The Future

[Deepwater6]

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130102-tomorrows-world

This look right to anyone?

 

A true world government that quick? Don't think so.

[pgrmdave]

I think they put the singularity too far out, though to be fair they don't define "intelligence" which is a big difficulty with the AI community. Also cars being automated will happen much sooner than 25 years out (though it's possible that it takes that long before 90%+ of cars on the road are automated).

[HydrogenBond]

Machines can become prosthesis for the mind and the body, with these prosthesis able to atrophy the mind and body. As technology gets better and better,natural humans skills get worse and worse until the two meet.

 

For example, say science developed artificial legs, that you wear, that allows you to run and walk tirelessly, at a very fast pace. This tool would be intoxicating (run the marathon in one hour). But in the long run, it will also cause the muscles of the legs to weaken, since they are less needed. As technology gets better and more common, the natural legs will get skinny and weak, until one can no longer walk on their own; machines need to take over. The same is true of the things of the mind and brain, with the weakening of the brain, due to the assistance of prosthesis, helping to make machines that think for you, able to take over. 

 

The machines don't really have to advance that far, if the natural human is also atrophying. As a modern example, how many people would make a cross country road trip in a car without a cell phone? Even 10-20 years ago everyone would do this, because the cell phone was not yet there to make you feel secure. This dumbing down, via tech, makes it easier to reach the singularity. The singularity would be delayed if people went retro and practiced the old skills, to cancel out the prosthetic need of machines. The machine would need to get even better, before they could exceed a  higher human potential baseline. 

 

I like to travel in a car, without a cell phone, to enjoy the adventure. When I travel without a cell phone there is a lot of peer pressure to take one alone, due to hypothetical doom and gloom scenarios. Those who would need the machine, who will try to get me to conform to the machine. I can see a scenario, of a point being reached where weakest declining humans reach thee singularity first. These humans will use peep pressure to persecute those whom the machines cannot dominate. 

 

A world government is one way to force the self reliant to conform, via a massive purge of the self reliance, so there is a drone state. Big government will know better, when I  travel, until all have to  dumb down under the thumb of the singularity. They would force me to use a cell phone to appease the fear of the mob. Lack of centralized power will delay it longer. Not all nations will think big mother knows best, allowing those who delay their singularity, to reach out to others. 

 

Powers like to control and dumb down with dependency. Forced medical care is dumbinh down the body to natural healing, so machines/medication can takes over the direction of health, until all are addicted and few can stand alone. Without the force of government more would ignore these medication and machines so these need to advanced even further to get them hooked. 

Edited March 19, 2015 by HydrogenBond

[Deepwater6]

I understand a new world order is a great way for the US to spread its imperialistic goals, but I see problems with it. Right now America has the money and resources and because of that the US wields immense power. This lets it get away with just about anything it wants in UN. 

 

In the future this power will be more evenly shared by all nations. If Americans would have to abide by rules set by a world government then......? Can you imagine a UN with true power over all countries? People being mandated to obey laws they feel have been created by foreign representatives?

 

Its true, a world government would help purge self reliance, but as it becomes "real" in the far future, America probably won't be the beneficiary of it forever. There are many people on the planet with greater needs than Americans. A real government in the future would act to raise the standard of living for everyone. That would entail spreading world resources to help the less fortunate. For this reason I'm surprised the US would pursue a NWO. America may not hold all the puppet strings in the future.  

[CraigD]

The Jan 2013 BBC.com article would have been better had it had hyperlinks to the speculation it summarized – ironically for a diagram about the future, its technology wouldn’t have seemed out of place 100 years ago. :)

 

What seemed most conspicuously absent from it were catastrophically bad things like population-reducing disease pandemics or all-out nuclear wars. 40 years ago, many odd makers would have given such catastrophes high probabilities, and while public worry about them have arguably decreased, the factors that enable them, competitive nationalism and many nuclear weapons, have been only slightly lessened.

 

I think the likelihood of a true world government - by which I mean a representational governing body including all the people of the world with roughly the relative power over smaller governing bodies and individuals as the US federal government has over the individual US states and People - is strongly linked to terrible wars. False/failed world governments the League of Nations was formed in 1920 in reaction to WW I, the United Nations in 1945 in reaction to WW II. I suspect that another attempt at a true world government will likewise be in reaction to a terrible war.

 

On a lighter note, I hope that affordable personal “flying cars” like the never-completed Trek Aerospace DragonFly is in my future. :)

[Buffy]

A remarkable amount of incoherent blathering about the evils of government was moved from this thread to the Silly Claims Forum, and can now be found here, if one really want's to waste one's time. tl;dr

 

 

Are not half our lives spent in reproaches for foregone actions, of the true nature and consequences of which we were wholly ignorant at the time? :phones:

Buffy

 

Another off-topic post has been moved to this political science thread

- CraigD

[HydrogenBond]

Government is not evil, rather certain forms of government are wasteful and self serving. I was contrasting the current America Government, with a better form of government. 

 

If you look at partisan politics, for example in American Government, half the people are served, at the expense of the other half who are left unsatisfied. For example, a health care system that could have served all would have been a system that serves the uninsured, but leaves the rest of the system, that was working, alone.

 

But instead big government power and parasite model becomes the way. It was not about serving all the people, but one side at the expense of the other, leaving an inefficient system in place 60% of the people don't want. Partisan politics is as much about sticking to the other guy as benefits for your own. The reason is lack of efficiency in ideas and actions does not allow for both. 

Edited April 11, 2015 by HydrogenBond

[Moontanman]

The Jan 2013 BBC.com article would have been better had it had hyperlinks to the speculation it summarized – ironically for a diagram about the future, its technology wouldn’t have seemed out of place 100 years ago. :)

 

What seemed most conspicuously absent from it were catastrophically bad things like population-reducing disease pandemics or all-out nuclear wars. 40 years ago, many odd makers would have given such catastrophes high probabilities, and while public worry about them have arguably decreased, the factors that enable them, competitive nationalism and many nuclear weapons, have been only slightly lessened.

 

I think the likelihood of a true world government - by which I mean a representational governing body including all the people of the world with roughly the relative power over smaller governing bodies and individuals as the US federal government has over the individual US states and People - is strongly linked to terrible wars. False/failed world governments the League of Nations was formed in 1920 in reaction to WW I, the United Nations in 1945 in reaction to WW II. I suspect that another attempt at a true world government will likewise be in reaction to a terrible war.

 

On a lighter note, I hope that affordable personal “flying cars” like the never-completed Trek Aerospace DragonFly is in my future. :)

 

 

Oh yes, I want one of them! 

[Deepwater6]

I put "the future" into the search and came upon the website. http://www.wfs.org/

I just scanned over it, but it looked interesting and I was unaware futurist were so organized.

Craig, I would hope it doesn't come down to a third and possibly more wars in the future to get everyone on the planet equally represented. The fact is regardless of good relations between former cold war foes we still have those weapons, and as you said the chances of something happening has not dramatically decreased.

I get the feeling that even if the world came together in one world government they would extremely reticent to give up their nukes if asked. More concerning yet is the weapons that could be created before that all comes together. Even the near future holds military secret weapons that if deployed could change our whole society.

I always pay particular attention to sci-fi movies of the future. I like to see what the director envisions for hundreds of years from now. Will we ever build a ship like Prometheus? What will happen if computers become self-aware as in the terminator movies.

On a lighter note in the movie "The Fifth Element" There are scenes of flying cars through a busy city of the future. All cars seemed to moving in a East or West direction. Willis, trying to outrun the police decides to dive downward through the horizontal traffic patterns to escape. It had me thinking if we ever got to that point, what would be the best grid pattern for flying cars? What would be the safest and logical rules of the road for that scenario?