Thoughts for the Future

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Introduction

('Today (September 2009) as we watch the news on TV there is little to be happy about. Looking ahead a few years, things look even grimer. Maybe it would be useful to look ahead 100 or 1000 years. The accumulation of knowlege is increasing at an exponential rate. Population is out of control. Consumption of resources is rampant. Mankind has still not demonstrated significant capability to manage himself. Sooner or later, human population size will be managed. Longer life will be traded for stamina and genetic diversity. Old age diseases will not be a threat. Gorvernmet will be accomplished by a super-intelligent network of computers, a Post Human Entity(PHE). Initially, domesticated homo sapiens (HS) will be protected by the PHE to accomplish maintenance tasks which are otherwise impossible. HS will also provide a rebooting capability in case the PHE is seriously disabled by a catastrophy. Without marketing, needs will be minimized. Transportation by electro-magnetic radiation. Freight movement minimized. People stay where the food is. Little manufacturing required. Products will be built to last. Everything will be designed to be repaired or recycled. With low birth rate, need for new goods will be minimized. Cost of health care will be minimal since most health problems will be solved. A goal of the PHE will be extraterrrientrial communication, exploration and colonization.',)

Post Human Entity (PHE)

The Post Human is a very difficult concept to grasp at this time. Extrapolating into the future a decade is very difficult, any further is guesswork.

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Technological Singularity

Say a few words here.

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Biodiversity

Biodiversity supports a number of natural ecosystem processes and services. Some ecosystem services that benefit society are air quality, climate (both global CO2 sequestration and local), water purification, disease control, biological pest control, pollination and prevention of erosion. Biodiversity is also believed to create stability in ecosystems, allowing these ecosystems to continue providing services in the face of disturbances. Biodiversity is being devastated by the world population increase since the Industrial Revolution began less than two hundred years ago; the population is 13 times as great as it was then with 6.7 billion now and 0.5 billion people in 1850. To feed such a large population, more land is being transformed from wilderness with wildlife into agricultural, mining, lumbering, and urban areas for humans. Possibly worse than the loss of habitat for wildlife is the large amount of pesticide used to protect human foods grown; most bird species may disappear within 100 years and when they go the trees and plants they protect, by eating insects to stop mass infestation, may be devastated and destroyed. Loss of forests would in turn lead to mass erosion, mass flooding, loss of oxygen in our atmosphere, and more that can not be predicted with our present knowledge. Non-material benefits that are obtained from ecosystems include spiritual and aesthetic values, knowledge systems and the value of education. Biodiversity is also central to an ecocentric philosophy.

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Catastrophes

Where did the population go? Genocide, Warfare, earthquake, volcano, pandemic, interplanetary impact.

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Communication

Communication speed, bandwidth, utilization. By 2015 bandwidth will have increased enormously due to fiber optics and spread-spectrum radio. The utilization of communication will change away from entertainment to exploration and health maintenance.

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Conclusions

Humans have a poor record of handling global problems. There are many reasons to be optimistic. The PHE will maintain the human species as long as it can but sooner or later we will cease to exist, probably due to some unavoidable geophysical or astronomic catastrophe. With luck, the PHE will carry our intellect beyond earth and possibly beyond the solar system. The future is unpredictable.

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Conflict

Major conflicts consume lives and material resources. The loss of lives has not reduced the global population but certainly reduces the quality of life. War does not seem to improve the distribution of wealth. Eventually the PHE will surpress all warfare with the possible exception of controlled experiments.

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Genetics

Great progres is being made in the science of genetics

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Government

2020 	Almost all overt tyranny has been eliminated.
A world governed by an intelligent network. Humans could provide intellectual input but would have lost control due to their inability to keep up with the challenges.

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Health

The criteria for health care will have changed. There will be more emphasis on genetic diversity and quality of life and less on longevity.

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Intelligent Agents

Individual human intelligence does not seem to have increased much over history. We still haven't learned that war is not the answer. Collectively we have meen accumulating knowledge. With the development of digital computers and related electronics and communication technology, the development of artificial intelligence is becoming a reality. Eventually, people will be replaced by intellignent machines as the responsible entities on earth. Our inadequate attempts at organization will be replace by a world order administered by computers.

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Industry

The nature of industry will change to meet the goals of the global population.

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Judiciary

The judiciary forms a system of courts which interprets the law in the name of the sovereign or state. The judiciary also provides a mechanism for the resolution of disputes. Under the doctrine of the separation of powers, the judiciary can never make or enforce law, that being the realm of the legislative and executive branches respectively, but rather, if there is a dispute, it interprets and applies the law to the facts of each case.

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Knowledge

Today (2009) the accumulation of knowlege is increasing at an exponential rate. A knowledge revolution is taking place now.

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Language

2010 Automatic translators allow monolingual humans to converse with any speaker of any major human language. After learning to communicate in all human natural languages, the PHE will learn to communicate directly with flora and fauna. It will thus be enable inter-species communication.

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Marketing

De-emphasize pursuading people that they need products.

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Motivation

Self preservation, exploration, stability, curiosity, conservation.

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Organization

How will the global intelligence be organized? The global intelligence will probably be organized as a hierarchy of committees humans and artificial intelligent entities. Each human will have direct interactive access to the PHE so she can discuss her position.

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Population

The current population is about 6.7 billion. Certainly, in 1000 years, a means will have been found to establish control of the population at a reasonable level. I propose a target for stable world population in the year 3000 of 1 billion persons.

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Space Exploration

A primary motivation will be space exploration.

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Survival

Survival of cultures, systems, species, ideas

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Timeline

The following timeline is from http: //humanknowledge.net/Thoughts.html#Timeline with notes by JMH.

2010 	Automatic translators allow monolingual humans to
        converse with any speaker of any major human language.
2015 	Bandwidth has increased enormously due to fiber optics
        and spread-spectrum radio.
2020 	Almost all overt tyranny has been eliminated.
        Physicists have confirmed that the fate of the universe
        is asymptotic expansion.
        Most text, images, audio, and video is produced and
        consumed digitally.
        Unauthorized reproduction and distribution of such
        media is routine.
        1st Martian sample return has revealed no conclusive
        fossil evidence of life.
2030 	20% of former fideists have become mystics.
        Radio astronomers have discovered signals from
        extraterrestrial intelligence.
        Computer display technology plateaus with cheap flat
        panels and retinal projectors.
2040 	Physicists have completed a quantum unification theory.
        Personal bodily flight has become commercialized.
        Transonic flight still serves just a few
        intercontinental routes.
2050 	Molecular biologists have detailed description of how
        life on Earth began.
        Computing is limited not by processing, storage, or
        bandwidth but by heat, latency, and batteries.
        Fresh water availability is now limited only by
        energy costs of transportation and desalinization.
        Automated vehicle/traffic control gives rail-like
        traffic flow to roads.
        Privacy is curtailed by commercial availability of
        mobile remote-controlled microsensors.
2075 	Physicists have reached limits of knowing why
        fundamental physical laws are as they are.
        Hydrogen fuel cells are replacing internal combustion
        of fossil fuels.
        VTOL aircraft are as widely owned as RVs in 2000.
2100 	Expected and maximum human longevity have increased
        by 30 years.
        Humans are able to record and archive all they ever
        see, hear, and say.
        Most of humanity is using a common currency descended
        from the American dollar.
        Unmanned radio observatory has been established on
        far side of moon.
2150 	Remaining fideisms have diluted into agnostic
        mysticism; true fideists dwindle.
        Fusion provides major parts of humanity's power.
        Most psychotropic drugs are legal; addiction is
        prevented neurochemically.
2200 	Permanent manned space stations in Earth orbit have
        been established.
        1st artifactual life and artificial intelligence
        systems have been created and enfranchised.
        Obesity and other nutritional diseases are curable.
2300 	1st Von Neumann probes have been dispatched from Earth.
        Most genetic, infectious, immunological, and
        cancerous disease is preventable or curable.
        Most of humanity enjoys Western standards of living
        and productivity. 
        Earth's population has stabilized at around 20 billion.
        The workweek has stabilized at around 20 hours.
2400 	Extropian positivism has displaced most other belief
        systems.
2500 	Heat pollution has become the last significant
        environmental problem.
        A truly global federal government exists.
2880 	Asteroid 1950DA (1km wide) has a 1/300 chance of
        hitting Earth March 16.
3000 	Humans have created on the moon their 1st
        self-sustaining extraplanetary colony.
        Earth has received 1st telemetry from unmanned probes
        to nearby stars. 
        Neurotechnologists have started to modify and augment
        natural human intelligence.
        Genetic engineers have designed first
        artificially-created species.
        English is the native language of 90% of humans.
        Floating communities and estates have become
        increasingly popular.
4000 	1st embarkation of mobile space habitat toward nearby
        star.
        Humans culture animal tissue in bulk rather than raise
        animals en masse.
        As the next ice age begins, Earth is about 0.5C cooler
        (relative to 2000CE) than it otherwise would have been.
10K 	1st terraforming(of Mars or a Jovian moon) has
        started to show progress.
        Another 90Kyr-long ice age has begun, and Earth is
        about 3C cooler (relative to 2000CE) than it otherwise
        would have been.
16K 	The precession of Earth's axis has made Vega the
        northern pole star.
23K 	The 1679-bit 1974 Arecibo interstellar message
        finally covers the 21Kly distance to its target, the
        globular cluster M13 (300K stars).
100K 	A majority of persons descended from H. sapiens lives
        beyond Earth.
250K 	An object more than a kilometer wide will probably
        have struck Earth.
        Earth's magnetic will by now probably have reversed,
        as it does every few hundred thousand years and as it
        last did 780K years ago.
1M 	A majority of persons descended from H. sapiens lives
        beyond the Solar system.
        The red dwarf Gliese 710, currently 63 light years
        away, will pass within 0.5 light year of Sol and
        appear at 0.6 magnitude.
2M 	Pioneer 10 (launched in 1972, 68 light years away)
        passes near Aldebaran at 44 Mm/h.
50M 	Africa has collided with Europe (closing the
        Mediterranean),
        Australia has merged with SE Asia, and California has
        slid up the coast to Alaska.
        Mars' moon Phobos is destroyed as its orbit finishes
        decaying.
100M 	Earth has information from probes to the Andromeda
        galaxy.
226M 	Sol has completed one more orbit around the Milky
        Way's center.
250M 	The Americas merge with Afro-Eurasia, reducing the
        (formerly growing) Atlantic to an inland sea.
1B 	Earth has information from probes to every star
        system in the Milky Way.
2B 	Increased Solar output has extincted any remaining
        Earth life due to runaway greenhouse effect.
6B 	Sun ends its main-sequence life as a red giant large
        enough to engulf and possibly swallow Earth, and then
        cools into a white dwarf. 
        Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies collide.
10B 	Milky Way galaxy's intelligent population stabilizes
        at its maximum.
100B 	Living systems are huddled around red dwarfs for
        light and warmth. 
        The charred and frozen Earth-Moon system (if not
        already swallowed by Sol's red giant phase) has
        stabilized to a 47-day rotation/revolution at a
        distance of 560,000 km.
150B 	Due to the universe's accelerating expansion, the view
        of everything outside the gravitationally-bound Local
        Group of galaxies stops changing and fades away.
1014 	Almost all stars stopped shining, having become brown
        or white dwarfs.
        Little or no life remains.
1015 	Planets have been dislodged from their solar systems
        by stellar close encounters.
1020 	The remaining stars (brown or white dwarfs) have all
        either been dislodged from their galaxies, or
        collapsed into central galactic black holes.
        Dwarf collisions cease, and the last few stars formed
        thereby stop shining.
1040 	Proton decay has left the universe with only black
        holes and subatomic particles.

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Transparency

Transparency is the opposite of secrecy and privacy.

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Transportation

Almost all of our transportation is required to support our population.Our present population is about 6.8 billion. If we managed to keep the world population below 1 billion, that would radically lower our consumption of resources. On the other hand, a steady state population of 20 billion could not be sustained.

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Wisdom

So where do we find wisdom? It has been around for years, ready for the picking. Neo-Platonists like Cusanus, endorsed a 'docta ignorantia' in which the greatest wisdom was to recognize one's own ignorance of the divine

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