How do you envision the future of mankind? Will we become extinct due to our own actions or perhaps through some cosmic incident we cannot influence? Will we spread out into space? Will we forever remain bound to the flesh? Will we encounter otherworld civilizations? Will we discover beyond this Universe? I'm interested in all kinds of speculations, and I implore of you all to only answer what you think will happen and not what you think should happen - this is important, lest this turn into some clashing of ideals.
I will divide this question into 3 parts, close, intermediate and ultimate future. So please divide your answers in respect to the 3 parts, that are as following:
- Mankind 100 years from now.
- Mankind 10,000 years from now.
- Mankind's ultimate future.
This is for loose speculation, so anything is welcome, and as such please keep the refuting of the speculations of others to a minimum (though not totally void), thank you.
Well my guess for 100 years is not really too much different than today.
10,000 sound like alot, but it takes about 20,000 years for a group of people to establish inherited differences.
So there wont be any new skin colors or body types. But new languages can come about in less than 10,000.
As far as million plus, we have not been humans that long. So to me there is just not enough knowledge about our race to postulate that far into the future.
More later. :)
Mankind 100 years from now:
Quantum gravity is resolved, mankid has permanent colonies on Mars and mining stations on Phobos and Deimos. Multiverse is accepted worldwide.
Mankind 10,000 years from now:
A time of discovery. A new stage in our evolution. A revolution of prescience. New system of education. An avarage human has a knowledge compared to encyclopedia. The Union of Nations is formed. A single language, single state and single purpose is formed. A federation of planets rule our solar system. Teleportation is used connecting worlds saperated by great distance. Th egrowing understanding of humans that theyare a collective mind and share with eachother on many levels. Quantum computers are almost perfect computing in multiverse. First time machine is made.
Mankind's ultimate future:
In time galaxy belongs to humans. Humans are not humans anymore, higher ceatures. Long steps of evolution gave birth to a new entity. Many such entities would finally unite in purpose in of surviving while the universe is crunching more rapidly every day one. As they are getting closer to their final doom the capabilities grow exponencially as mass and density of the universes longs for maximum. In the end in just bits of moments before nonexistence it would possess eternity and become immortal.
I agree with what Humuncul said about 10,000 years from now. Except we will have way greater than an encyclopedia of information. Though I think Homuncul implied that. :)
I think in the next 100 years we will probably have some way of having chip implants or some type of "download" of knowledge to the brain. University education the "slow" way (studying hard) will be known as primitive. Since you could just interface with a chip containing heaps of knowledge.
In the future, you will probably see people having babies with specially selected genes. This will continue until we have "A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley" type of system. Where people are cloned and have their future (social class) decided for them.
Man will also go to Mars around the same time or a bit before China reaches the moon to prove to the world they are better. If that even makes sense.
Also, NSync will be wiped from the history books, and the clothes I am wearing may come back into fashion (if they ever were). The Simpsons will also be in its 110th season. :)
In the future, you will probably see people having babies with specially selected genes. This will continue until we have "A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley" type of system. Where people are cloned and have their future (social class) decided for them.
Or we 'd be in some selection program like in Frank Herberts Dune, or like in the movie Gattaca. Either way we would be modifyed from birth yo fit the "new society". Or we could be cured with some ORMI's which's now viewed by some scientists as the cure for everything.
Mankind 100 years from now:
Nothing has really changed
Mankind 10.000 years from now:
We will go explore other galaxies and hope to incounter other inteligent life.
Mankind "Like one zillion years from now":
No clue....
Within a "few" million years, it seems a major asteroid impact is inevitable (we've been lucky so far). One of those could easily wipe us out, as it did the Dinosaurs (as we popularly theorize).
If we can "branch out" with self sustaining colonies outside the earth, we may have a chance to survive that. The more "backup" populations we have, the greater our chances of survival.
The Sun will destroy the earth in roughly 5 billion years (as estimates go) which is a danged long time for a species, but if we were really gung ho about survival, our eventual goal would be to move out of the solar system (or to the outer planets, although they are not that hospitable of course).
That is of course assuming we don't destroy ourselves in a nuclear holocaust or plague.
Of course the greatest disasters in human history have been survived by at least some (the Black Plague, smallpox, the "evil dictator syndrome" of the 20th century), so perhaps some people would survive even something like that.
That's not to say we won't get lucky every time, so best to plan ahead. Now our advances in ways to destroy ourselves in the last 200 years have been incredible, so we have to do something about that. ; p
I don't know about the future. Remember all those sci fi comics and novels and movies about how we'd be flying space cars by the year 2000? Many also predicted WW3 (a nuclear war) before the 21st century (Star Trek among them, although they changed the history of Trek and moved it into the mid-21st century when TNG came out). Things change too much to predict accurately. I would hazard that in 10,000 years we might have human interstellar travel (if we're still around), but that's just a "safe guess" to me.
Just think of how different we are now from mankind 10,000 years ago. But also think about how much we are the same/similar. Most of our problems are still with us, just in slightly altered form.
if we ever manage to leave the earth (because we have to as it was said before) my question is .. what will happen to other species of earth because we will take some of them with us .. the one or the other way .. i am sure we cannot avoid to leave any bacteriums somewhere or if we ever build big "worldspaceships" we will take aboard. imagine just the possibilities for insects on other planets.. etc ..
If some humans left earth and started colonies elsewhere, and the two populations were isolated long enough (millions of years) we could evolve into different species.
Think of that!
(not saying that's a good thing, but it might happen given enough time and differing environments)
yes that may happen and i dont think it would be a "bad" thing because it would be "life" that happens ..
hopefully .. we will have solved problems like racism if the time has come..
but i am sure we will.. we are spacehumans then!
If there are settlements on planets other than earth, of course evolution will be involved. I am sure in 100 years from now we will no longer have an ozone layer or anything else to protect us from the suns deadly, deadly rays, so the people still on earth will evolve too. We will no longer be the handsome people we are today. I also think in the far future, death at 100 years old will be considered 'a young age to die' given that medicine will be so advanced. Cancer and SARS will be just a minor threat that could be treated with a vaccine. Of course new diseases will arise, but stuff like that is unpredictable.
I don't think mankind will exist in a million years from now...or even 10,000. Either humans are going to "nuke" themselves off the planet or an asteroid will hit and wipe us all out. Maybe the sun will give out. It doesn't have to be in 5 billion years. The sun's core could lose heat and die, freezing all the planets in our solar system in minutes. Or maybe a star that we dont know about in the milkey way is just starting its death cycle and turning into a black hole, waiting to suck us all in!!!!!! But i'm getting off topic, now aren't I?
Hovercars, lots of hovercars(i can see the commercials now). Regular humans will be traveling through space, going to other solar systems, planets, etc. I belive we will have also come into contact with life on other planets(aliens?). The newest computers today will be considered "dinosaurs" and we will be using virtual reality to play Jedi Knight 1,428: Desann returns.
eh, thats all i got today, I'll think of other stuff later
I think that in 100 years either the united states or multiple countries in the Middle East will be almost destroyed, and there will be drastic change in the world's economy.
In 10, 000 years who knows? the ozone layer will definately be destroyed by then, we might be on different planets, or we might all just die on earth. Or maybe robots have taken over and we are all plugged into a computer program that simulates reality.....
Mankind will definately be wiped out eventually, by themselves, or by a natural disaster(asteroid, the sun goes supernova???). I think that colonies on Mars will eventually be attempted, but if they suceed, us in the present will probably never know.
I'll be surprised if we don't get extinct in the next 100 years. It's already starting imho.