Established Member
In the whole timeline of humanities life, how advanced do you think our technoology will go? This incudes any scenarios you want, for example, todays technology is advanced as our technology will go because we get hit by an asteroid tomorrow. Or, humanity lives forever because our technology allows us to do that. Just describe how advanced our technology will become....
Established Member
Well, first of all we'll probably have a second (or is this a third?) agricultural revolution pretty soon, dealing with genetically modified super-crops, fish farming, ect which will vastly expand our already considerable food generation capabilites. Whether or not the world manages to feed itself is a matter of government.
We may also develop space colonies in the near future as soon as we figure out why we want to colonize space. From there, we'll develop ever increasingly complicated techology that insulates us from the environment, which we can use here on earth as well as in space. That would pretty much eliminate any natural-disaster lifespan limitations that human civilization has (well, not to say that there won't be something out there that can still have the power to harm us, but all the more drastic and devastating events (world killer asteroids, close high radiation supernovas, ect) have less probability, and therefore frequency of occurance.)
From there, who knows?
Established Member
I don’t think we can imagine where human technology will eventually take us.
Think of what science fiction writers missed, with very few exceptions, until after it happened:
The computer’s biggest use as communications devices; word-processing and the internet
Feminism
Environmentalism
The Cold War ending with a whimper.
Even little things like hand-held calculators.
Just guessing where technology might be in 2100 would be more than enough. Here are some of my guesses:
Computers, or their successors, may have become sentient; the line between organic and mechanical will be blurred.
Biotechnology will have doubled the average human life span.
In spite of which, the world will have a sharply declining and aging population due to the range of choices available to women; mostly enabled by technology.
Some young whipper-snapper will have the sass to say, “You know Granddad, it’s too bad you old guys weren’t smart enough to use up that oil while you could. It’s a pretty awful inheritance you left us--a messy nuisance, and completely worthless now.”
Bob
Order of Kilopi
Here is one indication of possible future technological developments;
http://www.orionsarm.com/tech/tech_timeline.html
Established Member
Wow, eburacum! When I wrote this thread, I expected something like what ASEI and Bobunf wrote, but your post...... someone clearly has too much time on their hands..... do you have anymore?
Order of Kilopi
The Orion's Arm site is a collaborative site, and is the product of four years work by several dozen individuals; I wrote the timeline, but I certainly didn't make all the tech up- there is more and more being added all the time.
Established Member
Well, if we guard the future properly, our limits are un-ending. We're currently trying to crack intelligence and its souce.
Once you can improve intelligence, resources willing, you can do anything.
Established Member
You can't really say how far our technology will go because I think that it will keep on advancing and not stop so were always going to be advancing with technology. :huh:
Established Member
Well, if you look at things from a biological-motivation standpoint, we will only advance in technology so long as we need or want the advancement. It could be that after we figure out how to satisfy all our needs with minimum effort, we will cease to want anything more, and cease advancement or innovation. That would suck.
Established Member
And describes about 99% of the people that I know. They only care about the technology which adds to their leisure. They only really care about efficiency-enhancing tech if it's forced upon them at work.
It's up to us few and proud to continue the demand for and ever-increasing tech scale.
Ignoring the will-go, what about the has-gone? See, I think we're on the high end of an exponential technological revolution. You see, our species of course has made many technological advancements over the millenia, including the Egyptians, Mayans, Romans, Renaissance Italians, and the recent globalization. But, I think it's a curve - an exponential curve - of how much progress we make. And now we're at the point where the slope of the curve is really starting to increase to the vertical at an alarming rate of acceleration. What happens as the x-coordinate moves to the right, and then up, up, up! is really scary!h34r:
Established Member
The thaing about a curve is that it will eventually go back down..... maybe into a circle?
Moderator
What goes up must come down.
Established Member
Yes, and maybe go back up???????
Or maybe, like a good hyperbola, stop; then a new curve will begin; sorta like graphing tangents with asymptotes...
Established Member
No. There are plenty of examples of curves that don't go back down. The one that people hopufully fit with the development of human civilization is y = Qe^(rx). Exponential functions. The growth rate of an exponential function is proportional to the value of the function. It goes up faster the higher it is.The thaing about a curve is that it will eventually go back down..... maybe into a circle?
Human development probably has shown exponential trends. Where it gets sticky is that it chaotically mirrors the exponential functions, with random growth spurts and setbacks. One such setback, the Santinori explosion, caused the collapse of a few ancient civilizations whose farming techniques weren't advanced enough to weather the climate change induced (no irrigation). Another was due to the black death, which wiped out 30% of Europe's population. It is hard to tell when a certain level of growth will be reached, though the trend for Western civilization seems to have accelerated rapidly since the European Rennaisance.
Exactly. And now all we have to figure out is how long our good luck will last this time. But since the amount of new technology created every day is exponential, I calculate an enormous technological setback before the next score of years is finished.
Established Member
And how do you calculate that?
Because unless the space programs can make any successes or advancements, the technology markets are gonna freeze. The most that can happen, anyway, are greater luxuries developed and made available and less applicable, utilitarian, useful, luxurious, practical, convenient, expedient, advantageous, beneficial, worthwhile, nifty, effective, constructive, valuable, and handy. These are my fifteen expectations for good stuff, but it is unlikely we will be headed in that direction. Besides, at least in America, the economic class gaps are widening. That is not a good sign for our future. Americans, at least, have to learn the value of planning, as we posses the wold's home base for stocks and marketing.
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