Subject:
|
Re: Future of Humanity (was: lotsa stuff)
|
Newsgroups:
|
lugnet.off-topic.debate
|
Date:
|
Mon, 22 Oct 2001 05:08:06 GMT
|
Viewed:
|
676 times
|
| |
|
|
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Ross Crawford writes:
>
> > We'd have to come up with some sort of practical interstellar travel • technique
> > first - the solar system's gonna get unlivable way before the death of the
> > universe. But (IMO) we're gonna be history way before that.
>
> How do you figure?
>
> In part it depends on your definition of "we". Humanity has "stopped
> evolution" recently,
When? No-one told me...
> and is poised to "take control of evolution" with
> genetic engineering of ourselves. I say "we" are what we make ourselves
> into, but others might say as soon as there is genetic divergence it's not
> us any more. I'd bet anything that we will not be the same genetically in
> 100,000 years. But still human nonetheless.
I don't totally agree. Evolution turned chimps into humans. We definitely don't
consider them "humanity" though they may well consider us "chimpity"(tm). At
some point, humans will likely evolve into a different species. It's possible
"humanity" will still be around in it's current form (or something close) as
well.
But that's not really what I'm talking about. I'm talking more about balance,
cycles, that kind of thing. Relatively soon, the human population will stop
growing exponentially. Bad things will start happening (have they already?)
like massive famines, etc. Our resources (for nourishment) will be unable to
sustain us. We'll become more susceptible to things we can currently control.
Something else (bacteria, insects, ???) will be able to handle this better than
us. And that's discounting other (natural & not) disasters...
Sure, inter-planetary migration may alleviate this a little (how much resource
is practically available in our solar system?), but if we can't work out
inter-stellar travel fairly soon, we've got problems, 'cos all this'll reduce
our resources for that too.
> But I'm pretty confident that unless the luddites get their way we will be
> colonizing this solar system soon enough (within a hundred years) and will
> be colonizing nearby ones shortly after that (within a thousand years) even
> if it has to be done non-FTL.
Colonising this solar system is a lot different to colonising others. I think
your 100 year prediction is certainly in the realms of probability, but I'm not
so confident about the other.
> I'm betting intelligence is rare
I'm betting livable planets are pretty rare too...but then perhaps we can take
our own (space 1999?)
> and so we've got lots of room to expand
> into, probably thousands and thousands of systems, which reduces the
> likelihood of a catastrophic extinction to nil.
Again, assuming we figure out how to (in time)...
ROSCO
|
|
Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Future of Humanity (was: lotsa stuff)
|
| (...) Me either! Wow, cool--LUGNET is the apex of evolution! :D (...) *HAHAHA* "Chimpity?" I love it! Oh, yeah, forgot the little ™ (Alt+0665 to make the spiffy extended-char trademark symbol) But, as a matter of point, evolution didn't turn chimps (...) (23 years ago, 22-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | Re: Future of Humanity (was: lotsa stuff)
|
| (...) Too early to tell for sure but we as a species have in part stopped evolving because we have shut down most of the selection factors (disease, famine, the birth defect effect on reproduction) As for the survival of the race, we have to get (...) (23 years ago, 22-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
|
Message is in Reply To:
133 Messages in This Thread:
(Inline display suppressed due to large size. Click Dots below to view.)
- Entire Thread on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
This Message and its Replies on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
|
|
|
|
