The far future

[Bijo]

What do you think the far future will be like if you had to speculate based on information you have now?


One thing is for sure. One thing is a constant: conflict (with universal nature and all its influences as basis).

I predict corporatism will go out of control and corporations -- and any others who are rich -- will start engaging in open war with each other, using whatever there is at their disposal to survive -- mercenaries, militia, slave labor, nuclear weapons, biological weapons, chemical weapons, newly developed mind-controlling techniques, supertechnology, information warfare, etc.

Governments will cease to exist, though maybe remain there in name. Cities, towns, countries, will be in ruin and crime will dominate every street of the globe. There will be more drugs too: cheap, addictive drugs to strengthen the grip on people. Murder, killing, rape. Civilians die in heaps.

If a certain corporation's soldiers are hit, they hit 'em back as revenge. They will infiltrate each other more and more to sabotage and gather information. They will assassinate the leaders. Death and destruction.


That's my far-fetched prediction for the very late future. Does it sound too dark or negative? Well.... fehgeddaboudid.

[Lemur]

If a certain corporation's soldiers are hit, they hit 'em back as revenge. They will infiltrate each other more and more to sabotage and gather information. They will assassinate the leaders. Death and destruction.

Sounds regressive and inefficient. Your scenario resembles the Medieval Medici more than corporate conflict.

Here's the Lemur's thought for the day: Capitalism is the most efficient method for distributing and creating wealth. However, it's short-sighted to think it will always be the best. And no, I don't have the foggiest notion of what may replace it, but it's entirely possible something will. And no, I'm not talking about any of the existing alternatives, which all have severe drawbacks -- Marxism, communes, cooperatives, etc. I'm imagining a completely new system, probably based at least partially on software.

Wouldn't it be nice to retain the profit motive and efficiency of capitalism while losing the tendencies toward monopolism, oligopolism and corruption? I expect some genius in the next couple of hundred years will put something forward.

Another thought: We will expand throughout our solar system, or we will fall into parochial barbarism. Expand or stagnate, and I'm hoping for the former.

[Bijo]

If a certain corporation's soldiers are hit, they hit 'em back as revenge. They will infiltrate each other more and more to sabotage and gather information. They will assassinate the leaders. Death and destruction.

Sounds regressive and inefficient. Your scenario resembles the Medieval Medici more than corporate conflict.

I'm not familiar with medieval Medici, but I do remember it's about a powerful family...? In any case, if you don't like the part about hits, then fehgeddaboudid :)

Main scenario was the Earth in ruin and corporations that rule ruthlessly. Something like we have now which could be called a "mild form", but in the future a lot worse.

[Samurai Waki]

Probably some advanced form of Federalism in the future, it seems like the most efficient way to tie the human race together rather than seperate them based on culture/sex. But we're a long way off, and it won't happen in my lifetime, nor my Children's,Children's,Children's lifetime, well...I speculate.

[doc_bean]

What do you mean by far future ? 2100AD ? 2500AD ? 5000AD ? Later ?

A few ideas and possible scenarios:

* the human race is still more likely to wipe itself out then not. We have nukes, we're building a better bomb, we've got bio weapons and chemical weapons, we've got a lot of lunatics.

*If we look at histrory civilization seems to be moving towards a more libertarian society. From strict adherence to elders, medicine men, and rules of the group to universal slavery under a God-King, to fuedalism to aristocratic factory owners to democratic freedom... (vast simplification of history of course). We'll probably continue for a while to a more 'open' and 'free' society, whatever that will mean.

*corporations taking over is an interesting idea, it's a possibility, but i don't see that as a long term stable form of society.

* I think the ideal that we'll ever going to be completely peaceful (incl no crime) is probably never achievable, we're not wired that way.

* ...unless we change the wiring. Brave New World mentions the potential of specially bred workers and scientists and other classes. Eugenetics used to be popular, the idea of class or caste systems seems quite popular from time to time. Messing with genetics might change society in a BIG way. The idea that we'll all just be smarter, fitter, healthier and happier seems too optimistic to me, I suspect we might create a subclass of humans at some point, unless we can let the robots do it for us (NOTE: robot originally referred to human serfs, the word was first introduced in some 19th century sci fi book if I remember my wiki...)

* Robots ! Will we ever be able to create androids ? Machines that have equal intelligence as humans ? Superior intelligence perhaps ? Personally I think we're far removed from ever creating an artificial 'soul'. But someone might figure it out some day. I think such a discovery would completely change the world in a couple of years.

* the metaverse/Matrix/second life/internets. Hard to say what that will evolve into. It's hard to picture a future world were the 'virtual' world is unimportant though.

* Cybernetcs, cyborgs, mind to machine transplants. Kurzweil has some interesting ideas about how humans will evolve in the future, essentially, we'll all become cyborgs living more in a vuirtual world than in reality, and we'll be virtually immortal. Miniturization tech is getting more and more advanced, neurology is a very popular science nowadays, and we're always looking for ways to extend out lifetime. Who knows what will happen ?

*Space travel: unlikely to become really big unless we get a really good reason to go out there (resources or fleeing earth)

[ajaxfetish]

Well, I hear the scientists say that in the far future our sun will run out of fusable material, in the process expanding enough to engulf the earth before becoming a dead star. Of course the chances of humanity lasting that long seem very remote to me. Anyway, as the saying goes: 'in the long run, we are all dead.'

Ajax

[Bijo]

What do you mean by far future ? 2100AD ? 2500AD ? 5000AD ? Later ?

Any far future you can think of, whether it's 2100, 2500, in-between or beyond :)

[Whacker]

Selected quotes

* the human race is still more likely to wipe itself out then not. We have nukes, we're building a better bomb, we've got bio weapons and chemical weapons, we've got a lot of lunatics.

*corporations taking over is an interesting idea, it's a possibility, but i don't see that as a long term stable form of society.

* I think the ideal that we'll ever going to be completely peaceful (incl no crime) is probably never achievable, we're not wired that way.

* ...unless we change the wiring.

Sorry to be a bit of a pessimist here, but I think you are correct about the human race wiping itself out, corporations/big business running the show, and never being able to achieving sweeping, lasting peace.

Why?

As the good doc said, we are hard-wired (in a sense) for conflict, and also for greed. I shall spare everyone my huge boring chain of logic, but suffice to say that I think greed, prejudice, and the propensity for violence are simply evolved versions of the same basic emotions that we see in our distant cousins, apes. These, coupled with our incredible intelligence, and (I think this is the right term) the fact that humans are pack animals and will always follow some form of central authority, is essentially a powderkeg. Maybe we can evolve beyond this or learn to deal with it, but so far I haven't seen much that gives me hope.