The world in 4000

[TheNoSoMan]

Oh god no. An elixir of life that is permanently effective once taken, can be genetically passed on as the dominant gene, and is available to anyone would exponentially increase the world population to unsustainable numbers in no time. It would take genocide to kill everyone off or a counter-elixir as far as I can think of ideas.

[TheSaxRunner05]

Originally Posted by iironiic

You know that if you fit the entire Earth's population into one concentrated area, it would only cover the size of Alaska? Surely in 2000 years, that will be an issue, but I see your point as well.

Do this .... the rampant disease would wipe out over half the population and problem solved!

But on a more serious note, water usage is the biggest issue for a large population, however many experts studying demographic transition believe the world's population will stable out around 10 billion as the poorer nations industrialize. Birth rates are high where infant mortality rates are high as well. When the Imr lowers, the Br lowers with it.

Demographic Transition in a nutshell -

Stage one - High birth rates and Death rates (have lots of babies because only a few will survive to adulthood)

Stage two - High birth rates and low death rates: population booms

Stage three - Birthrates fall after the imr has dropped

Stage four - relative equilibrium, far lower br and imr

[Cavernio]

It's not necessarily industrialization that makes people have fewer babies, it could be seen as the relative rich/poor that causes poorer people have more kids or richer people to not have as many. Furthermore, this is such a recent thing in humanity's civilization that I'm not sure we can say that even 500 years from now that same societal trend will still exist.

I think that right now a water crisis is a more immediate issue than food, overpopulation/disease or air to breath, but in the long run the earth has a ton of water, and it just gets recycled and reused. We have the appropriate tools to make sewage drinkable even now. It's a matter of infrastructure and shipping/moving. And right now there's probably millions of people who don't have safe water to drink in poorer countries; water usage isn't their problem.

[Renevatia]

Looking at the history of human kind, I have to say I have some hope that the advancement of technology will reach the answer to problems faster than the problems start wiping us out.
We would most likely reach carrying capacity much less than 500 years if our living quarters doesn't get some kind of drastic region expansions, extraterrestrially.
Here is what I would assume would happen, though the time frames will most likely vary greatly, the order shouldn't.



100years
Complete conversion to solar powers, carrying capacity for the human race. Which means the capitalistic nations such as United States will be subjected to opposition as far as resource usage goes, giving rise to newer governments. I'd imagine some kind of compromised communistic government.

200years
Solve gravity. Publicized space travel. Declaring national ownerships of extraterrestrial areas.
Perfecting genetic manipulation, bringing dinos back to life and stuff.
Completion on mechanisms of immortality
***If aliens found, /human. If does not exist, proceed to next step.

500years
Stabilizing space establishments and planet states. Energy crisis.

1000years
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.

Utilization of energy from singularities, solve all future energy crisis, reversing entropy and other crazy stuff with it.
'real' experimentation of time travel
I AAA Vertex beta vrofl

2000years
Multiverse experimentation. Resource issues. Ability to tweak space-time. Create an other-dimension big bang, perfect inter-dimensional travel, pack and move.

4000years
I think this is a bit far to project. Any problems solved in this time will probably all just be problems we don't even know exists yet.
I wouldn't be surprised if we proceed this far, space will no longer be empty but a giant ass infrastructure, or at least filled with infrastructure that takes up a good deal of space.
I highly doubt over population will really ever be a problem. There are much more than enough food for everyone, even now.

[dragonmegaXX]

Originally Posted by Renevatia

Looking at the history of human kind, I have to say I have some hope that the advancement of technology will reach the answer to problems faster than the problems start wiping us out.
We would most likely reach carrying capacity much less than 500 years if our living quarters doesn't get some kind of drastic region expansions, extraterrestrially.
Here is what I would assume would happen, though the time frames will most likely vary greatly, the order shouldn't.



100years
Complete conversion to solar powers, carrying capacity for the human race. Which means the capitalistic nations such as United States will be subjected to opposition as far as resource usage goes, giving rise to newer governments. I'd imagine some kind of compromised communistic government.

200years
Solve gravity. Publicized space travel. Declaring national ownerships of extraterrestrial areas.
Perfecting genetic manipulation, bringing dinos back to life and stuff.
Completion on mechanisms of immortality
***If aliens found, /human. If does not exist, proceed to next step.

500years
Stabilizing space establishments and planet states. Energy crisis.

1000years
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.

Utilization of energy from singularities, solve all future energy crisis, reversing entropy and other crazy stuff with it.
'real' experimentation of time travel
I AAA Vertex beta vrofl

2000years
Multiverse experimentation. Resource issues. Ability to tweak space-time. Create an other-dimension big bang, perfect inter-dimensional travel, pack and move.

4000years
I think this is a bit far to project. Any problems solved in this time will probably all just be problems we don't even know exists yet.
I wouldn't be surprised if we proceed this far, space will no longer be empty but a giant ass infrastructure, or at least filled with infrastructure that takes up a good deal of space.
I highly doubt over population will really ever be a problem. There are much more than enough food for everyone, even now.

Orly?

Also I dont think we can "solve" gravity lol

[ScylaX]

Damn I like how everyone are basically tripping on the future because they estimated the cultural and technology shift there was between today and 2000 years ago.
The progress isn't as regular as you'd think and estimating the future, even with broad approaches would require an accurate study ; it's just as complex as guessing what would have happened "if" you removed or added a fact from the past. And I personally wouldn't try myself to guess which future waits for us, because that's impossible, there are always some "surprise" events that occur while they had a really little probability to happen. And even the smallest change can induces HUGE variations. Just don't even bother thinking about it, it's just all phantasm, I hate thinkings that induces pre-supposed postulates as "considering that everything we progressively estimated is true, that there is no surprise possible" ; from that very moment, any assessment get irrelevant because it'd just match what the world would become if ; instead of matching a formal and accurate reasoning that actually tries to match the reality.

Even estimating the world condition in 200 years would require a really powerful thinking, the more you get in the future, the more misty and wayward it gets. The more the assessments you'll make will be far in the future, the more uncertain it'll be.
And I'm allowing myself to post that because we're in the CT section, I don't mind at all about the fantasies (or delusions, hah) of others, but I'm just getting rational there. I'm just giving a hint there : do you think anybody in the first century - even the wisest philosopher - was able to know, or guess what the whole civilization would have become 2000 years later ? Would have these people thought that the problems they had at that time would remain the same twenty centuries later ?

[Trogdor!!!!]

Originally Posted by Renevatia

Solve gravity.

Please define that. lol

Anyways, whenever I think of the far future, I can only think about the world ending up too over populated, us running out of the necessary resources to supply everyone, and everyone just dying off. Will this happen? Possibly if you look at population growth as of late. Then again, we're not stupid. I'm pretty sure we'll find someway to do something about it, but that's just what I think about if you ask me about the world in 500 years or so.

Edit: I didn't really read any of the other post to find everyone was pretty much talking about this already, but whatever, still throwing my two cents in. :3

[ScylaX]

Originally Posted by Trogdor!!!!

Anyways, whenever I think of the far future, I can only think about the world ending up too over populated, us running out of the necessary resources to supply everyone, and everyone just dying off. Will this happen? Possibly if you look at population growth as of late. Then again, we're not stupid. I'm pretty sure we'll find someway to do something about it, but that's just what I think about if you ask me about the world in 500 years or so.

I briefly studied demographics to know that, so I'm putting this here too : I don't know if people that keeps saying the earth will be super-overpopulated with +50 billions of humans know that or if they're just estimating the same way I was estimating before getting my own knowledge on the subject.
The world population is said to decrease once it'll reach something around 12 billions individuals of population if I don't get it wrong. We'll never get a supersized civilization of billions and billions human on the earth till the resources get so tricky to obtain that we would have to ruin the planet or explore space to get what we need.
It's a natural behavior, when a race is living beyond the resources available, it decreases on its own ; and also, I think somebody already talked about that Demographic transition model in the thread, which pretty much explains why we can't get that astronomical number of humans on the planet : in Europe, the birth rate/fertility rate of the non-immigrant population is dropping each year, the population is getting older and older, and basically, the main source of "young" workers come from the immigration.

[FFR4EVA_00]

all you people saying there will be overcrowding in 2000 years when most projections see the population peaking in no less than 100

[foop101]

I beleive that the population cap of earth is 4 billion and that people are dying... but most would think I'm wrong I guess. Using organic farming methods the earth can only feed 4 billion people, so that is my reasoning. With this "new technology" we have developed in agriculture we are stretching our limits.

2000 years? a bit optimistic.

If we are talking about the earth, I assume it will be a baron wasteland, virtually inhospitable from lack of resources, pollution, and maybe even lack of water.
For people, if we are still here, I assume we will be a space-faring species, travelling from planet to planet, sucking up their resources.

I don't really have an optimistic view of our world, I may just watch to much anime but I see our world similar to Akira (except no blue people) in around 100 years.

[iCeCuBEz v2]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Originally Posted by Renevatia

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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".