Future of Humans

[Mokele]

Footlong cybernetics?

[rakuenso]

^ concurred, studies have proven that the japanese have the longest life spans. And if you've ever been to an asian continent (which i have lived in for 9 years of my life) it is obvious that asians are much skinnier than americans (which am I living in for the past 4 years), but as to why asians are skinnier and if that indicates healthiness is a whole different story.

[MaxCathedral]

I will go you one better, according to Brian Sykes, in his book the Curse of Adam, Y chomosone is slowly disappearng. And one day...Men won't exist at all. In several hundred thousand years, there shall be just women.

[Mag]

or maybe we will perfect clonining, which will halt evolution.

[MaxCathedral]

or maybe we will perfect clonining, which will halt evolution.

 

 

Max: It has been proposed....

[Mokele]

I will go you one better, according to Brian Sykes, in his book the Curse of Adam, Y chomosone is slowly disappearng. And one day...Men won't exist at all. In several hundred thousand years, there shall be just women.

 

I doubt it. Some men are actually XX, on account of a rare crossover that put the SRY gene (which basically triggers the process that makes a fetus develop into a male) on the X chromosome. As the Y chromosome diminishes, these XX males will be selected for, and eventually humans will all be XX, but still male and female. Non-heterochromatic sexes are quite common in other species, and are probably the basal condition of vertebrates.

 

Mokele

[Hellbender]

Non-heterochromatic sexes are quite common in other species, and are probably the basal condition of vertebrates.

Maybe we could be parthenogenic

[cambrian_exp]

even if after 200 years earth will not be fit... we would remain on earth because it will much better than other planets like mars ( too cold no oxygen) and venus too hot. hey and what about sun.... may be in 100 million years our sun would have increased in luminosity. we only have 1 billion years.. after that oceans on earth will evopurate. and has any one seen future is wild series?

[Luxnor]

Anyone wonder why we can only recall the last few thousand years? Outside of Atlantis and Lemuria which supposedly existed several thousand years ago, we seem to keep losing it as a species; probably through no fault of our own <or not>. Until we can learn to control the weather, our ability to annihilate each other, or dodge space stones or other nuclear winter scenarios; we are playing "beat the clock" once again. And for what? Do you imagine it is like a coconut trying to spread it's seeds to other islands? Our mission, should we decide to accept it, is to spread the human seed to other fertile soils on other planets, before our time runs out again?

[LCD]

Oh' date=' believe me, knees and eyes will the some of the *last* places getting cyberneticly enhanced.

 

Think about it, if you could have superhuman abilities in one part of your body, what would it be? But you're right that the part of the body being modified will have a lot to do with self-esteem.

 

Or maybe my predictions have been altered by passing through the sewer that is my mind....

 

Mokele[/quote']

 

I'v actually got plans for what you are hinting to. patent pending.

 

they already have cyborg hips and the such. I mean they aren't superhuman, they are just functional. but they still exist. someone has invented a cybernetic eye replacement whch is pretty awkward and expensive and various people are studying other cybernetic things to help quadrapalegics and the such. I seem to recall something where they had a monkey controlling a robotic arm with an implant in it's brain.

 

and luxnor:

It is really hard to take a post seriously when you preface it with atlantis and lemuria... even though your concerns are pretty valid.

[Luxnor]

LCD: My apologies; my antediluvian resources are somewhat murky at best.

[Mayflower]

Especially considering that since TV was created, the average IQ has actually risen a couple points. Ironic, eh? The device that turns a mind to mush has the power to enhance it.

 

That gain probably had more to do with better nutrition and education rather than TV.

[AzurePhoenix]

Or maybe it's the pirates. Hey, if they can influence global warming, why not IQs?

 

EDIT: wow, "RUN!!! It's the Return of the Long Forgotten Posts!!"

[LucidDreamer]

I don't think there will be as much physical cybernetics as people think. Why make permanent mechanical legs that can leap tall buildings when you can simply make a machine that you can operate that leaps tall buildings, and another that swims like a dolphin, and another that can lift heavy machinery? I believe that the cybernetics of the future will be enhancements that allow people to connect efficiently with an electronic interface that will allow them to more efficiently access information, download skills and abilities quickly into their minds, access electrically based applications like calculators and databases search functions, control mechanical and electrical devices remotely and efficiently through the interface, and use a multi-layered and versatile communications application.

 

I believe any form of natural evolution of the human species will be inconsequential compared to the amount of genetic engineering going on. I believe that the genetic engineering will be mostly about improving our connections to the electrical interfaces, enhancing our creativity and problem solving abilities, and prolonging the human life span.

[The Spith]

Humans are evolving memetically, not physically

Good point

 

However I'm of the opinion that the species will be wiped out somewhere in the next hundred years

[LucidDreamer]

Good point

 

However I'm of the opinion that the species will be wiped out somewhere in the next hundred years

Homo sapiens are one most hardy large animal species on the planet with billions of individuals. We could lose 99.9% of the population and still have an excellent chance of persisting.

[Mayflower]

Homo sapiens are one most hardy large animal species on the planet with billions of individuals. We could lose 99.9% of the population and still have an excellent chance of persisting.

 

Yes, especially considering how widely spread out we are, and how many different ways people survive around the world.

[stubighead]

I think there is little chance of us being wiped out anytime soon. Really the only likely thing to do that would be a big enough asteroid to come out of the blue capable of wiping most of us out and then leaving the planet in an uninhabitable state, all be it temporary. If we had enough warning it would be possible to construct a reserve where a small population could survive until the planet was able to support us again.

 

A virus would be unlikely to wipe us out simply because there is enough variation in the population to ensure some individuals would be immune.

 

As far as the future of the human race goes, well evolution occurs over a very long time and requires selective pressures of which there are few. I think one interesting idea is that the population could eventually ie a long time, split into two species different in intelligence and attractiveness. This is a genuine selective pressure as mentioned before. It wouldnt result in less attractive and less intelligent people going extinct i doubt because firstly if this was going to happen it probably already would have as this would have been a very early evolutionary change, secondly, through the population there is a very wide range of intelligence and attractiveness so there must be equal successfulness for all individuals.

 

This is could be due to less attractive and less intelligent people reproducing together and vice versa. This forms a social split in a population. If you run this over a few thousand or million years you could have two seperate species formed. Of course on the other hand the more intelligent species may decide for some reason that it is not a "good thing" to have this other lesser species in existence and drive them to extinction in some humane manner (or not and just wipe them out).

 

After all this is what happened in theory when humans evolved in the first place. The more intelligent individuals proved more succesfull and consequently took over the world replacing (not living alongside) our ancestors. It is not unreasonable to think this could happen again.

 

ill take a breath.

[stubighead]

Oh and yeah britain is a bit obese although it is widely excepted that america is the fattest nation on earth - sorry.

[darkkazier]

Heh, we're all gonna turn into giant floating brains...

[The Spith]

Oh and yeah britain is a bit obese although it is widely excepted that america is the fattest nation on earth - sorry.

 

There is still a big gap though. I live in London and when someone is a bit chubby we call them fat. I can spend a day in London, walk past more than a thousand people and not see one obese person.

 

However I went to America once for a fortnight and seeing grossly obese people was a daily occurence.

 

Oh and Japanese people have the longest life expectancy due to the large amount of omega 3 fish oil-rich sushi they eat

[Auk]

Also here in Canada we're facing increased obesity level's. I do beleive that in the province I live we have the highest per capita in all of Canada.

[beautyundone]

knowing the human nature and lack of common sense in certain situations, i believe we will probably nuke one another before much evolution has time to take place.

 

haha, but seriously; i think we do stand a good chance of evolving quite a great deal technologically... but i can't really see us evolving much physically.

[AzurePhoenix]

Meh, as I see it, tiny, ignorable aesthetic changes are going to build up until eventually until we look far different from current humans (whether or not any so-called "practical" changes occur).

[Astrazoic]

I think that H sapiens will survive for thousands of years into the future, and along the way give rise to machine intelligence. Both intelligent species will then vie for occupation of various ecological niches, but will aslo have a very strong symbiotic relationship (by design). Many ecological niches throughout the Solar System will be better exploited by machines and cybertnitc organisms (belnd between organic and artificial), while H sapiens will remain here and there in pockets among the ten planets.

 

Migration throughout the local interstellar region will probably take place some 10,000 years from now or so, and this will bring about a huge number of speciation events due to the wide dispersion and vast distances involved.

 

Life is resilient, and so are we. I am very optimistic this will come to pass. It is also possible that H sapiens will become extinct in the relatively near future (we will become extinct at somepoint, of course). With Earth likely to be around for billions of years hence, other organisms can take our place and perhaps be more effective at populating space.

 

Having said those things, however, it is important to recognize that I do not believe that war will become obsolete, and that we will one day live in a world without the horros of our dark ways. Our darker side will always be with us, and so to will be tragedy, major difficulty, setbacks, and all those other things that come with the magnificence we always attribute to our civilization.

 

For more on this, see a little slide show I put together some time ago:

http://www.philsmith.us/ATWGBrief.pps