Fear for the Future

[Trippy Turtle]

Mainly running out of resources.
Unlike most people here I don't really care so much if the NSA is watching me shower or if I get locked in some VR game without knowing for 50 years. I just don't wanna be living in some world where everyone is fighting for limited resources and people are living in 50 story high rooms because a lack of space.
Hell, that sounds like a good reason to be locked in a VR for 50 years rather than face that.

Everything else I can pretty much run away from. I can even follow my lifelong dream of digging out a cave in the sewer systems to start an underground resistance against the power in case of a corrupt authority in place. I shall be known as Ghost and there is going to be some cool puzzle to enter headquarters rather than actual security.
[sub]Sanguine my brother.[/sub]

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

That the more sexually liberal and enlightened people will be out-bred by the lunatics who think safe sex is immoral, and women's purpose in life is to bear children.
What's worse is that it's already happening.

 

[SnakeTrousers]

Hell, that sounds like a good reason to be locked in a VR for 50 years rather than face that.

Unless what's going on in the VR is even worse... I realize I'm thinking too far into this but I worry about the possibility of a VR prison, maybe even a hell of our own creation.

 

[davidmc1158_v1legacy]

Let's see. Given my cynical nature, there's a few things that I expect to see within my lifetime.

Further acidification of the oceans causing a general ecological collapse and loss of food supply for millions.

General trends with climate change that cause loss of potable water supplies for more.

The first two items leading to increased tensions and the outbreak of WW III over resource control.

A general leveling off or regression of technological levels due to resource depletion.

Our over-use of antibiotics causing a full-fledge resurgence of several pandemics. (Tuberculosis is already becoming heavily resistant to treatment and fears of an antibiotic-immune strain are not all that unreasonable. And that's not even counting the potential of a new influenza outbreak comparable to the Spanish Influenza pandemic of the early 1900s)

General insanity creeping further into the political sphere leading to either a new conflict with a severely nationalistic state seeking to improve its status militarily, or enough political instability to see a new wave of civil wars.

And my personal doomsday scenario: War breaks out between India and Pakistan culminating in the use of nuclear weaponry. In the conflict, after India has used its nuclear arsenal, China goes to war with India again to take advantage of India's weakness to "adjust" the disputed border regions in China's favor. While China, and much of the rest of the world, is distracted by that mess, North Korea decides to make another military bid to unify the peninsula under its control, reigniting the Korean War into a hot war once again. In the midst of that madness, Japan becomes involved, widening the conflict and dragging China into a much larger war. Once the international community becomes embroiled in that mess, Putin decides it is time to formally annex the remainder of the Ukraine in the name of "regional stability" and push farther into Georgia. By the time anyone gets a grip on what's going on, the world has fallen fully into WW III and my dark visions will be complete.

Can you tell that I'm a pessimist?

 

[Pinkamena]

What if the next season of House of Cards isn't as great as the first two?

You gave me goosebumps. This is a future I do not want to be part of.

 

[Atrocious Joystick]

I'm optimistic about the future. I think if there ever was some sort of great barrier for human civilization we have already passed it, maybe by not blowing ourselves up during the cold war or maybe something more mundane like having even left hunter gatherer society behind us or maybe something completely accidental like managing to not get fucked up by a massive asteroid during the period of time in which we had no idea that they even existed and even less of an idea of how to defend ourselves.

I think the long term future for this species will be strange and amazing in ways we can probably not even imagine today. The short term might hold hurdles, global warming and resource shortages might fuck us up greatly and we may very well have periods during which it feels that everything has gone to shit. But I don't think any of these will destroy us as a species, countries and systems of government are going to fall and we may feel like we have regressed because advancements are no longer as available as previously but I don't think that means advancement is going to stop.

The bad times ahead of us are just going to be footnotes in human history and if nothing else need drives innovation.

 

[Maze1125]

I wonder if this trend will eventually come to a point where it becomes nigh impossible to distinguish between what's real and what's not.

You're assuming that hasn't already happened...

 

[Someone Depressing]

I'm really scared that the sun's dead.

As I type, the sun could be dead, but I wouldn't know since its light is still travelling towards Earth. And assuming that the human race survives that, Earth's destruction at the hands of a collapsed star won't be far away. Spooky, man.

Oh right. And oil and whales and stuff.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I'm really scared that the sun's dead.

As I type, the sun could be dead, but I wouldn't know since its light is still travelling towards Earth. And assuming that the human race survives that, Earth's destruction at the hands of a collapsed star won't be far away. Spooky, man.

Depends what you mean by "dead". If all fusion reactions cease, then it'd be quite some time before the energy stopped getting through to the surface of the sun, and making the short trip to Earth. We'd all be long dead anyway, barring the singularity.

 

[JayRPG]

I only fear for my own future, I only fear death.

Eagerly awaiting the break through medical treatment to stop ageing (human trials could start as early as 2030!).

I just want to be able to say: "One hundred years is a mere blink in the life of an Elf", but mostly I just want to live forever, or at least until the universe ceases.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I only fear for my own future, I only fear death.

Eagerly awaiting the break through medical treatment to stop ageing (human trials could start as early as 2030!).

I just want to be able to say: "One hundred years is a mere blink in the life of an Elf", but mostly I just want to live forever, or at least until the universe ceases.

Well...assuming such a thing exists, it'd likely be really expensive, and you'd still have to worry about being run over by some drunken reprobate. Easier to find a shorter lived species and brag about how a year isn't a big deal to them.

 

[Sampler]

The disproportionate rise of the machines, they're here for our jobs, they've been taking them for years but they won't take them all soon enough.

People dream of a futuristic utopia where no one needs to work as machines will do all our jobs, but we'll never get there.

Soon driving will be another thing they do and we don't, that's not just those that drive for a living (taxi's, truckers, bus drivers etc..) but associated industries, filling stations, truck stops, car manufacturers (though not gone, significantly scaled back due to less demand when you can use a "jonny cab" over ownership) - then they'll take the pilots, the trains (hell, some trains have already been done).

It will get to a point where a large percentage of jobs can be done by machines, my job is developing software that will largely make my department redundant.

But not all, and they'll be too many of us for the jobs that're left.

You think your average cabbie can retrain to be a surgeon (for however long that profession last as machines are working their way into that)?

There will be wide spread unemployment, meaning massive civil upheaval and eventually a humanity revolt against the machines plunging us into a new dark age.

Unless we have some sort of terrible disease break out to dwindle the numbers.

Or we reach the tipping point where AI can take all jobs and we can all be unemployed, free to do as we please.

But even that is unsure, people in power use wealth to be there, their power is bolstered by their bank account. If we reach a utopia we won't need money, their power will not be so great, that doesn't sound like something someone has devoted their life to achieving will give up easily. I don't think they's allow us to achieve utopia, better to keep the cattle in line - but then what do they do about the mass unemployment..

 

[Maze1125]

But not all, and they'll be too many of us for the jobs that're left.

That's already happened.
Why do you think unemployment is nearing 20%? (Hint, it's not because those 20% are all lazy and prefer to get benefits rather than work.)

 

[RobertEHouse]

What you're worrying about is out of your control, humanity makes a lot brain-dead choices and nothing you say or do will change the course we as a species set upon.
So my advice ...is to pull up a comfortable chair and just watch the show as it should be entertaining.

 

[SnakeTrousers]

I wonder if this trend will eventually come to a point where it becomes nigh impossible to distinguish between what's real and what's not.

You're assuming that hasn't already happened...

Don't you start on me!

What you're worrying about is out of your control, humanity makes a lot brain-dead choices and nothing you say or do will change the course we as a species set upon.

Uh, what? Maybe you don't understand how this "change" thing works? At some point along the line somebody's got to say/do stuff in order for more stuff to happen.

 

[Piorn]

I'm actually really curious what happens. Will civilization collapse eventually? Will we move on to other planets? What happens to earth?
I don't really fear anything, I just wish I was around to watch it. from a safe distance, of course.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

That humanity won't really ever evolve. That we'll keep the mentality we've had since ages long past. That we, as a species are on a merry-go-round, never really getting anywhere no matter how "high" we get, and the inevitable lows.
That history will keep repeating itself because of this.

 

[Gunner 51]

When you couple that with the rise of corporate power over the consumer, the increasing divide between rich and poor the erosion of civil liberty, increasingly apathetic and incompetent / corrupt politicians who wage stupid pointless wars and finally a generally more intolerant and angry society - the whole thing is a really unstable mix no matter which way you slice it.

Er...that could describe a number of periods, including in living memory. Sure, there are problems, but they aren't new problems.

I do hope you're right, the backlash against the Xbox One was pretty cool on the basis that people didn't much like the idea of a camera that sends your data to the likes of the NSA. But as time goes on - the surveilance technology comes increasingly cheap, better and more subtle. Having said all this, I live in the hope that people will keep putting governments and corporations in their place.

 

[DocJ]

My only concern is that bottlecaps might not be the future currency of the apocalypse. And that my collection of over 1000 is worthless.

 

[RobertEHouse]

Uh, what? Maybe you don't understand how this "change" thing works? At some point along the line somebody's got to say/do stuff in order for more stuff to happen.

A single person can't change anything in regards as to how humanity directs its course....

Eight billion people live on this planet at time of posting

Out of those eight billion there is 195 nations give or take, which exist and have different values and laws.

Out of eight billion, each person has a different personal view different to yours or mine of exactly what they believe is best for humanities future.

Now if you were able to get everyone to think exactly the same , you could avoid the repeat of wars, famine, and a lot of other things too. But no matter what you do in small numbers your not effecting the grander picture in respect to our species future.

This doesn't mean small things can't be change like fighting to change a national flag or overthrowing a dictatorship, but in hind sight this is just small stuff in comparison. Globalization will work out a few problems but many more will always exist as long as we don't see eye to eye.