PatrickKn said:

I'm pretty optimistic in general. That disaster lurks everywhere is true, but it has always been this way.

I don't believe that man will destroy life-sustaining capabilities, but has already had a large effect in changing how sustenance is maintained. Despite the state of things now, I'm confident we will overcome this as life is adapting to a human world. Mass consumption doesn't stop carbon and nitrogen from being pulled back to Earth in plants, we're setting up conditions for life forms that will thrive in this new environment and restore balance in time.

We will most certainly see a genetically engineered super race, Pandora's box is open on that one, and survival will eventually depend on it. It may not be for centuries or millennium before a clear line can be drawn in the sand that separates modern humans from a whole set of new races that are clearly superior, but it's necessary for adaption and long term survival of the species.

Man has already merged with machine. Technology is very much a human organ. If you told a man a thousand years ago that he would be able to talk with someone on the other side of the world in the time it takes a candle to hit your cornea, he wouldn't even be able to relate it to telepathy because no such concept existed at the time.

I think we are a long way off from A.I. taking over intelligently. I'd be more worried about how people with power use A.I. to their benefit, because humans in control can use A.I. itself to build systems more powerful than A.I. that isn't under control. Sentience will develop naturally over the next few thousand years I feel, but we have a significant degree of implied power over an artificial intelligence even if it thinks and feels better than we do. We have the advantage of mastery of the environment that the A.I. exists within.

---

Rahz said:

I think the present (bad as it may be though still less labor intensive than in the past) is a product of a relatively small group of people. The cars, roads, traffic signs, buildings, and all the things that go in buildings are the result of scientific discovery and engineering.

As a rule, cheaper is better. This has created waste but technology may eventually rise above this issue... waste is after all, wasteful.

Genetic engineering and AI may play a prominent role in the future but I don't see it as a near term happening.

I was riding down the road today counting cars. over 60% of vehicles were large trucks or SUVs. Much of the remaining were muscle cars, luxury cars, etc. that don't get good gas mileage. The only people driving economical cars were the dirt poor. People bitch about gas but sure do use the shit out of it. So, it will take small groups of influential people to create actual change, whether more considerate genetics, father AI, or near free, clean unlimited energy, or maybe just an anthropomorphic ELE... no people, no problem. The majority of humanity may speak good intentions but they have an alter-ego who just wants what they want. Spend, consume, greed for more, image, polarity at all levels creating enemies, hate, craving.

---

Quite well said.

Quote:

Young Turks' Uygur: Nancy Pelosi is not a progressive
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/442445-nancy-pelosi-is-not-a-progressive

---

DividedQuantum said:

I don't see man's future as terribly bright, but I do hold the hope that this species squeaks into the terminus marking the end of one phase of history and the beginning of the next. God will have to be very much with us if this is to come about, perhaps. Disaster lurks everywhere.

---