The Future
- Thread starter Skull Kid
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There won't be a nuclear war. The big kick ass mondo nuclear war is simply not going to happen, for obvious reasons. War tends to be about control of territory and resources, but who wants contaminated territory and resources that are unusable? Nobody. Nuclear weapons are old technology, they've been superceded. Conventional weapons, are faster, cleaner, and kick more ass, more precisely, with less collateral. The high-tech weapons of the future are going to be bombs that kill people but leave buildings clean and intact, in fact stuff like this has already been developed.Kie said:
Oil running out is going to be absolutely brilliant, one of the best things to ever happen to mankind. I can't wait. Oil companies will have their hands forced into the renewable markets, meaning that we'll solve the fossil fuel problem and much of the environmental crisis in one hit. There are so many natural substitues for oil that it isn't funny, and more are being developed all the time. I'm not just talking about for fuel here but also new methods for manufacturing plastics that don't hurt the environment... the oil age is coming to an end, just like the stone age did, and where we move to next is going to be a very exciting and forward-thinking chapter in human history.
I think it's going to be just more of the same, but with better gadgets. Change comes very slowly and it will be a long time before we get to either the apocolypse or the glittering happiness of dreams. A lot like Blade Runner.
We are very careless people, and I think we are getting more and more careless. Here is how I see it going down:
With the introduction of things like the iPhone, we now have within our power the ability to access the sum total of human knowledge anywhere we can get a signal (I imagine that, in not too much longer, there will be world-wide signal coverage, so we will access to all knowledge from all points on Earth). We can speak to somebody on the other side of the world, see virtually anything (almost all roads in the US have been mapped out so that you can see a street level view of any place roads go), buy things, make incredible decisions and execute them, all with this little device that you can hold in your hand. All little gripes aside, take a step back and actually appreciate, in an absolute sense, how powerful such a thing really is. It's like magic.
As time goes on, I imagine that such a thing will become better and better, more and more powerful, and easier and easier to use. I think we are nearing an interface breakthrough, where we will discover some new way of interfacing with devices like this that will make them much, much easier to use--some sort of eyepiece things, controlled with micro-muscular movement, maybe? Such things will become as widespread as normal cell phones have today, and just as integral to normal, everyday life--not having a cell phone is pretty backwards today, and someday soon not having mobile internet will be just as backwards. Eventually, they will become so small and convenient that it will make sense to just get them implanted into ourselves. This may sound weird, but parents today are already getting used to the idea of implanting things into their children--tracking chips today, better things tomorrow. And it will sound amazing--imagine an entire computer implanted into your body that you can access continually and easily. Processing speed will only be a problem until miniaturization progresses a little further. One way to reduce the size of such an implant would be to store all information at a remote location, and access it as needed.
Everything will come to depend on this brilliant, powerful, and extremely convenient product that people buy--purchases, communication, access to locked buildings, etc. Not buying one means that you will be largely irrelevant in the happening world. The potential for achievement will be unparalleled...and therefore, whoever controls access to such things will have unparalleled power. Once society becomes so dependent on these things, and once all information, communication, and transactions are routed through them, whichever company is in charge will have an entire world of slaves. If anyone speaks up or causes any problems, all they have to do is turn your chip off or block your signal, and you will starve to death, unable to buy anything, unable to communicate with anyone, unable to go anywhere (not too much of a stretch to think that soon cars will be able to integrate with this kind of technology, and it will be very convenient--a fusion of GPS directions and iPhone), unable to access basic personal information.
1984 was wrong. This won't be forced on us. We will work long hours at crappy jobs and then voluntarily purchase these. The government isn't forcing parents to implant tracking chips into their children--they are doing it themselves, because they have been made to feel so fearful. We will literally buy our own shackles and put them on.
Some of this may seem a bit alarmist, but that's only because we have grown up with a lot of backup systems, and with certain skills that provide redundancy and old-fashioned alternatives. Imagine a generation born that never, ever had to learn to read a map because they could simply find where they want to go on the internet, input its destination code into their car, and be driven there while they read online articles or watch a movie on their eyepiece or even do legitimate work. Map reading would be a waste of time. Heck, just learning the layout of your own hometown would be a waste of time--I have a friend today who could not give me directions to the house where he grew up from the freeway that ran through his town, even though there were only two turns, because he had always been driven places growing up. We have desktop and laptop computers today that supplement our internet access ability, but once iPhone sized devices can compete in speed and ease of interface we will no longer need such computers. They will become like LAN line phones and disappear.
In the end, we may end up in tubes like in the Matrix, but it will not be considered oppression. We will voluntarily choose it.
With the introduction of things like the iPhone, we now have within our power the ability to access the sum total of human knowledge anywhere we can get a signal (I imagine that, in not too much longer, there will be world-wide signal coverage, so we will access to all knowledge from all points on Earth). We can speak to somebody on the other side of the world, see virtually anything (almost all roads in the US have been mapped out so that you can see a street level view of any place roads go), buy things, make incredible decisions and execute them, all with this little device that you can hold in your hand. All little gripes aside, take a step back and actually appreciate, in an absolute sense, how powerful such a thing really is. It's like magic.
As time goes on, I imagine that such a thing will become better and better, more and more powerful, and easier and easier to use. I think we are nearing an interface breakthrough, where we will discover some new way of interfacing with devices like this that will make them much, much easier to use--some sort of eyepiece things, controlled with micro-muscular movement, maybe? Such things will become as widespread as normal cell phones have today, and just as integral to normal, everyday life--not having a cell phone is pretty backwards today, and someday soon not having mobile internet will be just as backwards. Eventually, they will become so small and convenient that it will make sense to just get them implanted into ourselves. This may sound weird, but parents today are already getting used to the idea of implanting things into their children--tracking chips today, better things tomorrow. And it will sound amazing--imagine an entire computer implanted into your body that you can access continually and easily. Processing speed will only be a problem until miniaturization progresses a little further. One way to reduce the size of such an implant would be to store all information at a remote location, and access it as needed.
Everything will come to depend on this brilliant, powerful, and extremely convenient product that people buy--purchases, communication, access to locked buildings, etc. Not buying one means that you will be largely irrelevant in the happening world. The potential for achievement will be unparalleled...and therefore, whoever controls access to such things will have unparalleled power. Once society becomes so dependent on these things, and once all information, communication, and transactions are routed through them, whichever company is in charge will have an entire world of slaves. If anyone speaks up or causes any problems, all they have to do is turn your chip off or block your signal, and you will starve to death, unable to buy anything, unable to communicate with anyone, unable to go anywhere (not too much of a stretch to think that soon cars will be able to integrate with this kind of technology, and it will be very convenient--a fusion of GPS directions and iPhone), unable to access basic personal information.
1984 was wrong. This won't be forced on us. We will work long hours at crappy jobs and then voluntarily purchase these. The government isn't forcing parents to implant tracking chips into their children--they are doing it themselves, because they have been made to feel so fearful. We will literally buy our own shackles and put them on.
Some of this may seem a bit alarmist, but that's only because we have grown up with a lot of backup systems, and with certain skills that provide redundancy and old-fashioned alternatives. Imagine a generation born that never, ever had to learn to read a map because they could simply find where they want to go on the internet, input its destination code into their car, and be driven there while they read online articles or watch a movie on their eyepiece or even do legitimate work. Map reading would be a waste of time. Heck, just learning the layout of your own hometown would be a waste of time--I have a friend today who could not give me directions to the house where he grew up from the freeway that ran through his town, even though there were only two turns, because he had always been driven places growing up. We have desktop and laptop computers today that supplement our internet access ability, but once iPhone sized devices can compete in speed and ease of interface we will no longer need such computers. They will become like LAN line phones and disappear.
In the end, we may end up in tubes like in the Matrix, but it will not be considered oppression. We will voluntarily choose it.
Look outside the nearest window right now. It'll look like that but with more sterile whiteness.
And more sharp corners. or less. I hope people don't decide the bubbly rounded corners become cool. I don't like those ones.
Oh an people's lives will be controlled by a small glass slab in their pocket.
Otherwise completely the same, probably.
And more sharp corners. or less. I hope people don't decide the bubbly rounded corners become cool. I don't like those ones.
Oh an people's lives will be controlled by a small glass slab in their pocket.
Otherwise completely the same, probably.
It's going to be the future soon. I won't always be this way. The things that make me weak and strange will get engineered away. Yes, it's going to be the future soon. I've never seen it quite so clear. And when my heart is breaking I can close my eyes, and it's already here. On Earth they'll--
All silliness aside, if I have it my way and become undisputed emperor of earth in the future, all countries and other political systems in the world will be assimilated. Global population control will become a reality. All transit will be public transit. Africa and South America will become fields of wind turbines and Hydro dams, set aside solely for electricity generation. North America will be for agriculture, and Europe and Asia will be "residential" continents. Australia will be a prison. There will also be pleasurebots, not only for fun, but also to keep people from procreating (if you can have sex with a pleasurebot, why go to all the trouble to build a relationship with a real human being?) and making my utopia overpopulated. I will have the children spy on their parents and report any and all talks of treason, which will be punishable by brainwashing, 1984-style. And this will solve all the world's problems. (DISCLAIMER: By "solve all the world's problems," I mean, "appease my massive ego.")
AHHHHHHHH GOD DAMN IT NINJA'D!FargoDog said:
All silliness aside, if I have it my way and become undisputed emperor of earth in the future, all countries and other political systems in the world will be assimilated. Global population control will become a reality. All transit will be public transit. Africa and South America will become fields of wind turbines and Hydro dams, set aside solely for electricity generation. North America will be for agriculture, and Europe and Asia will be "residential" continents. Australia will be a prison. There will also be pleasurebots, not only for fun, but also to keep people from procreating (if you can have sex with a pleasurebot, why go to all the trouble to build a relationship with a real human being?) and making my utopia overpopulated. I will have the children spy on their parents and report any and all talks of treason, which will be punishable by brainwashing, 1984-style. And this will solve all the world's problems. (DISCLAIMER: By "solve all the world's problems," I mean, "appease my massive ego.")
The future may be awesome for some people. The problem I have with such linear, inevitable-progress thinking is that that is not how history has gone. There are indeed people working on these problems, but the solutions they come up with might not be universally good for everyone.BonsaiK said:
Take the European invasion of the Americas. Most people think that was ultimately a positive step. Sure, they will regret the loss of some Native Americans, but ultimately they will say it was Progress. What a lot of people don't realize is that that progress required the deaths of millions and millions of people. Most people have the idea that there were very few Native Americans when the Europeans arrived, but 20th and 21st century scholars, with access to more information and more accurate projection models, have increased their estimates to where they suspect there were between 50 million and 100 million, if not more. This means that there would be a comparable number of people in the Americas to how many there were in Europe around the time of the Conquest. In 2006, the total population of American Indians and Native Alaskans was estimated at about 4.5 million. The destruction is on par with the Holocaust and Stalin's Purges.
One final note on this subject: when Columbus, who is generally regarded as a fairly neutral historical figure--great accomplishment, a few personal faults--arrived in the New World and established a European fort, he had his soldiers enslave and brutalize the natives, who had no weapons and had lived in peace for as long as anyone could remember. The Spanish were unbelievably cruel to the natives, working them death in mines, throwing their babies to hungry dogs, and things that seem almost beyond belief. Between Spanish cruelty, brutal conditions, suicide of the natives to escape the misery, and smallpox, the native population on the island the Spanish had landed on went from possibly as high as 1,000,000 (some scholars estimate it as high as 8,000,000) to 0 in about 30 years. This was what happened from a single European settlement.
Let's take some more modern examples. Europe and the US are pretty much considered the richest and most powerful countries in the world. The people who live in these places, by and large, believe that since they live such great lives, the rest of the world lives pretty great lives too, or at least their lives are better than were earlier. There are some places, like Africa and South America, where there are lots of poor people and lots of violence, but that's stuff they brought on themselves. As far as Middle Eastern terrorists go, people wonder "why do they hate us?"
Every single one of these places--Africa, South America, and Middle Eastern countries like Iran--has been ravaged by European and US meddling. Look up 'Covert United States foreign regime change actions' on Wikipedia and you will see just how many times the US has covertly overthrown foreign governments, many of them democratically elected governments. And each and every one of these places is now either a hotbed of poverty and violence, or absolutely hates the US. There were old Kingdoms in Africa whose accomplishments rivaled any European kingdoms or nations, until they were violently colonized by Europe long ago, and then suffered from Soviet covert actions. In all these places, the conquerers have extracted money and resources while the natives were left to starve and fight among themselves for what little remained.
My point here is that, while in the US and Europe, we are living in what must surely seem like a Golden Age--technology, medicine, entertainment, safety, etc--this golden age was built using things that were stolen from other people, who are now living amidst poverty and violence. The Progress that we see in the US did not come from nothing, and it did not come just from our brilliance and imagination--it was stolen from others. Goverments and countries have been overthrown repeatedly just so we can get cheap bananas in the US! And so US banana companies can get rich selling them. We have created a new Dark Age across large sections of this planet by destroying their societies and plunging them into chaos. You think the US economic crisis is bad? It is nothing compared to what has existed for generations in much of the rest of the world.
The solution that has lead to our current Golden Age was to take by force from other people.
If we don't destroy our entire species and wreck the biosphere we'll have killed off so much of our own race that we can all live in comfort for the rest of our lives. I like happy endings.
War. It's the only thing that's certain. Second comings, meteors, bright and sunny futures, no matter what happens, one thing can be sure, this planet will never be free of war unless it becomes free of life. It can be minimised, which is what I hope for, but fact is, on a planet of over six billion people, someone important is gonna rub someone else important up the wrong way at some point, it's just a question of when, where, and how many die. Aside from that, I really don't know.
I don't live in the US or Europe. In fact, my country was violently colonised by Europeans. And yes, the US sets up exploitative trade relationships with my country, meddles in our political affairs etc. I'm still living okay. I have friends who grew up and live in parts of Africa, they're doing alright too. We talk on the email a fair bit, mainly about music... I'm not denying what you say is true, but government meddling and so forth will always go on, it's been going on for centuries and it won't stop, ever. Power does what it wants, as Carlin says. That doesn't mean that good things aren't happening. It's wrong to assume that just because a country is poor and left behind in technology, resources etc, that the people there are miserable and horribly exploited.Helmutye said:
Also the US economic crisis was nothing. A bit of downturn, big deal. The most amount of millionaires in the world were created during the Great Depression, because people with ideas took it up themselves to fix the problems and start new businesses.
it could get better. i think that eventually, we'll run out of oil, which means we'll have to use bio fuel, electricity, or, the one which i'd prefer, compressed air. it will cost about 3p in the UK to fill up your engine, so hopefully, the B|ritish will have more money to put aside for scientific research into curing illnesses and making new technology.
i think that the next 20 years could get gradually better, it just depends on how peoples views change.
i think that the next 20 years could get gradually better, it just depends on how peoples views change.