Is there, any more, any Next Thing, any Coming Thing, any Rising Thing -- any Future?

[BrainGlutton]

I mean in terms of ideas that give people hope for the future and for progress.

Ever since the Enlightenment, if not the Renaissance, it has appeared to many thoughtful people (at least in the Western world) that this or that was the Wave of the Future. The Philosophes foresaw a glorious Age of Reason, the Romantics an Age of Liberation. People got enthusiastic about nationalism, about capitalism, about socialism, most of all and most justifiably about the potential of technological progress. H.G. Wells, it has been said, wore the future around his neck like a millstone, and influenced many of his generation.

In the early 20th Century there was a widespread fascination with The Future, an assumption that it would somehow be more glorious and transcendent than the past -- see the welcome page of David Szondy's Tales of Future Past (http://davidszondy.com/future/futurepast.htm) website for an eloquent description. The Russian Revolution promised the world a new age of freedom, equality and prosperity -- less said of that the better. Then the Nazis came along and promised a glorious New World Order of, by and for pureblood Aryan supermen -- less said of that the better.

The post-WWII decolonization of the Third World started with such high hopes, but for the most part it just won Third Worlders the right to be oppressed and exploited by people who speak a language they can understand.

Martin Luther King had a Dream -- and it has mostly been fulfilled, at least in America; but millions of Americans still live in poverty, ignorance, squalor and violence, and they're well off compared to most Third Worlders, and nobody seems to have any compelling idea of how to change any of that for the better.

We went through all the cultural revolutions of the 1960s and '70s, the feminist revolution, the sexual revolution -- all pretty much reached their maximum potential and petered out. (I'm all for gender-parity in pay and legalizing gay marriage, but those things not going to revolutionize society.)

The post-Goldwater American conservative movement roared, and peaked, and degenerated into its present Ghost Dance moment of Tea Party screaming; the best thing even thoughtful conservatives can hope for, now, is that the screams will gradually grow ever fainter.

Libertarianism does not appear it will ever have its moment, the way socialism did; it is no nearer now than when the LP was founded, to catching fire and making millions believe it is the wave of the future.

Communism and socialism, as ideas, have largely lost their enthusiasm -- even the "socialist" parties of Europe are really social democrats, or progressives (as I define the term "progressive" here (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=496350) -- i.e., something well to the left of "liberal" and well to the right of "socialist") -- they might still believe in social progress of a kind, but they have mostly lost faith in what has been called "the theology of the final goal." And the few remaining hardcore Communist states are fossils in the eyes of everyone -- including, probably, themselves. The Zapatista rebels in Mexico do not even bother to call themselves "Marxists"; they would have, if their rebellion had started 20 or even 10 years earlier. So far as I've heard, not even Hugo Chavez invokes the name of Marx very often; it has lost its power to conjure.

Capitalism don't look so hot either, at the moment; everybody just sticks with it for lack of compelling alternatives. That includes the post-Communist states. Whatever it is, it ain't the Wave of the Future, not the way it was in the early 19th Century, nor the way it was when the Berlin Wall fell. Sorry, no End of History, Mr. Fukuyama. Neoliberalism and globalization just mean still more austerity and exploitation and strife for Third Worlders -- and deindustrialization and unemployment or working-poordom for millions of First Worlders. And from what I can see, it's not even much of a fun time to be rich, any more.

The neoconservative dream of a "Second American Century" quickly decayed into an embarrassment of cosmic proportions. Less said, etc.

Technology? We're so used to continual technological progress, now, that it's just part of the way things are -- outgrowing "Future Shock" (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=568322&) also means outgrowing "Future Wow!" Some do expect a Singularity, (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=559690) a "Rapture of the Nerds"; but at least as many people believe technology has run up against its limits or worse, and not entirely unreasonably fear a global "Peak Oil" crisis or "Long Emergency" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_emergency) that industrial civilization will be lucky to survive.

I doubt very much that very many thoughtful Muslims believe, any more, that Dar al-Islam as such has glories yet before it.

Some Christians still expect a glorious Apocalypse, but that's rather outside the discussion; they were expecting it when some of them could still remember Jesus alive.

Now, here, after the Millennial odometer has turned, the Millennium is not yet here and is nowhere to be seen on the horizon . . . More importantly, nobody, not even a vocal minority, can even plausibly claim to espy in which direction it lies.

What is the Next Thing? What is the Wave of the Future? What is the path to Tomorrowland?

Anything?

Nothing?

I dunno. Maybe it's better for humanity not to have a Future, in the sense discussed here, not to dream of anything at all that might usher in a glorious New Age. Such thinking, in many different forms, has caused us no end of trouble already. Maybe, even in the broad, collective, historical, civilizational sense, we should just try to muddle along one day at time and wait for Tomorrow to bring what it brings.

But, dammit! I STILL WANT MY JETPACK! (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IWantMyJetpack) :mad::mad::(:(

[Sage Rat]

Dunno, gays and polygamists will get fully enfranchised, then possibly a Wahabist/Barbarian uprising will appear to rid us of all our sinfulness and return us to the middle ages. It ended the Roman age and the Islamic age, no reason to think it won't end the modern age.

A few possible next steps I can (tentatively) see are:

1) Combining the EU and US into a single state
2) Mass terraforming of Africa, turning it into the agricultural center of the planet
3) Virtual livelihoods and living, paired with a move towards a mineral-only scarcity economy

[Czarcasm]

Pre-op transsexual celibacy.

Trust me.

[BrainGlutton]

2) Mass terraforming of Africa . . .

Africa is already terraformed.

So is Antarctica.

[John Mace]

Genetic engineering is in its infancy. It will eventually change everything.

[Quartz]

We went through all the cultural revolutions of the 1960s and '70s, the feminist revolution, the sexual revolution -- all pretty much reached their maximum potential and petered out.

Just a nitpick: they didn't peter out; they succeeded.

But on to the meat of your post.

I think that the energy revolution is one of the next. Peak oil won't hit for 50-100 years or even longer, but we're making moves to switch right now. It's going to take environmentalists a long time to get over their phobia of nuclear fission, which is the only realistic medium-term solution to the base load issue.

Another one is the commercialisation of space. Falcon and Virgin Galactic are just the start. Who knows where that will lead.

[What Exit?]

Nanotubes and Nano-tech in general and the energy revolution are going to be huge and absolutely needed. Genetics is still just starting. If we can ever achieve working Fusion it would of course mean a huge leap forward.

We are probably going to run out of enough fresh water before we run out of oil. We will need a lot of cleaner energy to turn salt water into irrigation water or the Green Revolution will die and the Chaos of not being able to feed the Billions will be frightening.

[Quartz]

We are probably going to run out of enough fresh water before we run out of oil. We will need a lot of cleaner energy to turn salt water into irrigation water or the Green Revolution will die and the Chaos of not being able to feed the Billions will be frightening.

Clean energy for desalination is readily available via nuclear power; political stability in the affected areas is another matter entirely. Probably more energy is going to be required for pumping the water around than the actual desalination. I expect America will be the first to go for this, what with the demand in California initially, and aren't the aquifers underneath the grain states depleting rapidly?

[BrainGlutton]

I think that the energy revolution is one of the next.

We may hope. But, unless the "energy revolution" takes the form of something like cold fusion or zero-point energy, all it will do is save industrial civilization from destruction; it won't open dazzling new vistas.

Peak oil won't hit for 50-100 years or even longer . . .

I don't think you understand the concept of Peak Oil. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil) The U.S. passed its all-time peak of oil production in the mid-1970s. We're still pumping oil out of the ground -- but fewer barrels, and at a higher cost for barrel, every year. The date of the global peak is less certain -- by some estimates we've already passed it.

Another one is the commercialisation of space. Falcon and Virgin Galactic are just the start. Who knows where that will lead.

Based on discussions in this thread, (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=386638) it might well lead nowhere.

[What Exit?]

Clean energy for desalination is readily available via nuclear power; political stability in the affected areas is another matter entirely. Probably more energy is going to be required for pumping the water around than the actual desalination. I expect America will be the first to go for this, what with the demand in California initially, and aren't the aquifers underneath the grain states depleting rapidly?
Desalination on a grand scale is still very expensive to my knowledge and consumes a huge amount of energy. Also while the US faces some real problem, my understanding is that India will be the first to really run out of enough water. They are apparently depleting their aquifers at a scary rate now.

Fission is not an unlimited power source, breeder reactors are not yet commercial, and the problem of waste is still out there.

[Sage Rat]

Africa is already terraformed.

So is Antarctica.

Aliens did it?

ter·ra·form tr.v.
Yup, that verb is transitive.

True, the word isn't meant to be used in respect to continents nor any activity on Earth, so my usage is technically invalid as well, but I can't think of what would be a better word to refer to actively changing the climate and ecology of massively large regions of land.

[sitchensis]

I would think the opposite of these huge undertakings would be the new norm. An era of decentralization, decentralized governments, decentralized power, decentralized water and food production. Smaller communities with similar ideologies sprouting up being held together by a loose net of government. And a mass exodus from the large city urban living we see today.

[Sage Rat]

I would think the opposite of these huge undertakings would be the new norm. An era of decentralization, decentralized governments, decentralized power, decentralized water and food production. Smaller communities with similar ideologies sprouting up being held together by a loose net of government. And a mass exodus from the large city urban living we see today.

Not going to happen. Just the same as Walmart kicks the ass of mom and pop stores, the move is going to continue to be bigger, more centralized, and more white-bread (which, in the case of governments, means more accepting of different beliefs).

[Quartz]

We may hope. But, unless the "energy revolution" takes the form of something like cold fusion or zero-point energy, all it will do is save industrial civilization from destruction; it won't open dazzling new vistas.

I disagree. Clean, cheap electricity will work wonders, especially when spread around the world, particularly to India and China.

I don't think you understand the concept of Peak Oil. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil) The U.S. passed its all-time peak of oil production in the mid-1970s. We're still pumping oil out of the ground -- but fewer barrels, and at a higher cost for barrel, every year. The date of the global peak is less certain -- by some estimates we've already passed it.

Believe it or not, but the U.S. is not the whole world. There are staggeringly vast amounts of oil out there.

[BrainGlutton]

Believe it or not, but the U.S. is not the whole world. There are staggeringly vast amounts of oil out there.

Yes, but the oil that's easy to pump already has been pumped. Everywhere.

[BrainGlutton]

What about politics? The OP discussed socialism, libertarianism, neoliberalism, neoconservatism, fascism -- none of those appear to be going anywhere. Capitalism, as an economic system, doesn't seem to be "going anywhere" either -- not away, but not Onward and Upward, either. Political democracy, as such, surged onto much of the world after the Cold War, but progress towards universal democracy seems to have stalled for the moment. With international socialism effectively off the table as a political force, there is no mass-based internationalist or world-government movement of any kind of any importance, anywhere. Few seriously expect our future lies in the direction of Ecotopia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecotopia) . . .

Can any political system or ideology plausibly be claimed, at this point, to be the Wave of the Future?

[Quartz]

Yes, but the oil that's easy to pump already has been pumped. Everywhere.

Not true. They're still pumping it quite nicely in Saudi Arabia and many other places. And, of course, there are known reserves that have yet to be exploited. And who knows what reserves remain to be discovered?

[sitchensis]

Not going to happen. Just the same as Walmart kicks the ass of mom and pop stores, the move is going to continue to be bigger, more centralized, and more white-bread (which, in the case of governments, means more accepting of different beliefs).

At some point people with means are going to want to stop being around the poor. The fear of crime or disease ie. swine flu. With new technology they don’t have to live in cities for their jobs, the city doesn’t have anything extra in culture, symphonies and operas are already on hard times and it will only get worse with future generations.
Rich people already live in gated communities, how much harder for them would it be to sink a well and either use solar or wind power, or a small nuclear reactor. The gated community is then surrounded by a large group of help, maids, mechanics that sort, due to fears of food contamination they begin to grow much of the food for the community. And you have what amounts to a new feudal society with a basic loose form of government playing the king, much of the day to day government at upper community level and little say in government for the poor and little to no middle class.

[What Exit?]

I don't think so BG. Pure Socialism and Communism are acknowledged failures. It could be argued that whatever you want to designate the Chinese Authoritarian Capitalist system might be the eventual fate of humanity. At very least individual rights will erode in ever faster.

I am reasonably sure that some form of Controlled Capitalism will win the end and the worst theocracies will finally fall to either internal pressure or outside force.

Humanity on earth will either muddle along under ever more repressive layers of rules and ever more benevolent socialist support or we will find a way to destroy the current civilization and the population of humans will plummet. I hold very little hope we will see humans thrive off of earth so I do not see politics improving overall.

[BrainGlutton]

\I hold very little hope we will see humans thrive off of earth so I do not see politics improving overall.

Telling formulation. You seem to assume the only path for "politics improving" is for people to be able to run away from the established states and go elsewhere.

[What Exit?]

Telling formulation. You seem to assume the only path for "politics improving" is for people to be able to run away from the established states and go elsewhere.
Not the only path, but indeed the trends as I see them. Depressing if I think about it too much. I see great hope still in technology keeping humanity going but at the same time I see governments and corporations growing more controlling across the world. I cannot even seriously hope for a real third party in the US though I keep on hoping despite knowing better.

[BrainGlutton]

Not the only path, but indeed the trends as I see them. Depressing if I think about it too much. I see great hope still in technology keeping humanity going but at the same time I see governments and corporations growing more controlling across the world. I cannot even seriously hope for a real third party in the US though I keep on hoping despite knowing better.

Actually, I handed you a trick question. The political ideology of The Future is, of course, "Bob"'s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._%22Bob%22_Dobbs) surrealvolutionary doctrine of Patrio-Psychotic Anarcho-Materialism: "Every yard a kingdom, every child and dog a serf!" :D

[BrainGlutton]

At some point people with means are going to want to stop being around the poor. The fear of crime or disease ie. swine flu. With new technology they don’t have to live in cities for their jobs, the city doesn’t have anything extra in culture, symphonies and operas are already on hard times and it will only get worse with future generations.

Actually, the current trend seems to be the other way -- the rich moving into the inner cities, gentrifying them, and displacing the poor. (Who, presumably, eventually will be pushed out to the 'burbs -- where to their other problems will be added those of personal transportation, as they can't easily afford cars and gasoline and associated costs, and there's no mass transit out there, and nobody can get anywhere by walking.)

[Sage Rat]

Actually, the current trend seems to be the other way -- the rich moving into the inner cities, gentrifying them, and displacing the poor. (Who, presumably, eventually will be pushed out to the 'burbs -- where to their other problems will be added those of personal transportation, as they can't easily afford cars and gasoline and associated costs, and there's no mass transit out there, and nobody can get anywhere by walking.)

Not necessarily. They could move to the rural areas. Small towns, farms, etc. where living is cheaper and jobs for people of lower education are more available. In many ways, the problem of the poor is that they're in the wrong place for where they have options.

[PrettyVacant]

It's all about stem cells atm. Renewal. Transformation. Realising what was impossible 5 years ago.

[BrainGlutton]

It's all about stem cells atm. Renewal. Transformation. Realising what was impossible 5 years ago.

Stem cells can be good for treating some diseases and infirmities, but . . .
"transformation"? :confused:

[BrainGlutton]

Nanotubes and Nano-tech in general and the energy revolution are going to be huge and absolutely needed.

At this point, nanotechnology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanotechnology) does not appear it's going to yield anything like the Singularity-level transformation of the human condition some have speculated. That is, it's not going to be like The Diamond Age (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheDiamondAge) (Neal Stephenson). There are too many practical obstacles -- chiefly, power supply. (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=547875) Certainly there could be such things as carbon-fiber nanotubes, which might ultimately be an essential structural material in a space elevator. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator) But that kind of industrial advance is not going to dramatically change our daily lives the way the steam-engine did -- is it?

[What Exit?]

I think you are focusing are the sky-high Sci-Fi dreams of Nanotech. There is a huge potential explosion of new tech in this field but more mundane than what you linked to. Medical is pretty exciting too with new tools that will go directly after cancer cells rather then our current methods that cause so much damage in curing people.

Allwalker wrote a fairly concise article about the potential of Nanotech here (http://www.mellophant.com//node/48).

[Wesley Clark]

There was also a democracy revolution in the 70s, 80s and 90s where many authoritarian states and ex-colonies transformed into liberal democracies.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Freedom_House_Country_Rankings_1972-2005.png

However nations stopped transferring to 'free' status around the end of the 1990s. I think the number of 'free' states went from about 40 up to around 90 from 1975-1997, but has been stable at 90 ever since.



I really don't know if fascism is the same as some of the other ideas. I thought fascism was a response to the trauma of WW1 and the great depression. Communism seems like a natural response to growing wealth and income inequality. I assume since the world is constantly becoming more and more unequal within national borders (the US, China, India, Brazil, Russia, etc. all have issues with domestic income inequality) another form of economic egalitarianism similar to the economic revolutions of the 19th & 20th centuries will start to become popular. However I don't know if it'll be as extreme as communism. My impression, which could be wrong, is that extreme ideologies like communism come about because more moderate ideas and policies are suppressed. So if you allow people to have socialism, they never ask for communism. Whereas if you suppress socialism, it goes underground and eventually becomes communism. I don't know if that is true, but since most of the nations in question have at least some democratic infrastructure, I assume the economic agenda will be more socialistic and less communistic because more moderate ideas will be allowed to flourish rather than be brutally repressed until they come out again in a more radical form.


According to Bernard Lewis, Islamism is actually a 2nd incarnation of a mideastern attempt to gain prestige and power. The first was Pan arabism, popular in the 60s, and that failed. Islamist terrorism is likely a failure too. But will another radical ideology replace it? I don't know.


I hope there is a singularity, but I don't know what I think anymore about it. I really don't know what the next big thing is.



You do have to wonder what the loss of prestige in the US will do to us. We went from being 'best at everything' to a debtor nation that can barely take care of itself. Bernard Lewis claims this lack of prestige and having to watch the world pass it by was what drove so many mideast muslims to support radical ideologies. Will the US start to undergo similar transformations?

As time goes on we are going to lose our scientific edge. It used to be that the best and brightest came here, stayed, and set up companies. Now they come, then go home and set up companies. Soon they won't come at all. And not long after that, the best and brightest born in the united states will seriously consider moving to India or China for a career in R&D.

The best economic and scientific years are behind the US (IMO), but they are just coming up in places like India or China. So I wonder if that is going to lead to a neofascist, nationalistic movement in the US.

Either way, I have no idea.

Next big economic idea - probably some kind of effort to reduce income inequality and maintain sustainable economic growth (green technology, renewables, alternative energies), vs our current trajectories of using up natural resources at a clip and doing nothing while income inequality grows.

next big political idea - no idea. Maybe Fukuyama was right and liberal democracy is the end point.

next big technological advance - no idea. Kurzweil says biotechnology, robotics and nanotech will converge. I really don't know myself. I have read within 30-50 years we will have bipedal robots that can perform most human tasks. That is going to dramatically revolutionize life and the economy. But that could be 50 years from now.

[Wesley Clark]

At this point, nanotechnology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanotechnology) does not appear it's going to yield anything like the Singularity-level transformation of the human condition some have speculated. That is, it's not going to be like The Diamond Age (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheDiamondAge) (Neal Stephenson). There are too many practical obstacles -- chiefly, power supply. (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=547875) Certainly there could be such things as carbon-fiber nanotubes, which might ultimately be an essential structural material in a space elevator. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator) But that kind of industrial advance is not going to dramatically change our daily lives the way the steam-engine did -- is it?

It'll make a pretty kick ass drop zone ride at minimum.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

Not true. They're still pumping it quite nicely in Saudi Arabia and many other places. And, of course, there are known reserves that have yet to be exploited. And who knows what reserves remain to be discovered?

Well... we could be past 'peak oil' and still discover new reserves. New reserves aren't the point- total global production is.

The book 'The Long Emergency' cited in the OP states that we are currently near or past peak oil already.

The data on total world oil production (http://localfuture.org/charts/20080301/20080301WorldOilProductionWissnerLarge.GIF) support this hypothesis, though I suppose they could be interpreted to mean other things.

[Quartz]

Well... we could be past 'peak oil' and still discover new reserves. New reserves aren't the point

Actually, they are. Well, part of it.

- total global production is.

Which is in part regulated by the cartel that is OPEC.

But it's all a question of economics. The Canadian shales dwarf the Saudi fields, for instance. So do world-wide coal reserves.

And should anyone learn how to synthesise petrol...

[Try2B Comprehensive]

Actually, they are. Well, part of it.

Sure, if you discover new reserves faster than you deplete old ones. It isn't clear that is happening.

Which is in part regulated by the cartel that is OPEC.
I am told Russia surpassed Saudi Arabia as the world's top oil producer, and that OPEC production is declining. But again, that can be interpreted either way.

But it's all a question of economics. The Canadian shales dwarf the Saudi fields, for instance. So do world-wide coal reserves.

And should anyone learn how to synthesise petrol...
How many gallons of water does it take to produce a gallon of shale-oil? I think shale might be of some use, but I would really like you to convince me that shale-oil can replace drilled crude overall, all things considered. Please continue :)

As for coal, let me toss out some quotes from 'The Long Emergency' cited by the OP, starting at page 131:

Coal can be processed into very high-grade synthetic oil and gasoline, as it is itself just a solid hydrocarbon version of the same prehistoric organic goop from which oil was formed. The Nazis were able to do a lot with coal during WWII. They had to because they possessed almost no oil of their own. But they had rich supplies of coal. In the 1930s... Germany was still getting 90 percent [of it's total energy] from coal- and only 5 percent from oil. When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, he had already enlisted the help of giant chemical company I.G. Farben in a scheme to produce significant quantities of synthetic oil from coal. The process had been invented in Germany in 1913... It involved adding hydrogen to coal under high temperature and pressure, in the presence of a catalyst. The process was energy-intensive and expensive, but price was no object for Hitler. By September 1939, as he prepared to invade Poland, Germany was running fourteen hydrogeneration plants for making synthetic gasoline and aviation fuel, with six more on the drawing board.

... The failure of the Russian campaign, or to secure the Romanian oil fields, left the Germans desperate for fuel to keep their war machine running. They managed, amazingly, to keep on producing enough synfuel, despite the massive allied bombing campaign against German industry, to nearly beat back the American advance in the Ardennes in December 1944. But the following spring, the Nazi war machine literally ran out of gas, and that was that.

Years later, with the war and Hitler and Nazism long behind us, the memory of synthetic fuels lingered on. President Nixon turned to "synfuels" in the wake of the 1973 OPEC oil embargo- at least the idea appealed to him because it could be neatly packaged for political consumption when he was otherwise floundering in the Watergate swamp. Of course, it was one thing for Nazis to wring gasoline from coal under wartime conditions in a nationalized economy using vast amounts of slave labor, and quite another to do it in a free country on an economically sound market basis. Despite the tremendous paranoia and economic havoc induced by the 1973 oil crisis, no coal synfuel plants were constructed in the wake of the OPEC embargo. Nixon's successor, Gerald Ford, proposed government support for a more specific program that would set up twenty plants to produce a total of 1 million barrels of synthetic fuel a day. (The United States currently consumes about 20 million barrels of oil a day.) Ford's bill did not make it through Congress. A few years later, in July 1979, President Carter proposed an $88 billion decade-long effort to promote production of synthetic fuels from coal and shale oil... As a trained nuclear engineer, [Carter] could read the trends in America's energy future... Unfortunately Carter was ahead of the public, who merely viewed all the machinations around oil as perfidy by the Arabs or (interchangeably) greedy oil companies. Carter tried to persuade them that the predicament was for real, "the moral equivalent of war," but he was widely ridiculed for his efforts."

Sure it is more quote than you need, but it makes some good points about your suggestions. The US consumes about 20 times the fuel the Nazis did. They produced this fuel in industrial quantities only because of wartime- and not market- conditions. It looks like the bottom will fall out of the oil infrastructure before the world will be prepared to mass-produce synfuel. Once the price of oil skyrockets, it could be an impossible challenge to stage projects like this.

And we haven't even asked the question of whether we want to continue burning so many fossil-fuels in a Global Warming world. Quick answer: probably not.

For all this I think it would be nice if you were right :)

[gonzomax]

If you are the ruling class ,the world looks rosy. The concentration of wealth and power is unprecedented. You will have it made.
If you are a average American worker , you are fucked. Wages and security will be dropping every year. The programs that help the poor will be cut. Nope ,not much to look forward to.
Pollution will climb. Wars will not stop as long as they are money making propositions.

[BrainGlutton]

And we haven't even asked the question of whether we want to continue burning so many fossil-fuels in a Global Warming world. Quick answer: probably not.

No, but on what other fuel can we run an automobile-centered industrial civilization? Natural gas presents the same carbon-emissions problem as coal or oil, ethanol only slightly less. Trucks and cars and airplanes can't run on nuclear power. (Well, they can, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_nucleon) but there are all kinds of obvious reasons not to go there.) Building lots and lots of stationary nuclear power plants and using the electricity to generate hydrogen for fuel cells, or to charge up electric-battery-powered cars, might be the best bet; but there are all kinds of practical obstacles to either, and no guarantee we can get there from here before the fossil fuels become so cost-prohibitive that industrial civilization simply breaks down.

[LonesomePolecat]

Exploration and economic exploitation of space is about the only thing that gives me a little hope for the future of the human race. Well, maybe some biotech, too. Other than that, I got nothin'.

[LonesomePolecat]

The post-WWII decolonization of the Third World started with such high hopes, but for the most part it just won Third Worlders the right to be oppressed and exploited by people who speak a language they can understand.


Careful with that, or you'll get as cynical as me. :eek:

[BrainGlutton]

Exploration and economic exploitation of space is about the only thing that gives me a little hope for the future of the human race. Well, maybe some biotech, too. Other than that, I got nothin'.

But, what is there in space to economically exploit, that can't be done more cheaply with resources available on Earth's surface?

[BrainGlutton]

Careful with that, or you'll get as cynical as me. :eek:

Well . . . India did pretty well out of decolonization (after that messy, bloody divorce from Pakistan was over and done with). But the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia, not so much.

[Chief Pedant]

Genomics, baby, genomics.

We have already made DNA from scratch that codes for a synthetic bacterium.

Complex organisms modified or made from scratch are Real Soon Now, to an even greater extent than today.

I think genomics is going to live up to its hype. I hope it will be the good hype but I will not fall over in surprise if it's the bad hype and we manage to do something that dooms us all.

But the quest for the best and brightest, along with the practical necessity of fighting disease and feeding the hungry is gonna drive genomics pretty hard, pretty fast. All living things are their genes more than any other influence and there's no way we'll be able to keep our fingers out of the gene lab.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

No, but on what other fuel can we run an automobile-centered industrial civilization? Natural gas presents the same carbon-emissions problem as coal or oil, ethanol only slightly less. Trucks and cars and airplanes can't run on nuclear power. (Well, they can, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_nucleon) but there are all kinds of obvious reasons not to go there.) Building lots and lots of stationary nuclear power plants and using the electricity to generate hydrogen for fuel cells, or to charge up electric-battery-powered cars, might be the best bet; but there are all kinds of practical obstacles to either, and no guarantee we can get there from here before the fossil fuels become so cost-prohibitive that industrial civilization simply breaks down.

Algae oil? It has two advantages. 1) It hasn't been tried yet so nobody knows what is wrong with it yet. 2) Combustion fuel without the carbon footprint. Sure, maybe you emit some carbon when you burn the algae oil, but you suck it up as you grow the next batch.

[Evil Captor]

I would argue that the prosaic old Internet is creating a global culture that will change the way people think and work internationally. I spend many hours a day playing a text-based RPG that is also popular with Germans, Italians, Britons and well ... lots of Europeans. I spent three hours yesterday playing with a person in Germany. I frequently will encounter posters whose texts are first written in their native language, then translated in to mine, and I will assume my posts are then translated to their native language, and we play ... pretty darn well, for the most part, though you have to do a little interpolation to understand machine-language text sometimes.

In case you missed it ... and I suspect most of you did because boards like the Straight Dope are, while still Cutting Edge in terms of traditional media, becoming a bit of backwater in terms of Net culture ... everyone in the world soon will be able to "talk" to everyone else in the world, easily and freely. No language barrier. The game is being changed, and nobody knows it. And I for one are grateful that nobody knows it, because there are a lot of political types that would instinctively fight like hell to prevent it. Fortunately the political types are always the last to catch on to new media ... a lot are still confused by the Intertubes!

Even boards like this have had some effect, as one's words are increasingly judged on their own value instead of on the status of the person speaking. Doctor, lawyer, carpenter, unemployed ... doesn't matter, if your ideas are shoddy or shoddily presented, they get flamed down, and if they are sound, they are given serious consideration ... sometimes eventually.

I don't know what shape the worldwide Superculture will take or when it will happen, but it's gotten a lot closer. I don't know if the form of the government will matter that much if the revolution in values occurs.

In terms of tech, I have not given up on AI, just because it's taking longer than we thought. Unlike fighting ignorance, once we have a sentient AI that can upgrade itself constantly, the route to godlike machine intelligences is pretty much the straight-up progression Vernor Vinge envisioned when he thought up the Singularity. It only has to happen once ... kinda like DNA in that regard, eh?

I also think that nanotech still has huge potential and will be creating some exciting things in terms of clothing Real Soon Now, and could be making fundamental changes in medicine and materials production Any Time Now.

In the immediate term, the search is on, hot and heavy, for more efficient energy transmission and storage techniques. It may not be terrilby long before oil becomes ... unnecessary, as a source of fuel.

[Evil Captor]

Also WRT fresh water, I dont know the numbers, but hell, anyplace you have deserts you have HUGE solar power potential. Just build hundreds of square miles of solar collectors, use it to heat sea water into steam, condense the steam, blammo! Fresh water. Sure, it takes a lot of energy, but your HAVE lots of energy, for free, pretty much, once you set up the solar collectors. You pump solar energy and sea water in on one end, you get fresh water pouring out the other end. Why isn't everyone doing that?

[Jackmannii]

No, there is no Future.

So send me your good stuff when you renounce your materialist lifestyle and go off to become a traveling holy man a la Tolstoy*.


*he tried this when he was a doddering ancient but didn't have the stamina. Ya gotta hit the road while you're young and fit.

[LonesomePolecat]

But, what is there in space to economically exploit, that can't be done more cheaply with resources available on Earth's surface?Energy from the sun and metal ore from the asteroid belt. Sooner or later, we're going to run out of both energy and usable metal ore, and won't be able to sustain a high tech civilization if we don't find better sources.

Eventually, it's likely that it'll be more cost effective to exploit the purer metal ores of the asteroid belt than to keep using the ever poorer grades of ore you'll be stuck as the better grades disappear. Eventually we may see space cowboys herdin' them doggies to splash downs in the Atlantic or Pacific. You can set up huge Mylar reflecting mirrors in space which focus on generators that beam the energy back to the earth via microwaves. Shucks, it's entirely possible that we'll move heavy industry into space so it'll be closer to the sources of energy and ore.

That probably sounds like I've been reading too much science fiction cough Heinlein and Niven cough but two hundred years ago who envisioned the high tech societies that we have today?

And I bet you never thought you'd see me not preaching doom and gloom, didn't you? :D

[LonesomePolecat]

No, there is no Future.

So send me your good stuff when you renounce your materialist lifestyle and go off to become a traveling holy man a la Tolstoy*.


*he tried this when he was a doddering ancient but didn't have the stamina. Ya gotta hit the road while you're young and fit.
Screw that. I'm just gonna sit right here in my recliner with a jug of table wine watching TV. Saves wear and tear on the knees.

[suranyi]

In my experience, nobody can predict the future with results any better than chance. The future will remain surprising, as always.

The best example from my own lifetime was the rapid collapse of Communism in the Eastern Bloc and the USSR in the late 80s and early 90s. As far as I am aware, not a single pundit predicted this even five years earlier.

[GIGObuster]

Also WRT fresh water, I dont know the numbers, but hell, anyplace you have deserts you have HUGE solar power potential. Just build hundreds of square miles of solar collectors, use it to heat sea water into steam, condense the steam, blammo! Fresh water. Sure, it takes a lot of energy, but your HAVE lots of energy, for free, pretty much, once you set up the solar collectors. You pump solar energy and sea water in on one end, you get fresh water pouring out the other end. Why isn't everyone doing that?
Basically, AFAIK it is still expensive. I believe however that the missing piece was nanotechnology and MEMS manufacturing of the solar cells at a (paradoxically) large scale and we are just getting to that level now.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

In my experience, nobody can predict the future with results any better than chance. The future will remain surprising, as always.

The best example from my own lifetime was the rapid collapse of Communism in the Eastern Bloc and the USSR in the late 80s and early 90s. As far as I am aware, not a single pundit predicted this even five years earlier.

This Kunstler guy, the author of 'The Long Emergency' cited by the OP, predicted the collapse of the housing bubble. One of several of his phrasings:

this suburban real estate, including the chipboard and vinyl McHouses, the strip malls, the office parks, and all the other components, will enter a phase of rapid and cruel devaluation.

This was written in 2005. He also predicted the mischief to be caused by derivatives. He predicts chaos ensuing from the immanent end of cheap oil. But there are at least some "if's" in his theories.

[Sage Rat]

This Kunstler guy, the author of 'The Long Emergency' cited by the OP, predicted the collapse of the housing bubble. One of several of his phrasings:

This was written in 2005. He also predicted the mischief to be caused by derivatives. He predicts chaos ensuing from the immanent end of cheap oil. But there are at least some "if's" in his theories.
If he continues to be particularly predictive, he'll become more famous and have an impact on the future. Of course, once things start going along with his recommendations, he'll become unable to predict upcoming issues. Whereas if he simply got lucky this once, then he's just one in the milieu of doomsayers that have existed through the centuries and no one will remember his name.

[BrainGlutton]

This Kunstler guy, the author of 'The Long Emergency' cited by the OP, predicted the collapse of the housing bubble. One of several of his phrasings:


This was written in 2005. He also predicted the mischief to be caused by derivatives. He predicts chaos ensuing from the immanent end of cheap oil. But there are at least some "if's" in his theories.

I read his Clusterfuck Nation (http://kunstler.com/blog/2010/07/my-tea-party.html) online column every week. I don't always agree with what he says in all respects, but it is always depressing and amusing at the same time.

[Wesley Clark]

Neuroscience is a subset of biology, but I hope we see massive advances that can actually be used by the public at large (rather than just medical professionals) due to advances in brain science leading to an understand of what cognitive exercises, nutritional supplements or drugs affect what brain areas.

Advances in neuroscience could lead to better methods of coping with trauma, improving intelligence and creativity, improving quality of life, fighting disease, etc.

Not a severe improvement, but noticeable. The game dual-n-back is supposed to increase IQ by about 5 points in a month. Some neuroscientists are working on cognitive games to improve the brain areas that are damaged by schizophrenia or depression. EMDR is helpful for some people for treating PTSD. Balance exercises are helpful for dyslexia.

So I seriously hope we end up with more end user control over our brains soon (augmenting our moods and cognition) and our understanding of cognitive exercises to cope with trauma or build abilities is as advanced as our understanding of physical exercises to cope with trauma or build abilities. That could be somewhat revolutionary, right now our understanding of brain exercises seem far behind physical exercises.

[Sam Stone]

I'm going to come at this from a different angle. The next revolution is already underway, and it's tremendously exciting.

I'll give it a name: The Age of Integration.

You could call it the information economy, I suppose, but it encompasses a lot more than that.

The 20th century began and ended with the same sort of basic infrastructure: Corporations of various sizes engaging in industrial activity, employing the population. We got really good at it, but until the very tail end of the 1900's, our communications capability hid too much information, made it too hard for people to connect with each other unless they went through powerful intermediaries (publishers, radio and TV stations, newspapers, magazines, record companies), and forced people into various groups and associations if they wanted to stay in better communication. Much of what we produced in goods, services, and entertainment were approximations of individual needs and desires - they were targeted at the masses, or at least at demographic groups.

In the1900's, if you were an inventor and needed to build a prototype, you had to find a powerful financier to pay for the machining. Knowledge was gained and lost constantly as people learned things and died before passing it on. Consumers had imperfect knowledge of products, and companies has imperfect knowledge of consumers.

In the 1900's, the need for face-to-face communication meant that people were discriminated against based on race, sex, age, or looks.

The internet revolution is happening in phases. First we had the infrastructure build-out and the appearance of amateur web pages. Then the first Dot-Com boom gave us a flurry of experiments in business models and services. The strongest of them survived and formed the core of the next phase - the spidering out of the internet into our phones, our cars, tablets, home theaters, you name it. Having the internet available on your phone then opens the door for communicating real-time information like bar codes to a server that can process them and give you information that helps you make better buying decisions.

So where we're at right now is the start of the integration of our lives through information technology. New technologies like 3D printers bring design and prototyping and machine building to the masses. "Virtual Corporations" allow people to create products and sell them by linking together sub-businesses that would otherwise have never found each other.

As our identities and social networks move online, and we spend more of our recreational time online, we enter a much more egalitarian world where old divisions of race, age, and sex no longer matter. The internet is just as entertaining and informative for a poor 14 year old as it is for a multimillionaire. The online 'standard of living' is pretty flat.

We're starting to see the rise of very targeted specialized businesses connecting in much more intelligent ways with clientele. Micro manufacturers and virtual corporations making very specific products for the needs of small groups of people or even one-off manufacturing for individuals. Research findings find wider audiences. Artists can connect directly with their audiences without a middleman. Small, self-contained markets can be created by online communities trading directly with each other.

We're about to become much smarter, and much, much more connected to each other. Services like Google Maps will become much more sophisticated, linking us geographically in ways we haven't thought of doing before. We can transmit location data which can be used in creative new ways to make the economy more efficient and our lives better.

As an example, I think it's Blackberry that collects GPS data from phones out in the field, and calculates the speed of all the cars. From that, it can calculate congestion and send that information back out to the owners of the phones, who can then avoid the congested areas. This makes our entire road network more efficient and saves us all time every day - even if you don't own a blackberry, if the blackberry people avoid the jam you're in, they won't make it worse.

In the 2000's, the internet got plugged in. Now, we're all getting plugged into the internet. But that's just the hardware and the backbone. The real value being developed now consists of data and relationships - the information we're pumping onto the net, and the incredibly complex information network being built ad-hoc by the interactions of billions of people.

As another example, eBay connects buyers and sellers that could not otherwise find each other. The result has been a societal increase in value, because by selling our used good online we move them from lower-valued uses to higher-valued uses.

Because the internet spans the world, people in other countries are talking to each other in ways they never have before. Small manufacturers across the world can connect with individual consumers. I buy electronics from a tiny Hong Kong wholesaler who I would never have found without the internet. This is especially good for the 3rd world, and it's undoubtedly good for the cause of world peace.

So the internet is connecting everything together, allowing us to create relationships that will change the way we interact with each other. We have no idea where it's going to take us, but I'll bet it'll be pretty cool. We're just getting started. I doubt if we would recognize the world of 50 years from now.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

If he continues to be particularly predictive, he'll become more famous and have an impact on the future. Of course, once things start going along with his recommendations, he'll become unable to predict upcoming issues. Whereas if he simply got lucky this once, then he's just one in the milieu of doomsayers that have existed through the centuries and no one will remember his name.

I suppose you're right. One nitpick: if he's right about this 'Long Emergency' business it won't really matter if he becomes 'unable to predict upcoming issues', as that is potentially a centuries-long event.

[What Exit?]

So the internet is connecting everything together, allowing us to create relationships that will change the way we interact with each other. We have no idea where it's going to take us, but I'll bet it'll be pretty cool. We're just getting started. I doubt if we would recognize the world of 50 years from now.
I hope this is true and if we look back just to 1960 I think we could say the same thing. What would today look like compared to then if you did not live through the years or were born later. 1910 to 1960 is pretty similar. Even 1860 to 1910 was enough different though not 1810 to 1860.