What life could be like for civilizations 1 trillion years from now • Hacker News Board

Re: What life could be like for civilizations 1 trillion years from now

#41

Post by philipov » Sat, Jun 30, 2018, 1:14 PM UTC

akie wrote: post #24

oooooof wrote: post #14

Errr. I think by 2400 we’ve got every chance of living in the ruins of a past grand human civilization. Trillion is nice sci fi. 10,000 years in the future with any recognizable civilization is even more of a stretch.

400 years is nothing. I mean, climate change is real and could be very damaging, but what aside from that and war - why do you think we’ll be living amongst ruins? That seems overly pessimistic to me.

400 years is enough time for us to nuke ourselves out of being able to sustain our society, and climate change is a classic cause of wars.

Re: What life could be like for civilizations 1 trillion years from now

#42

Post by readhn » Sat, Jun 30, 2018, 1:16 PM UTC

There simply is no way to predict what life will be like in 1 trillion years. We are still riding horses in many parts of the world, we are still killing each other..

its like asking a caveman what the next update to windows will look like.

We simply have no capacity to think yet.

Re: What life could be like for civilizations 1 trillion years from now

#43

Post by crabmusket » Sat, Jun 30, 2018, 1:21 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #25

oooooof wrote: post #14

Errr. I think by 2400 we’ve got every chance of living in the ruins of a past grand human civilization. Trillion is nice sci fi. 10,000 years in the future with any recognizable civilization is even more of a stretch.

Thats a pretty pessimistic view to have when we live in an era of ongoing progress in almost every area.

A pessimistic or at least skeptical dialectic counterpart to the optimistic/progressive worldview is a valuable thing to have, I think.

You can't reach into people's brains and change their temperament (yet! say the optimists) but I don't think we should want to. And not allpessimism/skepticism is based on temperament, though certainly some is.

Re: What life could be like for civilizations 1 trillion years from now

#44

Post by pavs » Sat, Jun 30, 2018, 1:22 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #25

oooooof wrote: post #14

Errr. I think by 2400 we’ve got every chance of living in the ruins of a past grand human civilization. Trillion is nice sci fi. 10,000 years in the future with any recognizable civilization is even more of a stretch.

Thats a pretty pessimistic view to have when we live in an era of ongoing progress in almost every area.

That's a very anthropocentric view. We have a single point of failure. It's not likely to drastically change in any reasonable time-frame.

Re: What life could be like for civilizations 1 trillion years from now

#45

Post by _ph_ » Sat, Jun 30, 2018, 1:23 PM UTC

These are really mind-blowing szenarios. While they might appear as rather theoretical in nature, as they are in such a far distant future, the most striking part was the one of direct practical consequence: based on the theoretical models we can now and today watch for any indication of other civilizations preparing for the far future. And that is pretty cool, even if we might just not see anything interesting.

Re: What life could be like for civilizations 1 trillion years from now

#46

Post by alf-pogz » Sat, Jun 30, 2018, 1:26 PM UTC

oooooof wrote: post #14

Errr. I think by 2400 we’ve got every chance of living in the ruins of a past grand human civilization. Trillion is nice sci fi. 10,000 years in the future with any recognizable civilization is even more of a stretch.

I don't get it. I mean this is the premise of many sci-fi stories, but humanity has made pretty steady civilized progress since its inferred inception. There isn't much of a reason to believe this pessimism.

Re: What life could be like for civilizations 1 trillion years from now

#47

Post by jonhendry18 » Sat, Jun 30, 2018, 1:28 PM UTC

alf-pogz wrote: post #46

oooooof wrote: post #14

Errr. I think by 2400 we’ve got every chance of living in the ruins of a past grand human civilization. Trillion is nice sci fi. 10,000 years in the future with any recognizable civilization is even more of a stretch.

I don't get it. I mean this is the premise of many sci-fi stories, but humanity has made pretty steady civilized progress since its inferred inception. There isn't much of a reason to believe this pessimism.

Have you met humans?

Re: What life could be like for civilizations 1 trillion years from now

#48

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jun 30, 2018, 1:31 PM UTC

mrep wrote: post #35

oooooof wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that humanity will ever travel even to the nearest star is pure fiction. Anyone who thinks otherwise just fails to grasp the distances involved. They are so large as to be beyond understanding.

The idea that humanity won't ever travel even to the nearest star is pure fiction. Anyone who thinks otherwise just fails to grasp exponential growth. They are so large as to be beyond understanding.

[deleted]

Re: What life could be like for civilizations 1 trillion years from now

#49

Post by losteric » Sat, Jun 30, 2018, 1:39 PM UTC

alf-pogz wrote: post #46

oooooof wrote: post #14

Errr. I think by 2400 we’ve got every chance of living in the ruins of a past grand human civilization. Trillion is nice sci fi. 10,000 years in the future with any recognizable civilization is even more of a stretch.

I don't get it. I mean this is the premise of many sci-fi stories, but humanity has made pretty steady civilized progress since its inferred inception. There isn't much of a reason to believe this pessimism.

Prior civilizations collapsed after over-exploiting their environment, and we're making the same mistake on a global scale. Our complex supply chains based on fossil fuels are rather fragile - we will likely survive a collapse at reduced quality of a life, however total recovery may be slow or impossible depending on remaining resources.

Re: What life could be like for civilizations 1 trillion years from now

#50

Post by pbhjpbhj » Sat, Jun 30, 2018, 1:40 PM UTC

akie wrote: post #24

oooooof wrote: post #14

Errr. I think by 2400 we’ve got every chance of living in the ruins of a past grand human civilization. Trillion is nice sci fi. 10,000 years in the future with any recognizable civilization is even more of a stretch.

400 years is nothing. I mean, climate change is real and could be very damaging, but what aside from that and war - why do you think we’ll be living amongst ruins? That seems overly pessimistic to me.

30 years ago there was a very real prospect of a Worldwide nuclear war -- my mother was, in the UK, involved in creation of shelters to allow some kernel to survive the ensuing nuclear winter. Apocalyptic films were portending doom and in school we watched films about what to do if there was a nuclear blast.

There have been massive wars/killings, massive famines, massive epidemics.

We're in what may well be a local maxima, or perhaps an overall maxima. There are a lot of challenges to face that we need to unify to fight, like water poverty, food security, avoiding escalation of conflict - and not much sign of greater unification (quite the opposite AFAICT).

IMO we can turn it around, but we're going to have to have a sudden outbreak of altruism.