01-12-2017, 05:23 PM
(01-12-2017, 01:57 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: All of this shit assumes a monotonic "improvement function" or "progress curve."
Then there is the black swan.
Something that rhymes with the Age of Migrations.
Automation?
Hell ... not if but when we hit the inevitable mother-of-all-curve-balls (or rather, it hits us), you'll be lucky to have running water, sewage / trash removal, electricity, gas, etc.
I've been trying to point out all the potential discontinuities, as opposed to linear extrapolations of current trends, over such a long time frame for a while now here, and people haven't been buying it. Like I said, I think it is pretty much faith-based at this point.
On the one hand you have peak oi, climate change, the potential for nuclear war, economic breakdown (whether globally or just in the US), etc.
On the other you have the Singularity (which I don't really buy into, but always a possibility), transhumanism, advances in genomics, etc.
The one thing we do know is that the mid-21st century is unlikely to be just 2016 with better stuff.