from the industrial age to the information age and beyond...

[zarngash]

The industrial revolution has come to pass, but the industrial age, that being our need for natural resources to produce our means of living is here to stay - or is it?

We are now well into the information age, with the proliferation of computers, the economic value of knowledge and applied fields of science to enhance our lives.

Where do go from here? Do societies and economies have the ability to sustain current our current means of production? Are green economies viable? What of a space age? What's next?

Does the information age need to fully mature to move to the next stage in our world's cultural & economic make up? For example, with computer technology constantly growing faster and smaller, will that make possible the robotic age.

Do you think that fusion technology or some other energy will become a viable energy source fuels a new era in human development?

Do you think that humans collectively can and will evolve into more sophisticate beings and what does that look like socially and ecomicially?

Just throwing out a thread to bang ideas, theories and beliefs around... have fun with it!

 

[YourCaptor]

Dude, that is hot.

 

[ImOnIt]

I think that humans collectively can and will evolve into VERY more sophisticate beings and what does it look like socially and SUPER ecomicially.

 

[Primalex]

Do you think that humans collectively can and will evolve into more sophisticate beings and what does that look like socially and ecomicially?

No, the opposite will happen.

We are currently at the lowest level of a hive mind.

We have reached the technology to have nearly immediate access to the information within any individual. Some guy in the States can know what happens to another guy in Japan - or what he thinks. Participation is not mandatory at the moment though and the control of information still lies in the hand of the individual. This will change - not necessarily forced, but the technology will advance and every generation will get more used to it. The internet will evolve to be available everywhere and so will be information. The smart phone will replace the cell phone. It will be convenient to participate.

It starts already with very small and limited hive minds - Twitter with followers and similar constructs. In an active network you know what is going on in your choosen social group, even though it's useless information 99,9% of the time. It is a hive mind if everyone knows what everyone else is doing.

With the internet we've reached another level of flow of information, similar to the invention of the letterpress. Of course, right now 99% is a waste regarding evolution. But the very first printed page wasn't an encyclopedia either. Wikileaks and Wikipedia are not the end of knowledge distribution, they are the small beginning.

I don't think mankind will realize what they've really created the next 2 generations. They are too busy with petty sideeffects. But I think then, in 50-75 years, they will look back and say "Fuck, this changed our world more than the invention of the letterpress."

 

[Netzach]

are we not men?

we are DEVO

 

[eastern sun]

No, the opposite will happen.

We are currently at the lowest level of a hive mind.

We have reached the technology to have nearly immediate access to the information within any individual. Some guy in the States can know what happens to another guy in Japan - or what he thinks. Participation is not mandatory at the moment though and the control of information still lies in the hand of the individual. This will change - not necessarily forced, but the technology will advance and every generation will get more used to it. The internet will evolve to be available everywhere and so will be information. The smart phone will replace the cell phone. It will be convenient to participate.

It starts already with very small and limited hive minds - Twitter with followers and similar constructs. In an active network you know what is going on in your choosen social group, even though it's useless information 99,9% of the time. It is a hive mind if everyone knows what everyone else is doing.

With the internet we've reached another level of flow of information, similar to the invention of the letterpress. Of course, right now 99% is a waste regarding evolution. But the very first printed page wasn't an encyclopedia either. Wikileaks and Wikipedia are not the end of knowledge distribution, they are the small beginning.

I don't think mankind will realize what they've really created the next 2 generations. They are too busy with petty sideeffects. But I think then, in 50-75 years, they will look back and say "Fuck, this changed our world more than the invention of the letterpress."

And . . . ? (I think this is brilliant, by the way.) What do you think will happen then?

 

[Keroin]

Pervs paving the road to the future!

 

[Primalex]

And . . . ? (I think this is brilliant, by the way.) What do you think will happen then?

You mean from 2085 onwards?


Read the Internet FAQ from 2085 by Philipp Lenssen:

What was the internet?
The internet and the world web was a computing system to transfer human information. Scientists have based its beginning to the years 1920 to 1940.

What was electromail?
Electromail was another transport protocol to transfer human information, but it was quickly discontinued as it caused misunderstandings due to lack of correctly representing emotions.

What were world web sites?
A so-called world web site consisted of an address of its owner to locate their physical business location, as well as other miscellaneous transmitting of human information that was considered important at the time. The protocol used to decode the information was called hypertext, and as its standards changed quickly over the years, it is impossible to decode most of the information contained within.

Did the world web have version numbers?
Yes. In the beginning, the world web was numbered from 1 to 10, with most people considering world web 8 to be the first stable release. Afterwards, the world web received code names for each new version, like “Omega Sun” or the popular “Happy Happy Rabbit" release.

Who controlled the internet?
The internet was controlled by the governments, then for a brief period by personal humans all over the world, and then again by the governments. The intermittent period of personal human control was subsequently named the internet dark age as it incited to unlawful behavior.

What alternative information transfer technologies accompanied the internet?
The internet was only one of many transfer technologies. Equally popular at the time were the Ipod, also called Phone, a device to record and emit copies of the human voice, as well as the so-called Pongmachine which showed an animated bright shape on a dark background.

What was the Googlecom?
The Googlecom was a government-supervised computerized mechanism for human information storage and retrieval. It subsequently became integrated into the Universal Intelligence in around 2035.

Did the internet help the birth of the Universal Intelligence?
It is believed that the internet was an important mechanism to copy, spread and advance the ancestor of the Universal Intelligence. While the human civilization host system was unstable, progress was quickly reached after the invention of self-developing computerized intelligence machinery.

How long did humans take to invent the internet?
Scientific research believes that humans took around 150,000 years to build the internet and the world web as well as electromail. To explain the delay, it is believed that a human brain needed around 20 seconds to calculate an expression like 12 * 390, whereas it was incapable of calculating expressions like 12 * 3903829. Other inhabitants of the planet such as Bonobo Apes or the Arrowtooth Eel are believed to have had higher brain capacities, but no intent to build the internet.

Which entities were most popular on the internet?
While early hypertext storage can only be vaguely decoded, scientific research believes that from 1970 to 1999, the most popular entity on the internet was Britneyspears; from 2000 to 2020, it was Pleaseclickhere; from 2021 to 2030, it was the Mechabot100 release.


---

Okay, it's a joke of course. But some basic facts will come true, f.e. that people in the year 2200 will get it completely wrong how 2010 was. And all this information we store won't matter, because you just can't process it. Imagine someone born 2200 and as student in 2220 starts to browse the old Wikipedia to figure out how humans were back then - what does he find? 4 zillion pornstars and 100 politicians.

Hell, kids these days won't believe me if I tell them that you could punch a (floppy) disc to double the storage capacity and that's not 200 years ago, but just 20. It does not compute for them.

I don't believe that we get the science fiction space travel this millennium. Military bases yes, but Joe Average will still sit on this planet.

I don't believe in aliens either:
The creation of the human race was inevitable. We need to think on a galactic scale here. In an infinite universe with infinite time everything happens, the question is only when and where. And for us it just makes no difference whether we were created in the year 209094294092094209 of the universe or 5402390942094092542224219. From our point of view it's the same, just some strange people who look through Hubble might be able to see the difference and then it still will be just a large number for us without meaning.

Yes, of course, there might have been "alien races" before us and for sure there will be some after us, if the universe still exists then. But how likely it is that they were or will be created in such a very very very small time frame that matters for the human race? Maybe the next alien race is due in 5 billion years. Where are we then? And what are we then?

How much ape is in us now after 2.5 million years?
How much human will be in us after 5000 million years?

There is this one paradox about time travel:
The proof that humans will never be able to time travel is the fact that we weren't visited by time traveling humans.

Now I'll add Primalex's refinement:
Who do you think these guys are?

 

[Jeanx2storm]

No, the opposite will happen.

We are currently at the lowest level of a hive mind.

We have reached the technology to have nearly immediate access to the information within any individual. Some guy in the States can know what happens to another guy in Japan - or what he thinks. Participation is not mandatory at the moment though and the control of information still lies in the hand of the individual. This will change - not necessarily forced, but the technology will advance and every generation will get more used to it. The internet will evolve to be available everywhere and so will be information. The smart phone will replace the cell phone. It will be convenient to participate.

It starts already with very small and limited hive minds - Twitter with followers and similar constructs. In an active network you know what is going on in your choosen social group, even though it's useless information 99,9% of the time. It is a hive mind if everyone knows what everyone else is doing.

With the internet we've reached another level of flow of information, similar to the invention of the letterpress. Of course, right now 99% is a waste regarding evolution. But the very first printed page wasn't an encyclopedia either. Wikileaks and Wikipedia are not the end of knowledge distribution, they are the small beginning.

I don't think mankind will realize what they've really created the next 2 generations. They are too busy with petty sideeffects. But I think then, in 50-75 years, they will look back and say "Fuck, this changed our world more than the invention of the letterpress."

There are those who advocate the hive mind mentality, and there are those who reject it. I would not presume that mankind will collectively become 'wired' because there are those individualists who will refuse to succumb. Perhaps they will be the outcasts, but they will joyfully reject the hive.

 

[Primalex]

There are those who advocate the hive mind mentality, and there are those who reject it. I would not presume that mankind will collectively become 'wired' because there are those individualists who will refuse to succumb. Perhaps they will be the outcasts, but they will joyfully reject the hive.

Plenty of scenarios possible. Of course, it is most likely that there will always be some kind of outcast. Interesting will be if and how you can opt-out.

You already lack the control of a lot of information about you, either from the real world sensors, f.e. RFID tags and cameras in public places or what is stored about you (anti-terrorism databases) these days. Then... does it matter when you are not connected, when everyone else around you is connected and automatically reports what you are doing?

What will you do when hard cash will become extinct? When you are indirectly forced to leave electronic traces?

 

[Jeanx2storm]

Plenty of scenarios possible. Of course, it is most likely that there will always be some kind of outcast. Interesting will be if and how you can opt-out.

You already lack the control of a lot of information about you, either from the real world sensors, f.e. RFID tags and cameras in public places or what is stored about you (anti-terrorism databases) these days. Then... does it matter when you are not connected, when everyone else around you is connected and automatically reports what you are doing?

What will you do when hard cash will become extinct? When you are indirectly forced to leave electronic traces?

You're going to attract all the paranoids and conspiracy theorists. : )

I admit you are correct in the ways many of us are losing our privacy, but, thankfully, there are still places where you can get away from it all.

 

[Primalex]

You're going to attract all the paranoids and conspiracy theorists. : )

Being paranoid does not mean that they are not going after you.

I'm a different conspiracy theorist though, because I truly believe most isn't the result of malicious intent, but of plain stupidity. The traditional theorist believes there is a plan, I believe there is chaos.

There was a really great article about villains somewhere and how writers should treat them, maybe I find it again. The concensus was that villains are rarely plain evil guys who cackle about their brilliant deeds with their cat on the lap. Villains have plain motivations like the heroes, they just view things differently - usually it comes down to the core problems of morality - like: does the result justify the deed?

Well, this is getting off-topic now.

 

[Jeanx2storm]

Being paranoid does not mean that they are not going after you.

I'm a different conspiracy theorist though, because I truly believe most isn't the result of malicious intent, but of plain stupidity. The traditional theorist believes there is a plan, I believe there is chaos.

There was a really great article about villains somewhere and how writers should treat them, maybe I find it again. The concensus was that villains are rarely plain evil guys who cackle about their brilliant deeds with their cat on the lap. Villains have plain motivations like the heroes, they just view things differently - usually it comes down to the core problems of morality - like: does the result justify the deed?

Well, this is getting off-topic now.

Then you are more of my kind of theorist (chaos). But, I refuse to admit that I have no choice, no power, to alter my course.

About the villains, the best kind are the ones that have some redeeming quality or something in them that people can relate to. And those core morality problems can get muddy at times.