The world in 4000

[JiZ53]

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.

You are guilty of the same things you are claiming minacious to be guilty of. You do not know how the future will play out, you look foolish calling someone naive when your claims that civilization will last another 2000 years are just as baseless.

Humanity could easily be wiped out by disease, natural disaster, nuclear war, or environmental conditions. Man is but another animal and he is not exempt from extinction. Overpopulation is a major problem and so is the shortage of cclean water. As time goes on there will be more people and fewer resources. At some point in the next 100 years we are projected to hit carrying capacity. A lot of people are going to die, and our technological basis will soon be unsustainable. These things alone are enough for me to doubt our species chances of surviving another 2000 years. There of course could always be a major disaster that completely wipes out life as we know it. This could be at the hand of mother nature or perhaps our own in the form of a nuclear holocaust

[ScylaX]

Re: The world in 4000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition

There goes the overpopulation theory.
The rest of your post is a slippery slope to me. And I'm not even saying that you're basically unable to properly assess what will happen in 200 years, and how the world will be in one century. How can you doubt so much then ? The problems in 2112 are most likely to be so different from today that you can't even imagine the form they could take.

You see, if you read properly the other posts I made for the debate. I never said this outcome was impossible, I said it was one of the least probable ones compared to other ways the world could become.
It's all a question of probability, and making an appeal to probability in this debate is basically neglecting all of the other possibilities in the name of a psychological bias, and getting definitely obsessed about an unsure truth.
In fact, of course you can't be sure of the course of history, what I said is that it's irrational to believe things that are less likely to happen than other things that are more likely to happen for the reasons I said. That's the point of this speculative debate.

I'm posting there just because I saw some people being wrongfully certain of some outcomes, and being certain of things when their probability to happen is lower than other possibilities unsettles me a little.
Yes nothing is sure, yet it isn't a reason to surrender to fantasms, because there is at least some sense to make there, and this is important. Stop getting obsessed about getting a certitude when you can't bring solid foundations to your thinking, I think an optimistic scepticism is the sanest opinion to have here.

[Reincarnate]

Re: The world in 4000

I have more faith in human ingenuity. In a very short timespan we went from riding around on horses to sending shit into space and harnessing the power of quantum mechanics and computers. If someone had made this prediction years ago, it would have sounded absurd. Given another couple thousand years... I can't even imagine how much more we will discover and how much cheaper it'll be to pull off.

[SKG_Scintill]

Re: The world in 4000

In 2000 years society will be just another wonky system where people complain about it.
It's been that in egyptian times, it's been that in greek/roman times, it's been that in medieval times, it's been that in renaissance times, it's like that now, and it will be in the future.
Humans adapt, nature is resilient, get over it.

[JiZ53]

Re: The world in 4000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition
There goes the overpopulation theory.
The rest of your post is a slippery slope to me. And I'm not even saying that you're basically unable to properly assess what will happen in 200 years, and how the world will be in one century. How can you doubt so much then ? The problems in 2112 are most likely to be so different from today that you can't even imagine the form they could take.

You see, if you read properly the other posts I made for the debate. I never said this outcome was impossible, I said it was one of the least probable ones compared to other ways the world could become.
It's all a question of probability, and making an appeal to probability in this debate is basically neglecting all of the other possibilities in the name of a psychological bias, and getting definitely obsessed about an unsure truth.
In fact, of course you can't be sure of the course of history, what I said is that it's irrational to believe things that are less likely to happen than other things that are more likely to happen for the reasons I said. That's the point of this speculative debate.

I'm posting there just because I saw some people being wrongfully certain of some outcomes, and being certain of things when their probability to happen is lower than other possibilities unsettles me a little.
Yes nothing is sure, yet it isn't a reason to surrender to fantasms, because there is at least some sense to make there, and this is important. Stop getting obsessed about getting a certitude when you can't bring solid foundations to your thinking, I think an optimistic scepticism is the sanest opinion to have here.

You know nothing of the foundations of my thinking, you know nothing of what I obsess about, you do not know what I know to be certain or uncertain. Do not patronize me.

[Cavernio]

Re: The world in 4000

Nothing like a non-native english language poster to teach me new words like 'bellicose'

I feel like societal systems will be what holds or pushes the world forward technologically speaking more than any know-how. Humanity is technologically developed enough to colonize other planets, (specific engineering structures notwithstanding, we'll never have those until we want them) but we haven't and I don't think we will in my lifetime because I don't really see a shift away from money being the primary motivator of society and because I don't see space travel as being a lucrative venture anytime soon.

[Nu0n]

Re: The world in 4000

I think in the year 4,000 humans will have even more technology and a larger population due to the success in medical fields. Other then that the civiliation will most likely have an alliance with a few border planets with less technology. Its all just best guess for this kinda stuff anyway. We have no idea what will or will not happen. I dont think we have to worry about being set back though, I have confidence in the Human ability to evolve.

[ScylaX]

Re: The world in 4000

You know nothing of the foundations of my thinking, you know nothing of what I obsess about, you do not know what I know to be certain or uncertain. Do not patronize me.

What's the point of getting in a critical debate if you're not giving arguments then. Seriously. (and if what you're relying on is just facts or sensible experiences, I can already tell this is what biased you, to me. Because, face it, if you're being obsessed with that, there are good chances you're just being severely psychologically biased and then there isn't any point in getting into a debate. Standing back for a bit to get a larger view, and being more objective is a good way to start. Come on.)

Also I perfectly agree with Reincarnate's and SKG's opinions. The human ingenuity is totally to be trusted and it has always been proved since the existence of the human race on the planet and SKG's point perfectly resonates with what I said earlier.