# Is there, any more, any Next Thing, any Coming Thing, any Rising Thing -- any Future? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 29, 2010, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-more-any-next-thing-any-coming-thing-any-rising-thing-any-future/544882 "2010-06-29T02:36:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-more-any-next-thing-any-coming-thing-any-rising-thing-any-future/544882/21 "2010-06-29T19:01:28Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-more-any-next-thing-any-coming-thing-any-rising-thing-any-future/544882/22 "2010-06-29T19:31:39Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > 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!” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-more-any-next-thing-any-coming-thing-any-rising-thing-any-future/544882/23 "2010-06-29T21:08:02Z")
> [@sitchensis](#): > > 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.) ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-more-any-next-thing-any-coming-thing-any-rising-thing-any-future/544882/24 "2010-06-29T23:57:17Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-more-any-next-thing-any-coming-thing-any-rising-thing-any-future/544882/25 "2010-06-30T00:47:00Z")
It’s all about stem cells atm. Renewal. Transformation. Realising what was impossible 5 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-more-any-next-thing-any-coming-thing-any-rising-thing-any-future/544882/26 "2010-06-30T13:38:36Z")
> [@PrettyVacant](#): > > 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”? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-more-any-next-thing-any-coming-thing-any-rising-thing-any-future/544882/27 "2010-07-02T18:09:21Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > 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? ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-more-any-next-thing-any-coming-thing-any-rising-thing-any-future/544882/28 "2010-07-02T18:37:04Z")
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). ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-more-any-next-thing-any-coming-thing-any-rising-thing-any-future/544882/29 "2010-07-02T22:15:25Z")
There was also a democracy revolution in the 70s, 80s and 90s where many authoritarian states and ex-colonies transformed into liberal democracies. [![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Freedom_House_Country_Rankings_1972-2005.png) ](https://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. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-more-any-next-thing-any-coming-thing-any-rising-thing-any-future/544882/30 "2010-07-02T22:20:29Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2010, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-more-any-next-thing-any-coming-thing-any-rising-thing-any-future/544882/31 "2010-07-05T16:37:39Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2010, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-more-any-next-thing-any-coming-thing-any-rising-thing-any-future/544882/32 "2010-07-05T16:57:44Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > 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… ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2010, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-more-any-next-thing-any-coming-thing-any-rising-thing-any-future/544882/33 "2010-07-05T17:40:31Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > 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 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2010, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-more-any-next-thing-any-coming-thing-any-rising-thing-any-future/544882/34 "2010-07-05T19:03:30Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2010, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-more-any-next-thing-any-coming-thing-any-rising-thing-any-future/544882/35 "2010-07-05T20:21:58Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2010, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-more-any-next-thing-any-coming-thing-any-rising-thing-any-future/544882/36 "2010-07-05T20:54:39Z")
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’. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2010, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-more-any-next-thing-any-coming-thing-any-rising-thing-any-future/544882/37 "2010-07-05T20:56:33Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 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: ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2010, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-more-any-next-thing-any-coming-thing-any-rising-thing-any-future/544882/38 "2010-07-05T20:56:49Z")
> [@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’. But, what is there in space to economically exploit, that can’t be done more cheaply with resources available on Earth’s surface? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2010, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-more-any-next-thing-any-coming-thing-any-rising-thing-any-future/544882/39 "2010-07-05T20:58:59Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2010, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-more-any-next-thing-any-coming-thing-any-rising-thing-any-future/544882/40 "2010-07-05T21:10:39Z")
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. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-more-any-next-thing-any-coming-thing-any-rising-thing-any-future/544882.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-more-any-next-thing-any-coming-thing-any-rising-thing-any-future/544882.md?page=3)