Over the past 500 years here're some patterns to take note of:
1) Communication greatly increased in speed
2) Physical travel greatly increased in speed
3) Ability to store knowledge and recall it greatly increased in speed
4) Greater access to energy and ability to transport it
5) Increased intermingling of different cultures
etc...
One of the things that crossed my mind while making that list was that at each point in time humans had to find new ways to solve problems in order to
make up for old losses. Productivity had to always go up. New resources had to be found. It always seemed like times were tough and the end of the
world was near. Every once in a while, a great discovery would come about, like when oil was first drilled or when the North American continent was
found by Columbus and immigrants started to sail over there. Every once in a while, a tragedy occurs, like a war or plague. People are always moving
around, things are always happening, there's never any break from the constant shuffling around.
I think we'll run low on resources on Earth, but we'll find a way. Maybe we'll go off planet or maybe we'll find a new technology or maybe we'll find
a new way of life, but we'll find something - I believe that. We'll communicate far faster and over longer distances than we do now, as well as travel
faster and further. Far greater amounts of information will be stored and recalled. More kinds of people and cultures will intermingle. Our power
plants will produce much greater yields than they do now, potentially tapping into things we presently don't even know exist - the atom was not known
to exist 500 years ago.
There's also the issue of how our information technology has changed us. Our world is so rich in information. It seems nowadays all you need is a
connection to the internet and a lot of brains. People meet socially now on the internet almost as much as they do face to face. Surgeons are
increasingly eyeing remote surgery. Drones offer much in the way of surveillance. News is 24/7, worldwide and in real-time. People can go to school
online. What does this mean for the future? I'm not sure, there're many factors and the results aren't exactly linear. Our technology, undeniably,
will change us. What's difficult is knowing exactly what our technology will be and what it will change about us.
If machines replace us physically in the economy and computers do more and more thinking alongside us then where will the jobs come from? We'll have
to be ever more inventive. We'll have to stretch our limits and go to the very edge of the possible. If there're no jobs because we've put ourselves
out of work then we'll have to make new ones! If our home offers us no employment then it's time to pack up our bags and voyage into the
unknown.
edit on 27-9-2013 by jonnywhite because: (no reason given)