Where will humanity be in 10,000 years?

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by Diode-Man, Oct 31, 2011.

  1. Diode-Man Awesome User Title Registered Senior Member

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    I mean seriously, since humanity has jumped forward very recently with technology, what will our descendants be doing in 10,000 years?

    Will pollution have killed us all?

    What about energy sources? (oil is running out)

    What countries will still remain in 10,000 years and what language will they be speaking?

    :shrug:
     
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  3. superstring01 Moderator

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    Nonexistent.

    Self-evolved into something greater, destroyed by our own hand or wiped out by something we created which saw no point in keeping us around.

    ~String
     
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  5. Diode-Man Awesome User Title Registered Senior Member

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    Like say, perhaps... cyborgs? Will computer science and neural science advance enough for us to choose the direction of our evolution? And if so, will that only be limited to the super wealthy?

    Wiped out by a super-computer with A.I. gone berserk? perhaps? (maybe a little bit too much science fiction?)
     
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  7. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    Living in mud and reed huts, growing vegetables in small gardens probably. If we look back 10,000 years, we observe the beginnings of the neolithic period, when the earliest agriculture was being invented. If we look forward the same amount of time, I suspect that the human race might have gone pretty much full-circle and be back in a similar state.

    We're are a hardy race. But there are wild cards, such as continual nuclear proliferation into less and less stable hands. And probably just as dangerous, out-of-control biotechnology. The day's probably coming, perhaps relatively soon, when zit-faced teenage biohackers with basement molecular biology sets might be creating genetically engineered biological viruses for laughs and ego, like they create computer viruses today. Millions and perhaps billions will probably die and many of the surviors will be permanently altered and distorted in grotesque ways.

    The day will come, relatively soon, when all the economically viable deposits of many raw materials are exhausted. And as we approach that day, competition for scarce recources is going to skyrocket. The rapid industrialization of China, India and the rest of the world almost guarantee it. So we are apt to see the return of the 19'th century "great game", when world powers use their militaries try to lock in access to supplies. That's apt to cause our globalized world culture to split into competing power-blocs that will probably collide violently, perhaps in world war.

    I don't expect that any of today's countries will still be in existence in 10,000 years. There might not be anything beyond some small feudal states. I don't expect industrial civilization to have survived. Science probably won't exist any longer. The human race will be in a dark age that will very likely be permanent. Our civilization of today will probably be long forgotten. They might encounter the mysterious ruins of our age occasionally, and no doubt will have created plenty of fanciful legends to explain them.
     
  8. Diode-Man Awesome User Title Registered Senior Member

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    Interesting response Yazata.

    The possibilities are endless!

    What if humanity got smart and built solar power cells all over the planet, since some of the planet will always be in sunlight... we would always have power!
     
  9. Me-Ki-Gal Banned Banned

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    10,000 years and we will be in space the final frontier . Don't you all watch the movies . The little things put in the heads of the young ? Things they act on . Space . Humanity will be in space .

    !0,000 years is a long time and if you consider the advancements in the last 100 years you can see why I feel this is the direction we will continue in .

    Economic woes will be long gone by then as the work we do right now will insure that .

    Space
     
  10. Gravage Registered Senior Member

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    Human race will be destroyed in the next 10 000 years, that's my bet.
     
  11. Rhaedas Valued Senior Member

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    We've already been able to direct evolution for us and other species to some degree, no reason to think we can't continue, improve, and/or make things worse.
    One of the big unknowns. Anything from absolutely nothing to a wide variety of super AIs could occur in that time. Probably something we haven't yet or can't imagine.

    I think that in 10,000 years, we will have either gone on to other worlds, either just in this solar system or beyond, made huge strides in technology and other fields, and rapidly self-evolved into something unrecognisable to us. Or, we will have somehow lost the advantage we have now on Earth, and regressed into a more primitive society trying to survive what's left, or maybe not even survive. I definitely don't think we will be at a point anywhere familiar to today's world.
     
  12. Pincho Paxton Banned Banned

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    Mankind makes a 3D printer called Alchemy. After inserting a packet of metamorphic resin seeds it can create any material depending on the seed used. As mankind starts to overpopulate its continents a huge version of the printer is used to extend each outer country. Slowly, mankind prints out these extensions using resin combined with sea water, and sand. Eventually, entire causeways are built between countries. Bio-materials are also printed out. Mankind starts to replace his body parts with bionic replacements. Biological warfare is made redundant because mankind replaces the biological parts that are normally affected by these attacks. Mankind is just about to go into deep space, no longer requiring a suit, he can manufacture the breathing apparatus, and radiation protection as bionic replacements. Humans are built to survive on other planets without really having to do too much to adapt the planet. Alchemy prints out new structures on Mars, and humans are adapted to live there. Arms, and legs just snap on, and snap off, we are built like lego, so easy to adapt. At the beginning, there were rich people that liked to have gold body parts, but soon after this Alchemy created gold, so it became common at first to have gold body parts. So this trend was replaced by designer body parts, which include all sorts of elaborate embossed patterns. People on the science forums have some interesting topics going on. They are talking about printing out an entire planet.. would it be possible? Most people seem to agree that this is possible, and likely to happen in the next 50 years. (10050 from now)
     
  13. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know - and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance.


    The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.

    Isaac Asimov
     
  14. charles brough Registered Senior Member

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    Its a rather senseless question. We should instead be asking what will befall us before 2050. As I sum it up in "The Last Civilization," our world population is geared to increase every year at least until then, and already we are so crowding the planet that millions are mal-nourished, our resourses are becoming ever more expensive to extract, and our oceans depleated and afloat with human waste. We are vullerable to nuclear war as we become ever more desperate for the dwindling fresh water supply, our climate is growing hot and terrorism, demonstrations, and rioting seem to be an increasingly popular way to respond to our dismal outlook.

    brough
    http://civilization-overview.com
     
  15. Me-Ki-Gal Banned Banned

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    Ah ! When you see clouds upon the hill , you soon with see crowds of daffodils , so if its raining have no regrets , Its only rain you know its rain, Its raining violets

    There is plenty of fresh water . We just let it all run out to sea cause we can't seem to manage a thing right now cause of the beast of burden " Financial gain "
    It is the the greedy hoarders that hold back human endeavors .

    It is the craziest thing . I don't quite get it . We have the capability to wipe out hunger world wide . Why don't we do it is the bigger question ? To many hoarders in the world ? I mean really ! Look at your selves . What you ever going to do with that electric Ice-cream maker in the garage. You can buy it cheaper at the store and you would be hell bent to make it as good. Your not sitting around making Ice-cream. How many times have you made Ice-cream with that thing ? Your a greedy hoarder ! Face it ! stop living in denial of this . It is time to look at what you are doing to make things harder to cope for people like Me . God wake Me up already
     
  16. Gustav Banned Banned

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    yeah
    greedy bastards
    fuck the 1%
     
  17. Big Chiller Registered Senior Member

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    Humans will most likely be long long extinct (extinguished) imo before 10,000 years later from now.
     
  18. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    I'm gratified to see that you have finally stopped predicting continuous population growth until it reaches seventeen digits and we're living in warrens of office cubicle-size homes two miles deep, finally halted by an ugly equilibrium in which our waste heat can no longer be dissipated and half of humans die of heat stroke before reproducing. Population growth is slowing as a greater percentage of humanity achieves prosperity, the best contraceptive, and will reverse by the end of this century.
    Yet you have not absorbed the fact that the major cause of malnutrition is not overcrowding. If it were, Singapore, Bahrain, Malta, Taiwan, South Korea and Holland, countries in the top tier of population density, would be starving. The relatively sparsely populated Western Hemisphere could easily feed the entire human race three or four times over, and in fact our generous citizens send boatloads of food to countries that need it. The reason that the people in those countries are starving is not that there's not enough food, it's that their despotic leaders don't allow the food to reach them, when it's so much nicer to sell it on the black market and use the money for their own purposes.

    As countries free themselves from despotism and other dysfunctional forms of government, two remarkable things happen (although they happen eventually rather than immediately). One is that they start getting enough food, and the other is that their birth rate begins to decrease.

    Strong evidence for this is the fact that if you look at the roster of nations at ten year intervals, every snapshot reveals a significant decrease in the number of people living under evil governments (or at least in the level of evil, e.g., China), and every snapshot reveals a significant decrease in the number of people living in poverty. In 2010, the percentage of the world population living in poverty had fallen to something like 12%, and for the first year since we've been counting, the percentage of the population living in poverty in Africa, the world's most pitiful continent, fell below 50%.
    The Industrial Revolution proceeded at breakneck speed. Compared to the evolution of agriculture, civilization, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, the transition to the new Paradigm Shift of the Computer Age (we haven't even standardized on a name for it yet) practically happened overnight. So in many ways we're still wide-eyed farmers marveling at the fact that we can now work sitting down and travel faster than a horse. Many citizens of this almost global civilization honestly don't realize that every time they drive to McDonalds or toss the empty wrappers in the street, they're part of an unconscious conspiracy to make life extremely difficult for their own great-grandchildren, whom, due to the medical technology of the Industrial Revolution, they will probably live to meet and have to apologize to!

    This appears to be nothing more than a failure of information transfer: these folks don't know there's a problem. Fortunately we live in the Information Age (another popular name for the current paradigm shift) so they'll probably get the word before long.
    Another phenomenon you seem to be blind to (you and millions of other bright, sincere people) is that conservation, environmentalism, whatever ya call it, is one of the myriad goods and services on which the citizens can spend their money. Americans have actually begun to direct an increasing percentage of our GDP to preserving and restoring the environment, as evidenced by the fact that our forest canopy is expanding and our dams are being demolished. Many other developed nations are undergoing the same transition.

    The best way to slow, stop and reverse the casual degradation of China's environment (to pick perhaps the worst example on the planet) is to make the people of China more prosperous so that they, too, can afford to divert some of their GDP to saving the Earth.

    Oh wait, we're already doing that. Maybe this is why the "job creators"--the corporations that the Republicans regard as beloved endangered species--are creating jobs in China rather than here! They're just doing what the Sierra Club and Greenpeace would like to do!

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    Mrs. Fraggle has made herself a bit of an expert on the world's water problem and indeed it may soon eclipse petroleum as civilization's biggest concern. Nonetheless great progress is being made in that area.
    • On the micro scale, the personal-size solar still has been prototyped and is nearly ready for production, a lightweight plastic device requiring no energy supply, that turns one liter of polluted water into one liter of potable water per day. It should be marketable profitably at a price of five dollars, meaning a Bill Gates or a Warren Buffett or a George Soros could provide every human being who lacks a clean source of water with one in about ten years, without even spending his entire annual charity budget on it.
    • On the macro scale, gigantic reservoirs of water have been discovered deep underground. So deep that it will require new technology to tap them, but not so deep that this technology cannot be invented without violating any laws of nature or being prohibitively expensive. My wife says that enough of these underground lakes have already been found to supply the whole planet for several centuries, without even cutting back on usage.
    That's a popular lament, but it's not at all clear that its impact will be devastating. It will happen so slowly that the coastal cities will simply stop rebuilding houses and stores close to the seashore when they reach the natural end of their useful life, and civilization will very slowly move inland. We could of course lose a few islands, but not enough people live on them that we couldn't just relocate them somewhere else as a charity project. Florida and Bangladesh are perhaps the only large, heavily populated regions with flat topography, and if it takes two hundred years for those regions to be completely flooded that's enough time for everybody to move. It may be another migration of "Dust Bowl" proportions, but the Dust Bowl didn't kill very many people in Oklahoma, much less bankrupt our country.

    Yes, at least in the case of Bangladesh it would rank with the Trail of Tears and the realization of Zionism as a catastrophe of identity. Sorry 'bout that. Catastrophes of identity have been happening since the disappearance of the Philistines, Harappans, Etruscans and Picts.
    Uh dude, it's quite a stretch to call terrorism an effect--even a second-order effect--of population pressure, if I read this passage correctly. I'm going to invoke the Rule of Laplace here and ask to see your evidence and/or reasoning. As I postulated on another thread, terrorism seems to be a manifestation of:
    • Religious hatred. The Catholic Irish against the Protestant British, the Muslim Palestinians against the Jewish Israelis, the Muslim Middle Easterners against the Christian Americans and Europeans
    • Economic hatred: The poor Irish against the prosperous British, the poor Palestinians against the prosperous Israelis, the poor Middle Easterners against the prosperous Americans and Europeans
    Again, I'd like to see your reasoning and/or evidence. The Occupy Wall Street movement is more peaceful than our demonstrations for peace and civil rights in the 1960s/70s (although the pigs seem to miss those good old days and have occasionally attacked them as if they were passing a bong around, blocking the entrance to a university, or setting bras, flags and draft cards on fire), and there are certainly not nearly as many demonstrations for any cause happening in America now as then. If you see counterexamples in the rest of the world, please present them.

    I see that you have carefully excluded war, which is by any measure the worst failure of civilization because it's the one which, if pursued indefinitely, would destroy civilization. The (arguably) greatest war in history was prosecuted by Genghis Khan, who killed 10% of the people within his reach. World War II, despite its Industrial Era weapons technology, only killed 3% of the people within the reach of the belligerents (the entire world). The Chinese civil war had a high death toll, but it can be argued as an extension of WWII, which after all did put Mao in power. Besides, counting starvation as death due to war when there's no actual warfare taking place is not accepted by all statisticians. The Congo Civil war was the bloodiest conflict since then with a "paltry" body count that barely registered eight digits (although I confess that I don't quite know how to calculate its "reach"). Today's wars are so much smaller that we have the luxury of weeping when twenty people die in a single day. (And don't get me wrong, I very much appreciate this luxury. We're a pack-social species, not a herd-social species, so it's difficult for us to do the emotional algebra required by tragedies involving huge numbers of people.)

    There will always be new reasons to jump on a soap box and claim that the world is going to hell. But somehow, when the dust settles, it's always a better world. My mother thought that reason was rock and roll, and ten years later she attended a performance by Elvis Presley and wept. Which makes me hold my tongue when I want to scream that rap music is destroying the world.

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    Literacy and democracy are spreading steadily, the birth rate is dropping measurably, despotism is falling out of favor, religion is slowly normalizing to the realities exposed by science, peace is breaking out in regions famous for war (Europeans are now loaning each other billions of dollars instead of shooting each other), the internet is making travel less necessary (and at least in our country commuting is directly responsible for one fourth of our petroleum consumption), and a growing percentage of the people on earth are prosperous enough to make conservation and the environment a line item on their family budget.

    I can't predict the future any more than you can, but based on this evidence I have a rational faith that the world will continue to get better. Although, of course, not monotonically.
     
    Last edited: Nov 1, 2011
  19. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    I have one minor issue with this:
    Depending on the recurrence period of the scenarios being examined, and the topography of the area being examined, an increase of MSL by 0.5m could lead to a five fold or more increase in the risk of a community being inundated (to a particular level - the precise figures I'm looking at the probability jumps from 18% to >99.99% of inundation in a 100 year period) - with the IPCC predicting sea level rises of 0.19-0.59m by 2100, and some estimates suggesting figures like 0.32m by 2050 and 2m by 2100 - the point being that we should probably expect to see 'rare flood events' or 'once in a lifetime storm surge events' become increasingly frequent in the next 20-50 years.
     
  20. river

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    well we have to greatly improve our Humanity to Humanity , ourselves

    sometimes it takes all of Humanity everywhere on this planet to change our whole attitude towards Humanity , ourselves

    and the 10,000 yrs from now won't seem so out the ordinary
     
  21. Pineal Banned Banned

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    Hopefully the rich will have uploaded themselves to servers on Mars.
     
  22. river

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    Lets hope the rich didn't turn their backs on Us

    if they did , we need US , all of US more than ever
     
  23. Big Chiller Registered Senior Member

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    I agree, I think there is .01% chance of humans surviving 10,000 years from now.
     

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