Thread: The Future: What Will It Be Like?

The data about 235 reserves was in some obscure sites but here are two links which estimate it:

http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache...&ct=clnk&gl=uk
http://knowledge-storage.com/science...nce/48-uranium

Please don't start the whole 'obvious misinterpretation' thing, obviously nobody has an agenda here and neither of us is 12.

No, my point was clear: you haven't provided any answers. The one which you did was completely insufficient. Again: this is a quantitative matter.

Yes, demand will have to fall. And the only way to do this is radically change society. Hence, the end of modern civilisation.

There's no point in splitting hairs about conceptual ideas here: oil is an extremely special material and the only way to respond is to give some physical, quantitative methods by which it can be replaced.

Human ingenuity is no match for hard, physical facts. Consider a man falling out of a plane without a parachute.

Originally Posted by Xei

Human ingenuity is no match for hard, physical facts. Consider a man falling out of a plane without a parachute.

A couple people have survived that. Sorry to bust your bubble.

They already have shit running on other fuels... I would imagine if petrol was about to be a thing of the past, we would super boost production of alternatives. Only because that is when the most money is in it. Until then, there's not enough money in the business for greedy ass people.

Originally Posted by Xei

you haven't provided any answers. The one which you did was completely insufficient.

Which one was that? What kind of answer are you looking for anyway - do you want me to devise a global energy plan? I am not so arrogant as to presume to be able to do this, so quit asking.

Originally Posted by Xei

Yes, demand will have to fall. And the only way to do this is radically change society. Hence, the end of modern civilisation.

It won't take radical doomsday scenarios for demand to fall. Just off the top of my head I listed several relatively easy and likely ways that oil demand will decrease in the face of climbing prices. These are hardly radical changes, and doubtless there are many methods even more feasible than these.

It's understandable to be skeptical, but keep in mind that we have seen oil demand fall before - in 1998, oil prices dropped to a historic low when the Asian financial crisis caused a dramatic decrease in consumption despite rising production. These Asian countries went through a difficult period, but 11 years later they are not really any worse for wear - the decreases in demand neither caused nor were caused by societal collapses. One does not necessitate the other.

The difference between then and the scenario we will soon be facing is that we will be racing against the hour glass to develop long term alternatives to transfer the demand to. More on that below.

Originally Posted by Xei

There's no point in splitting hairs about conceptual ideas here: oil is an extremely special material and the only way to respond is to give some physical, quantitative methods by which it can be replaced.

Clearly we must and will respond with concrete methods for phasing out oil. No one is in disagreement there. My conceptual "hair splitting" is aimed at your notion of an abrupt societal collapse.

Originally Posted by Xei

Human ingenuity is no match for hard, physical facts.

There is where we differ. Human ingenuity has a long, successful history of overcoming hard, physical facts which opposed us. I assume the one you are now referring to is that our current primary source of energy will eventually be depleted. I see no special reason why this is an inherently unsolvable problem. To say that I have faith that it will be solved is probably not a very satisfying answer to you, but if you want a more satisfying answer than that you should really be asking the experts.

Instead of posting my views in a lengthy, wordy, manner, I will post images that convey my future views.

And they are grim.

Spoiler for Dystopia, here we come:

Have I made myself clear?

(It's more complex than just the factors which I implied in the images, but it gives you a general idea of my grim future vision unless humanity does something.)

I can imagine the US and Great Britain failing and become more and more like police states.

I can imagine the EU, China, and India being the big dawgs in the world in the future, but India still having a massive gap between the haves and the have-nots.

I can imagine war over natural resources and eventually more funding for space related projects as a consequence (Loads of resources in outer space)

The innate tendency of all living systems to continually re-assert homeostasis will see to it that the changing availability of various fuels and materials is met with complementary change in the factors influencing demand on an ongoing basis. Yet another tree will fail to grow to heaven.

Meanwhile, urban fashion will continue its logical progression, retaining the baggy, drooping pants and tiny bicycles, and adding oversized shoes and red false noses.

The trance-state of prophecy is like no other visionary experience. It is not a retreat from the raw exposure of the senses (as are many trance-states) but an immersion in a multitude of new movements. Things move. It is an ultimate pragmatism in the midst of Infinity, a demanding consciousness where you come at last into the unbroken awareness that the universe moves of itself, that it changes, that its rules change, that nothing remains permanent or absolute throughout all such movement, that mechanical explanations for anything can work only within precise confinements and, once the walls are broken down, the old explanations shatter and dissolve, blown away by new movements. The things you see in this trance are sobering, often shattering They demand your utmost effort to remain whole and. even so, you emerge from that state profoundly changed.
--The Stolen Journals of God Emperor Leto Atreides II

Well looking at humanity now, the future could possibly be very grim or very hopeful. I believe if we decide not to destroy ourselves and actually decide to dedicate ourselves to progress over greed we will have a perspective that probably isn't imaginable as of now, or has been rarely had. Basically I think if humanity is to survive we will inevitably have a revolution of philosophy and radically change our perspective of many aspects of everyday reality that we take for granted now, aspects of everyday reality that we couldn't even imagine how we could or should radically change our perspective of.

Extrapolating from current trends, I see things going one of two ways.

1) Titania and Oberon, moons of Uranus, split and crack, releasing a charged debris cloud which completely encircles the gas giant. Over the following two years, the remaining moons and rings are drawn into the cloud, while the planet reduces in volume with periodic contractions.

A probe is hurriedly fitted to investigate the phenomenon firsthand. As the craft approaches, a crackling vortex is visible over much of the planet's visible disc. Attempting orbit, the probe is unable to decelerate. The last three minutes of video show the transfigured globe convulsing and...reaching out for the probe. After hours of poring over the video and confused telemetry, the most coherent analysis contains the words "mineral lightning squid."

Observations from earth orbit show the "mineral lightning squid" retracing the probe's path, uncanny speed carrying it straight toward us.

Panicked leaders of earth meet, squabbling and wailing with an air of futility, until hope of salvation comes from what seems the least likely source: Pope Telesphorus II. Breaking centuries of secrecy, the Pope reveals that Vatican city is in fact a colossal reliquary mech, built on alchemical principles and powered by the relics of the saints juxtaposed in accordance with sacred geometries.

To make a long story short, electric squid/godmech battle: godmech wins. The resulting existential crisis for the peoples of earth ushers in a Dim Age of global theocracy in which the vestiges of science mingle with alchemy and occult priniciples until one day a hero is born:


2) one word: iPron

I don't know which scenario to believe, yours or Hard_Wired's. They both seem so plausible.

Originally Posted by DuB

I don't know which scenario to believe, yours or Hard_Wired's. They both seem so plausible.

It's already happening now! The bubba effect is inevitable..it's only a matter of time.

The world's first corporate-run government will be. They will be called the Caldari State.

I will publicly release new propulsion technology that makes possible the manipulation of gravitic fields, and so will be born the world's first warp drive. The first starship will be funded by the corporate state, and from this endeavor will be spawned a new project for deep space mining and colonization.

Meanwhile, the industrialists plow away at what life is left on this planet in the pursuit of furthering their hold on all resources. The seperatists, which I will become, will plot to fel the malicious ways of the Caldari. There will be many who join us, and many of our kind who betray us to join with our enemy.

Somewhere down the line I'll decide to route all power from the grid into an underground project that I've had financed for the past 27 years (I will be 63 by this time) that utilizes ultra-high frequencies to destabilize molecular structures, depending on their composition. The element I choose to disrupt will be Carbon, and all life on the planet will effectively end with the deterioration of their physical vessels. I, too, will die.

Upon dying I will wake up, realize that I only had a dream, and decide to post it into a thread that asked if I could tell the future.

Well with the way things are going now?......

The year is 2015. The dollar is no more. There's been a major reduction in world population after World War 3. Martial Law is implemented. There are no longer social classes...only filthy-rich and poor. There's a one-world government, one world e-currency, and one religion. The whole world is under complete tyranny.

There will basically be three types of people.

The slaves that work under the elitists..or system. There is no escaping, since they will be micro chipped.

The hiders..who are basically living life without the government sustaining on their own. ( These are the smart one's, the one's that prepared when they awoken from the "matrix") I mind as well change the word government...the government is a mere memory....this is more like the "elitists"..the one's with the power

Then there's the Resistance, which would basically be a bunch of armed Patriots, Ak-47's, dugout shelters, something like the terminator salvation, but there won't be machines...it'll be the military. They'll have their own territory and their own guards...its inevitable this group exists, too many people want to fight for freedom. Their territory is guarded and hidden from the Elitists. They'll be doing their own thing to overthrow the Elitists...or the "System" ( targeting gaslines, etc. shit like that ).

All those material possessions are simply a memory. At this point complete Dystopia. And everyone is just trying to survive.

There was an excellent video on youtube that played this scenario out...DAMN..i forgot the name of it though.

Which future?

mark, your post was completly pointless...why are you trolling!

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.