The Year 2323

[Left Coast]

Let's imagine the year is 2323. 300 years from today.

How is the world different from today? Have we eradicated poverty and hunger? Are we living in a utopian paradise? Do robots provide all our wants and needs?

Have we annihilated ourselves in a nuclear holocaust or other disaster?

Have we discovered intelligent alien life? Are we living on other planets?

How has the political or religious landscape of society changed?

Share your thoughts!

 

[Heyo]

Let's imagine the year is 2323. 300 years from today.

How is the world different from today? Have we eradicated poverty and hunger? Are we living in a utopian paradise? Do robots provide all our wants and needs?

Have we annihilated ourselves in a nuclear holocaust or other disaster?

Have we discovered intelligent alien life? Are we living on other planets?

How has the political or religious landscape of society changed?

Share your thoughts!

Assuming climate change doesn't throw us back into the stone age, we will likely live better lives than today. Looking at the progress of homo sapience on the big scale, we have developed quite some culture. We have harnessed external power from animals, wind, water, chemicals and radioactive material (and it has become more and more). We raised the life expectancy. And we have become more moral, eliminating things like slavery and despotism - at least in some parts of the world.
Extrapolating long term trends I'd rather live in the future than at any time in the past.
But progress moves in waves, two steps forward and one step back. So, for short terms it may well be that tomorrow may be worse than yesterday. But 300 years is more on the long term scale. I expect life to be at least as much better than it is today compared to 1723. "At least" because progress is not linear but exponential.

 

[Sedim Haba]

 

[Secret Chief]

Biodiversity loss. Climate emergency. Burgeoning human population. Do these suggest a rosy future for life on Earth? Humans simultaneously treat the planet like it's a bottomless resource as well as a bottomless rubbish tip. Humans think the rest of the animal kingdom is nothing but another resource, subservient to the needs of humans. Covid and the Ukraine invasion has given a tiny glimpse of how interconnected all things are, both living and non-living. That disruption is as nothing compared to what the future holds, and I don't think you need to speculate as far as 300 years into the future to be seeing us pulling the fateful global Jenga piece out.

"The main direct cause of biodiversity loss is land use change (primarily for large-scale food production) which drives an estimated 30% of biodiversity decline globally. Second is overexploitation (overfishing, overhunting and overharvesting) for things like food, medicines and timber which drives around 20%. Climate change is the third most significant direct driver of biodiversity loss, which together with pollution accounts for 14%. Invasive alien species account for 11%."

- What is the human impact on biodiversity? | Royal Society


"Biodiversity is declining faster than at any time in human history. Since 1970, there has been on average almost a 70% decline in the populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians.
It is thought that one million animal and plant species - almost a quarter of the global total - are threatened with extinction."

- Biodiversity loss risks 'ecological meltdown' - scientists

 

[Estro Felino]

In my opinion we would be still dreaming about going to Mars....
That's the only thing I take for granted.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Let's imagine the year is 2323. 300 years from today.

How is the world different from today? Have we eradicated poverty and hunger? Are we living in a utopian paradise? Do robots provide all our wants and needs?

Have we annihilated ourselves in a nuclear holocaust or other disaster?

Have we discovered intelligent alien life? Are we living on other planets?

How has the political or religious landscape of society changed?

Share your thoughts!

Probably will be the same givin the human condition.

Thousands of years have proven to be consistent so far, I don't think 300 additional years will prove any less different although I do think it will be a very dystopian and restricted culture in the future.

 

[Mock Turtle]

I am not pessimistic by nature but given our history as the human race and as to what I have seen during my life - even with so much progress - I do doubt our future. I think we will either have been destroyed by some asteroid that evaded detection, and where we were too late in developing suitable defensive methods in time, or we will probably destroy ourselves in one or more nuclear wars. And there are other threats that might see us off. Given that the selfishness that pervades humanity is showing no signs of leaving us and many people are still as greedy and exploitative as ever, together with many having the same old dogmatic beliefs that tend to divide us. So, not too optimistic as to the future at all. And even if we do survive the threats cited, I can't see how we will develop into any reasonably self-sustaining and fairer world. Also, I doubt technology will save us.

 

[pearl]

Ben and Jerry's ice cream has answer to help the climate. It seem that milking cows 'burp' a gas dangerous to the climate.
They discovered by feeding cows red seaweed, it eliminates the dangerous element in the gas.

Ben & Jerry's Trying To Stop Its Cows Burping and Farting So Much

Bovine burps give off enormous amounts of the greenhouse gas methane every year, prompting environmental concern.

www.newsweek.com

 

[Truthseeker]

Let's imagine the year is 2323. 300 years from today.

Reminds me of an old song from my youth.

 

[Truthseeker]

Hey, no fair! You beat me to it.

 

[Mock Turtle]

This is worth a read:

Will Humans Ever Go Extinct?

It’s probably a matter of when and how, not if, we humans will meet our doom

www.scientificamerican.com

 

[ChristineM]

Chances are humanity will still exist probably in more sustainable numbers. Poverty will be optional for those who want to opt out.

The technology of 2320 would seem as magic to us. Other than that no prediction there except... energy

Transport, if not by magic (see above) will no doubt be powered by pollution free energy source, fusion comes mind.

Other sources of energy will be the same, including poweing the equipment that cleans up the atmospheric pollution of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Detecting alien life seems possible given the growing number of habitable exoplanets being discovered. Communication with that life seems impossible. Of the estimated 8.7 million species on our own planet there are only a small handful of other animals that we can communicate with (after years of experimentation and learning ). What chance an alien species.

There may be experimental bases on the moon and mars populated with scientists and engineers. Possible on one or two of the moons of the gas giants too.

I think the bigger religions will have waned, i believe Christianity has already started its decline. Of the remaining religions, including new ones there will be far fewer adherents.

As for politics, who knows? But i sure hope it does get it finger out and consider the big picture rather than the individual politicians and their party.

 

[Heyo]

There may be experimental bases on the moon and mars populated with scientists and engineers. Possible on one or two of the moons of the gas giants too.

With the magical technology from your second paragraph, I expect a lot more than experimental bases in 300 years.

 

[ChristineM]

With the magical technology from your second paragraph, I expect a lot more than experimental bases in 300 years.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C Clarke.

Depends what technology they use on those bases, technology to aid bone loss due to lower gravity would seem.like magic to todays people

 

[Left Coast]

With the magical technology from your second paragraph, I expect a lot more than experimental bases in 300 years.

Teleportation a la Star Trek?

 

[Heyo]

technology to aid bone loss due to lower gravity would seem.like magic to todays people

You could visit such a thing at a carnival. That technology existed 100 years ago.

 

[Heyo]

Teleportation a la Star Trek?

Very unlikely. Such a murder machine will be sci-fi, even in 300 years.

The Epstein drive from The Expanse otoh ...
Basically, fusion power. With that, sustained speed of 20% of c is possible. We could be at Proxima Centauri in 20 years.

 

[ChristineM]

You could visit such a thing at a carnival. That technology existed 100 years ago.

But you cannot play on one of them for 24 hours per day, 7 days a week 52 weeks per year.

And they did not have magic bone density woo back then

 

[Heyo]

But you cannot play on one of them for 24 hours per day, 7 days a week 52 weeks per year.

And they did not have magic bone density woo back then

It's not the ride, it's the technology on which the ride is based. It's called artificial gravity or spin gravity. There are minor problems when you have too small a radius but that is only a problem of size. You could have earth-like gravity on a Stanford Torus, 1 km radius, rotating at 1 rpm and the coriolis force would be negligible. The same would apply for a maglev train going round in circles on a body like the Moon or Mars.

In fact, we already have all the technology necessary to survive in space or on another planet. The only two problems are Earth's gravity and Earth's atmosphere. It simply is cost prohibitive to transport enough equipment into space from Earth.

That may change if we could get carbon nano tubes (or something even stronger) mass produced. Then we could build a space elevator which would bring cost down sufficiently.

 

[ChristineM]

Teleportation a la Star Trek?

It's here, well the beginnings are here

It's not the ride, it's the technology on which the ride is based. It's called artificial gravity or spin gravity. There are minor problems when you have too small a radius but that is only a problem of size. You could have earth-like gravity on a Stanford Torus, 1 km radius, rotating at 1 rpm and the coriolis force would be negligible. The same would apply for a maglev train going round in circles on a body like the Moon or Mars.

In fact, we already have all the technology necessary to survive in space or on another planet. The only two problems are Earth's gravity and Earth's atmosphere. It simply is cost prohibitive to transport enough equipment into space from Earth.

That may change if we could get carbon nano tubes (or something even stronger) mass produced. Then we could build a space elevator which would bring cost down sufficiently.

The power to turn a km radius habitat would be enormous, only the periphery would have the required gravity