Future shock
Jan. 6th, 2006 01:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robinblokeThis article on global overpopulation made me think, where is humanity heading?
Now, anyone that's played Civalisation knows that invariably1 a single dominant power ends up taking over the whole world bar a single tiny village before launching a space ship for Alpha Centuri for maximum points.
Maybe not the best reflection of what is to come; but given humanities history of turmoil and war from when the first Caveman picked up a pointy stick and found that it could be used to poke other Cavemen I don't think that we're heading for a technological Eutopia.
Revolutions eventually break down, greed and lust for power take over and it all comes down to a glorious few... maybe I'm diversifying here.
Anyway.
The crux of my mental meanderings is; where do you see humanity in, say, 100 years. Then 1000 years.
In 100 years the population expansion will have had to had something done about it or there's likely to be nowhere left for anyone to stand up.
All the fossil fuels will have run out, will we actually have an alternative?
And, my personal prediction, the US and China will come to loggerheads as Superpowers around the world and somethings going to happen.
Or maybe world war three and we all end up in an Insect Nation ruled by cockroaches.
In 1000 years? Can we even contemplate? I'm not sure I can speculate that far but my moneys on the world being a ghost town of a rememant post-apocalypse rather than us making it to the stars.
1 I only know one person who plays it in pacifist mode and it's really not very easy!
Now, anyone that's played Civalisation knows that invariably1 a single dominant power ends up taking over the whole world bar a single tiny village before launching a space ship for Alpha Centuri for maximum points.
Maybe not the best reflection of what is to come; but given humanities history of turmoil and war from when the first Caveman picked up a pointy stick and found that it could be used to poke other Cavemen I don't think that we're heading for a technological Eutopia.
Revolutions eventually break down, greed and lust for power take over and it all comes down to a glorious few... maybe I'm diversifying here.
Anyway.
The crux of my mental meanderings is; where do you see humanity in, say, 100 years. Then 1000 years.
In 100 years the population expansion will have had to had something done about it or there's likely to be nowhere left for anyone to stand up.
All the fossil fuels will have run out, will we actually have an alternative?
And, my personal prediction, the US and China will come to loggerheads as Superpowers around the world and somethings going to happen.
Or maybe world war three and we all end up in an Insect Nation ruled by cockroaches.
In 1000 years? Can we even contemplate? I'm not sure I can speculate that far but my moneys on the world being a ghost town of a rememant post-apocalypse rather than us making it to the stars.
1 I only know one person who plays it in pacifist mode and it's really not very easy!
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-06 04:42 pm (UTC)If you look at Germany after WWII and the Marshall Plan, that shows that wars can be prevented through kindness- at least if watched over with a big stick.
Remove harsh mistreatment and discrimination, and people will have less to get angry about & thus less to go to war over.
Look at Northern Ireland- now that England has finally started to crack down on the loyalists as well as the Republicans, and the NI Catholics actually have a chance of getting somewhere in life, the IRA have declared an end to their armed struggle (although admittedly the Paisley-ites are not too chuffed about having to give up their privileges).
Already countries provide more aid to other countries than ever before, because slowly, perhaps, mankind is realising that it is in everyone's interest if living conditions improve across the globe.
Nevertheless, some developments may lead to us having to cultivate new living atmospheres elsewhere- either due to global warming, uninhabitability of this planet, overpopulation or otherwise, but hopefully we will be able to deal with that.
In the meantime, I hope that supplies of water and barley don't run out, so that there won't be a threat to whisky production