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What does the future have in store?

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12-04-2008 , 03:10 AM

#26

bxb

adept

Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 820

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity
imo

12-04-2008 , 09:13 AM

#27

thisnamedoesntfi

old hand

Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 1,433

Quote:

Originally Posted by PJ of TheGame

Every person in our society has access to cheap and extremely high quality food

LOL.

12-04-2008 , 09:34 AM

#28

The once and future king

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: Aug 2004 Posts: 5,585

Quote:

Originally Posted by PJ of TheGame

Basically, the world has constantly been getting better for humanity. Go back far enough, and a person would work 16 hour days just to provide for themselves the basics of survival like food and warm clothing. Look how far we've come... one person in a family can now provide that and much more extremely easily. Every person in our society has access to cheap and extremely high quality food, fast transportation to anywhere in the world, more information at their fingertips then whole cities could ever assimilate, huge amounts of liesure time. People in western societies don't worry about where their next meal will come from, but how they can only afford a 760p bigscreen TV instead of the 1080i.

The future holds even more. People's productivity is constantly going up. Just a hundred years ago, horsedrawn carriages were the norm. Today you can video-conference with someone in china while having hot food dilivered to your doorstep. The internet was in it's infancy less then 20 years ago! Imagine things that the future holds- nanobot medicine that can indefinately extend life-spans, solar power satelites to provide incredibly cheap energy for everything, AI technology that could let a single person run a manufacturing line that would have taken hundreds 50 years ago.

Yeah, these things aren't going to come around tomorrow, but the future is a big place. Maybe not 50 years from now, maybe not 100... but eventually. What will society look like as the productivity of each person continues to grow to the point where having everyone work 8 hours a week could provide every basic need and as many luxeries as they could want?

Hmm I suppose exploitable resources are infinite and consumption can forge on unchecked by any external boundaries.

Also, the question is humanity any happier? Some agrarian supposedly subsistence societies score much higher than Western societies in objective happiness tests, because there lives are much less stressful due to living in areas of natural bounty, not having to work 50 hour weeks and commute 2 hours a day whilst worrying about keeping up with the Jonses by buying some more trivial tat made in a sweat shop in China.

Not saying we can all live like that,or that all non industrial communities have it so easy, just saying there are two sides to this coin.

12-04-2008 , 07:23 PM

#29

morphball

veteran

Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 2,972

Quote:

Originally Posted by PJ of TheGame

Sorry. Since most of the threads in this forum are about how society will function in a fantasy land without governments, I figured that a thread about how society would function in a non-fantasy land in the future was appropriate.

Except that your non-fantasy land is a fantasy

12-04-2008 , 07:58 PM

#30

govman6767

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 7,549

Quote:

Originally Posted by PJ of TheGame

Major Pwnage here ^
!

12-04-2008 , 07:59 PM

#31

govman6767

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 7,549

Quote:

Originally Posted by morphball

Except that your non-fantasy land is a fantasy

I disagree.

AC land = Half Baked the Movie

OP = Saving Private Ryan

12-04-2008 , 08:01 PM

#32

govman6767

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 7,549

Quote:

Originally Posted by The once and future king

Do you have any liinks to those studys...... I'm not disagreeing with u I just want to see how growing carrots on a farm eating bread and cheese all day makes people happier than Nintendo Wii

12-04-2008 , 08:04 PM

#33

govman6767

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 7,549

Quote:

Originally Posted by bxb

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity
imo

John Connor.... It is time

12-04-2008 , 08:08 PM

#34

govman6767

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 7,549

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nielsio

In Europe it's against the law to work more than X hours a week under contract.

That's why They are not considered a superpower.

While we might not be considered a superpower anymore by some.

We can still destroy the world. And woud be happy to do so if called upon by the lord high chancellor of the world. BluffThis

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