We can not predict the future with certainty. But, present knowledge in various scientific fields enables us to predict certain theories about the future of our civilization.
Let us not fool ourselves. All we think we know now is just a guess at something we haven’t found yet.
That is the exhilarating and frustrating lesson history teaches us about basic natural theories. Take, for example, Newton’s universal law of gravity. For over two centuries, it served admirably in describing falling apples and planets in orbit. But it eventually gave way to a “stronger” theory – Einstein’s general relativity. Likewise, classical mechanics’ solidly intuitive outlines: When we get down to the level of subatomic particles, we find them blurred by a haze of quantum uncertainty.
7 Amazing theories about the future of our civilization
The future of our civilization is often regarded as a subject for idle speculation. Nonetheless, our views and assumptions regarding this topic influence personal and public policy choices, with very concrete and often adverse implications. So it is practically important to know theories about the future of our civilization. This article describes 7 Amazing theories about the future of our civilization:
1. Humanity has a future beyond Earth
Imagining mass emigration from Earth is a dangerous delusion. Nowhere else in the solar system is as comfortable as the top of Everest or the South Pole. We must solve the issues of the world here. Nevertheless, I assume that by the next century, there will be groups of privately funded explorers living on Mars and possibly elsewhere in the solar system. We should wish these early settlers luck in adapting to alien environments using all cyborg techniques and biotech. Within a few centuries, they would have developed into a new species. The posthuman era will have begun. Posthumans—organic or inorganic—aspire to travel beyond the solar system. For more info, you can follow this study.
2. One day, the whole world will have adequate health care
Over the last 25 years, the global community has made tremendous progress in health equality. But these advances have not reached the world’s most remote populations. Mortality is highest in the rainforests. In there, people are cut off from transportation and cellular networks, access to health care is the most limited. And the quality of care is the worst. According to the WHO, one billion people go their entire lives without seeing a health worker due to distance. Healthcare professionals directly from the communities they serve can bridge the gap. They can also fight epidemics like Ebola. Also, they can maintain access to primary care when medical facilities are forced to close their doors.
3. Brain science will change criminal law
In all probability, a brain is a causal machine. This is because it moves from one state to another based on antecedent conditions.
The implications for criminal law are completely null. For one thing, all mammals and birds have self-control circuitry that can be changed by reinforcement learning (being rewarded for making good choices), especially in a social context. Criminal law is also about public safety and health. Even if we could identify circuitry unique to serial child rapists, they could not simply be let go because they would likely repeat. If we said, for example, of Boston priest John Geoghan, who molested 130 children, ‘It’s not his fault he has that brain, so let him go home,’ the result would surely be vigilante justice. And when rough justice replaces a criminal justice system rooted in making fair-minded law, things get very messy very quickly.
4. One day, we will predict natural disasters such as earthquakes with warning periods of days or hours
Some natural disasters are more obvious to see coming than others. Hurricanes can take days to approach, volcanoes can take days to hours to erupt. And tornadoes can strike in a matter of minutes. Earthquakes are probably the major threat. According to what we know about earthquake mechanics, we would not predict earthquakes days in advance.
What we can do, is predict the damaging ground shaking just before it occurs and provide seconds to minutes of warning. We don’t have enough time to get out of town. But we do have enough time to get to a safe location.
5. One day, we will replace all of the tissues in the human body by engineering
Plastic-based tissues such as artificial skin and electronics will allow blind people to see. All of this is happening, either as real products or in clinical trials. Over the next few years, it is highly possible that such methods would replace nearly all tissue in the body. Creating or regenerating brain tissues, which are highly complex and poorly understood, will necessitate much research. However, we hope that research in this area will progress quickly enough to help treat brain diseases. These include Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
6. We will use wearable technologies to detect our emotions
Emotions include biochemical and electrical signals that enter every organ in our bodies. This causes stress that affects our physical and mental health. Wearable technologies help to measure the patterns in these signals over time. Wearables will enable the equivalent of customized weather forecasts for our health in the coming decade: an 80 percent increased likelihood of health and happiness for you next week based on your recent stress/sleep/social-emotional activity.
Smart wearables, unlike the weather, can recognize habits that we can change to reduce unwanted ‘storm’ events. Increase sleep to at least nine hours a night and maintain current low-moderate stress for a 60% reduction in seizure risk in the next four days. Wearables and analytics derived from them can substantially reduce mental and neurological illness over the next 20 years.
7. We may be closer to a nuclear holocaust
Since 9/11, the U.S. has placed a high priority on reducing the threat of nuclear terrorism. It has increased the protection of highly enriched uranium and plutonium. Also, it has removed them from as many locations as possible.
A nuclear terrorist attack can destroy 100,000 people. However, three decades after the end of the cold war, the greater threat of a nuclear holocaust involving thousands of nuclear explosions and tens to hundreds of millions of immediate deaths remains in the U.S.–Russia nuclear conflict.
Remembering Pearl Harbor, the U.S. has prepared its nuclear forces for the possibility of a surprise first attack by the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union will attempt to destroy all targetable U.S. forces. We don’t expect such an attack today. But each side keeps a launch-on-warning posture with intercontinental and submarine-launched ballistic missiles carrying approximately 1,000 warheads. Because a ballistic missile’s flight time is just 15 to 30 minutes, decisions that may result in hundreds of millions of deaths must be made within minutes. This raises the risk of an accidental nuclear war or hackers causing launches.
The U.S. does not need this posture to maintain deterrence. This is because it has approximately 800 warheads on unforgettable submarines at all times. Suppose that there is a nuclear war. In that situation, the United States Strategic Command and Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces would like to use their vulnerable land-based missiles before they are destroyed. So, while the cold war is over, the Doomsday Machine that resulted from the conflict with the Soviets is still with us—and on a hair-trigger.
