The Future: What Will It Be Like?

She has a point... and so does he...

Pick one?

I personally agree with your first view, entropy and all that, impossibility of utopia, technology = dangerous, elitists, SINGULARITY NWO

*boom*

I really don't know what the future will be like but I'm hoping I'll be able to see it. I'm seriously considering cryogenics for when I'm an old man. It'll be expensive but hopefully the career I'm working on will work out and I'll be able to afford it. I know it isn't a guarantee but it just seems like it would be awesome if it did work.

Mmmm cryogenics is pretty dubious... I'm doubtful that we'll ever figure out a way to make it work.

I'd rather just wait 20-odd years for them to perfect the already-developed cell-repairing nanobots that live in your bloodstream and stop you from aging or contracting disease (or getting cancer).

:P

They already have prototypes, and they tested them on a rat with multiple tumors in its vascular system... within like 5-10 mins they were all gone (the nanobots used lasers to fry all of the cancerous cells).

You know what, I think I might just post a whole nother thread on in-the-works ways of prolonging life, because it's really interesting to me.

Actually, I'll just keep it in here because it does have to do with the future and what it will be like, so it's not straying from the thread topic.

I heard a quote from this one man on a team working on this stuff, and he said something to the effect that the first humans to live to 1,000 years old may already be alive today.

You want to know the future Winston, its a boot stomping on humanities face for eternity.

Yep we're living in a global Orwellian superstate.

Yep I'm being sarcastic.

This is how i see the future at year 2075-2100 if:

1. We stay on our current path and don't change how we are living off the earth :
The Road

2. If we actually do change our way of life :


(The second is an actual city being built in South Korea, it should be done by 2020)

How do you think The Road would come about? The only realistic thing I can think of is a nuclear holocaust, which is looking less likely nowadays. With regards to pollution; humans are much less important than we like to think we are. Nature will always perservere. We're a mere blip in the history of the planet.

Heh, the future will be Earth without humanity.
Done and done.

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Originally Posted by Xei

How do you think The Road would come about? The only realistic thing I can think of is a nuclear holocaust, which is looking less likely nowadays. With regards to pollution; humans are much less important than we like to think we are. Nature will always persevere. We're a mere blip in the history of the planet.

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Through deforestation and desertification, pollution, war, everything adding up to that scenario.

I agree with Memento's views, since in my view as time progresses and technology elevates the likelihood of a human-caused, catastrophic, terraforming event akin to nuclear war becomes more and more likely.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Um3kD4sSF4...r_fireball.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_jVVDVzcqb9...st+pripyat.jpg

^This is the Red Forest, the woods surrounding the area where the Chernobyl accident took place... after the reactor blew, the trees all died and absorbed so much radiation from the blast that they turned these colors, preserving the fiery colors of the explosion forever, in a ghastly, nightmarish way... a visible reminder of the tragic accident

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_jVVDVzcqb9...+pripyat+2.jpg

^Also taken in the area around Chernobyl

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/ph...7/nuclear1.jpg

^Test blast at Muroara atoll, French Polynesia

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Originally Posted by www.wired.com

Think you might escape the aftereffects of a limited nuclear war that happens on the other side of the globe from you? Think again.

Imagine that the long-simmering conflict between India and Pakistan broke out into a war in which each side deployed 50 nuclear weapons against the other country’s megacities. Karachi, Bombay, and dozens of other South Asian cities catch fire like Hiroshima and Nagasaki did at the end of World War II.

Beyond the local human tragedy of such a situation, a new study looking at the atmospheric chemistry of regional nuclear war finds that the hot smoke from burning cities would tear holes in the ozone layer of the Earth. The increased UV radiation resulting from the ozone loss could more than double DNA damage, and increase cancer rates across North America and Eurasia.

"Our research supports that there would be worldwide destruction," said Michael Mills, co-author of the study and a research scientist at the University of Colorado at Boulder. "It demonstrates that a small-scale regional conflict is capable of triggering larger ozone losses globally than the ones that were previously predicted for a full-scale nuclear war."

Combined with the climatic impact of a regional nuclear war — which could reduce crop yields and starve hundreds of millions — Mills’
modeling shows that the entire globe would feel the repercussions of a hundred nuclear detonations, a small fraction of just the U.S. stockpile. After decades of Cold War research into the impacts that a full-blown war between the Soviet Union and the United States would have had on the globe, recent work has focused on regional nuclear wars, which are seen as more likely than all-out nuclear Armageddon. Incorporating the latest atmospheric modeling, the scientists are finding that even a small nuclear conflict would wreak havoc on the global environment (.pdf) — cooling it twice as much as it’s heated over the last century — and on the structure of the atmosphere itself.

Mills’ work, which appears online today in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, used a model from National Center for Atmospheric Research to look at the impact of throwing 5 million metric tons of black carbon, or soot, into the atmosphere. He found that when a cluster of cities are burning together, they end up creating their own weather, pumping soot 20,000 feet into the atmosphere. Once there, sunlight would heat the smoke, and drive it up 260,000 feet above the earth’s surface.

Along the way, the hot soot would cause a variety of atmospheric changes with a net result of huge reductions in ozone, which in the stratosphere serves as sunblock for the earth. In the middle latitudes, the researchers found the ozone layer would be reduced by 25 to 45 percent, with the polar regions losing 50 to 70 percent of their ozone coverage. This thinning is known as a "hole" in the ozone layer, and would be many times the size of the famed hole over Antarctica.

According to research cited by the paper, the increase in ultraviolet light falling to earth at the 45-degree latitude — a little south of Portland, Oregon — would cause damage to DNA to increase 213 percent.

"It would have a dramatic effect on skin cancer and cataracts and be very damaging to crops and ecosystems," Mills said.
The reduced levels of ozone would persist for five years, with substantial reductions in ozone continuing for another five years after that.

Even if the cause of the war were local, its impacts would be felt across the globe.
"Pretty much everywhere [would be] affected," Mills concluded.

Read More http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/20...#ixzz0dOCV3yXP

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Yeah... we're pretty much fucked.

Meh, if the government doesn't murder us all, the universe will :)

How funny, either way our destiny is to die.

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Originally Posted by WakataDreamer

Yeah... we're pretty much fucked.

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Hopefully, the world can come together and cooperate on the issue of nuclear weapons.

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Originally Posted by Soros

Hopefully, the world can come together and cooperate on the issue of nuclear weapons.

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I'm hopeful about this. Considering how massively better things have got in just 20 years. Also Obama seems very anti-nuclear, which is great.

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Originally Posted by Carôusoul

Also Obama seems very anti-nuclear, which is great.

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Yes, but America seems increasingly anti-Obama. :P

Sorry, just had to say it.

Anyways... anti-nuclear presidents are good, but their anti-nuclear stance doesn't necessarily translate into tangible anti-nuclear action, unfortunately.

We still got nukes.

Lots of em.

And so does Russia, the biggest country in the world.

And a bunch of other countries, all of which are among the most powerful nations in the world (and, therefore, the most likely to get involved in a large-scale war which could escalate to the detonation of nuclear weapons).

I'm hoping that the world disarms before this has chance to happen....



hoping.

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Originally Posted by WakataDreamer

Yes, but America seems increasingly anti-Obama...

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This is a trend that a new president comes into office he is to be the savior of sorts, then as his term pans out he seems to follow a similar trail as the last president and anything bad that happens during his term is blamed on him and he becomes the evil-in-office... Then supposedly another "savior" is presented and the cycle repeats over and over and over.... It's because the presidents agenda lies with the ones who paid for his position in office, and usually it's the same people over and over and over.

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Originally Posted by MementoMori

It's because the presidents agenda lies with the ones who paid for his position in office, and usually it's the same people over and over and over.

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Disagree, it seems to me because people have far too unsophisticated expectations, and expect a saviour of everything, when in reality that can't happen. You get good people progressively making things better little by little. but the majority are impatient and short sighted.

The only way radical quick change for the better could happen to the extent people demand is through like total dictatorship power, which we don't want.

You actually think that little by little, things are getting better at the moment?
Or over the past twenty years? And that there are good guys in charge wanting
to help everyone?

And you're saying that the people are short-sighted and not those 4-year-term
politicians, who obviously only want to get re-elected? I'm confused.

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Originally Posted by dajo

You actually think that little by little, things are getting better at the moment?
Or over the past twenty years? And that there are good guys in charge wanting
to help everyone?

And you're saying that the people are short-sighted and not those 4-year-term
politicians, who obviously only want to get re-elected? I'm confused.

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Things are significantly better now than they have been for most of the twentieth century. See; world wars, cold war, nuclear standoffs.

Also you're wayyy simplifying everything I said. "You get good people progressively making things better" is not the same as "good guys in charge wanting to help everyone".

I obviously have far more faith in people than you do. I can concieve of a politician wanting to help the world and not just get re-elected. If you think humanity is so far gone that that's impossible, then fair play, but don't bring me down to your awful negativity and hatred of authority.

You're oversimplifying my standpoint as well.

And there is war too right now. And on a global scale things
are getting increasingly heated. So, who knows where that will end.
It's not exactly demilitarization.

There are a billion people starving at the moment, more than ever before.
Ressources are getting increasingly scarce, also due to the huge amount
of consumption - check out the meat industry, it's horrifying in my view.
The most basic needs (food, water) are becoming increasingly problematic
and this doesn't neccessarily have to stay within the underdeveloped countries.

It is next to impossible to have a well informed public debate, because the
media corporations are so very bias in what and how they present which issues.
(I usually mean foreign policies and EU-Law) I see a bad tendency in the
direction the ties between ecnomics and politics are heading anyway. It just
very obviously shows that oh so many decicions are indeed based on
economical interest or lobbyism or the need to get re-elected on the next
term (Which came very well to show during the financial crisis). And so many
countries are basically still circling down the drain, but this is often not admitted.
Are all politicans like that? Certainly not. But more than it would be healthy.
But please, present me with a few politicans, who are right now selflessly
trying to improve things, I would be more than happy to see that you're right.

In my opinion the more recent decisions in the EU (which is basically a
corporatized political body) are reaons for critical debate as well. Not only
the incredibly one sided portrayal of the lissabon treaty, but things like
SWIFT for example. The speed we are distancing ourselves away from a
democracy should be troubelling. (Stuff like that the judges in the EU are
not independently voted into their positions by the peoples, but chosen by
the governments of all institutions. This is a fundamental crack in democracy)

Although I am a very positive person, on the level of global policies, environmental
issues and economics I am not seeing much to be positive about. I am not full of hatred
or just basically opposed to 'authority' or just complaining so that I have something
to complain about, but because I do see major problems at the moment and I think it
could be dangerous if there is an 'everything is just a-ok' consensus in the public,
because we have to be cautious right now, imo.

But don't get me wrong, you are of course absolutely free to have your own
opinion and my intention is not to drag you down or anything, trust me. However
I am genuinly interested in how you think things are improving. I just really
don't see it. But maybe I perceive things a little bit dark at the moment, because
I am just reading about all of that pretty much every day.

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Originally Posted by WakataDreamer

I personally agree with your first view, entropy and all that, impossibility of utopia, technology = dangerous, elitists, SINGULARITY NWO

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well if human nature can't evolve or change, then we are always going to be a destructive race. In a way, a New world order is necessary. Maybe taking away free will is probably the only way that there CAN be world peace. Maybe not.

[edited to avoid flaming]

When South Ossetia and Abkhazia become part of Russia, Georgia will declare war in a last ditch effort to save face and lose. Also a republican will be elected after Obama and he or she and every president after him will promise an end to the Israeli-Arab conflict and fail.

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Originally Posted by Invader

Heh, the future will be Earth without humanity.
Done and done.

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Most likely.
Far as I'm concerned, if humanity doesn't wake up in the next few years to what it's doing to the planet's ecosystem., we're pretty much ****ed.