• Earth Expected to Be Habitable for Another 1.75 Billion Years
    79 replies, posted
Why would we evolve like that?
I wail at the idea of being labored through a system where by we are all helpless and inevitably dying at the expense of someone's personal, cheese chasing aspirations. People lived shitty lives 100,000 years ago and people will still live shitty lives tomorrow and that becomes of our humanitarian voyage into the future, a catch-22 in it's pointlessness for being born so i can be nurtured. And this whole intelligence thing, if we weren't making a problem, intelligence would have nothing to do. A good use of intelligence include figuring out how to do something to satisfy and comfort the inflicted and because of this intelligence, we are able to observe and survey our circumstance and to ask yourself is this a 'game' worth playing because all it does is feed on this competition, gratification through consumption usually at something else's expense anyway.
I really wonder what humanity, or whatever's left of it, will be like in, say for example, one hundred thousand years? Or even longer, to the point where Earth is no longer habitable, or hasn't been for a long time. Shit's unimaginable.
[QUOTE=Bat-shit;42286367]I really wonder what humanity, or whatever's left of it, will be like in, say for example, one hundred thousand years? Or even longer, to the point where Earth is no longer habitable, and hasn't been for a long time. Shit's unimaginable.[/QUOTE] Probably really good, we'd end up going through hell for a few thousand years after the mistakes of our predecessors but by then we'd likely recovered from it and will have moved on to better things. Oil will be long long gone by then.
[QUOTE=Bat-shit;42286367]I really wonder what humanity, or whatever's left of it, will be like in, say for example, one hundred thousand years? Or even longer, to the point where Earth is no longer habitable, or hasn't been for a long time. Shit's unimaginable.[/QUOTE] If you haven't noticed - technological advancement follows an exponential growth. Realistically I'm curious if we make it past the next thousand years.
How long do scientists give us before we attain interplanetary travel??
[QUOTE=for no reason;42286423]How long do scientists give us before we attain interstellar travel??[/QUOTE] There's a good chance than interstellar travel is impossible, and if it's not, it probably won't be fast. You'll be born on a ship and your entire purpose in life will be to have children, and somewhere down the line, your descendants will arrive on a foreign planet. I mean, FTL travel is impossible as far as I'm aware so if you consider that some things are thousands of light years away... yeah...
[QUOTE=TheFilmSlacker;42284570]With humans being the way they are and the population growing as steadily as it is, I'm kinda doubtful, but hey, I'm no fortune teller.[/QUOTE] I think you overestimate our impact on the planet as a whole. As an example, we're fearful of climate change not because it will destroy the planet (because it won't), but because it will likely require a significant effort on our part to adapt to the changing climate and its effects. The planet will be completely fine with higher temperatures and less ice at the poles as it has been in the past, but we're going to see some dramatic changes in how we do things. Hell, we could literally nuke ourselves to oblivion and life would STILL find a way to go on, even if it's just on a smaller scale for a few million years. Besides, 1.75 billion years is an unimaginable amount of time. If humans still exist in some form or another at that point, we're sure as hell not going to just be stuck on this rock.
[QUOTE=sloppy_joes;42286448]There's a good chance than interstellar travel is impossible, and if it's not, it probably won't be fast. You'll be born on a ship and your entire purpose in life will be to have children, and somewhere down the line, your descendants will arrive on a foreign planet. I mean, FTL travel is impossible as far as I'm aware so if you consider that some things are thousands of light years away... yeah...[/QUOTE] thats why you build generation ships or cryo ships. Or we upload our minds to computers and don't give a shit about time.
[QUOTE=Trumple;42284687]Not so sure, evolution in modern society isn't a big player. Someone with some amazing characteristic for survival may not necessarily breed more or live longer than anyone else in a modern society, they may not even know they have it[/QUOTE] the next step in evolution is biotechnology
[QUOTE=sloppy_joes;42286422]If you haven't noticed - technological advancement follows an exponential growth. Realistically I'm curious if we make it past the next thousand years.[/QUOTE] Some of us will I'm sure.
[QUOTE=Bat-shit;42286990]Some of us will I'm sure.[/QUOTE] that's assuming we don't nuke the shit out of each other or have a serious financial collapse. [editline]23rd September 2013[/editline] or some sort of weird disease kills us off.
[QUOTE=sloppy_joes;42287064]that's assuming we don't nuke the shit out of each other or have a serious financial collapse.[/QUOTE] even then, maybe.
[QUOTE=Kyle902;42286953] Or we upload our minds to computers and don't give a shit about time.[/QUOTE] i don't know about this
[QUOTE=Kyle902;42286953]thats why you build generation ships or cryo ships. Or we upload our minds to computers and don't give a shit about time.[/QUOTE] Might not be possible, everything that makes you, you is a complex web of neurons, maybe in the future you will be able to scan and map them into a computer and make a digital copy of yourself but it will essentially be a digital clone, not yourself.
[QUOTE=Reshy;42286170]Why would we evolve like that?[/QUOTE] welcome to 'tabloid evolution', there's tons of wild theoretical stuff made by a guy who just felt like making people scared/angry at the notion we'd get that ugly other times it's done by ideas guys who are just banking off wild speculation and trendy tendencies remember these? "1,000 years" [t]http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/929jackfm.com/files/2012/10/future-us-630x558.jpg[/t] "100,000 years" [t]http://i.huffpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/301619/slide_301619_2541819_free.jpg?1370559169572[/t] the reason for the eyes was basically explained as "iphones keep getting smaller and now with google glass we know where things are going, so eventually we're going to need bigger eyes to read all the information on our future iContacts [quote][we] reached out to biologist Dr. Mark Siegal, an associate professor at New York University, to get his thoughts on the matter, but he declined: "Sorry, but I find this so far outside the realm of evolutionary biology that I'd rather not comment."[/quote]
Some people in this thread must be really deluded if they think the funding of NASA has anything to do with surviving this. It's almost 2 billion years we're talking about. Civilization has been around for 10000 years. In 200 years we've gone from being simple farmers to having supercomputers, utilizing nuclear energy, building particle accelerators and with constant breakthroughs in all kinds of fields ranging from theoretical physics and nanotechnology to neuroscience and genetic engineering. Whether or not NASA gets funded now is entirely irrelevant on such massive timescale, as is the effect of global warming for that matter. If our descendants are still around in 2 billion years they'll probably be doing shit like extracting energy from supermassive black holes and journeying between galaxies. Earth's sun getting too warm will be the least of our concerns, and it wouldn't surprise me if we've found a way to extend the sun's lifetime by then, or just make a new one.
[QUOTE=daijitsu;42287283]welcome to 'tabloid evolution', there's tons of wild theoretical stuff made by a guy who just felt like making people scared/angry at the notion we'd get that ugly other times it's done by ideas guys who are just banking off wild speculation and trendy tendencies remember these? "1,000 years" [t]http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/929jackfm.com/files/2012/10/future-us-630x558.jpg[/t] "100,000 years" [t]http://i.huffpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/301619/slide_301619_2541819_free.jpg?1370559169572[/t] the reason for the eyes was basically explained as "iphones keep getting smaller and now with google glass we know where things are going, so eventually we're going to need bigger eyes to read all the information on our future iContacts[/QUOTE] Why wouldn't our eyes evolve to become more like eagle eyes? They have 3.6 times the visual acuity of human eyes. Also we already can see all the information on our 'eye contacts' we just cannot process our peripheral vision terribly well. But neither of these would imply larger eyes are somehow going to be better. Also if you factor in eventual human genetic self-improvement it could look radically different. Smaller brains is implausible because we are a species that has evolved to rely primarily on brain power, there's a reason why our heads are so large compared to our bodies. The larger the brain to weight ratio the more processing power can be devoted to things other than coordinating movement and other tasks like it. Why we'd be more wrinkly makes no sense because there's no benefits from being wrinkled and is often caused by aging. The only time wrinkling has any benefit is with manipulating wet objects, and that only applies to hands and feet, not the body in general. It's not like we'd be living under water and even if so we'd adapt a different more permanent solution.
[QUOTE=Mindtwistah;42287333]In 200 years we've gone from being simple farmers to having supercomputers[/QUOTE] the industrial revolution was over 200 years ago. i think you mean 2000, but even then we had quite advanced civilization and farming techniques then too.
[QUOTE=sloppy_joes;42287371]the industrial revolution was over 200 years ago. i think you mean 2000, but even then we had quite advanced civilization and farming techniques then too.[/QUOTE] 200 was an approximation but where in the world do you get 2000 from?
[QUOTE=Mindtwistah;42287390]200 was an approximation but where in the world do you get 2000 from?[/QUOTE] i figured you missed a zero.
Actually if anything I think future humans will probably be taller due to improving diet trends and look more alike(I heard this somewhere, but I can't remember where though)
[QUOTE=Mindtwistah;42287333]Some people in this thread must be really deluded if they think the funding of NASA has anything to do with surviving this. It's almost 2 billion years we're talking about. Civilization has been around for 10000 years. In 200 years we've gone from being simple farmers to having supercomputers, utilizing nuclear energy, building particle accelerators and with constant breakthroughs in all kinds of fields ranging from theoretical physics and nanotechnology to neuroscience and genetic engineering. Whether or not NASA gets funded now is entirely irrelevant on such massive timescale, as is the effect of global warming for that matter. If our descendants are still around in 2 billion years they'll probably be doing shit like extracting energy from supermassive black holes and journeying between galaxies. Earth's sun getting too warm will be the least of our concerns, and it wouldn't surprise me if we've found a way to extend the sun's lifetime by then, or just make a new one.[/QUOTE] that's some pretty hefty 'if', people tend to forget not everything is infinitely exponential. humanity could reach a point and not be able to progress because physics cannot be pushed any further and technologies cannot be improved or various problems are impossible to solve (like tinkering with the sun or having the capability of reaching another habitable system Becoming akin to the Quarian fleet sounds neat though [editline]23rd September 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Reshy;42287345]Why wouldn't our eyes evolve to become more like eagle eyes? They have 3.6 times the visual acuity of human eyes. Also we already can see all the information on our 'eye contacts' we just cannot process our peripheral vision terribly well. But neither of these would imply larger eyes are somehow going to be better. Also if you factor in eventual human genetic self-improvement it could look radically different. Smaller brains is implausible because we are a species that has evolved to rely primarily on brain power, there's a reason why our heads are so large compared to our bodies. The larger the brain to weight ratio the more processing power can be devoted to things other than coordinating movement and other tasks like it. Why we'd be more wrinkly makes no sense because there's no benefits from being wrinkled and is often caused by aging. The only time wrinkling has any benefit is with manipulating wet objects, and that only applies to hands and feet, not the body in general. It's not like we'd be living under water and even if so we'd adapt a different more permanent solution.[/QUOTE] this is why tabloids make dumb things like the tiny brained wrinklemonster, it gets people riled up and talking about it, which means views on their website and ad revenue in the bank that's like the entire purpose behind tabloids, it's a tax on outrage also eagle's eyes don't rely on size (granted they're comparitively large next to their head), it's more about the sheer density of the receptors.
[QUOTE=daijitsu;42287424] also eagle's eyes don't rely on size (granted they're comparitively large next to their head), it's more about the sheer density of the receptors.[/QUOTE] Exactly, they have excellent telescopic vision.
200,000 years from now humans look back on ancient internet history with assholes for mouths and nipples for eyes "what the fuck are they talking about?"
When it comes to the whole "Earth will be ruined by [B]us[/B] [I]long before then![/I]" argument, I highly doubt that it'd happen as easily as causing climate change or planetary warming. As far as I know (not much), the only thing that could truly and fully turn the entire planet into an uninhabitable wasteland would be a nuclear war to end all war. The only thing I know of that we could conceivably do to wreck the planet within this lifetime, and with our current technology, would be to say "fuck it" and slam the planet with every nuke we as an entire species have. The raw blast energy probably wouldn't be enough to thoroughly wreck most plant/animal life on land and in the sea, but that's where the radiation comes in. With enough radiation swirling around the land, sea and sky, I imagine it'd be thoroughly impossible for anything that isn't a specifically radiation-resistant microorganism to survive. Although, the likelihood of every nuke currently firable being fired at once and aimed to ensure maximum radioactive saturation is pretty much zero, since even the dumbest world leaders know that turning the entire planet into a smoking, irradiated ball of char is a bad idea. So yeah, as long as no one decides to launch some nukes, I'd say we're safe for a long-ass time.
I'm actually worried about the scenario where either we have a major Earth extinction event before we establish independent colonies on nearby planets, or if leaving the solar system will not be technically or resourcefully feasible at all. Because about everything in the universe is pretty fucking far, especially if we'll always remain limited by light speed.
[QUOTE=Daniel Smith;42285903]Well according to some people we will look like a fine mix of Porky Pig and ET with an impressive scrotum. [IMG]http://morriscourse.com/myths_of_evolution/images/future_human.jpg[/IMG] Is this NSFW?[/QUOTE] how does it even stand [editline]9[/editline] only in anime will something with enlarged breasts, testicles, ass, and probing fingers will be able to stand on thin legs
[QUOTE=ROFLBURGER;42287907]how does it even stand [editline]9[/editline] only in anime will something with enlarged breasts, testicles, ass, and probing fingers will be able to stand on thin legs[/QUOTE] It doesn't, it uses its electronic scooter.
[QUOTE=Paramud;42288549]It doesn't, it uses its electronic scooter.[/QUOTE] *electronic wheelchair
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