The world of the future - Scary!

Sometimes I wonder how will this planet be in the distant future. With the kind of growth in population and the advancement of science;it's really difficult to imagine how things will be. Will the population keep growing and the technology becoming more and more advanced. What is the future going to look like. Offcourse one gets some idea from the sci fi movies and books but it looks like everyone has their own ideas. I'am looking for some help in visualizing.One thing I'am sure about though;and that is mother earth will definately turn the tides of time and we will find ourselves starting from the start.Time is not linear,it's cyclic as we believe in some religion. So will everything start all over again? But how will it be just before it's about to restart?

[edit on 16-1-2008 by AryanWatch]

Well, how did the dark ages begin? Or, the time before the Egyptian dynasties? It will look a lot like scattered life, disjointed and searching for some semblance of civilization that we humans need. Despite the fact that we have been made into an anti-social, road rage society, we must have society and civilization and companionship and that is what we will strive to rebuild.

reply to post by AryanWatch

Here are my predictions for 100 years from now. In the year 2108:

#1. There will be a lot more prisons. Public executions will be common.

#2. There will be a lot less litter. Most power lines will be buried. Public parks will proliferate. Public buildings will be awe inspiring.

#3. Almost all people will live in cities, linked by ultra-high speed public transportation. People will spend a lot of time each day waiting in lines to go places.

#4. Average human life expectancy will be 72 years. Most of your income will go to heath care. There will still be no cure for cancer, but the treatment for chronic AIDS will be effective and low cost.

#5. Electric cars, nuclear power, video conferencing, electronic currency will have arrived. All this will have trivial or no consequence on the standard of living or quality of life.

#6. Movies will be even more violent and graphic. Conservative talk radio will still be highly popular. Print media will be dead.

#7. Everyone on earth will be able to speak the English language. The USA will dominate the entire world attention. The USA will be at war with some previously obscure country. Three quarters of the world will fanatically love the USA.

#8. People will still be working (unsuccessfully) at creating strong Artificial Intelligence. The Internet will have evolved, but these advances will be no big deal, mainly stylistic changes. We will still be seeking the "meaning of life".

#9. ATS, and the Above Network, will still exist, but there STILL won't be any unequivocal prove of extra-terrestrial life.

One hundred years is a long time. Nobody can authoritatively say I am wrong about any of the above. We will just have to see....


[edit on 16-1-2008 by Buck Division]

One more note: Here is a fascinating ATS link I've discovered, just today.

This link -- remarkably -- justifies the basis of my more dire predictions.

Click here for an explanation of why I think the above list is our current destiny.

#

I love this thread. The future is scary! I wonder why nobody else is responding with ideas?

(Edited to fix typos.)

[edit on 18-1-2008 by Buck Division]

And thus the mental process of becoming culturally conservative begins.

Originally posted by AryanWatch
So will everything start all over again? But how will it be just before it's about to restart?

One of the most interesting classes I ever took as an undergraduate was an overview of ancient Chinese history. It offered a very good look at what happens to the political structure in a relatively isolated area, and could possibly used to predict what will happen in our current global political situation, since we have now become one big system.

The answer is that, yes, history tends to be very cyclic, and goes through a number of recognizable stages that continue to repeat. There is no "restart," per se. In China it happened approximately 7 times, and is essentially continuing today. Basically, the stages are these:

1) Smaller areas and regions organize into independent nation states.
2) The states battle among themselves for control and scarce resources, until there are fewer, larger states.
3) The larger states battle amongst themselves until one powerful state (the Empire) is able to take control of the entire system (China, or the World).
4) The army and bureaucracy of the Empire grows, requiring it to tax the population more and try to exert more control over distant regions.
5) The sub-cycle of expansion followed by higher taxation and military activity continues until taxes become too high for many people to pay, which causes them to resort to crime (banditry).
6) Crime increases, requiring more military/police expenditure, followed by more taxes, followed by more crime.
7) Eventually criminals in the outer provinces form smaller independent states, which creates such a burden on the Empire that fighting them is too expensive, so they thrive. All of this continues to draw revenue away from the Empire. Soldiers go unpaid, and they join smaller state armies.
8) The small independent states grow larger, to the point where one or a confederation of them challenges the Empire and overthrows it, busting it up into smaller states.
9) We're back where we started with a number of small states fighting each other, and the entire process repeats.

This cycle happens because human beings all pretty much want the same thing. Security from enemies, food, the opportunity to raise kids, etc. Bad weather or poor government creates hardships that require states to invade other states to survive.

Right now, the world is at the point where there are several large independent states attempting to establish the first Earth Empire. The winner might actually be the Chinese, which is fitting, since they have experience at it already, although the United States is still a big contender. Don't count out the Indians, Muslims, or Aztecas, though. Empires are not all evil, of course. The Chinese were always greatest when they had an empire standardizing roads and money and using its resources to smooth out economic turmoil. Most of the greatest works of mankind were accomplished through empires. It can be hard on some individuals, but larger human society thrives in them.

So the world of the future is this. Barring any huge asteroid impact, solar flare, or other natural calamity, some nation will eventually "win" the wars to organize into a central world government. Hard to say exactly how long this will take, or how long it will last. Maybe decades, maybe centuries.

But the central world government will eventually go the way of all Empires. It will become bloated and bogged down by bureaucracy and military, with simply too many people seeking security at the government teat. Taxes will rise to the point where it will turn people into criminals. The criminals will organize into new power structures. And the whole thing will keep repeating until we're either all dead, all genetically modified into different subspecies, or until our intelligent robots take over.

Expect that in the next 1,000 to 10,000 years. Of course, we'll all be dead before the Empire is formed. Probably.

reply to post by Nohup

That is great stuff.

I wonder if this is the only cycle that can occur, or whether this cycle is unbreakable? For example, I am not sure that the Roman Empire followed this particular cycle. It seems the USA escaped "stage eight" during the American Civil War.

Regardless, if this is not the only model, it certainly appears it is the plan we are currently following. Most interestingly, I can see how it appears we are well into "stage three" on a global scale.

reply to post by Nohup


Great input Taxes are a serious contender for 'crime generators'. I wonder why they don't reduce the existing taxes to their 10%


In the present scenario,it looks a little difficult to me that the same order would be followed. The larger countries that exist will try and form unions like EU and would strengthen their economic ties. This might lead to a lot of burden on some nations in the beginning but will evantually lead to a more stable economy.