What is the best case prediction for the future?

What is a best/good case scenario for the future? Yes, this is a broad question.

For instance, the world's population could be argued to be overpopulated or soon will be. A straight line forecast would show something that the Earth can't support at some point. Yet, as populations become more economically well off (as they move into the middle class) their population growth rate tends to slow down.

China's population has had significant gains in recent years. India will probably follow. You could imagine a scenario where the same trends have similar effects in Africa.

It is possible that prosperity eventually helps to solve the over-population problem.

Advances in nuclear power (fission) to say nothing about possible advancements in fusion power could stabilize climate change issues.

Automation could result in economic gains sufficient to just pay unneeded "workers" to stay home.

We all know the worst case scenarios for the future. They may be the more likely outcomes or they may not be but they still must be considered of course.

I'm interested to hear what the more positive scenarios are in your opinion (with some basis for them of course).

 

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Robots will take over most jobs leaving folk free to indulge in their favorites pastimes, goods will be 3d printed to your specific design, the oceans will be farmed to produce and abundance of foods, life expectancy will double and disease and illness will be non existent, good education will be universal and superstition will die out, wars only read about in history books, and government in the form of a world wide forum and direction determined by a super computer programmed only to endorse only non harmful benefitial programs and there will be no jail's because everyone suffer no mental illness, greed or are screwed from terrible childhoods and crime just does not happen.. money will cease to exist because production of food and goods will be such that there will be no need to use money to determine distribution of resources. Energy will come from steam from pipes that reach so far into the Earth energy will become free in effect. Humans will learn how to grow wings so travel will be free, pleasant and non polluting.
All will be equal due to better health and money being unnecessary folk will only go to work because they enjoy it or are bored.
Alex

 

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There will probably always be money and poor people.

Your idea sounds like a fantasy world utopia of some sort.

But the overwhelming evidence shows that utopias simply don't work in the real world that we live in.

 

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You are correct but it will all change in the future when we shake off superstition and escape the prison of religion...when religion stops wasting resources there will be money for everyone....at least we should try and escape and only then can we calculate the absolute drain superstition is on humanity.
Alex

 

I don't think religion has much control over resources. Soviet Union was a god example.

 

I think he was trying to respond to the OP and except for the bit about growing wings

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I think he did a good job.

 

Any "best/good case scenario" for the human condition itself would be short-lived even if it emerged. If progress continues without apocalyptic events, we eventually replace ourselves in the course of transhumanism. If we instead terminate progress in an extremist Neo-Luddism or anarcho-primitivism vein, then we'll return to the limitations of earlier ages and still encounter our demise by global-wide natural calamities (including asteroid impact). Our end is inevitable, so therefore moving beyond this fleeting human condition to "what's best" in terms our leaving an effect and enduring legacy on this neighborhood of the cosmos (how we could collectively ever matter in the long run)...

A significant impact and enduring, diasporic contribution to the galaxy that humans can make is introducing technological life that is spacefaring and migratory. That both guided and feral machine organisms might exploit the resources of barren planetary systems to replicate, in a constructive feedback way, isn't much different than biological life having utilized Earth for ages. Which tree-hugging nature cults worship as "the norm" anyway, before people had the gall to come along and disrupt the process. There's no omnipresent mind observing, judging and dictating what's ethical one way or another -- the cosmos doesn't even possess an indifferent cognitive orientation about what happens in it.

The universe at large lacks consciousness -- or presentation, understanding, and verification of itself existing as anything. Conversion of quantum field[*] states into everyday phenomena like tables, chairs, trees, rocks, etc only happens in the manifestations and conceptual rational activity of brains or their equivalent post-biological counterparts of the future. Thus some attempt must be made to ensure that the various instantiations and categories of technological life that leave Earth either also possess the fullness of perceptual capacity (as well as intelligence) or can develop toward it (post-biological evolution).

- - - footnote - - -

[*] Or any other theoretical model selection of what the "world is like" outside the head, in the context of scientific realism. They're all weird or alien to the commonsense mental representation of be-ing.

 

IGY:

==================
This dream's in sight
You've got to admit it
At this point in time that it's clear
The future looks bright

On that train all graphite and glitter
Undersea by rail
Ninety minutes from New York to Paris
Well by seventy-six we'll be AOK.

What a beautiful world this will be
What a glorious time to be free

Get your ticket to that wheel in space while there's time
The fix is in
You'll be a witness to that game of chance in the sky
You know we've got to win

Here at home we'll play in the city
Powered by the sun
Perfect weather for a streamlined world
There'll be spandex jackets one for everyone

What a beautiful world this will be
What a glorious time to be free

On that train all graphite and glitter
Undersea by rail
Ninety minutes from New York to Paris
(More leisure time for artists everywhere)

Just machines to make big decisions
Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision
We'll be clean when their work is done
We'll be eternally free yes and eternally young

What a beautiful world this will be
What a glorious time to be free
======================

 

Humanity becomes insufficient in maintaining the world and the advance races that have been guiding humanity for millennium from shadows decides that only way humanity and other species can survive is under their guides. The movie ends with giant space ships coming out of thin space.....
And the alien says, fear not us but urself. I the god of ur creation will guide u from now. The screen fades into black and leave the audience into deciding multiple endings. For me freedom is 2nd most precious existence. So i will be wondering if we will ever see freedom and it be different for each person. The most good direction would be to build up the intensity of emotion so, we can have the explosion at the end. For such movie, multiple character with good background is needed so each person can relate and question our way of living selfishly.

 

I think that AI and additional social media platforms will continue to progress, but not necessarily “take over.” Amazon will be the gold standard for shopping and business, in general. Good and bad with their business model, though. That said, existential melt downs will be on the rise (as they are now) with more people addicted to prescription drugs, trying to keep up with the faster demands of the average consumer. Trying to keep their jobs ...trying to “be happy,” and realizing that happiness doesn’t come from acquiring more but in appreciating what one has, already.

Spirituality will be on the rise and by that I mean yoga, meditation, and even organized religion, as people try to find their center in a world that is pressuring them to compete, and endlessly multitask.

 

Maybe spirituality will be on the decline as people refuse to compete and decide to just enjoy a simpler life.

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Or maybe a simpler life will do away with the meaning of spirituality or the need for it. Living a fulfilling life or living in the moment may do away with the need for spirituality.

 

Lol Maybe. We will have to wait and see.

So if you could be frozen right now and revived 500 years from now, would you do it? That might be cool to be “yourself” but live in an entirely new era.

 

It might be "cool" to be "frozen"?

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No, I don't want to be frozen right now. If you can freeze me when I die and still figure out how to "revive" me in 500 years, sure.

It would be great to lecture people in 500 years about what life was like 500 years ago.

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The UN's 2019 median population trend chart shows a world population stabilising at about 12bn, around 2100 or just after: https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/900

For sure it will not be a straight line. It will level off, for the reasons you give. The question is at what rate.

 

At the time it becomes an overwhelming problem (perhaps) for India, it still won't be a problem for Montana. Some places will be hit hard and other places will learn from it before it's too late, I would think.

 

Probably true. Though climate change may by then have caused a lot of mass migration in unpredictable ways.

 

Best ideal case or best realistic case? Those are two different things.

Frankly, it's hard for me to imagine an ideal case. Perfection would seem to have too many downsides, making it almost self-contradictory.

One can imagine living a live of absolute non-stop neurochemical bliss. Except that achieving that would probably halt all creativity, discovery and innovation. Everyone would just turn into blobs on their couches, effectively drug addicts. Not so great after all.

One can imagine medical science curing aging and most natural causes of death. But indefinite lifespans might not turn out to be a blessing. Especially if only a wealthy (in the West) or politically connected (in places like China) elite can afford the immortality treatments while everyone else dies around them (and know that they have been deemed the expendable ones).

If everyone became immortal, then childbirth would pretty much have to cease. We would lose babies and new personalities.

A world where all work is done by robots (except governing, presumably) threatens to leave everyone who isn't a governor aimless, without much purpose in their lives, and essentially a public assistance recipient dependent on the largess of those who run things and control all the robots. (Whether human or AI.) Throughout history, people have formed their self-image, identity and their meaning in life in some large part by what they do. If everyone is doing... nothing... what replaces it? Is it realistic to imagine a population where everyone is an artist or a philosopher, supposedly pursuing the "higher things"? (Can those functions be automated too, just like ruling probably can?)

And whatever we do, we are still going to bang up against the reality of human nature. People get angry, they form resentments, they have biases, they get manipulative, they form into 'us' and 'them' groups, they compete and they covet. So whatever social ills that these kind of psychological faults cause (assuming they are faults) they will persist in pretty much any foreseeable future. At least as long as human beings remain human.

 

I was thinking more or less along the lines of a best realistic case.

Robots aren't going to take over everything but I can see them taking over the more mundane jobs. Maybe most people work from their 20's until age 40. Anyone who doesn't have the aptitude for the non-mundane, doesn't have to work.

When people aren't working, whatever their age, I don't see this as a problem. Today people don't work on the weekends or after they retire and yet they still find plenty to do.

For anyone who wants to work their entire life, that can still be done. There just won't be as many people trapping in a cubicle for 45 years just because they need the money to survive.

 

best case for the future
imho
would be that the earth warms enough to melt the ice caps, and we exit this ice age.
caveat
If human activity causes the melting of the ice caps, this does not mean that we are exiting this ice age. And, the killer glaciers will come back causing famine, and disease, and war and death(of billions of your fellow human beings).---(worst case)
meanwhile
a warming to the norm during mis 11
would mean a forested arctic shore = more oxygen for your breathing pleasure, and much more arable land for your dining pleasure.

 

...with the added bonus that Mar-a-Largo could be the new Atlantis.

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