In one's own opinion, what is the most realistic depiction of humanity's future.

Discussion in 'SciFi & Fantasy' started by data2.0, Mar 8, 2013.

  1. rr6 Banned Banned

    Infinite Source? I dont Think So

    Hi QW. Unlimited energy implies infinite physical/energy Universe.

    Unlimited free energy implies a separate concept because to get the energy takes energu i.e. harness/aquire/harvest energy to go and get more energy that is out there free for the taking.

    Well the energy belongs to Universe and Universe puts certain limiting requirements ergo not exactly free i.e. Universe says yeah you can have it, if you jump through all of these hoops Ive set in place ex speed limit of radiation and others.

    I'm sure there are some mind blowing technologies yet to come our way, the question Fuller raised will we aquire and use appropriately in time to survive and thrive on Earth?

    Or as he states it, there is no gurranttees that humanity will be a success on Earth and that also may mean, that, we do not successfully seed our RNA-DNA to elsewhere. Who knows what future unfolds?


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  3. Upstate8987 Registered Member


    I'd also say that children of men would be a good depiction of the future
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  5. Economister Registered Member

    My vision of the future:

    A smaller, more dense population--vastly more intelligent, thanks to super-inter-connectivity and advances in both bio and quantum computing. Humans will essentially turn into Tolkien-esque elves. We'll live longer, be more egalitarian (simply because no one individual would easily be able to coerce others/dominate others, as the capacity of each individual would be roughly equivalent and reaching that capacity would be far easier).

    I think we'd get bored of Earth and travels the stars--not for the purpose of colonization or to find other life (I don't think we'll find any), but to immerse ourselves in the beauty of our universe and of our existence. Death will no longer be a stigma, but a celebration.
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  7. rr6 Banned Banned

    No Where Soon

    I rather doubt humans will do any colinization of space, moons or planets, because;

    1) I'm not optimistic that humanity will survive long enough,

    2) and in a coherent enough fashion to ever devolep the technnological breakthroughs that would even begin to allow us feasibly consider such in our own solar system ex that moon around some planet that appears to be mostly ice covered ocean.

    Perhaps if humans could figure away to sustain their lives in and a purely ocean enviroment, then perhaps in some distant future, there might come a time to live under the ice of such moon.

    It is possible that we will discover, new technologies, and/or come to some kinda of collaborative global agreement to implement any such technologies to;

    1) reverse global warming of greenhouse gases, that has already exceeded the parts per million( ppm ---) and rising -- that no humans have ever previously--- 3.5 to 7.5 million years ago --- survived on this planet,

    2) and match a population and standard-of-living,s to the limits that would be sustainable,

    3) and to survive the toxic elements have produced and are currently producing to some unknown future date.

    It is a little like the scenario where the family is burning the furniture of their home, and eventually piece by piece individual pieces of their home to stay warm.

    I think those in the know--- ex Carl Sagan and Bucky Fuller if not many others ---have seen and commented on such a dark future for humanity, long before we turned back the clock of nuclear armggedon, and the newly arrived at critical limit of greenhouse gases.

    As Fuller plainly puts it, there are no guarrantees that humans will survive this cosmic/God experiment.

    Hope is only a part of floating the boat and in some scenarios it may be that hope will help humans be prepared to survive underwater if the boat sinks...;--)

  8. Layman Totally Internally Reflected Valued Senior Member

    I don't think it would be even possible to have an accurate depiction of the future in the media, even if it was an accurate depiction of the future or recorded events was sent back in time.

    People would think it was just fantasy science fiction, and any future technology would then be considered to be just that even if it was possible or not. So then when it comes to the time that new technology would be invented, they would just be told that it is just science fiction fantasy and they shouldn't really believe that something like that could work. Even when it came to the time it would be the actual inventor that discovered that could discover that technology.

    There would just be no way to tell what person or persons would have the capability of discovering a new breakthrough, then knowledge of that breakthrough would then always hinder it from being accomplished. Because then there would be time where it was just science fiction, there is no real reason to think that science fiction should be something that could be accomplished, then there would be no reason to try to achieve these goals, since the notion of the goal itself could just as likely come from a delusional fantasy. Knowledge of this fantasy then would only make someone think that trying to accomplish a similar goal only comes from this fantasy and is not partly because of any real scientific knowledge.

    They try to attribute a lot of scientific discoveries to Star Trek, but then I think it is a wonder that Star Trek has not prevented these technologies from being discovered. It seems they only attribute things that would be obviously apparent. Yes they invented the laser, but now no one thinks that you could actually build a phaser from it. The laser has already been invented, they rushed to making this type of technology. They didn't even bother to try and make sure the electromagnetic waves are in phase. Why should anyone take anybodies ideas that a phaser type weapon should be possible, seriously? Wouldn't they have tried that when they built the laser? Maybe they didn't because it was only science fiction... Could we then have some type of phaser technology even if it was possible to make?
  9. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Read "The Machine Stops." A remarkably accurate view of how the Internet might change society - and it was written in 1909.

    Uh, right. In other words, it is just media. (Science fiction is seen in both movie and book form.)

    Virtual reality was first envisioned in science fiction in the 1940's, and has been a staple of science fiction movies since the 1980's. And yet here we are today with virtual reality as a mainstay of technology research. Same for airplane flight, the Internet, the smartphone, communications equipment, the Space Shuttle, the space station, the Mars rovers etc etc.

    What are you talking about? There are no handheld laser weapons. They don't make a lot of sense. Phasers as shown on Star Trek are pretty different.

    That's not how the Star Trek universe has defined "phaser."
  10. sargentlard Save the whales motherfucker Valued Senior Member

    Children of Men seems pretty spot on. May not be the same affliction plaguing humanity but the response towards it felt very real.
  11. NeedleOfInquiry Registered Member

    Firefly, with a little bit of B5 and Star Trek thrown in.
  12. cosmictotem Registered Senior Member

    For the average person on the planet?

    I would say, if climate change doesn't destroy us, picture colonial America with solar and other green and low energy gadgetry added to the mix.

    Yep. I say we will take a slight step back in comforts but we will be happy with it because we will be more conscious of what is good for the planet and ourselves. Our electric transportation might be slower but we will plan trips ahead and still have gas based vehicles for emergencies and large freight, at least until the underground pneumatic or magnetic driven tube system is built which will transport people and supplies around the planet with limited to zero carbon based emissions after construction.

    But we still will retain the ability to mass produce for special cases, just not haphazardly for the masses as we've been doing.

    A special case would be space exploration. If we are smart we will figure out that galactic space travel will never be a simple affair like in Star Trek. Instead, we will build giant solar biospheres in space that revolve around the sun much like our planet. This will have the added benefit of getting large populations of humans off earth quicker than plans for moon or mars bases and ensuring some humans, animals and plants survive in case a cataclysmic asteroid wipes out all life on earth.

    We will build massive fleets of these solar biospheres populated by thousands of people who will be born, live, reproduce and die on board and eventually we will stock pile energy and resources enough to reach the nearest star in many generations.

    No one will have a regular job because most basic resource gathering and production manufacturing will have been assigned to robots with humans there to consume the resources and provide occasional needed oversight of operations. The robotic singularity (among a number of singularities), will have the added benefit of reducing or eliminating conflict over resources by eliminating human effort in acquiring those resources. Robots don't have to be paid, and once robots can maintain and manufacture themselves, the price on resources can effectively disappear. No work to be done plus nobody to pay equals free resources provided the supplies remain steady in the needed resource.

    Additionally, we will learn to clone our food and eventually remove the ethical conundrum of consuming protein based nutrition.

    That's if everything goes right.
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2013
  13. wegs Matter & Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

    This right there.
    I thought the same thing.
    If we look back in history, man is still just as depraved...and/or just as humanitarian as he was decades and centuries ago. Technology doesn't improve or worsen mankind.
  14. rr6 Banned Banned

    Change Does Occur

    If simple to complex evolutions is true, then humans are resultant of many changes.

    Humans standard-of-living--- mostly due to technology ---has also changed dramatically, and more so if we consider humans to begun the genetic split with apes around 7- 9 million years ago.

    Humans length of life has also changed dramatically i.e. the average life-span humans 5000 years ago may have been teens or early 20's. In some third world countries today--- or in last 50 years ---was in 40's.

    Human culture varies around the planet but overall culture has changed dramatically over time. In cultures where a horse was more important/critical to a persons/family living, if your horse was stolen you may have been hanged/executed. Today the horse is not a critical to many cultures.

    Technology now allows for a person to be killed by a stranger via remote control from the other side of the planet.

    Technology has been and is currently in place, that can destroy all of the human species on Earth and make Earth in hospitable to human life for some time to come.

    Just knowing these kinds of global cataostropies are a potential is cause of angst in many humans.

    Sure what has not changed is that we have good and bad humans and all degrees inbetween, but the set of circumstances via technology has changed.

  15. Layman Totally Internally Reflected Valued Senior Member

    Then it is a good thing no body really payed much attention to it until after the internet was invented.

    Ya then I got the glove to play virtual reality on my Nintendo, and guess what, they never made any virtual reality games for it. Then thirty years later I am still sitting here wondering if they are ever going to make a virtual reality game for any gaming system or for the internet. Hate to break it to ya but I don't have to move around in virtual reality to post on these forums, and everyone was doing it in the movies in the 1980's.

    Right, we wouldn't be able to create a power source that could emit something with that much power, so why even try?

    Then how has it defined phaser? Look at the root word, it is phase, one of these days your going to have to put two and two together. Phase + Laser = Phaser
  16. rr6 Banned Banned

    Phased and Confused = Phusion

    Laser = entrainment or coherence of photons, if not most often specifically visible light. Perhaps a concentrated/focus of one specific frequency
    ...".In the end, the phase diagram represents all that the system can be, and its shape can easily elucidate qualities of the system that might not be obvious otherwise."...

    This latter above sounds like an advertisment for Army I saw on tv.

    It is sometimes stated, that a son or daughter--- or humnity ---is going to through( evolving ) a phase-of-life i.e. transition from this state of being to another.

    Phased and confused = scatter brained along with omni-comprehensive considerations of all that the individual or humanity can be.

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    As best as i recall Fuller has two classifications of human evolving;

    1) intentional effects,

    2) side-effects--- i.e. non-intended effects ---of the directed intentional effects.

  17. Layman Totally Internally Reflected Valued Senior Member

    Laser from wiki.


    As you can see from the wiki of Spatial Coherence, the only process that is really done here is preventing the waves to decohere from each other like in the two slit experiment. In other words, it is just set up so that the waves only act as though they go through one slit instead of two even though they are not actually going through slits. It is like just focusing the wave function.

    "The phase space of a two-dimensional system is called a phase plane, which occurs in classical mechanics for a single particle moving in one dimension, and where the two variables are position and velocity. In this case, a sketch of the phase portrait may give qualitative information about the dynamics of the system, such as the limit cycle of the Van der Pol oscillator shown in the diagram."

    From this definition I would think that a phaser would have to take advantage of some unknown properties of phase space. A laser would not do this. Thanks for filling me on this buzz word. I guess you learn something new everyday. I would think that; Phase Space + Laser = Phaser.
  18. wegs Matter & Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

    Good points. I should have elaborated.
    I doesn't change the essence of mankind. Meaning, that I believe technology is a mere tool like anything else, at our disposal to do good or bad with.(and you illustrate that quite well above) Mankind is the end user. Technology doesn't perform the good or bad, but man does.

    So, no matter how advanced technology becomes...the essence of man ...his insatiable ego...and/or his humble selfless demeanor...for no one person is all or nothing...will always be present.

    That was more of my point.
  19. Randwolf Ignorance killed the cat Valued Senior Member

    Perhaps. But technology supplies us with force multipliers that greatly enhance our ability to execute our will. Hence, if a particular faction of mankind wishes to do "bad" they can wreak havoc much more efficiently through technology. Therefore, technological progress heightens that "good or bad" performance. If we're not careful, said technology could be the extinction of us all. I think this is perhaps what the posters were referring to...

    Force multiplication:

  20. rr6 Banned Banned

    Where there is a Boat, there is Hope, for a sinking Ship

    Yeah, I get your point and agree to whatever degree. I just wanted the other spin the 2D plane to see its diametrically opposite face.

    Hope I didn't skew/twist/warp, the plane, or your viewpoint/point-of-the 2D plane, in the process.

    I assure you, I did not get my planar pilots license in Korea or K-mart...

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    Technology is going nano-on us and exponential rates of time, so that is another consideration or factor. I dunno
  21. rr6 Banned Banned

    Humanity maybe in final phase of Gods Experiement here on Earth i.e. no gurrantees

    Yeah thx to you too, in this learning 'phase' regarding phase, spatial coherence, entrainment, etc....

    I may have mentioned this previously;

    1) only once in my life, on a dark night, in large 10 arce field, have I seen thousands or 100's of thousands of lighting-bugs/fireflies synchronistically 'BLINIKING'.'blinking'...'blinking'...etc....and that was very mind blowing for me,

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    2) Fuller mentions that Einstien worked in clock shop before he became well known and one phenomena that occur in old time clock shops is after a period of time, all of the clocks will become entrained and their alarms will become entrained, or so Fuller states,

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    3) I recall reading a study of communal women who lived in same household and after a time there menstrual cycles become entrained. I dunno, just what I've read.:bugeye:

  22. wegs Matter & Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

    If this were Facebook, I would "like" this.

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  23. Boo88 Registered Member

    I think it depends on how far in the future you mean. I think short term (next 50-100 years maybe) Moon is a pretty decent prediction. Technologies like cloning have come into effect and we have improved our space program, to the point where we can go to the moon without major hassle, and keep someone there.

    But further afield, as some people have mentioned, I think Firefly could be close. Space exploration isn't shiny and glamorous, it's a struggle for survival. Then again, Firefly is Western-expansion, but in space so maybe that's why it seems likely. It feels familiar.

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