In one's own opinion, what is the most realistic depiction of humanity's future.

What is the most realistic depiction, simple enough question. Any media of any genre really.

 

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Any fairly accurate historical drama. Technology will change dramatically, but people won't. Thus you'll see more of the same.

 

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I expected an answer like that, seems to be all I ever see here. Alright, most realistic and likely depiction of humanity's future in fiction. For instance I think Halo is a relatively realistic and plausible depiction of the future but I think that The Fifth Element is not so much likely.

 

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masses of humanity tend to grow slowly, technology may advance very quickly but the crowd mentality won't really ever change, I think 5th element is very possible. I say this because our population growth is out of control and we're going to have to keep building up as we take up more planetary space for our own species. I actually like the thought of a fifth element future

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Technically advanced monkeys (primates) will develop warp-drive technology, cross the galaxy, and study life on other planets. We are those technically advanced monkeys.

 

Actually as far as realistic futures: Firefy/Serenity is the most likely. Starship Troopers (the novel) is also likely, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a good one, Running Man is scarily realistic, the least likely Star Trek.

 

Walter M. Miller, Jr.: A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959)

 

I second "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", although (obviously) it's confined to the Moon and her bid for independence. And "The Running Man" could also become increasingly true.

Regarding the advance of technology (cybernetics, mind-uploading, the Singularity, etc.) I can't distinguish between the realistic and the unrealistic, but I'd suggest some of Greg Egan's stuff, e.g. "Permutation City", for good hard-SF predictions.

It's easier to envisage a future where civilisation has collapsed, but I must say I didn't rate "A Canticle for Leibowitz". Two novels that spring to mind here are "Alas Babylon" and "Earth Abides", the latter of which was very similar indeed to a recent documentary about what would happen if human beings disappeared overnight.

 

When the super artilects evolve from our quantum supercomputers, we'll all become slaves to them like in Colossus. Or perhaps even worse, like in the Matrix.


http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/18/co...artificial-intelligence-09-hugo-de-garis.html

 

The most realistic prediction is that scientific evidence of life after death will emerge...transforming the entire ethos of mankind.

A new vision of economics will also arise...what I call 'qualitative economics', as opposed to 'quantitative economics'.

We have been living for over a century in what Rene Guenon described as 'The Reign of Quantity'.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Reign-Quantity-Signs-Times/dp/0900588675

 

Technology is useful because it compensates for human weakness. If we had to dig a deep hole with only a shovel, this will be hard for most people not used to physical work. But if we invent a remote control back-hoe, now anyone can dig, including those in a whell chair. This does not change the underlying natural humans, but only extends his/her surface, through prosthesis.

If the remote control gets lost, then we are back to where we were before technology, with only a few hardy men and women able to do the hard work of digging the hole. The human never changed. The concept of technically advanced monkeys applies since although moneys can copy (monkey see and monkey do) if the tech is gone, they are back to being only monkeys but with nothing good to copy to appear more than they are.

Say the technology advances, so all the monkeys appear almost human. This appearance is all on the surface. Under all that technical facade, we still have only monkeys. This can lead to future problems, since the foundation is too weak. We may decide to give them the right to vote since they look almost human. But that is all an illusion. The logical approach would be to spend more time working on the foundation, so it can support the future weight of the surface created by technology.

The current fascination with zombies in movies and games symbolizes brain head humans that only operate using base instinct; liberalism. They eat the flesh of the living via high taxes. The self reliant are always at risk and if bitten by the brain dead become one of the walking dead, also. The zombies appeared because of some advanced technology.

The future will need to get beyond human zombies, by evolving these zombies back to human. One of the downsides of technology, is the prosthesis can make it unnecessary to use our natural human abilities, so that this begin to atrophy. If we all have the remote control backhoe, even the strong men and women, who used to be able to dig the hole, will get out of shape, since the new way does not need this ability, since it is designed for the paralyzed.

The future, may be one were the biological human foundation goes through growing pains, so the monkey under the technology is better prepared to deal with the next generation of technology. This next generation could turn the zombies into something worse; apocalyptic. Picture if the zombies had specials cars to drive and weapons they can fire. Now the remaining humans would not be able to fight off the zombies, until there are only zombies.

 

So machines that we construct extend our abilities, OK

WTF are you talking about?

Again I say WTF. So your point is that we should not educate monkeys on the use of technology.

Uh, WTF? So people with a liberal lean are zombies and conservatives must be what; angels, gods, saints...

Zombies would be great at digging holes! You could pay them by feeding them the human conservatives that aren't radical enough for you.

I don't think technologically advanced monkeys with an army of zombies in special cars is a very likely future. I think you have completely lost it.

 

"Children of Men" was very good.

 

Ongoing.

 

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First book that came to my mind when I read the question.

 

A Future?

A future for humankind?

In their last books, Carl Sagan( Demon Haunted World? ) and Bucky Fuller( Cosmography ) both had dark/dim view--- in opening or closing summation sentence ---of humanities future.

I know Bucky was optimistic in other of his books. Don't know about Carls other books. There is limit to resources available on Earth and even if we mastered solar energy, there still only a finite amount of energy coming from sun.

harvesting hydrogen from space is long ways away. Much longer than impending crunch/impact of 6 billion people and growing are having on the ecological environment that sustains us all.

There are the ignorant/uninformed.

There are those are informed but in denial.\

There are those informed and saddened by such knowledge.

There are those informed, saddened and with hope and optimistic faith for humanities survival, but probably not thriving, after some--- not so far away ---future date.

Sure, we may get into mass conversion of the oceans salt water to get our ever decreasing fresh water.

And the list of pros and cons goes on and on.

r6

r6

 

Margaret Atwood: 'Oryx and Crake'.

 

Not a bad assesment, though not encouraging for mankind. My view is that there are a few ways that mankind could survive earth's final cataclysms. We could escape into space and hope for the best, we could send our DNA into space and hope for the best, we could harness unlimited free energy and extend the hospitability of the earth for some time while we work on our escape and hope for the best, or some alien life form could pass by and help us solve our survivability issue by blasting us with a kill ray, yikes.