In this video, ASAPScience speculates about what we’ll be like in another 1,000 years.
And their roundup of the predictions seems nothing if not interesting.
Intro) 3 Examples:
Over the past 10,000, 150, and 65 years, we’ve become tolerant of milk, grown 10cm taller & lived 20 years longer. All due to science in farming, healthcare & diet.
So: What else could happen going forward? You know, besides Google Glass…
1)Superfast Computers Achieve AI:
One of the things hotly-predicted by many technologists, is that somewhere a few computers, or massively-parallel server-farm will become as fast at all things simultaneously as the human brain. (though it might take awhile)
Also, many of these same prognosticators theorize along with James Cameron & Arnold Schwarzenegger, that computers will also have been given some form of Artificial Intelligence, by which they will be able to perhaps ~Think or even understand our emotions and remember individual people. Watch out Siri, soon everyone will have their own personal JARVIS!
2)Body-Repair & Augmentation:
Another innovation theorized is Injected Microscopic Healthbots inside our bodies.
There, the may dispense certain targeted prescription meds, clean blood-vessels, identify & fix common-colds, structural-problems, even serious diseases or brain-damage.
In addition to this, at some point, very sophisticated artificial or full-biological body-part replacement is likely to be commonplace.
War veterans, accident victims, and some disease-sufferers will just be able to have new limbs and even organs regrown for replacement using their own converted stem-cells.
-Just like Dr. Connors in The Amazing Spider Man, and his quest to replace a lost limb. Okay, but without the murderous, xenophobic, monster-lizard crap, I hope.
3)The Environment Changes, Then We Change To Suit:
Increasing population, urbanization or even migrations may lead to changes in the Built-Environment, like more flexible buildings and materials.
Sociologically this may result in mixing cultures more, including a 90%+ reduction in the number of Languages we speak, just like in the movie, “Blade Runner”.
Changes in our Natural Environment may also give rise to Genetic Mutations, like the average color of people’s skin, hair, and eyes as a response to changes in the atmosphere, ozone layer, and solar radiation.
Taller and thinner people may also survive better, because they will best be able to shed increasing amounts of heat as Global-Warming progresses.
(hopefully cheap, plentiful solar electricity will also get here by then so we can get off of oil & coal to slow that climate-change down as quickly as possible.)
3a) Even though dog and fox breeding have shown that sometimes Evolution can travel in Big Jumps instead of grinding along slowly, some of these changes might not happen in just 1,000 years; they could take 10x+ longer.
4)Enhanced Abilities
Along with simple changes due to radiation and heat, others might crop up that enhance abilities and thus survival.
Even now, at least a few people on earth can perceive a fourth basic color with their retina. As a result, these Tetrachromats see 100,000s more colors than the average person.
A couple other enhanced-ability groups in today’s population also include Super-Tasters & Super-Taskers.
And while we won’t all become mutants like the X-Men or Impervious-To Drugs-Ozzy Osbourne, even more mutations will crop-up down the road especially if they bring ~some type of advantage, even for unusual survival-scenarios. -Just like the persistence of all others we’ve acquired until now.
4a)One unusual-scenario-mutation is like the movie “Underworld”‘s Corvinus Strain. Somehow, people who are the descendants of those who survived The Black Plague have significantly-different immune-systems than others, and have better defenses against some diseases.
5)Engineering The Next Generation of Super Babies
The next part of the mutation-roulette comes up with Boutique-Genetics.
It is only a matter-of-time until people stop letting nature decide which traits come up in the game of chance, and start enforcing their own choices on their babies.
And although it may seem an interesting prospect to start selecting for disease-avoidance, bodyfat, height, torso-type, eye-color & IQ. As geneticists have noted before, it’s so much more complicated than just finding one gene or one protein.
Many times the change of a Single Letter in something’s genetic-code can result in odd, terrible, and unforeseen changes.
Similarly, one of those well-intentioned changes could result in some of the previous disease-immunities being reduced or wiped-out entirely. So now you’re back having a different vulnerability after gaining an alleged boost in another area.
6)Long-Term, Long-Range Survival of The Species:
Another part of dealing with the human race’s ~”Immunities” is resistance to things that may happen On or To this planet. -Not just another Black Plague, but something just as disastrous.
Space Colonies are unlikely to be commonplace in 1000 years.
But it’s long been forecast not just by General Zod, but even real actual scientists like Stephen Hawking that we will one day have to become an “Interstellar” species if humans are to survive for a long time on a universal scale.
7), or 1a)The Singularity==Immortality?
Another way for certain individuals to “survive” is through a combination of the previously-mentioned advances in computer-speed and artificial-intelligence, like the unfortunately-bad movie “Transcendence”.
But in this scenario, referred-to around the same circles as the term “The Singularity”, a person’s brain + chemistry could be so accurately-modeled over a range of scenarios that for lack of a better-term, their “Consciousness” +/- could then be uploaded to persist in one of the aforementioned super-server-farms. (some people disagree, btw)
And, similar to Piers Anthony’s monster book, “Cluster”, you would then be able to travel somewhere else at the speed of light, because “you” would no longer have any mass, and just be a very fancy type of computer program.
-You think your nosy, micromanaging snoopervisor at work is bad now? Just wait…
Check out all the geeky futuristic details at the Links:
JUMP BONUS!: Robert Jones’ “A Look Back At The Future In Film”:
Photo/Video Credits:
“Humans In 1000 Years”, by ASAPScience
Deckard’s car flies by an advertisement in the movie, “Blade Runner” by Ridley Scott, Michael Deeley, Hampton Fancher, David Peoples, The Ladd Company, Shaw Brothers, Blade Runner Partnership, and Warner Bros., Based on, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”, by Philip K. Dick
“A Look Back At The Future In Film”, supercut by Robert Jones
Links:
• Source: ASAPScience
• More Coverage: Gizmodo-Computer Brain Sim | Wired-Future of AI | Transhumanism | HT-RegenMed | Atlantic-Robotic Arms | YT-Blade Runner Language | NASA-Ozone Layer | NASA-Climate Change | SA-Getting Taller | SunEd-Solar Grid Parity | SA-Fox Domestication | Tetrachromats | Supertasters | HT-Supertaskers Exist | HT-Ozzy Is a Mutant | Underworld’s Corvinus Strain | SA-Black Plague Survivors | WSJ-Designer Babies | HT-IQ Gene Found | HT-Gene Therapy | YT-General Zod, Space Colonist | HT-Transcendence | HT-Singularity | Goodreads-Cluster
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