Future shock

[robinbloke]

This 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!

Comments

[ev1ldonut.livejournal.com]

I am the eternal optimist, I can't help but believe that though there may be environmental disaters that 'thin' the population a bit in the future, the species as a whole will adapt in the way we always have and continue.


Besides, in all of that, you completely neglected to consider the llamas!!

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

I think a future ruled by benevolent laser-spitting llama overlords would be liveable :)

1000 years from now

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

We... ahem, I mean the Brainslugs will control.

None here though.

Nope.

[zotz]

Current UN estimates seem to indicate that human population will peak near 10 billion in the middle part of this century and then go into slow decline.

Malthus was a wanker.

[kathminchin.livejournal.com]

I always play in pacifist mode and always win by jetting to the stars...

I just get annoyed when the computer attacks me

Re: 1000 years from now

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Nice hat!

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Know any documentation around for that UN estimate?

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Blimey.

Guess I'm just a warlike psycho!

[rirekon.livejournal.com]

In 100 Years: America will have alientated the rest of the world (or vice versa) creating 2 super powers who're in a constant state of military growth.
The 3rd world war will have left the world in ruins and mutation will have taken a foot hold in human DNA. A cult who value pure (ie. current) human DNA will try to cleanse the planet of mutants forgetting they're highly outnumbered.

In 1000 Years: Game Over Humanity.

[belak-krin.livejournal.com]

Population will continue to increase until everywhere has to institue a one child per couple policy. Eventually, the joy of millions of generations a year evolution will create a strain of bacteria or a virus that will get rid of large chunks of humanity before we completely over populate the planet. (we are over-due a pandemic of something)

and we all go round again...

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

That's the most realistic but also most boring option. ;o)

[wildrogue.livejournal.com]

Human slaves, in an insect nation (ah ah ah ah aaaah)

Our understanding of space travel isn't advancing quickly enough for us to take to the stars within the next hundred years. My somewhat cynical viewpoint is that we will end up with another world war the century is out. Either that or all the fossil fuels will run out before our governments get off their respective asses and do something about it and we'll end up with a semi-Georgian lifestyle while we sort it out.

[briggsy.livejournal.com]

In 100 years I'll be Supreme Dominator of the Earth.

In 1000 years I'll be in my 15th incarnation as Supreme Dominator, although by then it will be "of the Earth, Solar System and Alpha Centauri".

Actually I think that even 100 years is hard to predict. Certainly some major things will happen this century - there'll be no oil, China will overtake everyone else, global warming even. Who knows what effects these will have, what wars they'll cause, what lifestyle changes will happen. It'll be a miracle if we get through the century.

In a thousand years? Dunno... maybe there will be forests and jungles everywhere again (separated by vast radioactive deserts of tortured glass), humanity will survive on from remote tribes that weren't wiped out by global pandemics/wars/Bush.

[jonnyargles.livejournal.com]

We notice your primitive people have not yet discovered Slood.

We are willing to exchange for the invention of ringtones.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

The problem we have if fossils run out before we have an alternative is that logistics of countries will collapse; shopping at Tescos? Not any more.
And local community systems just won't be able to support everyone.

[ex-robhu.livejournal.com]

I also play as a pacifist until a computer nation attacks me...

It usually ends in a global war (where I win) but only because I get attacked first.

I know the borders / nations code is better in the more recent Civs, maybe it wouldn't happen there.

[wildrogue.livejournal.com]

I did think that, but they aren't going to run out all at once and we do have some renewable energy sources already. We'd probably adapt gradually to the lack of oil as it was reserved for important people/the rich and we shifted back to a more local lifestyle.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Blimey. Well, as I say, war is my solution to these games!

[wildrogue.livejournal.com]

They haven't discovered Slood? But I've got 15,000 tonnes of ice due to roll in on Monday.

[ex-robhu.livejournal.com]

*backs away*

[blackmetalbaz.livejournal.com]

I haven't actually read any Malthus... in what way is he a wanker?

Yes, I know I should just go away and read for myself, but I'm somewhat swamped at the moment...

[zotz]

This is recent and informative, but unfortunately only goes as far as 2050.

[zotz]

Population is set to peak in about 40 years and then slowly decline, without any need for draconian policies. Prosperity and decent healthcare are the birth control campaign's secret weapons.

[zotz]

Malthus said that the brakes on population were starvation, disease and war, and Vice. By this last, of course, he meant birth control, which he regarded as too shocking to even consider. Therefore, rather than consider it, he proclaimed that disease, starvation and violent death were humanity's future.

IMO, anyone who regards birth control per se as being worse than carnage is a wanker.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much, projections out that far should make for interesting reading.

[zotz]

They've done further ones indicating a roughly level population over the second half of this century, but newer information since made them revise their figures downwards for this estimate, so we'll do better in the second half of the century (probably) than the earlier, flat, estimates predict.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Projecting such things can't be easy... I'll have a look around after I finish reading the first lot!

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

I, however, firmly understand it's a game and no basis to run the world.

Honest guv, ahem.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Japan is already seeing a big downturn in birthrate I believe, but that's more to the work ethic drive...

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Can I have France?

[zotz]

Developed nations develop low birthrates. It's a well-known phenomenon. Many European nations, and the USA, have birthrates below replacement levels. Some have slowly declining populations, and the others keep levels constant or rising through immigration.

[briggsy.livejournal.com]

If you make them all wear penguin outfits, then yes, you can have France and the French. Including Monaco.

Now that wasn't an option in Civilisation, was it?

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Well that's a little more comforting thought for the future.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

The original civalisation had all it's data in text files; so you could have a nation of penguins with giant snowball death missiles.

[whiskeylover.livejournal.com]

I believe in steady improvements- if you think about it, many diseases and illnesses have been drastically reduced or wiped out, wars have become far fewer in civilised countries, (no, America does not count as civilised...), and hopefully that trend will continue.

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

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I played it in pacifist mode, nearly anyway. If somebody attacked me I took my towns back, blew up the town they were using to muster troops and then signed a peace treaty.

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Me, I play in pacifist mode. As Germany, until the invention of the Panzer.

As for the offline world, I go with the Kim Stanley Robinson model, with a dash of dreaded lurgy: a corporate uberclass in island fortresses; privileged peonage for a substantial middle class in gated communities in the hills; the masses huddled around trash fires in the disease-ridden swamps that will gradually replace our coastal cities.

Medicine, for the privileged, races against environmental contamination and increasingly-sophisticated pathogens; immortality remains unattainable but a century of youthful beauty is the norm... before intractable cancers and degenerative dementias finish you off, discreetly screened-off from polite company. But, on the whole, between a quarter and a half of humanity lives quite well: a life marked by grindingly competitive hard work - think of Wall Street lawyers and chinese assembly-line workers - leavened by luxury, beauty, and an eventual semi-retirement of enviable leisure.

I wouldn't even guess what amenities and entertainments are available, for a price. Maybe a complete body-makeover, with extra organs, is available for a tenth of the rent on your condo, or half your monthly water fees. Any film, any book, any hologram or sensory recording, paid by the minute per playback... and your preferences carefully recorded to assist our partner companies, tailoring promotions and special offers just for you.

Remember, the middle-class aren't just the skilled labour, they are the consumers - the foundation of the world economy. Arguably, the value-creation of skilled labour is the only resource; oil won't run out. Nothing will run out, except clean water, and all such 'physical' resources can be found, 'fixed', or substituted as rising prices make unattractive sources and 'impracticable' alternatives economically viable.*

The masses are a source of dread and loathing: diseased, disorderly, uneducated, kept poor and uneducated by macroeconomic policy and, closer to home, kept under surveillance by paid informers and pervasive micro- and nano- devices monitored by behavioural algorithms of machiavellian subtlety. The goal is to identify and eliminate literacy campaigners, charismatic leaders, religious fundamentalists, 'Terrorists', 'Counter-Revolutionaries', 'Drug Dealers' or whatever other menace de jour might reassure the middle classes that their safety is of paramount importance to their owners.

Nowhere is this more true than in China.

The wild card is AI. Only a fool would speculate on what an artificial mind could do, or might want to do.

Said Nile, who wandered in from feanelwa's LJ.

*Yes, really. At $70 barrel-equivalent, the Colorado shales become a viable petroleum reserve. That's more oil than Saudi Arabia. Look up tar sands and oil-bearing shales... The Alberta deposits are viable already at $45 boe. Over $100, and the USA can satisfy it's annual gasoline consumption by growing wheat for ethanol on less than a third of its arable land on current technology. That's a lot, but it's not as absurd as paying billions to your national enemies. Climatic damage is, of course, another matter - but I don't think it matters to the uberclass and there's no reason why they should permit the media to make an issue of it.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Well; Thanks very much for wandering in to pass on your future shock; seems frighteningly plausable I must say.

And who said dying was a handicap? Keeps these horrors from your eyes...

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Passive/Aggressive then? :)

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Yes, I passive-aggressively exploded the crap out of their tanks :)

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

The only truly implausible future is the present. Nobody in 1976 would've believed this morning's papers or the CNN breakfast bulletin.

Actually, they'd have seized on the bits they recognised and understood, and skimmed over the rest: a bit like all of us with today's news - and what we think is tomorrow's and 2106's.

Entertaining stuff (and the civ tips!) Mind if I stick around?

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Wit and intelligence? Feel free to cohere.