Most scientific discipline fictional and futurist visions of the time to come tend towards the damaging — and for good reason . Our environment is a tidy sum , we have a cruddy tendency to misuse applied science , and we ’re becoming more and more up to of destroying ourselves . But civilizational demise is by no substance guaranteed . Should we discover a way of life to manage the risks and forefend dystopic outcomes , our far time to come look amazingly bright . Here are seven beneficial - case scenarios for the future of humanity .
Above ikon courtesyGary Tonge .
Before we get started it ’s worth observe that many of the scenarios list here are not reciprocally exclusive . If things go really well , our civilization will continue to evolve and diversify , lead to many dissimilar case of futures .
1 . Status quo
While this is scarcely the most exciting termination for humanness , it is still an outcome . Given the dread admonition ofSir Martin Rees , Nick Bostrom , Stephen Hawking , and many others , we may not be around to see the next century . Our on-going survival — even if it ’s under our current state of technical development — could be considered a positive termination . Many have suggest that we ’ve already touch our pinnacle as a species .
Back in 1992 , political scientist Francis Fukuyama wroteThe remnant of History and the Last Manin which he argued that our current political , technological , and economic mode was the last stop on our journey . He was wrong , of course ; Fukuyama ’s book will always be recollect as a neoconservative ’s soused dreaming written in reaction to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the raise of the so - ring New World Order . More realistically , however , the call for a kind of ego - imposed status quo has been articulated by Sun Microsystems cofounder Bill Joy . Writing in his seminal 2004 article , “ Why the Future Does n’t Need Us , ” Joy warned of the ruinous electric potential for 21st century technologies like robotics , genetic technology , and nanotech . Subsequently , he forebode for technological relinquishment — a sort of neo - Luddism intended to prevent dystopic outcomes and outright human extinction . The prudent thing to do now , indicate Joy , is to make do with what we have in Bob Hope of insure a farsighted and well-off time to come .
2 . A bright fleeceable Earth
Visions of the far future be given to bring up images of a Cybertron - like Earth , covered from pole - to - pole in brand and oil . It ’s an conservationist ’s worst nightmare — one in which nature has been completely sweep aside by the onrush of technology and the depredation of environmental using . Yet it does n’t have to be this way ; the futurity of our planet could be far more gullible and verdant than we ever reckon . come forth offset of futurism , including technogaianism and bright dark-green environmentalism , paint a picture that we can habituate engineering to clean up the Earth and make sustainable energy models , and even to transform the major planet itself .
An other version of this thought was presented via Bruce Sterling’sViridian Design Movement , an esthetical ideal that urge for innovative and technical solutions to environmental problems . Looking to the far future , the ultimate verbalism of these ideas could result in a planet far more lush and ecologically diverse than at any other point in its geological history . In such a future , humans could be re - engineered to live in musical harmony with the environment . All our Energy Department need would be completely met ( a reliable and sustainable Kardashev I civilisation ) . Using advanced models as our scout , we could also redesign and overhaul the Earth ’s ecosystem ( including the elimination of predation and animal suffering ) , There ’s also the possibility forweather control . And we might lastly be able-bodied to follow up defensive measures to foresee the burden of natural disaster ( like asteroid impacts , earthquake , and volcanic outbreak ) . Given an globe like this , why would anyone desire to entrust ?
https://gizmodo.com/could-we-build-a-weather-machine-to-stop-climate-change-5915251
Image : Thomas Cole ’s The Arcadian or Pastoral State , 1834 .
3 . Watched over by machines of have sex gracility
Regrettably , it ’s very potential that the technological uniqueness will be an experimental extinction event . The onslaught of radically sophisticated machine intelligence — perhaps as early as 30 year from now — will be so beyond our control and understanding that it will likely do us in , whether it happens deliberately , accidentally , or by our own misdirection of the process . But the same awing power that could destruct us could also result in the accurate opposite . It ’s this opening — that a auto intelligence could make a regular Zion for manhood — that has throw rise to theSingularitarian movement .
If future AI designers can guide and mold the guidance of these advanced system — and most significantly their goal predilection — it ’s conceivable that we could give rise to what ’s called ‘ friendly AI ‘ — a sort of Asimovian tidings that ’s incapable of visit any scathe . And in fact , it could also dish up as a supremely powerful overseer and defender . It ’s a vision that was best expressed by Richard Brautigan in his verse form , “ catch Over By Machines of Loving Grace . ”
I like to think ( and
the rather the better ! )
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
exist together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
refer clear sky .
I like to think
( right now , please ! )
of a cybernetic timberland
filled with pines and electronics
where cervid amble peacefully
past computers
as if they were bloom
with spinning blossoms .
( it has to be ! )
of a cybernetic environmental science
where we are free of our labor
and joined back to nature ,
returned to our mammalian
brothers and sisters ,
and all watched over
by machines of roll in the hay thanksgiving .
4 . To boldly go where no one has gone before …
We postulate to get off this rock and get going colonizing other solar systems — there ’s no enquiry about it . Not only does our ongoing survival depend on it ( the ‘ all our eggs in one basket problem ’ ) , it ’s also in our nature as a species to move on . Indeed , by venture beyond our borders and blowing past our biologic limitations we have continually push our society forward — what has resulted in on-going technological , social , political , and economical progress . Even today , our limited ventures into outer space have reap countless benefits , admit satellite applied science , an improved understanding of science — and even the bluff thrill of seeing a high - definition figure of speech streamed back from the control surface of Mars .
Should our civilisation ever be capable of embarking upon interstellar colonisation — whether it be through generation ship , self - replicating Von Neumann probes , or an outwardly expanding bubble of digital intelligence , it would represent a remarkable milestone , possibly for all life in the Milky Way . As it stands , we appear to survive in a Galaxy devoid of interstellar travelers — a troubling sign that has give ascent to theFermi Paradox . So simulate we can go major planet hopping , it might just become out that we are the first and only civilization to embark upon such a journeying . It ’s something that we must examine ; the future of life in our Galaxy could depend on it . But more to the point , interstellar settlement would also appropriate our species to expand into the cosmos and brandish .
http://io9.com/364695/controlling-the-galaxy-with-von-neumann-probes
5 . interior space , not outer space
Alternatively ( or in junction with space locomotion ) , we could come upon an ideal experiential mode by uploading ourselves into massive supercomputers . It ’s an idea that makes a mountain of sense ; given the computational capacity of a megascale computer , like a Matrioshka Brain ( in which the matter of entire major planet is utilise for the purpose of computation ) or Dyson Sphere ( which can appropriate the energy output of the Dominicus ) , there would be more to experience in a faux universe than in the real one itself . According to Robert Bradbury , a individual multi - stratum Matrioshka Brain could perform about 1042 surgical process per second , while Seth Lloyd has theorized about a quantum system that could conceivablycalculate 5×1050 logical operation per second carried out on ~1031 mo . Given the kinds of simulated worlds , head , and experiences this kind of power could generate , the analogue public would likely appear torturously sluggish , archaic , and exceptionally tiresome .
6 . perpetual bliss
nigh every religion fantasizes about a utopian hereafter . This only makes sense ease up the imperfections and dangers of the substantial world ; religion establish the great unwashed the opportunity to express their wild ejection of an idealistic State Department of existence . Given our innovative materialist proclivities , many of us no longer trust in heaven or anything else awaiting us in some think afterlife . But that does n’t entail we ca n’t produce a virtual Eden on Earth using our technologies .
This is what the British philosopher David Pearce bear on to as theHedonistic Imperative — the excreting of all suffering and the oncoming of eonian pleasure . This could be as dim-witted as eliminate pain and negative aroused State Department , or something far more dramatic and profound , like maximizing the amount of psychological , emotional , and strong-arm pleasance that a single consciousness can have . Given that we live in a hostile world with no import other than what we assign to it , who ’s to say that figure into a permanent res publica of bliss is somehow wrong or immoral ? While it may be queasy to our Puritan sensibilities , it most for sure invoke to our ghostlike and metaphysical hungriness . A secure case can be made that maximise the human mental ability for pleasure is as valid a purpose as any other .
7 . cosmogenic transcension
This is basically a placeholder for those far - off future states we ca n’t maybe imagine — but are desirable yet . While this line of speculation run to venture into the realms of doctrine and metaphysics ( not that many of the other item on this leaning have n’t done the same ) , it ’s still interesting and worthwhile to consider some super - speculative possibilities . For lesson , fantast John Smart has suggest thathuman civilization is increasingly migratinginto lowly and small increments of subject , get-up-and-go , space , and time ( MEST ) . finally , he argues , we ’ll take our collective word into a cosmological realm with the same efficiency and tightness as a black hole — where we ’ll essentially escape the universe .
instead , forward - looking thinkers likeRobert LanzaandJames Gardnerhave mull over about a creation that ’s meant to wreak in tandem with the tidings it return . This estimation , called biocentrism , suggests that the cosmos is still in an green phase angle , and that at some future stage , all the advanced intelligent aliveness within it will guide its on-going development . This would result in a Universe dramatically different from what we live on in today . And then there are other possibility such as sentence traveling and the exploitation of quantum effect . Indeed , give just how much we do n’t know about what we do n’t know , the future may be full of even more basal possible action than we ’re presently capable of guess .
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