Chances that our civilization will survive to the 22nd century?

In My Humble Opinion
41

It is an interesting topic. I vote 90%.

To me, the big event that’ll occur in the 21st century is when we learn enough about neuroscience that intelligence (the g factor) is no longer limited by biology. If a world class professor of science at MIT has a g factor that is 3x higher than a mildly retarded person who can barely perform grade school math, then what happens when we figure out how to engineer people or computers with a g factor 3x higher than an MIT professor? What kinds of ideas will that cause? One will be finding ways to create brains or computers with g factors 100x higher. And so on, it’ll grow exponentially from that.

Once we understand the neuroscience behind intelligence, creativity, pattern recognition, working memory, problem solving, etc. and how to make it better then everything changes.

I assume for the most part it’ll be a good change. But I really am not sure.

Other problems we are going to face like natural resource shortages will be problems, but I don’t think they’ll destroy civilization.

I don’t think any asteroids are predicted to hit in the next 100. One will come close in the next 30 or so years, but I think the odds of that one actually hitting us are low. Besides, people are working on space technology that’ll pull/push asteroids away before they get a chance to hit us. I have no idea when it’ll be ready, but asteroids may not be a huge problem after the next few decades.

The world survived the wars and genocides of the 20th century. Both world wars, the purges of Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Armenia, Rwanda, etc. Something like 200+ million people died in the 20th century due to war and purges. But civilization survived. If anything, wars and genocide shouldn’t be as bad in the future because of the trend towards more liberal democracy, global government intervention and communication/recording devices that is occurring.

Also I don’t think mass starvation is a ‘huge’ risk. It is a risk for people in poor, developing countries (the number of malnourished increased by about 100 million since the global recession started). However agricultural yields keep going up per acre, new farmland in Africa and Eastern Europe is being farm and hydroponics is advancing. So I don’t think civilization will starve.

And global warming, even at its worst, shouldn’t ‘end’ civilization anymore than WW2 ended civilization. It’ll do trillions in damage and permanently change the course of the planet, but civilization will keep going.

Keep in mind that European civilization survived the black plague. It killed 30-50% of all citizens of Europe, and back then Europeans had no medical technology or medical know how whatsoever (unlike today, if we faced a mass pestilence at least we’d understand about vectors, sanitation, antimicrobials, hand washing, etc). So if European civilization can survive the black plague with no medicine or understanding of disease then we can survive whatever the 21st century offers.

I’m surprised humanity survived as long as it did w/o technology and science. Surviving with those things should be far easier.

42

Are you talking about domestically or internationally? My understanding is evangelicalism is going down in the US. The % who are secular is growing.

43

Why? The US unionized working class is virtually in the middle class with full health care and benefits from their companies. If you mean the Hispanic-non-unionized working class, they are rapidly climbing up the ladder only delayed by the current recession. In China and India millions are joining the middle class every year, indeed all the world is growing prosperous ever since 1945 (with a few checks by recessions or insane dictators like Mugabe).

Are you serious? The Evangelical strength in politics is rapidly declining and so are they religiously. There will be no Nehemiah Scudder taking the oath of office unless something crazy happens.

44

Well, then, I stand–er–reassured. I definitely want to hear counterarguments/counterexamples to the misgivings I express, because otherwise I worry that everyone else secretly agrees with me and gives up. I’ve posted such thoughts on threads of this and similar topics before and seen them die and drop away after my post.

I so want such dismal projections not to be true, such logic to be specious; but still I believe in pointing out potential pitfalls and perils.

And yes, Mugabe is truly off his nut. I wouldn’t compare conditions any run-of-the-mill developing or least developed country with a reasonably effective and honest government with those in Zimbabwe. But outside of U.N. tracts on world poverty or the publications of international relief and advocacy organizations, I so rarely see the issue of low wages properly addressed. Closer to home, the Mexican drug cartels are getting a lot of coverage lately, and we keep hearing about the “scourge of drugs”, and Americans’ demand for them, as the root cause of the violence down south. Next in line to be mentioned is the flow of illegal weapons southward. But a Mexican cop on the beat earns maybe $500 a month. Recently there was a report on CNN about workers at the maquilladoras near Juarez earning $50 weekly, not even two dollars an hour. You can’t convince me that even in the total absence of a drug problem, there would still be a widespread crime problem.

45

I agree. Too many nerds having read too many post-apocalyptic future dystopia fiction on this board.

46

Outsourcing to China and India does not save nearly as much money as people think. Savings rates are around 5-15%, if you save anything at all.

Also keep in mind products in China are becoming more expensive for a variety of reasons.

  1. The Yuan is going up in value and the dollar is going down.

  2. Raw material costs are going up, so raw materials will make up a bigger % of manufacturing costs while labor makes up a smaller %.

  3. China is increasing their labor, environmental and quality control standards which will all drive up costs.

  4. China’s wages are growing at 10-15% a year, which will double every 5-7 years.

  5. Fuel costs to transport goods are going up. Back when oil was $150/barrel, it cost more to make steel in China and ship it here than to make it domestically. The savings were barely 5-10% before, but the higher shipping costs ate away at even that.

My point is that even with the cheaper labor in India and China, they are not guaranteed to be better deals. Other factors can cut into the benefits of lower wages. Surprisingly, China is facing a labor shortage. Supposedly most of the able bodied adults have already left to go to the cities, leaving only children and the elderly in the working pool of farmers. And the ones who are still farmers decided to stay. So the pool of able bodied farmers willing to leave home for the cities has supposedly dried up already.

Plus, as workers get wealthier hopefully they will buy more US made products. There was a really good article I’m trying to find but can’t that I read a few years ago. It claimed that China is not going to be cheaper much longer, but there is no nation to replace it. No nation has all the benefits China does (functioning infrastructure, a docile non-unionized workforce, a large labor pool, no serious domestic strife). All the other nations companies were looking at were either too small, too unionized, had too much domestic strife and problems, tax problems, etc. So there isn’t a ‘new China’ in the wings.

On another note, I agree with you that we need a strong international labor movement in order to slow the rush to the bottom.

47

I’m not worried. I saw a great documentary with Bruce Willis and if a meteor came, we would find a way to survive.

48

Both.

And as long as a tiny percentage can set the educational agenda, so what?

49

What does even mean when it comes to anti-intellectualism?

50

Failed statistics, eh?

51

I am surprised that it took going down to 70% probability of survival to get 90% of the votes. Civilization will survive. There is no example in history of civilization not surviving. It is a big world out there. People will do what it takes to protect themselves when it is in their immediate best interests to do so. Bad things will happen. Always have. Always will. Things change. Enough of the changes will be for the better that our various societies will thrive.

As a minor but clear example, look at the recent financial meltdown in the US. When it became apparent that the financial crisis was spreading out of control, very conservative free-market leaders went against their belief structure and their principles to protect themselves and their (and our) way of life. They did what was necessary to protect themselves and fortunately (and inevitably) their interests coincide with those of civilization.

When Hitler rose to power and demonstrated that he was willing to destroy whatever he could not control, other people rose to oppose him and protect their civilization.

Civilization will survive, always, because it is in the immediate best interests of the people with the power to decide such things for it to survive.

And of course the fact that civilization will survive does not provide any assurance that bad things won’t happen to individuals, and often to very many individuals. Many people in the US will lose their homes and jobs to the financial crisis. Millions of people will go hungry this year. Wars will continue. But none of that threatens civilization.

52

It means fanatics run for, & often win, school board seats, & the so-called intellectuals do not.

53

Which has jack all to do with whether or not people in general are becoming anti-intellectual. And frankly, I think it is hugely arrogant to say people are getting stupider. While I wouldn’t go so far as to claim people are getting smarter, these anti-intellectual school board who jabber on about jesus horses get laughed at pretty regularly.

54

But they also tend to live in rural flyover country. The bulk of American civilization tends to be centered around a half dozen or so megapolises (megapoli?) or urbanized “mega-regions” That is where the bulk of the population lives and where most of the economic, scientific, cultural and political activity take place in this country. And if you compare the map in this PDF showing the North American mega regions and overlay it over this map of red/blue countiesin the last election, you will see a trend where those areas also tend to be more liberal.

55

But these “flyover states” get 2 Senators, just like the megopolis states do.

56

I rounded up to 100%. Note that I’m considering (for example) the UK, France, Australia, Japan, and Dubai to be the same civilization as “us”. There’s enough of us, with enough of a variety of approaches to society, technology, politics, etc., that someone’s going to end up still bearing the banner for prosperous technological free-market democracy. The chances for any given nation are lower, of course, but I don’t feel any particularly closer connection to the Yankees of 2101 than I do to citizens of any other nation of 2101.

There are, of course, some possible catastrophes which could destroy all of civilization (a sufficiently large asteroid impact, off the top of my head, or a sufficiently close hypernova near the celestial equator), but all told, those are significantly less than a 5% chance. So 100% is a better answer than 90%.

57

God forbid people who disagree with you have any representation in our government.

58

Particularly those who would like to destroy that Republic, & replace it with a thocratic state.

59

The vast majority of Evangelicals are not theocrats.

60

Large numbers aren’t needed.

The majority of all people, anywhere, at any time in history, do not stick their necks out for anything.

Tiny numbers make the change.