The world in 4000

[iCeCuBEz v2]

Re: The world in 4000

I'll delete this whole slew of nonsense too because I didn't properly cite my sources and wasn't just conceptualizing what Einstein equated in the past as general relativity.

[Cavernio]

Re: The world in 4000

Scylax is clearly a mutant without the capacity to imagine.

Also, gravity exists but there is no nice explanation for it. 'Solve' it is perhaps a worse word than 'explain' it to everyone but a physicist.

[PlayTrumpet]

Re: The world in 4000

There are too many aspects to take into account, but it'd be nice to think about how far longevity research will have progressed in 2000 years. We've really only just begun, but by the year 4000, it's not completely insane to predict the human lifespan extending at least 100-200+ years from what it is now.

[Xx{Midnight}xX]

Re: The world in 4000

Is it wrong to think that humanity will be dead before 1000 years passes?

The reasoning being the human race. Not some rapture or some stupid prophesy. Just our own disregard for the things and people we have.

[Mau5]

Re: The world in 4000

Most areas of space explored, end of religion.
***If God does not exist, proceed to next step.
***If God exists then human beings should have wiped 1000 years ago, proceed to next step.
***If God exists and he lied, fight god.
a. If win, proceed to next step.
b. Lose, end game.

Prejudice ends when?

Also, i'm kinda with Middie on this one :P

[WSCB]

Re: The world in 4000

Firstly, thank you for creating this thread. This thread forced me to stop and think for a few minutes. I find this kind of topic very interesting, so I'll just share a couple of beliefs/views:

I highly doubt we'll come close to colonizing the galaxy in 10,000 years, most likely not at all considering the closest star to our solar system is about 4.37 light years away. As light speed is approached, the mass required to accelerate becomes infinite (density becomes infinite). (Meaning we'll never travel light speed, EVER). (Lol, physics application) Our galaxy is around 100,000 light years across (this fact combined with the fact there are billions and billions of other galaxies out there BLOWS. MY. MIND.).

Then again, many developments could take place. I would hate to imagine our world as a wasteland. I would not know how to approach this issue, seeing how we can't establish simple relationships with other countries yet. I still love to imagine the future. I want to see mankind succeed with advanced technology (a cure for every disease on the planet, a way to correct mental illness, the development of perpetual energy, peaceful relationships throughout all of mankind, even space and time travel).

I just can't stand the fact (and I've seen MANY of the facts that point to demise on our planet) that our planet will end up in a useless, worthless condition. If I had the ability to think on the kind of level, to approach basic issues such as cures in the face of complex issues like space travel, I would want to do all that I could to take everything and advance it as far as possible (not just humanly!) To be able to think that way is such a gift most people don't realize it and I'm too young to realize this myself. My mindset is probably pretty far off from many of the smarter users on this site who are past college, have current professions, or hold important positions in the working class world, but I always will think about the future, constantly changing in my eyes, beginning to open my mind up to reality. As long as I can dream however, I will ponder the future (both mine and mankind's). Once again, thank you for creating this thread. There is much I want to post, but I simply don't have the time to do so right now.

If I took this too seriously, I'm sorry. Dx

[MinaciousGrace]

Re: The world in 4000

Wait people actually think human civilization will still exist in 2000 years?

More like we'll destroy ourselves via a string of wars over natural resources/political power/religion/race/you looked at me wrong blah blah all the stuff humans have been killing each other en masse over our entire history.

Earth in 2000 years will just be a barren wasteland cratered by humanity's love of violence and destruction. Maybe there will be a few pockets of people desperately clinging on to their meaningless lives. But probably not. In any case whatever is left definitely won't be a civilization.

[ScylaX]

Re: The world in 4000

Minacious watched too much movies. This point of view is SO pessimistic I really wonder if you're relying on true objective knowledge and you're biased from the beginning or if you're really biased by the partial postulates that lie in your memory.
The global situation of the civilization keeps improving over the centuries, the fact you can quantify "bad" things happening, or "bad" things being perpetuated (wars and shit) isn't sufficient to sustain conjectures like that. If we were in a context of Cold War, you'd be allowed to critically think that way, but we're past that kind of context since decades ago.
The more the time passes, the more we live confortably, the more extended the civilization and democracy becomes, etc. And I think "pessimistic seers" like you existed since the existence of Reason, just like a disregard of the youth as a "new generation full of bad moral bs", just like Socrates considered the young people as impolite, disrepectful, and all.

That is really naive to fall in this kind of biased opinions with really little things that may explain this thinking. It is realistic to think that the civilization will go on without a major breakdown in the two next millenia because it had never been majorly severed like that. But you may be thinking the civilization will end because of the human being because "we have more technical means to do it than before, we can even blow up the whole planet with the weapons we have". Some dispositions may effectively cause us to pollute the planet and all, but you're making a slippery slope thinking that "this is going on like that, then this will be going on like this, and this, and this" because that's a totally gratuitous conjecture and the relation between the assertions is only ensured by the slim causal correlation they have.
Also, thinking that, because we possibly can make this happen, we will make this happen one day or another is an appeal to probabilities and is another logical fallacy.

We've got past some great risks just like the Third Reich or the Cold War, and the world is running greater than ever. We didn't magically overcome these, this is the intelligence and the maturity of the human being as a collective force that solved these problems. And heck, at the time, nothing allowed anybody to think there was a tangible hope.
No, really, we may pass through some major problems, but nothing in which the civilization will sink ; because the capability for the human being to solve its problems made him achieve the world in which we live in today. And just don't let your mind bias yourself by thinking we may live in a "rotten world" because once again, no living being on earth is more conscious of its own problem than those of the human race.

tl;dr Try to relativize how you're viewing the world because this opinions is really naive and doesn't correspond critically with how the world is doing currently and how the world did in any time of the History.

[MinaciousGrace]

Re: The world in 4000

My god you live in a bubble. Let me show you the world we live in.

A) The entire african continent is being squeezed for natural resources by the chinese, indians and various europeans. These countries bribe ministers in said countries to receive exorbitant contracts/cheap raw materials and to look the other way when shit happens. There are mines in african countries where Chinese foremen line up and shoot workers who don't work hard enough, then bribe governments to look the other way. And they do. Billions of people have lived and died as a source of cheap expendable labor for developed countries maybe you forgot about them.

B) American and European foreign aid pumps billions of dollars a year into african countries. This development money gets split between corrupt government officials and large multinational corporations who mock up some semblance of a development project for less than a hundredth of what they should have spent and pocket the difference. Leaving the common population no better off than they were before. You know what the funny thing is, though? This is only happening because foreign aid and general donors are judged not on the quality and results of their donations by their superiors, but by the amount of money that they have successfully spent. This is because everyone in the developed world doesn't actually give a **** about anyone else's suffering, they just want to look like they do. Gr9 people.

C) Declining birth rates in developed countries and increasing birth rates in third world countries means that the world is becoming a worse place. More people are being born into desolate poverty than your cushy european lifestyle each year. The percentage of the world that enjoys freedom and democracy all that great stuff blah blah is decreasing and will continue to do so. I mean I guess maybe statistically you wouldn't see a huge difference in excess poverty population because in many places 90% of those people don't even survive to age 10 but whatever right? The world is a fantastic balloon of ever increasing happiness.

That's the world we live in today. And my god maybe the intelligence and maturity and tenacity of human civilization will allow it to exist for another 2000 years but I for one wouldn't wish that upon the 80% of civilization that only exists for the rest of us to stand on so we can play flash games.

[ScylaX]

Re: The world in 4000

Let me re-quote what I said :

The global situation of the civilization keeps improving over the centuries, the fact you can quantify "bad" things happening, or "bad" things being perpetuated (wars and shit) isn't sufficient to sustain conjectures like that

If I went to argue on each of your points we'd be twisting the debate a little. You're talking about this just like we're having the greatest structural problems humanity faced since the beginning of the civilization.

You want me to tell you what troubles were happening in the civilized territories back in 500 ? Back in 1700 ? Back at the time of the great industrial revolutions ? These times weren't brighter than our current situation.
I'm pretty sure each of these times had a GREAT lot of problems like this. Just ask an historian. And you could perfectly take the abstract point of each of your thesis to applicate them to each of these times. This is what I mean by being "biased". Because the world is still going on, new problems appear, old problems get solved, or these problems change their form, but there is ultimately no evil behind this. This isn't new some part of the worlds are running into a wall. Does this mean the WHOLE world is running into a wall ? No, let some things fail, let other things get fixed, and just watch it continuing its progress.
To each period and era its lot of problems and troubles (and potential aporias, heh). But they ultimately don't forbid the civilization to have a future. They never did, and I hardly find a critical and objective reason on why it would change from now.

To me, you just showed how biased you were ; so I'm begging for you to put arguments behind the facts you showed me to properly sustain the following conjecture : "In 2000 years, humanity will be basically dead, and the world will be nothing to be happy about."
If I wasn't aware of all of that, I wouldn't have talked about it in the first time. Because your exposition is also the sole expression of the "negative" facts that are happening, thus this is totally partial and subject to be led to risky conjectures going from it.
You have to get a global and impartial view. And this is what I deduced from taking the "negative facts" all along with the "positive facts".

[Izzy]

Re: The world in 4000

I believe that humans will exist in the year 4000, but we will most like revert to some kind of retro technological state with a more self sustained life style and a drastically reduced population.

[MinaciousGrace]

Re: The world in 4000

Given that as time goes on and technology advances the potential for a single individual to cause mass destruction on a global scale constantly increases, and that the nature of humanity as a violent and destructive species will not change in the next 2000 years, the assertion that civilization will exist status quo or greater is the risky conjecture.

[ScylaX]

Re: The world in 4000

Then again, please argument your position. Because there, we're going on a debate that is more speculative than factual or relative to a structure.
Because this is also a point of view I counter-argumented :

But you may be thinking the civilization will end because of the human being because "we have more technical means to do it than before, we can even blow up the whole planet with the weapons we have". Some dispositions may effectively cause us to pollute the planet (note : or to make it blow up ten times over again, it's just an example) and all, but you're making a slippery slope thinking that "this is going on like that, then this will be going on like this, and this, and this" because that's a totally gratuitous conjecture and the relation between the assertions is only ensured by the slim causal correlation they have.
Also, thinking that, because we possibly can make this happen, we will make this happen one day or another is an appeal to probabilities and is another logical fallacy.

Don't forget the "human nature" is too ambiguous to be reducible to a "violent and destructive species" - there are primitive pulsions that may make an individual violent at times, but we're talking about GROUPS of people deciding upon the fate of the entire world for this. No citizen have the power to possess something of that amplitude and terrorists have so limited means it's almost ridiculous to think they could blow up an entire country or make something that would have enormous consequences for the planet.

We wouldn't launch a nuclear warhead for any reason - first because they aren't weapons that are meant to be used in the first place, but they're here as a mean of dissuasion and pacification to exactly favor diplomatic outcomes instead of more wars with more men involved. Because I HIGHLY DOUBT that the persons that can launch that kind of technology would be motivated by impulsive influences. Really.
Once again, you should properly re-calculate the actual possibilities for something of that magnitude to happen, because all the current conditions are basically vector of peace, or at least, not to a point that would lead the world to apocalyptic consequences. Catastrophism isn't an option because it's seriously influenced by the "Slippery slope" sophism.

The more powerful that mean is, the more secured it will be (and this is justly to avoid really ugly consequences - and of course, exceptions are bound to happen, Fukushima or Three Miles Island for instance, and yes there are human reasons behind it. And if we talk about it, it's because of how grave it is considered among every single reasonable individual on the planet ; that - maybe - is because it's not considered as a norm, but as a very grave phenomenon), because anybody at that level is absolutely conscious of the consequences it can cause. Don't fall in that rhetorical topic of the "silly politician" or "man at the head of a country".
I don't say that this is impossible to happen (because that's a rule of the critical mind), but considered all the conditions, all the different factors that are playing in it (when you get to seriously think about it), it pretty much boils down the probabilities of this happening A LOT to the benefit of other thesis, that I consider to be more rationnal and more objective (and thus, probably more abstract because carefulness).

[MinaciousGrace]

Re: The world in 4000

We wouldn't launch a nuclear warhead for any reason - first because they aren't weapons that are meant to be used in the first place, but they're here as a mean of dissuasion and pacification to exactly favor diplomatic outcomes instead of more wars with more men involved. Because I HIGHLY DOUBT that the persons that can launch that kind of technology would be motivated by impulsive influences. Really.

have you ever met a north korean

your assumption is that such weapons will always be in the hands of people unwilling to use them, which is just that, an assumption

[ScylaX]

Re: The world in 4000

There are clearly responsible individuals at the top of the countries that have a brain, you know. No matter how "crazy" that country may be, it isn't bound to do surprise attacks that may make the whole planet run to its end, they also have a conscience, because this may go to their disadvantage, and decisively.
In a war, the alienated is always the soldier, not the person commanding them, and not the person above the army in any way. Except in some very rare exception, persons that hold the responsibility of a country know what they're doing.
And, I have to say, you're quibbling on a point, because nothing makes the NK bound to stay a dictature too, or a dictature in the same state as it is today.
If the NK is not being very military active, it's because the person(s) leading the country and the army know it would be the end of it if he began to make a serious attack. Don't fall in the rhetorical topic of the "silly dictator, all impulsive and maniac and all". The NK doesn't have any strategical or political interest into doing crazy maneuvers.

Also, the regular North Korean is an alienated individual and a victim of the intensive propaganda of the country, that kind of person isn't by any mean at the top of its country, able to make decisions.
Yes, the risk exists, but I think it will always exist in some form. What is important is how the potentially bellicose causes can manifest themselves to make this happen ? What conditions can make them truly active ?
There are little chances for them to be active, and the chances are even smaller when it comes to if they'd drastically change the face of the planet. And this isn't applicable only for the North Korea, but for EVERY country in the world. They need to HAVE reasons to use them, not just on an impulsive inspiration.
And here, I think the assumption of having one day a crazy madman that will launch a nuclear warhead for whatever reason, with the total acceptance of its army, is something that is really, really unlikely to happen. And I think it'd be stupid to believe your thesis for this very reason, because of the divergence of probabilities.

However,
To a "global despair", we're boiling down the debate to a single example that is as unique as the other countries that constitue the Axis of evil.
And we aren't even sure if they'll stay like that for a significant number of time, in fact.
So I really don't see where you're trying to get with that.