## the future

Post by Antonius97 » Mon Jul 01, 2013 7:28 pm

We may have appeared to have hit our limit, but I doubt we have. Say you were, for example, to go back in time, to the early 19th century, and tell people that it is possible to level entire cities using less that 100 kilos of a particular Uranium isotope. They'd probably write you off as crazy, and tell you that no such thing would ever be possible. Most of the world, in fact, would have doubted you. Until August 6th, 1945. Then everybody would believe you. As a deist, I believe in a higher power that created the universe, but I do not think that this power is something we should humble ourselves to. Just the opposite. We should aspire to become as close in greatness to this power as we possibly can. The only thing we are humble to is the vastness of the universe itself. We are but a speck of dust in the vastness of space, and if we want to be great, we must aspire to be the loudest damn speck there is.
I didn't choose the TUG life, the TUG life chose me.

### Re: the future

Post by Nexus » Wed Jul 03, 2013 1:44 am

We will only continue to increase the power of technology so that, yes, in some wild number of years, outer space travel will become more common. Whether we as humans destroy ourselves in the process before then is the only deterrent.

### Re: the future

Post by Jason Toddman » Wed Jul 03, 2013 6:48 am

A century ago the idea that we could ever even go to the moon - let alone receive close-up pictures televised from the other planets - would have been dismissed as pure craziness. We didn't even have wireless radio yet, and so couldn't conceive of the idea of communications between planets using a medium more sophisticated than gigantic bonfires (an usual idea someone seriously suggested for trying to communicate with beings using telescopes on Mars!).
A century from now, our current ideas about what is or is not possible may seem equally quaint. Granted there won't likely be as many epiphanies in the next century as there were in the last; the easy stuff has already been discovered and we already have a basic understanding of how the universe works. We will fill in the details in the next century but it's unlikely here will be as many dramatically unexpected new discoveries as there were in the previous century... but you never know. The discovery of some new aspect of physics allowing for, say, faster-than-light subspace radio communication may be just around the corner (and if such a thing exists we may go from knowing about zero alien civilizations to millions of them - assuming they exist - practically overnight because only dummies like us use mere radio!)
There have been numerous books written in the past describing what life in the future would be like. One major theme of the 1939 World's Fair was Life in the Future World - of 1960! Virtually all predictions looked ludicrous and short-sighted by the time the future dates of their subjects arrived. Predictions now of life in, say, 2100 will fall short just as badly and probably give our descendants a laugh... hopefully a merry laugh rather than a bitter one, especially if the dire predictions of Thiomas Malthus continue to fail to pan out in any major way (let's hope they do).
I like to think that humans and civilization exist for a reason; that reason would be wasted if we manage to destroy ourselves. I am hopeful that somehow some future era will see the more positive predictions of something like Star Trek (the socio-economic pones as well as the technological ones) eventually become reality.
Dare to be different... and make a difference.
To boldly go where no one in their right mind has gone before...