Future of Humans

[Kermit]

Im just wondering what all of you think as to the future of human evolution as in:

-When a we will become a new species?

-What would our apperence be?

-What new traits may we develop?

-How we will interact with; each other/the planet/animal/rest of the universe

 

Hmm. Well, I dunno. Maybe a few eons later we'll be large, hairless, and with giant brains. That is, if we don't all wipe eachother out.

 

Maybe we'll even prosper and become a Type I, then II, then III civilization like those hypothesized by that, uh, guy whose name I can't remember.

[danny8522003]

I wonder sometimes if humans will evolve, taking natural selection into account:

 

Have any of you English people (i dunno if this is true elsewhere) noticed how a large number of braindead scum that live off the state have like 7 kids, whereas intelligent, career minded couples have 1-2?

 

Now im not saying all people that live off the state are scum and all that blah blah blah...

 

Scary thought though, will we all eventually be overrun by chain smoking, lager guzzling, lazy idiots?

[jowrose]

Well this is definitely an interesting thread... I guess i'll just give some opinions (and random nonsense) in response to some of the "ideas" that have been expressed here.

 

First, the disappearance of men. Altogether possible, due to the introduction of two elements into humanity: the sperm bank and the aluminum stepladder. We are essentially useless.

 

Moving on, the genetic alteration of humanity. While i think humanity as a whole has "mutated" extremely little in the past several millenia, one cannot underestimate the effects of the growing amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere as well as emerging viruses and new unknownd biochemical agents (and stuff like that). I sound so smart. So i believe that, as the human population in itself has been rapidly expanding (it took thousands of years for the globe to be inhabited by 1 billion, and only 100 years for that to grow to 6 billion) the rapidity of genetic alteration is hence accelerated. Artificial alteration to the human genome could also become an issue, as there will always be mad scientists trying to make their own frankensteins (imagine the new terrorist weapon: genetically engineered super-soldiers physically superior to anything else--crazy but theoretically possible).

 

Oh and finally, somebody mentioned the end of the world. Well i was quite interested in the concept a few months ago so i did the most scientific thing i could: google searched it. Of course you get the occassional hippies saying it will be on their birthdays and that they are the antichrist and whatnot but i came accross and interesting concept. The earth is supposedly measured in different eras (or epochs or whatever the hell they referred to them as) that are ended by cataclysmic events. And we are due for one. The mayans supposedly realized this, and their calendar mysteriously ends in December of 2012. Just ends. As it turns out, there is also a "super volcano" underneath yellowstone national park that has the potential to make a crater from CA to Ohio... yeah it's farfetched and probably a lot of nonsense but come 2012... it'll probably be like that one scene in Independence Day, where all the loonies are out on the rooftops.

 

Well that was my pseudoscientific opinion, you all probably got stupider reading this.

[bombus]

Humans unlike all other apes have a liking for youthfulness. Thusly, in a million years we will all look like big skinny babies with massive heads. Cosmetic surgery may scupper this though and instead we'll look the same as we do now!

 

We are still evolving - not due to our environment but due to our genetic programming - sexual evolution, if you will (re Red Queen etc).

[jowrose]

hahaha

 

very possible