The fact that humans, much like other species, are geared towards expansion. And once we run out of frontiers to conquer, that expansion energy seems to go towards biting each other's necks instead of solving common problems together. Doesn't seem to be specific to humans [0]
That goes somewhat against Steve Pinker's observation that humanity is becoming increasingly more civilized and less destructive to other humans. Of course, the long-term data isn't there, but the logic is compelling. We may have hit a point where the concept of large-scale war is just too expensive, economically and morally.
The US, currently the greatest military power in history, can't currently even justify a Vietnam-scale conflict, much less a WWII-scale one. Improvements in agriculture have radically reduced food as a resource war motivator, and I think that in a few decades, renewables will have wiped out energy as a resource war motivator as well.
Ideology without serious contention doesn't lead to war, it leads to taunting remarks on the internet.
> We may have hit a point where the concept of large-scale war is just too expensive, economically and morally.
In 1913, "less than a year before the Great War broke out, the Economist reassured its readers with an editorial titled “War Becomes Impossible in Civilized World.”
“The powerful bonds of commercial interest between ourselves and Germany,” the Economist insisted, “have been immensely strengthened in recent years … removing Germany from the list of our possible foes.”"
>"Doomsday Clock timekeepers say risk of global annihilation remains at Cold War highs"
The only reason for that is the misguided decision to include some fuzzy-headed interpretation of catastrophic, anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) in the risk of "doomsday".
The risk of actual nuclear war is far lower today than it was during the Cold War. The risk of an individual nuclear weapon going off in a city is much higher, however.
> The risk of actual nuclear war is far lower today than it was during the Cold War. The risk of an individual nuclear weapon going off in a city is much higher, however.
Please explain why do you think that the systems that are automatically triggered by the nuclear weapon going off in a city would not do what they are designed to do: all respond to the perceived attack with their full power.
Also explain how the humans trained to start the retaliation sequence would all not do what they are trained to do, once a city where their families are gets destroyed.
The future wars, I think will be more civil unrest due to income inequality. Eventually, I see us moving more towards a star-trek like society when we have full-automation. Nobody needs to work, but everyone can contribute in terms of research and scientific studies or art/etc...
Service jobs won't be needed, but we as a civilization can't just sit idle. We still need fulfillment so whether there's money or not at that point we need to encourage future fulfillment else we die out from sheer boredom.
I like to hope we move past all our petty differences, embrace the humanity that we are one single species. Then we drop the super stars, celebrity adoration, and desire to be uber wealthy and 'control' other people and we can focus more on arts and sciences. Arts for people to enjoy life, sciences for people to explore what's out there.
Imagine if the only careers were in entertainment and science/research what we could accomplish and imagine if everyone had equal footing to go into their chosen path. If we had 10x the scientists or 100x the scientists working on global problems and even intergalactic ones. We might actually make it to the stars.
But before we get there --there will be unrest and wars, just more middle class vs elites. Also potential wars for water as it becomes more scarce if we don't fix global warming soon.
Civil unrest that gets expressed via stable democratic institutions is just fine. My concern is wars and violent revolutions, which (hopefully) are on their way out.
I dream of a day when wage labor is looked back on as almost as oppressive and horrible as chattel slavery. We're a long way from that, though. The technology is almost here, but the political will is not.
The trick, then, is fulfillment. How do we give our lives meaning, if not through our labor? And how do we fight the brutal addictions of social media and passive consumption in order to achieve individual meaning? I fear a future where we don't have to work, but rather spend all our time sharing memes about how lonely and depressed we are.
Awesome bit of trivia hidden in that very interesting Wiki page:
> Calhoun's work with rats inspired the 1971 children's book, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, by Robert C. O'Brien, which was adapted into a 1982 animated film, The Secret of NIMH.
Calhoun did his work on rats/mice at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).
It's crazy just how little of the Earth we are crammed into though. I'd imagine we could branch out a little more, giving people more space, if it were properly managed. More settlements, but make all the space in between untouchable reserve.
Precisely. And (I know the average map makes it look even bigger than it is but still) just look at Siberia. It's hard not to be cynical and conclude that the land owning class deliberately seek to keep the population corralled.
I don't think it's the land owning class that is keeping people in big cities. I think people tend to naturally congregate in bigger and bigger cities, easier transportation is bringing more people in rather than distributing them.
I read that Taleb wrote something about this recently.
Agreed, I'm speculating. I'm just coming more and more to the conclusion that very few phenomena that disbenefit the rich are allowed to persist for very long.
That hypothesis made sense in 1947, after the most destructive war the world had ever seen. The 72 years since have been the most peaceful and prosperous in recorded history.
Only thing I can think of at the moment, geologically-speaking and within a short time span could be a Super-volcano eruption that engulfs the atmosphere in smoke, causing another ice-age. Another method of danger could be a meteor impact, though it's time span is unknown until we detect it, and not sure if that fits your geological category.
