empires rise and fall, and heroes and villains come and go, but the true history of the human race is the history of technology, which makes human lives longer, safer, more private, and more comfortable , and increases the human population at the expense of the lives of other creatures, large and small.
some feeble resistance is sometimes offered, and many humans fantasize about leading adventurous and dangerous lives, and/or complain that humans are “destroying the earth”, but the trend seems inexorable.
here is a prediction for the future of the human race, based entirely on extrapolation of these trends:
humans will live in a few - or maybe just one - enormous city, protected from the “elements”.
maybe in a single enormous building in the enormous city.
the cities, or city, could be anywhere (including the moon or on another planet). “climate” will probably be irrelevant .
every human will have their own space, and exactly the same amount of space.
the humans will be cloned. or otherwise produced by technology. they might or might not have a certain life expectancy, but they will not go through any periods of “growth” or “decline”, and will not “grow up” or “age”.
“sex” and “gender” will no longer exist.
assuming that the humans will need such things as oxygen, protein, water, and heat, each will be provided with exactly the same amount.
the provision of oxygen, protein, etc, will be maintained by technology which will run “itself”, “forever” ( i e, indefinitely).
the same technology might be charged with devising the end of “time”, so that the existing order might literally last “forever”.
no human will have any contact with any other human, thereby avoiding any possibility of “abuse”, “exploitation”, “hurtfulness”. etc.
no human will have any power or authority over any other human.
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what will these humans “do” all day, or at any time of day? what will they “think” about, if anything? obviously, they will not have to “do” anything to ensure their survival, and probably not have to “think” about anything , either.
will they produce “art” of any kind? if they do, will the individual humans share the art with each other, or make any sort of “judgment” on each other’s art? this would seem to edge dangerously close to “oppression” or “exploitation” by implying that one human/artist is in some way “better” than another.
will they engage in any sort of games or sports or competition, in order to “fill up” their days? even more than art, these things would seem to reopen a door to “inequality” and “inferiority”.
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how accurate do i think these predictions might be? what do i think the probability is, that they will come true, either completely, or in some detail?
the answer - zero. i do not think there is any chance at all that any of these things will come to pass.
the biggest reason - they can be predicted.
and if something can be predicted - predicted over decades or centuries, not weeks or months - it will not happen. i submit this as the first law of history.
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