what are your expectations for the future of us humans?

[Guest]

Ok, I admit it- probably  due to my New England wasp upbringing (no, not Boston wasp, my ancesters were whalers, fishermen and Indian Fighters), I am a pessimist.  I cannot see how we humans can go on doing as we are. We are trashing our planet, overpopulating it, and acting like OIL will never run out. The single most astonishing graph I have ever seen was one showing oil use, and expected depletion- basicly a spike from 1850. to 2050. Unparalleld in human history. Oil has no equal in energy density. It is essential in all other fields of endeavor. We cannot make steel, copper, plastic, food , other fuels, or anything else on the scale that we need them, without OIL. There is no other known source for aircraft fuel. It takes more OIL energy to make hydrogen and bio-diesel than we get out it is a net energy loss. Are we doomed to decend back to a pre-industrial exsistance?  I am reading J.Diamonds book, "Collapse", and the parallels with the modern world are frightening.
  Anybody eles been pondering this?

[Nathaniel Firethorn]

The economy will convert from oil to other fuels. This will be driven by price increases in oil plus technological advances. I doubt that it will be more catastrophic than the conversion from coal to oil.

- NF

[Preacherman]

I think a lot of our needs will be met by reverting to coal as a feedstock for oil production.  South Africa has been doing this since the 1950's, and the Germans were doing it before WW2.  It's a lot less energy-efficient to convert coal to oil, and then convert the oil to feedstocks for chemicals, plastics, etc., but there are new and more efficient processes in the pipeline, and I suspect that within the next 50 years, coal will provide the bulk of these materials as we run out of oil.  We have enough coal in the ground for several hundred years' use.

[Art Eatman]

In the future as in the past, we'll make do.  We'll never really solve problems; we'll just muddle through.

I'd guess there will be less air travel, due to rising costs to try to create some amount of profitability.  I think people will start moving toward some sort of "strip city" where public transportation can be functional.  The costs of personal transportatioon will push more people toward inner-city locations or even, possibly, "company towns" as in the past.

Desperation for electricity will probably get us into nukes, like a lot of the rest of the world.

And tons of other stuff, of course...

Art

[Guest]

Im sure there was a time when people were in caves lamenting the limited supply of suitably jagged bits of flint. We'll figure out a better way around oil eventually. The world may be a hugely different place afterwards, but it will go on.

[jefnvk]

Look at it this way.  If we don't go on, we die.

Doubt I'll see this in my lifetime, so no need for me to worry.

[grampster]

Here's what puzzles me about Leftists.  They continue to criticize a thing, but stultify the solution to the problem they whine about by opposing solutions to problems they express.

Take energy, for instance.  
Everybody is wrong about that, by the way.   We do not need to conserve anything.  Especially energy.  We need to consume.  Consumption gives birth to inovation.  Check your history.  Everything gives way, even fossil fuel.  There are options that are progress not regression.  Conspicuous consumption is good, because it creates needs, especially in a free society and for the proper reason:  Man's destiny is to play.  Play is good and if it is trouble free, excrutiatingly fun as well.  Man needs to play.

So, figure a way to meet that expectation for the Baby Boomers, you can order your Caddy SUV; the big one.

Well, what are you waiting for.  We all need to go by a Hemi and damn the consequences.  (They'll be really, really fun)

[Standing Wolf]

Malthus was wrong.

[grampster]

Exactly.  Your statement should be ended by a ? (question mark) not a . (period)  If you had done so, the answer woulb be the same.

[Antibubba]

When the easy oil runs out, someone will figure out an economic way to convert the plastics in the landfills back into oil.  They're already doing it-just not cheaply.  Does anyone remember from last year the guy who figured out how to "make" oil from organic wastes; he used turkey guts, believe it or not.  Ended up with a light oil.  

We'll muddle through.

[grampster]

It ain't about oil at all! Or the by-product of... The winner is Inovation! Ding Ding Ding.

[drewtam]

Nuclear energy can provide all the electricity we need for a very long time (at the very very very least several thousand years). Said electricty can be used to synthesize methane (from a CO2 source) which can be used as either a feedstock for all sorts of plastics and other important petrochemical processes (including methanol production), and could be used as the energy storage medium to power our cars. This is much more likely than any sort of H2 (hydrogen) use.
I'm unsure of whether we'll end up with LNG as our fuel or methanol, but I'm very confident that it will be one of those two from the process I just decribed.

For further information and argument about human progress I highly recommend this site:
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/index.html

Alot of reading there but good information backed up with NUMBERS and SOURCES.

Drew

[Parker Dean]

What I find interesting is that when similar posts have come up on a couple of sci-fi boards I frequent, the response is almost 100 percent negative. End of the world, famine, floods, locusts, sky falling, etc. is the general consensus. You'd think that a sci-fi oriented community would be a bit more optimistic.

FWIW, I think that when oil gets expensive enough we'll move on to something else. It won't be a particular problem.

[Firethorn]

I'm looking forward to when we can regularly and cheaply rocket toxic / nuclear waste into the sun.

Why?  That stuff is still useful, recyclable if we ever get over our reservations on using it.

My policy is that I love research.

Efficiency:  Reducing my electric/heating bill is always nice.
Recycling:  Solves two problems at once.  You get supply from waste.  See Efficiency
Cleanness:  I like clean air and water.
Power Generation:  Let's make power cheaper, greener, etc...

We'd be alot further along if we didn't have so many reactionaries.  I'm fully confident that our economy will adjust.  For example, Kyoto wouldn't be nearly such a big deal if we got ten times as much power from nuclear reactors.

Here's what puzzles me about Leftists.  They continue to criticize a thing, but stultify the solution to the problem they whine about by opposing solutions to problems they express.

They're never happy, are they?

Take energy, for instance.  
Everybody is wrong about that, by the way.   We do not need to conserve anything.  Especially energy.  We need to consume.  Consumption gives birth to inovation.  Check your history.  Everything gives way, even fossil fuel.  There are options that are progress not regression.  Conspicuous consumption is good, because it creates needs, especially in a free society and for the proper reason:  Man's destiny is to play.  Play is good and if it is trouble free, excrutiatingly fun as well.  Man needs to play.

So, figure a way to meet that expectation for the Baby Boomers, you can order your Caddy SUV; the big one.

Well, what are you waiting for.  We all need to go by a Hemi and damn the consequences.  (They'll be really, really fun)

Well excuse me, but I'll keep supporting increased efficiency.  If nothing else, it helps your Semi-SUV extend it's range and have more cargo space where the extra gas tanks would otherwise go.

Of course, I support being able to do more on our nice cheap electricity.

[Felonious Monk/Fignozzle]

Some say man's future involves Singularity--
http://yudkowsky.net/tmol-faq/tmol-faq.html

The Bible Code (which is, strangely, in agreement with the Mayan calendar) seems to indicate the strong possibility of a catastrophic collision with a large asteroid on December 21, 2012.

I'm going to live today as if it's my last; that way, I won't be disappointed when it happens.

[Nathaniel Firethorn]

Malthus was wrong.

Only about the constants. Unless humanity gets control of its own greed, it's going to run up against physical limits someday.

- NF

[El Tejon]

I'm really worried about the shortages of whale oil and buggy whips.  I can't seem to find them anywhere and am concerned about the future of civilization.  How can I drive my carriage about town without a buggy whip?

The answer lies in letting go and letting the creative energy of the productive people pull us through.  My local paper featured a club of guys who power their vehicles with french fry soybean oil, something like the Wabash Valley for Renewable Power.  I'm certain there are individuals like this all over the nation.  

In some garage in some state, there is a guy in dirty blue jeans, staying up late, sipping coffee and trying to perfect his car that runs on water.  Leave him be and get out of his way.

[grampster]

Nat,

I subscribe to increased efficiency as well.  But when it is coupled with innovation it makes the efficient thing even more desireable.  Fossil fuels will go away.  The sooner they do, the sooner we'll have innovation.  We should be building nuclear powerplants everywhere.

[Nathaniel Firethorn]

Grampster, my point was that the source of energy doesn't matter. Ever read an essay called "Fecundity Limited" by Isaac Asimov? Even if humanity has unlimited energy, we will hit a hard resource limit in only a few thousand years -- the available matter in the Universe.

BTW, for some interesting reading, Google for "sonofusion."

- NF

[K Frame]

We'll die out sooner or later.

My guess is sooner rather than later.

[griz]

OH MY GOD WE'RE ALL GONNA' DIE!!!!!

Actually I agree with the the majority here. Nuclear power will become so common that it will drive the cost of oil down. We may run out of something, but we can still advance as a society instead of becoming cave men, oops I mean cave persons, again.

[K Frame]

"OH MY GOD WE'RE ALL GONNA' DIE!!!!!"

Saw a bumper sticker years ago.

"Life. It's a Death Sentence"

[Old Dog]

Don't you guys know?  Someone already invented automobile engines that use water as fuel ... Only President Bush and VP Cheney have the inventor locked up in Guatenamo Bay and the NSA and CIA have possession of the formula, which will never, ever be used because the administration is being paid off by the oil companies and an alliance of the Big 3,  the Japanese/Korean and European automakers ...

Eh, as Grampster and a couple other noted ... we'll adapt, overcome and survive.  Just look at how technology has developed in the past twenty years alone ... the past forty years ... and our scientists and our society is on the verge of some really, really amazing technological advances that will ensure the survival of our species and our planet for another few thousand years ... And when our planet does eventually perish into nothing, it'll have been a good run ...

[Parker Dean]

Grampster, my point was that the source of energy doesn't matter. Ever read an essay called "Fecundity Limited" by Isaac Asimov? Even if humanity has unlimited energy, we will hit a hard resource limit in only a few thousand years -- the available matter in the Universe.

I haven't read "Fecundity Limited", but if his thesis was that we'll breed until there's no resources left, then I disagree. If anything, the recent history of the West has shown that once a society becomes affluent the birth rate falls to below replacement levels.

[Paddy]

In terms of geologic time, we're hardly a blip on the radar.  And as long as we continue to adapt, we'll survive.  That said, we're probably overdue for some catastrophic event anyway.  Look at our vulnerabilities-biological (germs, bacteria, viruses, etc.) -geologic (earthquakes, tectonic plate movements, polar shifts, etc.,) -cosmic (asteroids, alien invasion possibilities).   Ther are others we can't even think of.

Don't worry.  Be happy.  Save for your old age.