens saying "look how far we've come". Indoor plumbing, a vastly strong army, literature, medicine, the arts. Then along comes a few Emperors who spent to much money and only got the job thanks to their father (sound familiar?) and we get years of regression. Huge amounts of knowledge lost, engineering wonders looted and forgotten about. How many looked out over their empire thinking of the future only to have the cracks appear in a generation or two?

It ain't just the Romans it happened to.

[m_the0ry]

The singularity vs. s-curve debate will need more time to develop, more time to collect data, more time to see where we are actually headed. But we can factually state that if we are going to follow an s curve technologically, we have not reached the inflection point (curvature goes downwards). Which means in all practicality for the next near few decades we can expect near exponential growth in technology.

The biggest problem is not stagnation of technology, but stagnation of social paradigm.

Not much unlike Moore's law, weapons increase in efficacy exponentially. This is because technology lends itself to being weaponized. We already live in a world where many nations have weapons of mass destruction. The technology for nuclear weapon refinement can only get better. The guidance and propellants for intercontinental missiles can only improve. It is not hard to imagine a future where small groups of people or even individuals have control over weapons that could kill millions. Consider a breakthrough in antimatter production; individuals have the ability to kill billions.

Technology builds on itself. The modularity of science gives it seemingly limitless strength and momentum. Society cannot build on itself. It becomes obsessed with things and carries them to excess until they are detrimental - martyrdom, greed, happiness, procreation.

We are due for a social event. It may be a Fall of Rome, or it may be an epoch of enlightenment. If you ask me, we're at that crossroads right now. Which path we take has less to do with how fast our computers can run and more to do with how the next generation is raised.

[seemorenuts]

I'm going to go out on a limb and state that the probability of humans being extinct within 100,000 years is zero plus x, x being the contribution from a large celestial object hitting earth and/or something quirky in outer space (sun) happening within the next 500-1000 years--the point only being that we won't destroy ourselves, nor our environment beyond our ability to sustain or emigrate life.

The best part of this thread' potential is, What kind of achievement (technical) do you think the humanity can reach by 2017? 2107? 3007 and up?



Since I'm a bit lazy, I'll start with the year 3007:

physics will be solved; this includes all aspects of material science, but we won't be able to travel faster than traditional light, nor will we be able to teleport more than groceries...

we will have infinite lifespans, barring lethal head trauma;
(we'd still be working on mathematically reconstructing consciousness for a few unfortunates)

we will all get along, but we'll decide on a population cap of 60 billion for earth;

we will be able to reproduce with other species, the most popular being human-peyote couplings;

everyone will be smart;

libido will be regulated and taxed; construed as an oddity;


there will be no crime, holiday banks (a la Vanilla Sky) will be provided for dissenters;

paradoxically, the super-rich will prefer the same fate, only with more bells and whistles;


communication between many animal and plant species will be commonplace; dogs will report appreciation for eons of us being their poop-scoopers;

astrology will be proven false, except for Leos; but not feng-shui;

math will still have interesting questions unanswered;

I'm not trying to be clever or funny, as most of the above is not original, just want to get the ball rolling.


RE Poker, as I've stated here in the past, it's current form will die out or change so as to be unrecognizable by 2047 due to the inability to prevent cheating.

Poker chat online will disappear completely by the year 2015 due to the following problem:

a clumsy example:

nh=ace
ty=king
ha=queen
ha ha = jack

...


you get the idea, of course you use a better code, it's trivial...


Any of you know of some particularly great futurist sites?

[seemorenuts]

[ QUOTE ]

We are due for a social event. It may be a Fall of Rome, or it may be an epoch of enlightenment.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why is 'Rome' of any significance to our survival and growth?

Surely you aren't suggesting that the fall of Western civilization today makes any difference? (I mean this in the nicest way.)