The far future

[Banquo's Ghost]

@BG: An actual optimist is a rare thing these days

Optimist maybe - but if we only think badly of ourselves, the bad is all we'll get.

My countryman, Oscar Wilde, said it best for me:

"We are all in the gutter - but some of us are looking at the stars."

[Mikeus Caesar]

Future? What future?

You can try and be optimistic that scientists will finally harness the glory of fusion power, but i doubt it will happen. The day the fossil fuels run out, human society will go to hell in a handbasket, and once that happens, the process will be irreversable. We'll be stuck with a pre-industrial society forever, with the broken remnants of our once 'great' society decaying all around us. We think we're so brilliant, but ultimately all that will be left of us is a thin layer of broken plastic and glass, in between the mud and shale.

[The Wizard]

Meh, human civilization works in cycles, anyways. With how they describe a nuclear detonation in the Mahabharata, you might even think this isn't the first time we've climbed out of the gutter. Besides, wouldn't it be nice for it to be legal to brain a blabbering fool with a mace without being chased by police?

[Lemur]

The day the fossil fuels run out, human society will go to hell in a handbasket, and once that happens, the process will be irreversable. We'll be stuck with a pre-industrial society forever, with the broken remnants of our once 'great' society decaying all around us.

I seem to remember a movie about this ...

My life fades; the vision dims. All that remains are memories. I remember a time of chaos, ruined dreams this wasted land. But most of all, I remember the Road Warrior, the man we called Max.

To understand who he was, you have to go back to another time, when the world was powered by the black fuel, and the deserts sprouted great cities of pipe and steel. Gone now, swept away. For reasons long forgotten, two mighty warrior tribes went to war, and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all.

Without fuel they were nothing. They'd built a house of straw. The thundering machines sputtered and stopped. Their leaders talked and talked and talked but nothing could stem the avalanche. Their world crumbled, the cities exploded. A whirlwind of looting, a firestorm of fear. Men began to feed on men.

On the roads it was a white-line nightmare. Only those mobile enough to scavenge, brutal enough to pillage would survive. The gangs took over the highways, ready to wage war for a tank of juice. And in this maelstrom of decay ordinary men were battered and smashed.

Men like Max, the warrior Max. In the roar of an engine, he lost everything, and became a shell of a man; a burnt out, desolate man, a man haunted by the demons of his past. A man who wandered out into the wasteland. And it was here in this blighted place that he learned to live again.

[Mikeus Caesar]

Yes, i do believe the future will be like mad max. Maybe not quite so drastic, but still a bleak future without much in the way of advancement.

[English assassin]

Yes, i do believe the future will be like mad max. Maybe not quite so drastic,

Phew. Mad Max had me worried, but Mildly Miffed Max, I think I can cope with.

[rotorgun]

@ Seamus and Rotorgun: I don't see space travel developping before there's really something out there worth our time, effort and money. The people financing those endavours will probably remain on earth and would want something tangible for their money. The people leaving would need a really good reason to leave. Remember that the 'new world' back in the age of discovery was a pretty nice place to go and live, Mars ain't.-doc_bean

Just let one of our probes discover something really valuable in large enough quantites to justify the expense, and it'll be "Katie, bar the door" in the efforts made to get there first. Imagine the gold rush of 1890. There were plenty of folks willing to risk life and limb to attain the "mother lode" and thereby gain a lifetime of wealth. As for those who would want to live on Mars, I agree that it is beyond the scope of most people today, but it is seriously being considered by some pretty smart folks among the worlds space exploration community.

Heck, I might even want to move there if I wasn't so old and tied down with the cares of my life. At least I would get a little peace and quiet for a change.

[doc_bean]

Just let one of our probes discover something really valuable in large enough quantites to justify the expense, and it'll be "Katie, bar the door" in the efforts made to get there first. Imagine the gold rush of 1890. There were plenty of folks willing to risk life and limb to attain the "mother lode" and thereby gain a lifetime of wealth. As for those who would want to live on Mars, I agree that it is beyond the scope of most people today, but it is seriously being considered by some pretty smart folks among the worlds space exploration community.

Heck, I might even want to move there if I wasn't so old and tied down with the cares of my life. At least I would get a little peace and quiet for a change.

But whatever they find ahs to worth transporting too, gold is nice stuff, but do we really need more of it ? And is it worth the cost of mining and transporting (which would be huge) ?

Maybe rich uranium could be worth the effort, but we have enough of that here on earth for a few hundred years, and I doubt the populace would be in favour of making our planet just a little more radioactive.

[Lemur]

Just let one of our probes discover something really valuable in large enough quantites to justify the expense, and it'll be "Katie, bar the door" in the efforts made to get there first.

I got one for ya: helium-3.

Assuming we can ever get efficient fusion power working, this stuff is going to be worth its weight in rather more than gold.