# How many generations do you think we've got left? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 19, 2006, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-generations-do-you-think-weve-got-left/373328 "2006-09-19T20:46:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-generations-do-you-think-weve-got-left/373328/21 "2006-09-20T10:28:45Z")
[QUOTE=Sam Stone] The biggest worry I have for the future is the increasingly concentrated power that technology is creating. Technology is putting destructive power in the hands of ever-smaller groups of people, and technology is giving them the ability to communicate, organize, and distribute themselves around the globe in coordinated fashion. There’s an old saying that the generals always fight the last war - my worry is that the next conflict is going to come at us from a direction that is totally unexpected and that we are poorly able to deal with. Asymmetrical warfare is getting more and more asymmetrical. [/QUOTE] I wrote something along these lines in my OP at first, but it was late and I realised I wasn’t expressing myself very well so I deleted it. But both you and **Musicat** have expressed my own thoughts very well… technology seems to be proceeding at a runaway pace, and something’s got to stop it. Which is a shame, because technology produces so many wonderful things and has the potential to do so much more. Once crazy individuals or small groups of people have the power to destroy pretty much anything they choose, the world is in big trouble. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-generations-do-you-think-weve-got-left/373328/22 "2006-09-20T13:00:55Z")
Considering how fast the world’s been changing in the last, oh, 200 years or so, why do you think “the way we live now” is going to last at all, or that it is of any interest for it to last? I’m not worried about change itself but I do hope we’ll manage to make that change be in a positive direction. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-generations-do-you-think-weve-got-left/373328/23 "2006-09-20T13:02:03Z")
[QUOTE=Colophon] …technology seems to be proceeding at a runaway pace, and something’s got to stop it. Which is a shame, because technology produces so many wonderful things and has the potential to do so much more. Once crazy individuals or small groups of people have the power to destroy pretty much anything they choose, the world is in big trouble. [/QUOTE] To elaborate, just in case my point hasn’t been made yet, 🙂 while technology is advancing in both good and bad directions, the slightest slip can have catastrophic consequences. Example. Hundreds of years ago, if security was as tight as could be made by the technology of the time, someone (a “terrorist”, if you will) could slip through and explode a device that killed a few people, max. Now, no matter how much is spent on security, it is almost inevitable that some rare, crazed individual(s) or country can slip thru, but the consequences are considerably greater. Not 10 times, but thousands or millions of times greater. Consider the consequences if this trend continues, as we expect it to do. Extrapolate it 100 years and it’s pretty frightening. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-generations-do-you-think-weve-got-left/373328/24 "2006-09-20T13:32:44Z")
Oddly, I’m fairly optimistic. Yes, over the next 50 years, cities _will_ be destroyed by Atomic weapons. But, this _will not_ be the “all-out attack” that we feared during the Cold War. Remember that cities have been destroyed without A-Bombs throughout history. Witness Tokyo, Hanoi (both rebuilt), Hiroshima, Nagasaki (both rebuilt), Dresden (rebuilt), Berlin (rebuilt), San Francisco (Earthquake/fire, & rebuilt), Chicago (burned by accident, rebuilt), and many others in the pre-Technic eras (some rebuilt, others not). Civilization did not end. Somebody in the Middle East will do something boastful, violent & stupid with an A-Bomb…& then the West will destroy them, utterly, as an Ultimate Object Lesson. Eventually, either A-Bombs will become unpopular, or Radical Islam will. Between controlled [IRON FERTILIZATION](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization) of the oceans to stimulate plankton growth, & orbital sun shields, global warming could be controlled, & we could start tomorrow morning. We shall survive. ---
**Author:** ![Autumn\_Almanac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d26b3c/32.png) [@Autumn\_Almanac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autumn_Almanac)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-generations-do-you-think-weve-got-left/373328/25 "2006-09-20T13:51:04Z")
[QUOTE=Evil Captor] I don’t think a single nuke or even a nuke exchange between minor powers would ruin our civilization, and if it were the right minor powers, might leave the rest of the world a safer, saner, more peaceful place, espeically if said minor powers were totally destroyed [/QUOTE] This thought has ocurred to me too. These doomsday scenarios always seem to go like, Iran\* nukes Los Angeles =\> all out nuclear war =\> humanity destroyed. Wouldn’t the more likely situation be, Iran nukes Los Angeles =\> other nuclear powers instantly unite against Iran =\> no more Iran. It’s no bargain, but the end result would probably be a much safer world overall. ---
**Author:** ![Autumn\_Almanac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d26b3c/32.png) [@Autumn\_Almanac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autumn_Almanac)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-generations-do-you-think-weve-got-left/373328/26 "2006-09-20T13:52:07Z")
- Replace Iran with whatever rogue state you fancy. ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-generations-do-you-think-weve-got-left/373328/27 "2006-09-20T14:02:29Z")
Sheesh you guys are a bunch of killjoys. I’d say we’ve got three or four _conventional_ generations left…after that, death only occurs as a result of darwinistic stupidity or chance. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Corrado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a88e4f/32.png) [@John\_Corrado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Corrado)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-generations-do-you-think-weve-got-left/373328/28 "2006-09-20T14:20:48Z")
At the time my grandfather was born, many respected scientists- leaders in the nascent fields of psychoanalysis and genetics- were saying that mankind was doomed. Falling birth rates amongst “good stock” (i.e., WASPs) compared with rising birth rates amongst “bad stock” (i.e., non-WASPs) meant that unless immigration was ended, miscegenation between races was strictly prohibited, and sterlization of ‘mental defectives’ was allowed, then mankind would be awash in a sea of mental degenerates. It was estimated that the average American of my generation would be unable to read and write, and would have to rely upon crime solely to survive. The very year my father was born, Warner Brothers released a cartoon - _a cartoon_ - in which the future was postulated as constant, unrelenting war, replete with battalions of machine guns and poison gas, until all of humanity itself had been exterminated. The storm clouds gathering in Europe, the cartoon intimated, would be the end of _everything_. Humanity, led by fools such as Hitler and Churchill, was doomed. Through the course of my life, I have been told the following: that mankind would starve itself due to overpopulation; that a lack of useable water would lead to the dissolution of the United States; that the world would be destroyed by accidental nuclear exchange; that the world would be destroyed by _deliberate_ nuclear exchange due to that madman Reagan; that the world is about to undergo a new ice age which will destroy everything; that the world is about to undergo a new heat wave which will destroy everything; that all standard building commodities like copper and iron will be used up by 2020; and now that all standard energy sources like oil will be used up by 2020. Excuse me if I’m skeptical. I believe that humanity only has ten generations left. And I believe that because, at the current rate of advances in medicine and technology, I think that genetic engineering will make that eleventh generation hard to define in non-sentimental terms as truly ‘human’. ---
**Author:** ![Menocchio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@Menocchio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Menocchio)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-generations-do-you-think-weve-got-left/373328/29 "2006-09-20T14:35:55Z")
10,000 years or more at the least, barring an ELE like an asteroid or a superplague. I agree with Sam, but note that the transition from fossil fuels to alternatives will be slow (for the people living in that era) and expensive. It will cause an economic disaster that makes the Great Depression look like losing your milk money. This, in turn, will cause unstable governments to fail utterly and lead to warfare in many spots on the globe. All this will be agrevated by fallout from global warming, no matter how minor it may actually turn out to be. Civilazation will survive. Ultimately, that’s pretty much all it ever does. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-generations-do-you-think-weve-got-left/373328/30 "2006-09-20T15:19:49Z")
[QUOTE=John Corrado] The very year my father was born, Warner Brothers released a cartoon - _a cartoon_ - in which the future was postulated as constant, unrelenting war, replete with battalions of machine guns and poison gas, until all of humanity itself had been exterminated. The storm clouds gathering in Europe, the cartoon intimated, would be the end of _everything_. Humanity, led by fools such as Hitler and Churchill, was doomed. . [/QUOTE] I’d be interested in seeing that. Do you happen to recall the title at all? ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-generations-do-you-think-weve-got-left/373328/31 "2006-09-20T15:36:56Z")
I have a somewhat more nuanced view. [QUOTE=John Corrado] Through the course of my life, I have been told the following: that mankind would starve itself due to overpopulation; that a lack of useable water would lead to the dissolution of the United States; that the world would be destroyed by accidental nuclear exchange; that the world would be destroyed by _deliberate_ nuclear exchange due to that madman Reagan; that the world is about to undergo a new ice age which will destroy everything; that the world is about to undergo a new heat wave which will destroy everything; that all standard building commodities like copper and iron will be used up by 2020; and now that all standard energy sources like oil will be used up by 2020. Excuse me if I’m skeptical. [/QUOTE] All of the above is **possible.** However, as long as we keep warning ourselves, at great length and volume, of that fact, then we have a chance to escape it. The moment we shrug our shoulders and say, “None of the warnings has yet come to pass,” and begin to disregard them, then we’re doomed. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-generations-do-you-think-weve-got-left/373328/32 "2006-09-20T15:54:02Z")
[QUOTE=Menocchio] 10,000 years or more at the least, barring an ELE like an asteroid or a superplague. I agree with Sam, but note that the transition from fossil fuels to alternatives will be slow (for the people living in that era) and expensive. It will cause an economic disaster that makes the Great Depression look like losing your milk money. This, in turn, will cause unstable governments to fail utterly and lead to warfare in many spots on the globe. All this will be agrevated by fallout from global warming, no matter how minor it may actually turn out to be. Civilazation will survive. Ultimately, that’s pretty much all it ever does. [/QUOTE] You’re making the assumption that the depletion of energy sources will happen faster than our ability to adapt. I don’t see any evidence of that. For example, right now global oil inventory is increasing, which is pushing down the price of oil. In the meantime, the Alberta Tar Sands are ramping up rapidly, Ethanol is making a huge gain in popularity, hybrid cars are starting to move into the market in large numbers, wind power is becoming increasingly attractive, etc. We’re not going to run out of oil in ten years. What will happen is that oil will reach a plateau that causes alternatives to be cost-effective, and they’ll enter the market and reduce the demand on oil. If oil were to go to $200/bbl, you’d see shale oils in the U.S. midwest suddenly becoming a huge boom industry. If Ethanol is $2.50/gallon and gas is $10/gallon, you’ll see huge demand for ethanol and a subsequent ramping up of both ethanol production and research into making it more energy and cost efficient. If companies can make huge profits by setting up wind farms and providing energy, you’ll see them sprout up everywhere. And the opposition to nuclear power by the public will vanish when it becomes apparent that countries with nuclear power have much healthier economies than those who don’t. All this will happen gradually in response to the change in oil prices. There will be no sudden economic shock. ---
**Author:** ![lokij](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/5e9695/32.png) [@lokij](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lokij)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-generations-do-you-think-weve-got-left/373328/33 "2006-09-20T18:12:15Z")
[QUOTE=Musicat] To elaborate, just in case my point hasn’t been made yet, 🙂 while technology is advancing in both good and bad directions, the slightest slip can have catastrophic consequences. Example. Hundreds of years ago, if security was as tight as could be made by the technology of the time, someone (a “terrorist”, if you will) could slip through and explode a device that killed a few people, max. Now, no matter how much is spent on security, it is almost inevitable that some rare, crazed individual(s) or country can slip thru, but the consequences are considerably greater. Not 10 times, but thousands or millions of times greater. Consider the consequences if this trend continues, as we expect it to do. Extrapolate it 100 years and it’s pretty frightening. [/QUOTE] There are actual physical contraints on how destructive something can be with a given mass if you’re talking explosives. The more exotic the substance you go, the more expensive it tends to be in terms of energy required to produce it, I just don’t foresee an anti-matter bomb equivalent of Guy Fawkes. If you’re thinking nanotech or biotech, well… the cure is in the disease there. By the time the technology is mature enough for joe radical to get his mitts on it and use it for ill will, rest assured that the cutting edge tech in the hands of more responsible people will be there to counter the threat. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-generations-do-you-think-weve-got-left/373328/34 "2006-09-20T18:22:06Z")
Joe Radical is rarely the threat that Joseph Corporate Dumb@ss is. A mistake or irresponsible use of nano or biotech can kill millions just as dead. ---
**Author:** ![Menocchio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@Menocchio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Menocchio)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-generations-do-you-think-weve-got-left/373328/35 "2006-09-20T18:23:57Z")
[QUOTE=Sam Stone] All this will happen gradually in response to the change in oil prices. There will be no sudden economic shock. [/QUOTE] But, as you said, the reason we don’t utilize these other resources is because they’re too expensive. There will come a point when ethanol and oil are _both_ $10 a gallon. The change in infrastructure is going to be so ungodly expensive that government and industry alike will put it off until there’s absolutely no alternative. And then we’ll be stuck with high prices until the new alternatives are brought up to speed. Are we talking a Road Warrior type scenario? No, of course not. Are we talking about a huge challange to any economy? Yes. Add in a local disater (earthquake, tsunami, widespread disease, hurricane, war, really shitty government), and you’ve got a situation that may as well be the end of the world for people in the directly affected areas. Civilization as a whole will pull out of it, but I cannot believe that the transition from fossil fuels will be anywhere as tidy and painless as you’re suggesting it will be. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-generations-do-you-think-weve-got-left/373328/36 "2006-09-20T18:36:57Z")
[QUOTE=Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor] Somebody in the Middle East will do something boastful, violent & stupid with an A-Bomb…& then the West will destroy them, utterly, as an Ultimate Object Lesson. [/QUOTE] But who is the “them” that the West will destroy? In the old days it was easy. Country A (or Tribe A, going back a long way) attacked Country B. Country B retaliated, and others would side with either A or B. But now, it’s quite possible for a half-dozen individuals to get hold of a device that could put a big hole in Country A’s capital city. Who do you go after? Let’s say it was a suicide bombing with a few radiological (“dirty”) truck bombs. The perpetrators are dead. Maybe one came from England, one from France, one from Libya, one from Saudi Arabia, one from the USA and one from Morocco. Who do you “destroy, utterly”? Their families, who may have had no knowedge of what they were up to? Their home countries? Hardly. ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-generations-do-you-think-weve-got-left/373328/37 "2006-09-20T19:15:11Z")
I don’t think y’all are paying attention to current events. 9/11 had us wondering if New York would ever be the same, Katrina had us thinking New Orleans would forever be wiped off the map, the last Tsunami wiped out a HUGE swatch of landscape and Bhopal, India had at least 150,000 deaths at the hand of an industrial accident. The one constant in all this is: After the dust cleared, humans moved back in and rebuilt. the end result wasn’t near as catastropic as it appeard JUST after the event. Ethanol is a stepping stool to better fuels, it’s _also_ created using a renewable resource. Corn converts sunlight into stored energy, which is distilled into ethanol (with government subsidy help) which is burned in the cars. Then you grow more corn. Unlike oil, corn’s renewable. Electric/Hydrogen/Ethanol cars currently remove the local pollution and move it to a source of creation (power plant, Hydrogen proccessing facility, Ethanol refinery)…what has to happen next is to reduce the pollution at those sources to manageable levels. At a certain level of abstraction, an ethanol burning car IS a solar car. It’s just that the solar collector is several acres of farmland. ---
**Author:** ![lokij](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/5e9695/32.png) [@lokij](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lokij)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-generations-do-you-think-weve-got-left/373328/38 "2006-09-20T19:30:45Z")
[QUOTE=Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor] Joe Radical is rarely the threat that Joseph Corporate Dumb@ss is. A mistake or irresponsible use of nano or biotech can kill millions just as dead. [/QUOTE] Perhaps, but that would hardly be ‘civilization ending’ either. No other corporate or engineering disaster has been and there have been some pretty horrible ones. The potential benefits of those technologies demand we pursue them and absorb any potential risks. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Corrado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a88e4f/32.png) [@John\_Corrado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Corrado)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-generations-do-you-think-weve-got-left/373328/39 "2006-09-20T19:38:26Z")
[QUOTE=LonesomePolecat] I’d be interested in seeing that. Do you happen to recall the title at all? [/QUOTE] “Peace on Earth” by Hugh Harman. It was actually released by MGM; Mel Blanc’s voice in it probably caused me to think it was Warner Brothers. [Here’s a good description of it (in the first Customer Review). Apparently, it was nominated for an Oscar.](http://www.amazon.ca/Peace-on-Earth-Hugh-Harman/dp/630197140X) > [@cervaise](#): > > All of the above is **possible**. However, as long as we keep warning ourselves, at great length and volume, of that fact, then we have a chance to escape it. > > The moment we shrug our shoulders and say, “None of the warnings has yet come to pass,” and begin to disregard them, then we’re doomed. And the moment we clutch our chests and say, “The warnings are dire! We are surely doomed!” without actually _investigating_ the claims, we’re just as doomed. Many of the claims of coming destruction I mentioned came out of bad science (the Eugenics movement, overpopulation statements, coming ice ages) or bad politics (Reagan’s and Bush’s fervent desires to destroy us all in cleansing fire). ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2006, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-generations-do-you-think-weve-got-left/373328/40 "2006-09-20T20:00:47Z")
I predict 725,000 years of homosap hegemony. We’re in our infancy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-generations-do-you-think-weve-got-left/373328.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-generations-do-you-think-weve-got-left/373328.md?page=3)