Will Mankind be able to migrate in time

Resource use is accelarating as population and industrialization increases. Very little of our resources are focused on technological development.

I think we dont have a snowballs chance in hell of leaving the planet in anything like sustainable numbers. We are the mold in the petri dish. Not much longer now.

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I agree, we are pathetically shortsighted. And we are even only that good at seeing when we uncover our eyes.

Don't worry, we're all gonna die of AIDS, 'Gullible Warming', the impending Ice Age, an asteroid, nuclear war, terrorist attacks, or any number of other disasters or maladies before we'll move to another planet!

the reason we will have to move will be our limiting factor in a successful move, energy!

This is so deeply, and ironically, true!

The hot air from this thread will cause severe global warming that will surely kill us all! After you are gone does anything really matter? Relax enjoy life! Have an ice cream, play with your kids, help the less fortunate and by all means quit pondering such BS!

If you take the most brilliant and adept of us and blindfold them, spin them around a couple of times...They won't find their a$$ with both hands!

I believe that the suffering of others is not something we should make light of. All those things are severe human tragedies with great suffering involved. They have happened to greater and lesser degrees and will happen again as things go. If we thought about them more and made the life of just 10s of millions sufferers more like those of us who are well-off, it would be worth it to me.

The reason we will go off the cliff without even knowing much before we are able to leave this planet is best illuminated in your post. Dont wory be happy. You will be saying that 10 years before we run out of oil and all industrial agriculture colapses.

Where do you think fertilizer comes from? How does food iget to market. How much bio mass can the planet support without this. How rappidly is population growing..

Agent Smith was right. We are a virus.

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Why should we care at present about extinction hazards in the future?

...Why should we care at present about extinction hazards in the future?...

Fair enough, valid enough question:

Because further propagation is an integral part of our present being, otherwise, why even bother to survive at all?

It really boils to a deeper question: Why live or maintain life, given that we are doomed to die in the end?

Why indeed?

If you have ever experienced happiness, this question is redundant: We live to obtain and maintain happiness, whatever it may mean to whoever concerned. This is my personal experience, however.

So , infertile people may wish to jump off a cliff ? I think not. You hit on a very interesting issue (as always) Yuval. Do you think we are hard-wired to breed ? Is it a learned thing ? I'm sure this ties in with another thread but I can't think which off-hand , I shall contemplate overnight . (IF I SURVIVE ANOTHER QUAKE , HINT,HINT)

our bodies most primal urge is to survive and propagate. our souls most primal urge is to love and learn. both in contradiction of our current outlooks of a bleak future. of course mankind will never give up, but ironically, be our own murderer.

...infertile people may wish to jump off a cliff..

Not even in the broad sense I aimed for: the evolutional.

Fertility, is relative, not absolute, and consequential, in a creature's life perspective.

Some may think they are infertile for twenty years, to eventually discover they're not. This is in an individual perspective. not even in the broad perspective of a species continuity.

Besides, Being fertile is not a pre-requisition to being happy and content. We sometimes envy a bird or a cat for frolicking careless in the back yard. There is a saying: when you point at someone, you triple-point (fingerwise) at yourself. Why man, top-predator, Alpha in the food-chain become envious of an animal?

For being happy, content.

This was one of the nearest places I could drop this ;

http://www.cnn.com/video/player/player.html?url=/video/world/2007/04/29/vo.new.ark.ap&wm=11

No , I didn't watch it all the way through either. Still , it is kind of weird.

Yeah, I get it, yet, the underlined dark streak behind it all, is somewhere in the realm of "will I be one of the chosen ones, to be taken to a better place?...", you know, associatively.

As if the train is just about to leave the dock of our hopes. It aches to even think of it.

Which brings me to the old and beaten Alien-Visitation myth.

In my private, personal, chimp-like association, the alien myth is a human begging for extraterrestrial intervention, a kind of agnostic earth-god denial.

Too far apart, you say?

We seem to be trapped between our already done doo-doo, and our hopes for redemption, by an all-merciful almighty saviour.

The most intelligent creature on earth.

As you wish Yuval.

Species survival is not just wired-in, it is a necessary part of the definition of life. We, as an animal species, are a part of life and we cannot behave otherwise.

But! we can maintain survival by means of existing technologies at the time danger looms.

Question is: should we prepare survival tools now? For all dangers? Which first?

My gut feeling is that motivation will appear when a danger is closer, that's the way ma nature works.

We all simply need to elect officials who put mankind before money! good luck finding one of those.

Good idea! Trouble is that there are many kinds of mankind. What's a good recipe for finding officals who put the right kind of mankind before money?

the only "kind" of mankind there is, is human. I do not differenciate between class, color, creed, ethnicity or anything else. If official's "views" and understandings of the world and their surroundings were as big as their pockets and propensity for greed and graft, we wouldn't be in the predicament we find ourselves in now. unfortunately our political system, and most others, is not conducive to unity and sacrafice for the betterment of all. In fact, the opposite.

You don't differentiate and I don't either, but, unfortunately, history shows that immediately after having been 'chosen', now matter how, all officials start to differntiate. Otherwise they cease to be officials and other officials replace them.

I do not differenciate between class, color, creed, ethnicity or anything else

'differenciate' is just as slippery as 'discriminate'. Some such word must be used in being selective (which is also used as a smokescreen). How do you pick a candidate for a job.

I applaud your view on class , colour , creed , ethnicity. However we all discriminate daily - it is essential . The word 'discriminate' has been hijacked by the politically correct to prevent selecting people on the basis of ability. I can now no-longer show 'discrimination' in my choice of newspaper, music etc because the word is vilified.

Our language is turned against us in an Orwellian Big Brother style . The things that matter (which you and I agree on ) are perfectly covered by a statement of not being prejudiced. Discrimination as a word , at one time not long ago meant having discernment about worth and merit without giving consideration to class color creed and ethnicity.

The issue is resulting in people being appointed way above their competence - The Peter principle no longer applies.

...Peter principle no longer applies...

Having engineers retained on a worker's salary - Worldwide phenomenon, 'nuff said

Don't get me going abou... Oh , yeah ,,

...should we prepare survival tools now? For all dangers? Which first?...

We have been doing so, ever since recorded history, only we call it "Technology" today.

...motivation will appear when a danger is closer...

Back to my raised point: Will we manage to utilise the ever-faster closing window of opportunity, given mass extinction, ecological domino-effect, an un controlled rate of population growth.

We may manage if we don't over-react. Meanwhile, the only viable criteria for adopting or discarding technologies have been economical. This is obviously not an optimal long-term algorithm. Another bad algorithm is shown by the sad fact that we are all becoming more and more similar to each other. This is a loss of a major biological survival strategy: diversity.

Hi Yuval and others!

I don't think we will be able to migrate - not because there is lack of energy but because we will perpetuate the mistakes of the past.

Churchill: the only that men will learn from the past that they won't learn anything!

Konrad Lorenz: Civilised mens eight deadly sins.

We as mankind are neglecting biologys necessities: stable systems need feedback.

This is well accepted in science and engineering but not at all accepted in everydays life.

So we will have blossomimg of cultures and then fall and then what? - nothing.

No culture on earth (urban culture) ever lasted longer than 700years, more likely 300 to 500 years.

They all neglected the facts that good life is the first step towards decline.

Konrad Lorenz (nobel laureate from Austria has some more reasons outrlined in his book).

So if we are clever we will never have the need to leave our planet, we will have ample energy and ample resources, there need not be any shortage if we look at the existing possibilities.

Today I have the feeling that indian and chinese and indonesean people are a bit better than western people.

But they too have the never ending tendency towards better life, and this will kill us all in the long term.

Real problems will come up as soon as the first vital technology is no longer functional if no second source for a vital supply is available. Or if the first big desaster in food production is coming up similar to the irish potato pest of 1845 but on a much bigger scale as we are much more relying on a few crops only.

So there are a lot of dangers for our civilisation that are not discussed today.

There will be never the need nor the possiblity to go to other planets of our solar system nor any other solar system But it is very likely to almost certain that we will destroy the basics of our civilisation by some few fundamental mistakes:

Why are our youngster so much worse in education than our generation was?

Why are the positive effects of the Kibbuzim in your country no longer existing?

Why are we feeding our children with TV shows that are composed of crime and nonesense?

We neglect any wisdom of the past and we cannot learn from the past or the majority cannot learn.

In roman history it took 400 years to reach the end after the maximum of power and the first military failures.

How long will it take for us?

RHABE

to sum it all up, mankinds demise will come at his own hands, by his own greed. As posted earlier, our governing officials allow this to occur. Until we make fundamental changes at the governmental level, and in all aspects of it, real change will never occur and our path will not be altered enough to effect the savior of mankind from himself.

...Why are the positive effects of the Kibbuzim in your country no longer existing?...

Because once the Soviet system has "fallen", not only they stated to negate communism, but they went to the extreme of negating socialism, and even socially benefited capitalism.

They went from one extreme to another, leaving many kibbutz member impoverished.

Have you ever tried to maintain a capitalist kibbutz? It's like a sheep feeding on the kill of other sheep. It's grotesque. Come here and see for yourself.

Some Kibbutzim, stayed communist and refused to adept, and they are some of the richest communities here.

Rich communists.

Who would have ever thought...

Our best bet is diversity.

Optimal planning has been a fallacy, clearly shown-up, for instance, in what happened to the Soviet and other, similar, 'total planning' regimes.

If we could limit population, limit energy production, limit 'bad' genes etc. etc., we could probably extend our tenure. But! it seems that we cannot do that because we matter to ourselves, our children matter too, our grandchildren? yes, but less so and the further we venture into the future the less we're interested in our progeny's welfare.

Also, we cannot predict full long term consequences of even trivial measures. Remember that Amazonian butterfly and the hurricane it produced.

We can therefore only try to be prudent by keeping many irons in the fire.

We are at present not up to being able to analyse the distant consequences of committing ourselves to any kind of obligatory measures.

I agree with your diversity approach , but "bad genes " ?? Who makes that call then.

That's why I have put 'bad' within quotation marks. Should have been more explicit...

Phew , the wifes got ginger hair and i didn't want to have to tell her the bad news !

Your questions are answered as thoroughly as I've ever seen it done, in a book called "The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps" by Marshall T. Savage. I believe there is also a web site, (http://www.luf.org/) it is no longer called the millenial project, but Living Universe Foundation, and is dedicated to fund raising I think.

It has been controversial to say the least, but then, thats to be expected when one writes about an actual plan saving humanity. Just the same, it is a strong step in the direction of the sciences that will be required. especially the mass launching ideas.

In my opinion, mankind will not know what it is capable of, other than bickering and bitching, til it gets off its ass, and tries. What is required, is someone with the guts and clout of JFK to get it going. I commend the genius of Mr. Savage for having the guts to think up and write his book.

Chris

Petri Dish..........Mold.....We will consume all the resources at an ever eccelrating pace, then die in our own waste products..........

It is our nature. We are not enlightened. We are stupid and pig headed and selfish...........

nothing will remain... It will all have been pointless.....

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If they build a giant spaceship to get us off this rock, can I bunk with you?

Plans are afoot e , cast your eye around cr4. I jest not.

I read a sci-fi story years ago where the Earth's government built a single, huge starship to evacuate humanity just prior to the Sun's going nova. But the Sun wasn't going to go nova. The whole thing was a elaborate hoax designed to exterminate the bulk of humanity. The craft was designed to crash on takeoff.

Hey , Guess what - Doctor Who did that years ago ! I only vaguely recall it . Mad scientist convinces people they are on a starship to form a new colony . Naughty , naughty. He knows it can't be done , so they get chucked in orbit while he nukes Earth . Yup , the plan is they land on a 'whole new planet' and start over. Ace , but I don't remember how the Doc saves everyone

They were on TV yesterday (in the Empire State Building - stairs 'aint gonna save ya now). Theres a really 'bad' cyclops monster - could have rigged a periscope in the costume so we couldn't see the actors eye holes ! I have an 80 something y.o granma-in-law who's fanatical (she likes Dr Who as well ).

I'm going to check my sink plunger hasn't mooved !

... The craft was designed to crash on takeoff...

Did they call the spaceship "Shoa"?:

On the doorstep of the gas-chamber in Auschwitz, was a warning sigh: "Beware, a step!"

"Beware, a step!"

I think that was German attention to detail Yuval , and nothing personal.

They clearly hadn't realized that some might need assistance , and also that the plural may have been more informative. Unusual for german precision.

Self-deprecating jokes / German jokes. It will end in tears. A thousand years will not change that abomination . We have to try and pick up the pieces , our fore-bears are not us. Your humour is a gift , but next time warn me so I can throw up accidentally-on-purpose over someone who doesn't get the joke.

...A thousand years will not change that abomination...

A point I was trying to raise atop this thread, and forget abomination for a second, "Do we actually have a thousand years, for whatever you have in mind?"

A joking matter?

Hi Yuval,

thanks for the invitation to come and look what happened to the Kibbuz movement,

if I have a chance I will give you a notice - last time I was in your country was 1983 so pretty much changed since then.

If you ask "do we actually have a thousand years" then we shall first discuss which dangers will be lethal and which dangers are imminent but where we can circumvent the worst consequences.

Thats why I gave the Konrad Lorenz book title above, where is stated from his view why the western civilisation will fail.

I am absolutely shure that manking will not fail by lack of energy nor by lack of food.

I think it very likely that mankind will fail by genetic degeneration.

Our ancestors lived in the times of hunters and gatherers (1million years to 10thousand years ago roughly) in small to medium groups and all persons had a hard struggle to survive the first 15years (half of the newborn died in the first 15 to 17 years). During these hard to survive living our brain and our thinking our skills and our weapons became better and better until around 100thousand years ago. At that time mankind started to spread over all continents bringing with them established and highly differentiated languages, the ability to feed the older ones to secure survival of the grandparents what secured a much better survival of the newborn. In the following 100thousand years our ancestors brain size shrinked by near 10% - no longer needed no longer trained no longer necessary for survival. From this time on life became progressively dependent on technology on established states on structures as armies and companies where some shall be very intelligent and others need not be. So the distribution of intelligence changed from more or less most people being able to survive in the wilderness to only a few being able. Survival in the wilderness is equivalent to survival as a political or company leader. And my feeling and my opinion is that this phenomenon of continuous degeneration - by no longer early dying of the non fit offspring - has taken place since centuries.

If I look to history, I see the following causes for collapse: war (loosing or winning),

economic war (also often both sides), new weapons of outside people (steel to bronze?), overwhelming influence of religious people together with a crisis (first egyptian culture) and may be most important: progressive weakness after a long time of good living and state welfare (Romans, Turkish).

Tell me one example where after an extended period of welfare and good living the local people have been strong enough to defend against any intruder?

In our times of globalisation there will not be an intruder but a new threat: illness, food shortage/rising prices, energy shortage/rising prices, unability to combat terrorists, and many more possibilities.

In former times whole tribes up to some hundredthousand individuals started to find a new territory, some succeed some failed totally the majority of these attempts had a partial success . This will not happen again but the driving forces that expelled people from their territory will happen again (climatic or health the most easy to accept).

So I think that after half a century of fat living no community will be able to survive the next big threat - so we shall improve any training of some isolated or small groups for special skills. But we will not establish any more the brutal Darwinian selection that was existing as mankind emerged from the very beginnings and had big success. And this lack of selection will kill all of us in the long term coming history.

See Jared Diamond: The rise and the fall of the third chimpanzee.

If you find a solution to reestablish some really wild tribes may be they can contribute positively - as in ancient times.

Why did Mose lead your ancestors for 20 years circling the Sinai desert? They could have reached the land of milk and honey in much shorter time. But coming out of superfluous Egypt they were not at all able warriors, but after 20 years the next generation was. We will not have this possibility! Unless we can train a small part of mankind in an analogous way.

RHABE

...In our times of globalisation there will not be an intruder but a new threat: illness, food shortage/rising prices, energy shortage/rising prices, unability to combat terrorists, and many more possibilities...

This is indeed a strong point to make: Having no external competitor for our alpha status in nature, is destined to degrade us in terms of natural selection, even if it would take a few thousand years.

My worry is that we don't even have one thousand to survive, before a domino-effect collapse comes, firstly due to over-population, leading to agriculture food-production collapse, chain-linked to environmental mass extinction and eco-pollution disasters.

For my own opinion, the most urgent today is, population-control or birth-control if you like, coupled with a radical, re-distribution of the global resource-base, with future survival of global humanity and eco-systems in mind, into a long-term stabilisation of these systems, aimed to be achieved within a few generations.

This calls for dedicated, altruistic political cadre, which currently is nowhere to be seen, and for this, I wail. Corrupted, or self-centered politicians are the accepted standard, and the world is not just facing inevitable crisis, it already is in the midst of this crisis, for about twenty to thirty years.

Today, we already are in the midst of the most catastrophic mass extinction in recorded history, the argument is only to the rate of increase, not the proportions.

Global wealth distribution today is such, that regional and inter-cultural economic and military clashes are all but assured for any visible future, all that, with the "immanent" danger of mass destruction technologies falling into the hands of fanatical, suicidal, terrorist groups, both able and willing.

I very much doubt we have a thousand years. I very much doubt we have even less than a thousand.

Spaceships a-la Noah's Ark, are a bitter-sad fantasy, since we really have nowhere to go, if being sincere to ourselves, for once.

If the internet fails , we will end up back in the stone age. Relax everybody.

It will be the biggest social upheval in history , but mankind will survive as a species and the planet will stop wobbling out of control . Billions may die , but our species will continue .

I'll side with Kris by following the late Israeli Arab Christian Communist politician and playwright who wrote a play called The Opsimist. Being pessimistically concerned about the fate of humanity in the 4th milennium AD feels somewhat artificial (except as a purely intellectual exercise). We could have probably survived for a long time as intelligent and mobile hunter-gatherers at balance with ma nature. But, being intelligent, we invented agriculture which led to hoarding which in turn led to capitalism and unregulated growth considered to be a good thing.

On the other hand, optimistically invoking GAMCHAS - the Global Authority for Maximising Chances of Survival - invented for the purpose of this discussion, will surely fail catastrophically. Government by consent seems to be viable for small groups, short periods and a genius for muddling through. Any claim of understanding a major socio-economic problem sufficiently for solving it for the common good is an llusion (at best) and at worst, a trick for favouring somebody at the expense of somebody else.

Therefore I'll opt for opsimism and hope that constant relatively minor self-regulatory mechanisms will help us survive for some time.

As for emigrating? I'd like to know more about the climate of the promised land, available jobs, who is boarding the ship etc.

We could of course emulate old Noah and choose male and female optimal representatives instead of just sending everybody indiscriminately. Bad from a gene-pool point of view, but it will certainly save fuel!

I'll have to look up the play you referenced , souds interesting.

One further thought - I really would not want to be on that first lifeboat if it get's built in time. It's a sure bet that others have there seats allocated , and it won't be on the basis of species survival. 'Form an orderly queue' - I think not. Safer to keep out of the stampede . Self-interest will sink the boat.

I found some great stuff looking up the play . I'm not pasting links as It goes a bit political , but those interested will find plenty of stuff that (I think) is worth reading.

Thanks poster (I'm in the editor and forgot your name untill I've posted this.).Kris

...Self-interest will sink the boat... On it's way to, ahmmm... where exactly?

On it's way to 'deliverance' for those who didn't want to tidy up the back yard.

...On it's way to 'deliverance' for those who didn't want to tidy up the back yard...

At one point in the foreseeable future, it won't be very unlikely that you may be offered to participate in a future governmental assembly as a foreign affairs secretary.

As long as my PA's a nice bit of skirt.

Will I get in with half the vote ?

Hold on , a lot of them don't have a vote ! No problem.

...late Israeli Arab Christian Communist politician and playwright who wrote a play called The Opsimist...

A humble note: Emil Habibi, native to Haifa, wrote the play, describing a fictional Arab resident of Israel, forced to adapt his livelihood-style and personal manner, to a string hope-and-despair situations arising from the establishment of the state of Israel. The author, Habibi, was revered here, for his blunt criticism of political hypocrisy, in his journalistic writing for forty years.

Hi to all,

Having no external competitor for our alpha status in nature, is destined to degrade us in terms of natural selection, even if it would take a few thousand years.

this is one key component for survival but there must be more:

There are "new" competitors in the global play: China, India and Brazil were not really competitors 25 years ago but now they are.

The natural selection may exist on a state scale: some will be rich for prolonged time others will fall. History tells us that one reason for decline are limited resources: exhausted woods in Spain and Portugal did not give them a prolonged chance in the fight with Britain - not foreseeing what will happen.

This competition is now for total global resources this makes the play very different. And the dealy times are very long (decades or centuries) and regulated systems with delay time are invariably instable if loop amplification is high.

First question: how to introduce competition again: not only on a state basis but individually?

Second question: when and why there is (very rare but existing) real reform with very positive outcome? (From Solon in Athens 500BC to Stein in Prussia 1806 do you know other examples?) Companies do have an easyer play: if sales are not sufficient the chiefs get fired, the new ones sometimes are better, the result is pretty clear some years later. How to translate to state or global affairs?

Third question: How to limit total number of people?

Fourth question: Which metallic and energy resources shall be in limited use too? This is much more complicated as thought by most people as there is for any material a rising supply with rising prices but who will be able to afford the rising prices and for how long a time this can really meet the demand.

Fifth question: How to protect natural resources and nature in its diversity? This is the only question to solve I have a solution: declare big enough military reserves - training areas or else. They will guard the areas agains intruders. Beautiful natural reserves will develop, look at the existing training grounds you will be astonished how many endangered species actually live there.

As we killed most of our natural killers there is no longer Darwinian selection so it may be a good idea to reintroduce this selection but I don't see a way.

So I fear - as you do - that there will be a very cataclysmic breakdown sometime within the next 1000 years. If at that time the now emerging states have any technology and any production they need for survival mankind will survive there. But I doubt that this status can be reached today or tomorrow.

I do not think that a limited nuclear war will be a real threat for survival, as devastating it will be locally. Think about the residuals of hundreds of nuclear tests in the open atmosphere. I do not think that terroristic threats are really endangering us these have been existing from time to time in various contexts in history - a different post may be needed for this topic. But: we should not allow anybody to preach terrorism and having the one and only truth found somewhere!

If technology too is breaking down our successors will fall down to iron age technology : primitive steel making is easy and the knowledge is widely distributed now. But no easy to reach silver, copper, tin or lead is existing any more. Glass making will survive too if a real community survives and ceramoc pottery too.

As this idea is not very comforting please think about possible ways out of the upcoming crisis.

RHABE

Took me a while to get that . I will buy a ticket for my mother in law now.