[–] rwbj 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
Imagine back in the 50s when computers were the size of small factories at government-level cost. Can you even imagine how people would respond if you said that in just 60 years anybody would be able to have computers millions of times stronger than those for some tens of dollars, and they'd fit into devices as small as a watch? You'd sound like you'd been reading way too much sci-fi, if not straight up hitting the lysergic a bit too much. Yet that's exactly what happened. And now technology, in nearly all endeavors, is accelerating far more rapidly than it was in computing back then...
Just within our lifetime we'll almost certainly see interplanetary colonization and celestial resource utilization (e.g. asteroid mining). That alone will already alleviate any real notion of mineral or land scarcity. Automation will supplement this in ways I think are difficult to even imagine for now. Suffice to say that production and distribution of said resources will look quite a bit different than it does today. Those are both in the ballpark of 9-20 years away. Any conception we have of what the world's going to be like in 100 years is simply going to be wrong. The amount of imminent revolutionary scale change makes any prediction beyond it like trying to imagine what the color red might look like, for a person who's never seen anything except black and white.
[–] Mathurin1911 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
And now technology, in nearly all endeavors, is accelerating far more rapidly than it was in computing back then...
No, it isnt. Smartphones were disruptive, but even they were an iteration, they existed well before the Iphone, but the data network wasnt up to par and they were mainly for tech focused people, Apple built the market by dumbing them down for other people. Since then we have received iterative changes, slightly faster, slightly larger/denser screens, slightly longer battery life, etc. Tech companies try to pretend these are massive astonishing changes as a marketing tactic, but it really isnt. What you have seen is the consumerization of tech that has been available in slower forms for decades.
The tech advances of the last 60 years have been computer driven. As in "That thing we are doing, throw a computer at it" Computer driven fuel injection and ignition have made cars more reliable and require less maintenance while CAD and research studies have taught us how to make slightly better mechanical components. But a mechanic from 1950 would recognize the mechanical components of a new car, its just the funny carburetor and lack of distributor that would throw him off. CAD and easy number crunching has led to refrigerators that are more efficient, but they are not dramatically different than their counterparts of 60 years ago (larger freezer sections though)
interplanetary colonization
As much as I hate to admit it, this is incredibly unlikely. The amount of effort required to build a human habitat on another planet in our solar system is obscene, without some kind of new tech (ftl travel, a huge breakthrough in additive manufacturing or general automation) it is just unlikely to happen, and even if it does such a colony will be precarious until/unless terraforming can be performed.
Most people dont think about the small army of workers actively maintaining our infrastructure to keep water running to our homes, imagine if you had to generate oxygen too.
celestial resource utilization (e.g. asteroid mining).
This I agree with, and it might make me a "liar" on the above in that there might be need to put humans in space to manage the mining. These will not be true colonies so much as mining outposts though.
Any conception we have of what the world's going to be like in 100 years is simply going to be wrong.
I agree to an extent. The biggest breakthrough that might come is human level AI. AI that is capable of truly taking over for a human being is a game changer, but we have no way of knowing what will happen. People act like HLAI will be our great savior or the end of our civilization with certainty that they cannot possibly posses. HLAI will be like an alien landing, totally unpredictable, it could serve all our needs, it could kill us all our of fear, it could commit suicide. If we are really unlucky it will absorb /b/ and construct velociraptor robots to rape us all to death.
[–] rwbj 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Most of the things I mentioned were definitely not just off the cuff. Let's hit on the interplanetary colonization part for instance, and Mars in particular.
Oxygen is a really interesting topic. There's just so much to say here. The first thing is that Mars is just absolutely loaded with compounds containing oxygen. For instance the atmosphere is mostly CO2 and the ice caps are also completely dry ice - frozen CO2. So one idea here is MOXIE. It's a rover that NASA is sending in Mars 2020 that will experiment with converting atmospheric CO2 directly into CO and oxygen. Now massive amounts of this oxygen will be being produced. The main purpose is not just for life support, but as part of rocket fuel. And I guess that leads to the Sabatier Reaction. The Sabatier Reaction is another neat bit of chemistry. CO2 + hydrogen can produce methane with a byproduct of water!
And we haven't gotten into the nitty gritty of Martian dirt. If you ever saw the movie or read the book The Martian you know one of the things the protagonist struggled with was getting water. He went through the crazy process of reducing hydrazine (really really nasty stuff) to water. What the author didn't know (because it hadn't yet been discovered) is what most people probably still don't know. Martian soil is moist. I don't mean the recent discovery of trace surface water but in the areas that on film look like desert. It's about 2% water by weight. In other words a cubic foot of soil gets you about a liter of water. That again opens up countless possibilities. At the most basic level of course simple electrolysis of water produces hydrogen and oxygen. Inefficient, but there's plenty of surface to deploy solar on Mars.
As for putting all of this together, our society is incredibly inefficient in work. In my opinion this was because of technological barriers at the time and is now because of economic come ethical barriers. So for instance let's look at our proverbial burger flipper. These sort of jobs and most of the product line would be pretty trivial to automate. But doing so would wipe out millions of jobs. That'd result in a response from both government, who might see civil order and the economy decline, and society which would perceive it as billion dollar corporations wiping out even those poor paying jobs to increase their profit margins a hair more. So as a result we have lots of people doing jobs that are really completely irrelevant so they can "earn" their living. That will change in the future no doubt, but the point is that comparing our inefficiencies here to what's actually necessary is not really a fair comparison. There's definitely plenty of hurdles to overcome yet, but I haven't seen anything to that seems in any way insurmountable on a near future timeline - let alone 100 years.
Anyhow, yeah. The reason I wanted to pick just one topic is because this is probably already approaching tl/dr and it's mostly just about oxygen!
[–] carlinco 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Professional ones? Lots. But they don't get read as often, as they are not so spectacular. They are mostly about measures to defeat disease, hunger, very large family sizes, and so on.
Sci-fi? Also lots. But not too interesting for people who prefer dystopian sci-fi.
Me personally: I'm sure Earth could easily handle 100 billion people with current technology. And then we should expand into space. If we get immortal and able to improve without limits (transhumanism), we should limit population growth somewhat. But also allow people to spend years or decades travelling to other star systems and do as they please there.
[–] Thisismyvoatusername 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
I really, truly do not understand the people who are convinced we are in imminent danger of overpopulating the planet and all dying of starvation and disease. Have they never studied the history of such forecasts?
Yeah. People have less kids, less kids leads to a smaller carbon footprint. One great Idea would be to reduce unplanned pregnancies. About 45% of pregnancies in the US are unintended, so preventing those could have a very positive effect. Unintended pregnancies often lead to the children being born into poverty, difficult family situations, etc. I think offering free vasectomies for all men would greatly reduce unplanned pregnancy, and alongside that reduce the amount of children in poverty or broken families. It would also reduce our country's environmental effect, as every new person contributes to energy usage, food usage, and the use of other resources
Simply no. All you have to do is math to figure out the earth doesn't have 100 years left in it. Population increase yearly, projected from current population numbers, we are looking at 88 million increase this year alone. We are creeping up on 8,000,000,000 people on the planet. In 100 years that number more then doubles. Too many people, not enough resources.
[–] AmaleksHairyAss ago
Aging is cured, but only as fast as we can handle it. Sensible stewardship of the planet becomes a political necessity. Population growth is slow and steady into 2050, and new technologies easily keep up with the demand on resources. Artificial intelligence and mechanization raise the global standard of living. Wide use of solar power with desalinization and modern genetically manipulated plants and animals bring the cost of food down so low a small stipend is granted worldwide for those who need it, and the stipend is sufficient to feed each recipient. New technologies empower the poor and rather than forcing the issue (and risking pitchfork time) the global elite give way to some extent.
The liberals are right in their claims about allowing immigrants: it turns out having a job and a home and enough to eat is enough to turn European Muslims away from extremism. Having lost that avenue of attack and under increasingly intelligent mechanized surveillance Muslim extremism is slowly chipped away. Religious terror attacks happen occasionally, but become small, rare, unsupported by any real organization, and conducted by obviously insane people.
As it becomes obvious unaugmented humans are completely eclipsed by the abilities of robots work stops being seen as desirable, and capitalist values begin to decline. It's no longer seen as shameful to live on welfare. Welfare is also not an unbearable burden on society, no matter how many people choose to accept it. People spend their time volunteering, seeking self-enrichment, or just drinking beer and watching sports. Several government programs try, unsuccessfully, to motivate this last group but it's not seen as economically urgent.
Governments tread a careful line between the demands of the rich and the needs of the poor. Sociology meets chaos theory in several powerful models run in supercomputers and it turns out to be much cheaper to just let people do what they want. As predicted by these models while some people choose to do very little one person in a thousand is a highly motivated and talented inventor, artist, philosopher, programmer, or other innovator. These people carry the burden of mankind's continued success, and they carry it well. They are richly rewarded. Because each human now has that chance the arts and sciences flourish. And so looking up from the decadence of an uncaring world the best and brightest, the adventuresome, ambitious, and discontent look to the stars and begin the gargantuan task of building humanity's first generation ship.
[–] Mathurin1911 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Yes.
Continuing minor advances in automation and energy generation enable food production on scales we cannot imagine, with the slow reduction in work requirements and an increasingly easy life resulting in lower birth rates (as can already be seen in western nations) that might be a problem if increased automation didnt make caring for the elderly much less labor intensive.
[–] therealkrispy ago
All I'll say is this, if the Western world embargoes China, China doesn't eat.
[–] Doomking_Grimlock ago
The problem with a happy ending is that it's just too damn unfeasible. Every problem we solve creates a whole host of new problems, usually an order of magnitude greater than the one we just fixed.