It feels more difficult to imagine humans surviving

[blake2012]

Last edited Thu Mar 8, 2018, 01:48 AM - Edit history (1)

I mean—my pessimistic side says we’ll be lucky to make it another 50 to 100 years, but even being realistic—200 years sounds like a tall order.

There is a reason billionaire libertarians are investing in armed fortresses built underground and people like Elon Musk are fast tracking colonizing Mars.

When you think about the already ticking time bomb of global warming and the increasingly violent swings in weather and subsequent disasters and conflict, it is hard to have much hope.

I still remember with great clarity when Hans Blix was blasting Bush Junta’s rush to war in Iraq. He pointed out in stark terms that he and other leaders in international organizations believed in 2002 that global warming/climate change was the greatest existential threat to humans.

Add to this the reality that despite our hopes for a connected human race, the Internet has actually exacerbated global income equality and the Gini index is off the charts. Ecommerce—especially electronic trading and B2B and B2C commerce has dramatically amplified the redistribution of wealth.

In the face of all of this, most Democratic governments are pushing toward more authoritarian and anti-immigration voices.

On top of all of that, the developments of
machine learning, artificial intelligence applications and internet of things—we could be soon dealing with algorithms becoming unmoored from human control and inflicting untold damage.

Like I said—the converging forces seem far too daunting for our human minds and wherwithal to imagine a human race alive and well 200 years from now.

[TreasonousBastard]

1. I think that we have extraordinary talents for survival and may be the only creatures...

to survive. Along with cockroaches.

It will not be a pleasant life, by our present standards, but we will be alive. Sort of.

[democratisphere]

8. My money is on the cockroaches survival.

[poboy2]

2. Technological singularity

The technological singularity (also, simply, the singularity)[1] is the hypothesis that the invention of artificial superintelligence will abruptly trigger runaway technological growth, resulting in unfathomable changes to human civilization.[2] According to this hypothesis, an upgradable intelligent agent (such as a computer running software-based artificial general intelligence) would enter a "runaway reaction" of self-improvement cycles, with each new and more intelligent generation appearing more and more rapidly, causing an intelligence explosion and resulting in a powerful superintelligence that would, qualitatively, far surpass all human intelligence. Stanislaw Ulam reports a discussion with John von Neumann "centered on the accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue".[3] Subsequent authors have echoed this viewpoint.[2][4] I. J. Good's "intelligence explosion" model predicts that a future superintelligence will trigger a singularity.[5] Emeritus professor of computer science at San Diego State University and science fiction author Vernor Vinge said in his 1993 essay The Coming Technological Singularity that this would signal the end of the human era, as the new superintelligence would continue to upgrade itself and would advance technologically at an incomprehensible rate.[5]

Four polls conducted in 2012 and 2013 suggested that the median estimate among experts for when artificial general intelligence (AGI) would arrive was 2040 to 2050, depending on the poll.[6][7]

Many notable personalities, including Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk, consider the uncontrolled rise of artificial intelligence as a matter of alarm and concern for humanity's future.[8][9] The consequences of the singularity and its potential benefit or harm to the human race have been hotly debated by various intellectual circles
-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

[blake2012]

3. Very good summary and link. Hollywood is fascinated by this

The idea that humans are just a few short steps away from unleashing unknown horror in the name of progress. I always think about what Michael Chrichton’s character in Jurassic Park, Ian Malcom, said,

“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.”

[Binkie The Clown]

4. As for colonizing Mars...

... realistically, it would be easier to colonize Earth under hostile weather conditions than to colonize Mars, not that either would be easy.

Given enough adaptive technology I can picture a few hundred thousands humans eking out a bare existence on the dead, ruined hulk of Mother Earth. At least we have sufficient oxygen and water, whatever other hellish conditions might prevail.

But what worries me most is the onset of extinction. It will begin with famine and desperation and refugees by the millions flooding north to escape unlivable temperatures and drought. What good will the border patrol be when they are outnumbered by 1000 to 1 with masses of climate refugees?

When the great dying starts it's going to be very ugly and brutal, and civil behavior will be one of the first casualties.

[blake2012]

5. I think colonizing Mars is more about hedging bets on human surviv

Like...yes, Mars is extremely hostile environment. I think it’s wildly optimistic to imagine colonizing when we haven’t even sent one human there.

But I guess my point is there are now so many things with a high probability of going wrong that it is suddenly worthy in people’s minds to thin about such a Hail Mary pass to the end zone.

[Binkie The Clown]

10. The colony would need sufficient genetic diversity to be viable.

And that would mean sending a lot of colonists to Mars. I'm very much afraid that would be an unrealistic task. Especially considering that it would have to be accomplished while Earth civilization is falling apart all around us.

[Doodley]

6. I have exactly the same feeling. The election of Trump has increased the probability of such a

bleak picture. However, just as one man can cause such chaos and uncertainty and actually cause our security and environment to go backwards, it could move back in a better direction with one man or woman - maybe our next president. Climate change may be unstoppable even if we halved CO2 output, but science may have a way to cool the Earth - it would be a tall order to refreeze ice that is already melting, but an American leader in collaboration with other world leaders with the political will might change things for the better. Is this likely to happen? I doubt it. We need am exceptional human being who can lead the world back onto a stable path.

[blake2012]

7. I believe one charismatic leader does not help

And can actually hurt. Even Obama who has a good heart and had not a hint of scandal quickly saw the limits of power of the presidency.

The really scary thing about global warming is that it is truly the slow cooking of a frog writ large.

By the time the sufficient percentage of global body
Politic is convinced action is required, we will likely be past the tipping point.

[democratisphere]

9. We are dealing with humans. Working together for an extended period

never has happened or will happen. Time already grows short.

[shanny]

11. One scientist called intelligence

a lethal mutation; I agree. If humanity or maybe even life on earth (above the level of bacteria) is going to survive probably another mutation is required, one that drives cooperation instead of competition.

Clearly there is no political solution.