Future Topic

Vek, I'd like to note that while Organised Religion is pretty dumb, it is the best way to organise the uneducated masses. Think of a religion where there was a God having ideals and therefore "endorsing" certain actions that related with what needs to be done in the world today. The leader of such a group could help end many world problems.

On another note, I read about scientists in Japan finding a way to make beef tasting beef out of human feces.

Organised religion is all about tight control over one's conscious and actions. There is nothing beneficial about it except for the leaders. It was and still is religion that has or is still holding back technological and sociopolitical progress.

Agreed with Andy partially, some religious people I have met are scared of progress. Obviously Mark is an objection here.

Trickatel wrote:Agreed with Andy partially, some religious people I have met are scared of progress. Obviously Mark is an objection here.

Agreed on Mark.

Historically the church (Roman Catholicism) has demonstrated a total lack of foresight and a desire to halt scientific and technological progress. It is the nature of the beast unfortunately, scientific theory and technological advancement usurps the church bit by bit from answering the great unanswerables - afterall, Evolutionary Theory for example strikes at one of the questions that the church was proud to be able to answer.

Yeah, I think it was more prevalient in the medievil period to the early victorian era, than it is now, but I do feel religon holds some things back. Like vek said, it challenges the way the church/religion presents its views and so on.

Back then, if they lost the belief alot of kingdoms would have lost control over things as it was a way of keeping the class structure. Now, I'm not so sure, maybe its still relevant, that's open for debate but I do think in some ways its good to question the morality of certain advancement. Questioning about playing god if you will.


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In other futuristic news, did you hear that England wants to put a 70ft unmanned airship to hover above london during the 2012 olympics?

Apparantly it will take mugshots and help to stop everything from illegal immigration to fraudsters and ticket touters. After its been used its supposed to then be used to help police survalence and rescue missions.

Although its unlikley the propsal will go through as it could take untill 2015 to be passed through the official stuff Still, quite the image of a futuristic landscape, a little bit 1984 even.

That sounds interesting, although I'm not really sure of the safety precautions regarding that device.

Perhaps it'll work on solar power? That could be a smart, clean-energy publicity move.

(Warning: Huge post.)

Andeavor wrote:@Damnagoras: Without agriculture humanity would've starved and we need livestock because without all hunted animals would've been extinct long ago. Also, you should be glad there were wars, though, or this planet would've been long overcrowded before we even entered the renaissance.

Trickatel wrote:The development of agriculture actually helped humanity to develop as a whole. It helped to support larger groups of humans living together.

Vektrix wrote:Without Agriculture, we would therefore still be in the Stone or Bronze Age, Agriculture is what kick started the Iron Age..

My opinion is based on the fact that creating civilizations and advancing in technology might not be a good thing to begin with, looking at the life for the individual human. Before we had agriculture, we didn't live in very large groups (usually only up to about 100-150 people) and there were very few us, comparing with the explosive increase in population after we started farming the land and breed livestock. It lead to that we could develop and gain knowledge about the world.

"Isn't that a good thing?", you might be asking. "We've developed medicine and a whole lot of other things that helped increase our lifespan and decrease mortality rates!"

We have done that, that's true. Life has become more comfortable and lazy with the help of technology. We don't have to spend hours every day just searching for food to keep us alive.

I want you to ask yourself: What does a good life look like? I think we can agree that a good life is a life that has been happy. Now, let's look at some statistics over depression rates, suicide rates, stress and general happiness. Somehow they all point at the fact that we're getting unhappier (At least all I've heard of do). Despite the fact that we don't have to worry about getting food for the day.

One thing overlooked when looking at the advantage of civilization is that pretty much every advice given to you on how to become a happier person seem to live more like our ancestors, the hunter-forager-fisher people.

The following points are arguments for my opinion:

• To reduce stress, plenty of exercise is one of the best cures. Our ancestors did a lot of that. They moved around a great part of the day, something any doctor or health consultant would say is a healthy thing to do. And they didn't have a million things to get stressed about. Food was pretty much the only thing they actually had to be concerned with.

• Another way to reduce stress is having lots of fun and just chilling. Did you know that it didn't take all day to gather food, unless you were tracking a gazelle or deer etc, which could take days. The truth is that there was plenty of free time to do whatever you felt like, such as hanging out with your friends. Which brings me to the next point:

• In a group of about 100 people, everyone know each other (as can be seen in small towns in modern days). The reason we came to live in groups of that particular number is because of the fact that is roughly how many relations a human can handle. We gained many friends.

• Diet. How many times don't we hear that we need to have a diverse diet to gain all nutrients we need? You start to wonder how our ancestors could have survived without knowing what vitamins were in what food. Well, they ate a very diverse diet. I don't know all about what they ate exactly, but I know it included fruit, berries, fish, roots and meat and other things that our digestive system is actually designed to handle. Bread, pasta and anything from grains is unnatural for us to eat. Many people nowadays have some sort of digestive problem or annoyance, which is a result the fundamentally wrong diet humanity started living on 10'000 years ago.
  The advantage of grains is that it's more efficient for feeding a large amount of individuals. Preferably cows, who are supposed to eat grass.

• Agriculture brought hardships eventually.
  -War has been mentioned.
  -When we started living so close to animals, diseases spread easier from them to us. If I don't remember wrong, the common cold originated from pigs.
  -The life of the common farmer has been hard and rough through all ages up until recently. That's pretty well known, even if it wasn't as miserable as most people think.

• Are we happier because we know more about the world? How the Universe works and what it's built by. The discoveries can lead to helpful new technologies, but do they bring us happiness in the end?

• The positive side of a higher mortality rate is underestimated among many. But those who have studied biology are aware of the fact that a population that increase in size too quickly is doomed to suffer mass deaths later on, due to a destroyed environment, lack of food or disease. Overpopulation is not a good thing. With more deaths, as tragic as they are, there isn't such a great risk of overpopulation, which by the way only lead to more even more death anyway.
  You are aware that humanity is eventually going to face a disaster that will prevent our population from growing further? Possibly in our Eurosporeons' lifetime. One of the best case scenarios is increased starvation, while the worst is a fast-spreading disease with no known cure that will bring the human race close to extinction. The later would mean the end of society as we know it.

Do you mind if I stop here? I think I managed to express my view on this matter, how I see it. Pleas tell me if there's something I didn't explain clearly!

End notes: I'm aware that we can't ever go back to living in our natural state. It would be a really bad idea, we modern people wouldn't be able to survive. And I know I sure as heck wouldn't be able to live without my computer
No, my point is that things were probably better for us humans while we lived like that. Before we used our impressive amount of intelligence and creativity to do what we thought would improve our lives. When food was the main concern, ways to grown great amounts of food must have seemed like a great idea.
We should continue to develop our civilization, we would be stupid not too. But we need to keep in mind the nature of the human and what is actually good for her, and adapt our society after it. Not the other way around, adapt the humans after what's good for the society.

I'm having trouble to stop writing. So I'll just stop now.

This is a good read by the way: Cracked.com - 7 Reasons the 21st Century is Making You Miseralble

I support the statements brought forth by damnagoras wholeheartedly, while admitting I too would be unable to revert back.

Case in point: Native Americans. They got the short end of the stick, big time. They pretty much have nothing. However, the Navajo people are actually pretty optimistic and their children are generally happy.

• To reduce stress, plenty of exercise is one of the best cures.

Where I live, people do a lot of exercise anyway, so nothing new there.

• Another way to reduce stress is having lots of fun and just chilling.

Again, we do that.

• In a group of about 100 people, everyone know each other (as can be seen in small towns in modern days). The reason we came to live in groups of that particular number is because of the fact that is roughly how many relations a human can handle. We gained many friends.

A human can just as easily ignore other people. I myself feel comfortable living with around 5000+ more people, it's your matter of opinion whether that's a good or bad thing. Strength in numbers, or being overwhelmed by too many people to have a relationship with? Your call.

• Diet. How many times don't we hear that we need to have a diverse diet to gain all nutrients we need? You start to wonder how our ancestors could have survived without knowing what vitamins were in what food. Well, they ate a very diverse diet. I don't know all about what they ate exactly, but I know it included fruit, berries, fish, roots and meat and other things that our digestive system is actually designed to handle. Bread, pasta and anything from grains is unnatural for us to eat. Many people nowadays have some sort of digestive problem or annoyance, which is a result the fundamentally wrong diet humanity started living on 10'000 years ago.
  The advantage of grains is that it's more efficient for feeding a large amount of individuals. Preferably cows, who are supposed to eat grass.

It depends on the person. My family have quite the varied diet. We mix between meat, vegetables, fish and fruit quite often. We're healthy and happy as ever, and at school I've seen others take care with what they buy and eat.

• Agriculture brought hardships eventually.
  -War has been mentioned.
  -When we started living so close to animals, diseases spread easier from them to us. If I don't remember wrong, the common cold originated from pigs.
  -The life of the common farmer has been hard and rough through all ages up until recently. That's pretty well known, even if it wasn't as miserable as most people think.

War is too big a theme to be defined solely on agriculture. Factors such as Religion also take place.

• Are we happier because we know more about the world? How the Universe works and what it's built by. The discoveries can lead to helpful new technologies, but do they bring us happiness in the end?

I sure feel happy knowing what those bright dots above me are, and why they move, as well as knowing what that bright thing is that gives us light, and that slightly darker thing that provides some light after the bright thing goes down. I feel happy knowing about the Universe, and how it works. I recently bought a telescope and have had great fun tracking stars and galaxies/nebulae. If I was in the day of a Stone Age man I wouldn't have the technology to do that.

• The positive side of a higher mortality rate is underestimated among many. But those who have studied biology are aware of the fact that a population that increase in size too quickly is doomed to suffer mass deaths later on, due to a destroyed environment, lack of food or disease. Overpopulation is not a good thing. With more deaths, as tragic as they are, there isn't such a great risk of overpopulation, which by the way only lead to more even more death anyway.
  You are aware that humanity is eventually going to face a disaster that will prevent our population from growing further? Possibly in our Eurosporeons' lifetime. One of the best case scenarios is increased starvation, while the worst is a fast-spreading disease with no known cure that will bring the human race close to extinction. The later would mean the end of society as we know it.

The human population has began to rise in the 1900's. Agriculture was around for several millenia before then. Advances in medicine have also contributed to longer lifespans, thus an increase in population and birth rates. China have got the right idea with the birth control, and I hope other countries start this too. The government need to stop pouring money into wars, and help the LECD's, which is where the birth rates are soaring high. The other option is stone cold extermination. Sad, but effective. Also, this is a good read: http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2006/09/overpopulation-no-problem/

End notes: I'm aware that we can't ever go back to living in our natural state. It would be a really bad idea, we modern people wouldn't be able to survive. And I know I sure as heck wouldn't be able to live without my computer
No, my point is that things were probably better for us humans while we lived like that. Before we used our impressive amount of intelligence and creativity to do what we thought would improve our lives. When food was the main concern, ways to grown great amounts of food must have seemed like a great idea.
We should continue to develop our civilization, we would be stupid not too. But we need to keep in mind the nature of the human and what is actually good for her, and adapt our society after it. Not the other way around, adapt the humans after what's good for the society.

Agreed, I'm interested in our technological advances. We've slowed down in the last 30 or so years, our most exciting period of development was in from 1920-1980, especially space-wise. Men on the Moon, we were looking towards Mars. But no, Obama and his bunch of misfits are more interested in having an extra decade's supply of oil for their country to use. Ridiculous. People have become to greedy, and that is our downfall as a whole. People need to work together, yet we are becoming more and more harsh towards one another, for stupefying reasons too. I'm happy for myself as I know I am open to others, but I'm not happy for others who are selfish, and are slowing down our progress. I propose a theory. Exterminate such people and we'll solve the overpopulation issue. We'll be left with around a quarter of a billion people, who can actually do something useful

With the whole agriculture thing. Its a natural progression, humans don't really evolve much physically, but they take leaps and bounds compared to other animals with what we invnet/how we advance technologies.

Our strength is our advancement, without agriculture we'd still be animalistic.

However I do feel we have hit a stagnant point. We now use this agriculture to the extreme, supporting a larger population than is perhaps healthy.

You can see that with the quality and prices of foods, all of the troubles farmers have with feeds and all the overfishing and so on. I wish that we could learn a little from our more 'natural' peers, ie those we see as 'tribal' as well as our ancestors and realise we need to put efforts into maintaining the world we live in rather than being so god damn greedy.

Yes, I know greed is essentially what makes the world go round, in a basic term, but you would have thought, with all our advancements, we'd started to work somthing out by now?

Still, I'll admit I have no desire to give up my modern day convieniences (although if it came to it, I probably wouldn't mind too much)

Red, we don't support our population very well though.

Most of Africa still does not have ENOUGH food, yet in the developed world we WASTE it. We don't need to improve agricultural use, we need to improve distribution.

True Vek.

That's what makes me annoyed with it, we have methods that produce so much and likewise, so much waste. It annoys me further that we just tend to burn it rather than giving it to an aid charity or somthing.

It's difficult to say about developing countries, because they are exactly that, developing. It goes back to that whole thing of 'teach a man to fish...' But in the future I'd like to see developed countires at least being a little more generous with their surplus and being smarter with farming (thus improving overall trade and the economy) in order to help out those in poverty.

I've always wondered why most African countries still struggle to get by while the US - which started with nothing but a handful of colonists - is already considered a world power in such a short time.

Having said that, western scientists are already working on turning food into fuel while a lot of African people can barely scrape enough together to feed their families.

That's because the US has some pretty good natural resources and many of those colonists were ambitious entrepreneurs who were able to exploit natural resources well and create business empires without much internal competition. The US had a good head start in the prosperity factor.
Africa on the other hand was pretty much abused by the colonists, the gold went to the european powers and the only point it touched the hands of a native african was when they were being used to mine it. There are a few other factors but i'm feeling too lazy to go into them

Andeavor wrote:I've always wondered why most African countries still struggle to get by while the US - which started with nothing but a handful of colonists - is already considered a world power in such a short time.

Having said that, western scientists are already working on turning food into fuel while a lot of African people can barely scrape enough together to feed their families.

I watched a documentary that explained how the layout of the land contributed to how countires developed and what pace they did so. It explained in great depth why developing countires were behind others. There's too many factors to go into it here, but it started a long time before colonists.

One major factor is the type of soil and the weather conditions, which obviously gives rise to alot of varying resources. Perhaps the most scary thing about the programme was the projection of what will happen in the next thousand years. It basicly showed the decline of western 'superpower' and how third world countires would take their place in a natural progression.

Alot of it was down to natural climate change and how that effected crops and trade and economy. I was just a BBC documentary, so how accurate it was is obviously unknown, but interesting none the less.

Oh and the fuel thing. That really annoys me. The logic is backward... 'oh I know, we are finding oil and coal a bit hard to obtain, so we can't burn that anymore, I know lets burn somthing else instead, like food! AHUUR HUR.' Rinse, Repeat.

There are ways of having sustainable energy, but we insist on finding cheap immediate 'solutions' that in the long run aren't cost effective in anyway.

Recently I came across an article in the newspaper that spoke of how Amazon Kindle found a loophole by skipping the need of an App to offer their services through the iPhone's local browser. Already today, webmasters can customize the mobile version of their sites to allow the end-user to create a direct bookmark on the home screen with a custom icon to simulate the use of an App using the browser itself.

Now, this made me thinking... the internet is already used as a portal to access sites but if you can combine the web-technology with the tech available in a smartphone - given you can access them through the browser - combined with touch and voice-activated commands, you could re-invent the internet (re-inventernet!... lol) and make use of the environment or your voice to deliver exactly what you can.

Sorry if it's not that clear, I had a vision of a speculative future just now where one could access a company's website and speak to a virtual receptionist or assistant and have them use your computer's environmental and local sensors to help you with your request while talking to them - even dictating them to write a forum post in your desired language.

I'd love to have them reproduce Majel Barrett's voice for the computer, though.