Predict the Future!

[Otohiko]

It's times like these I wish I spent my travel money on robo-hookers rather than anime cons :[

owait

[Jadecavy]

Return of Bonham, our savior.

[Otohiko]

We'll have even more retarded ways to waste time while informing our friends constantly of the mundane tasks we do day to day only so they can "like" it. The devices will just become smaller and probably embedded in our brain tissue. We'll still have a massive narcissism epidemic, people will be driving SUV's the size of trains (well, they had to compensate now that the only thing out there is those pussy hydrogen cells), we'll finally make it to Mars only to find it DOES have life, in the form of killer microbes. People will still go hungry, despite us having the means to feed everyone like we could now if we put our money to it. The same upper 1% will be 1000% richer, and there won't be a middle class.

Sounds about half-way to the society on Pluke, actually.

[Otohiko]

Also, I was listening to Pain of Salvation's "Be" concept album today, and it reminded me of my predictions for the future....

Spoiler :

10000 BC – 1 million people
9500 BC – 2 million people
9000 BC – 3 million people
8500 BC – 4 million people
8000 through 5,000 BC – 5 million people
4500 BC – 6 million people
4000 BC – 7 million people
3500 BC – 10 million people
3000 BC – 14 million people
2500 BC – 20 million people
2000 BC – 27 million people
1500 BC – 30 million people
1000 BC – 50 million people
500 BC – 100 million people
Year 1AD – 170 million people
500 AD – 190 million people
1000 AD – 254 million people
1500 AD – 425 million people
2000 AD – 6,080 million people
2010 AD – 6,823 million people
2020 AD – 7,580 million people
2030 AD – 8,140 million people
2040 AD – 8,668 million people
2050 AD – 9,104 million people
2060 AD – 1.2 million people

You have to admit, though, that the historical vs. current figures really are quite scary. We are living in a time that is really not at all the "same-old" for human history.

[Phantasmagoriat]

Most "natural" processes like that can be predicted using natural exponential curves:

Whether you are talking about population or whatever,
shit always happens as you approach the asymptotes

Actually I think that's why I made this thread. The amount of information/knowledge being shared over the internet is starting to look like a natural curve, and I think we are getting pretty steep on that curve.

[Otohiko]

Oh absolutely, that's the logical thing for natural processes. But you have to wonder where the limit is. I certainly do. There isn't an infinite amount of resources on earth, and our ability to consume them is growing quicker than anything else, arguably even technology that mitigates that consumption. In the long term, the only real way out of that is going off the earth. I don't believe that there is a way to support human civilization, as it is now, on earth - for more than even 3-4 of decades from now. Either something about us drastically changes (unlikely, see curve), or we have a way leaving. And given how badly we've been stuck space-wise since the 70s... I'm just not sure that's going to happen soon enough.

With all due respect for value of information, also, I don't think it can do THAT much for people. People don't live in information space, they live in 'meatspace'. Unless you propose some radical way of de-meat-ifying people, all of human problems are still going to boil down to dividing up material capital (of some form). In fact arguably even things like solving the population crisis require behaviour that is unnatural and possibly unreasonable to expect from actual physical humans at large. No amount of information is going to make humans less interested in eating, sleeping and breeding. You can make those things more rational and manage them better, but even then, that won't break the prevailing pattern. The best thing that information can do for us is buy us more time to gtfo the earth. Which in itself buys us a large amount more time, depending on how far we get. The best we can count on is still pretty bloody finite by any universal standard.

[Enigma]

Ignorance is bliss, so knowing it. People probably won't care or give it attention until it affects them, or it's too late by that point. Human holocaust?

[Phantasmagoriat]

Either something about us drastically changes (unlikely, see curve) {..}

...hmm I can say with confidence that there will be change, but it won't necessarily be drastic, if you consider the other natural curve shape:


If we're smart, things will go like this:

And that's not something we would see within in our lifetime. Though, if we're lucky, we'll observe/create the turning point.

With all due respect for value of information, also, I don't think it can do THAT much for people.

I see where you are coming from, but I really think the spread of information and the internet will be an important factor in our future. Just look at the funky stuff that happened in Egypt recently. I can't recall how many times I heard "Thanks to social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, people have been able to..."

It creates a sort of interconnectedness that the world needs to overcome it's problems.

gtfo the earth.

The optimistic pessimist in me: "Human's are like a virus. When gone airborne, chances of survival increase drastically, but only if a suitable host is found."

Human holocaust?