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/sci/ - Science & Math

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4771716 No.4771716 [Reply] [Original]

The year is 2500 CE.

The standard model of physics is still incomplete, but further experimentation would require a particle accelerator too big to be built on Earth. The skies have been mapped; there is no sign of alien life nor inhibitable worlds out there and new, interesting discoveries are exceedingly rare. Humankind never went to Mars or mined any NEO's. Computers stopped getting faster; and though software got better and better for awhile, it has now reached the constraints of the hardware. Cheap oil ran out and global trade has never recovered. Society now gets by with renewable sources of energy as well as breeder reactors. A nuclear war between India and Pakistan had an environmental effect on the rest of the world that seems to dwarf the effects of global warming, but nothing world ending. Following the war, the UN become much more potent and banned nukes, though some allegedly still exist. The UN, fear of nukes, and the global culture of the internet effectively prevent large scale war.

Technology and society is stagnant. There are no plans to leave Earth.

How would this future make you feel /sci/?

>> No.4771729
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4771729

>>4771716
But where's my glorious dawn?

>> No.4771731

It would suck, but I really don't see why there wouldn't be any sort of space exploration. Rockets would have been perfected and it would be relatively cheap to put things in to orbit.

>> No.4771732

As long as we reverse engineer the optic nerve in my life time I'll be happy.

(There will always exist some field of science that is breaking new ground)

>> No.4771750

>>4771731
Society has been dealing with the effects of both the loss of oil and nuclear war for so long and been so obsessed with the problems of Earth for so long that the very idea of leaving Earth seems almost as absurd as it did before the Moon landing. Anyone who brings up space exploration in public discourse is shunned and reminded of the billions of people starving to death across the world

>> No.4771758

I think by that time, Earth's population would require relocation. The planet doesn't have to be ready for human inhabitants, we would have the ability to engineer a climate that would support us.

>> No.4771760

>>4771732
Why do you want the optic nerve to be reverse engineered? Just wondering.

>> No.4771765

>>4771732
There is now more information than researches can manage. The collapse of the world economy has greatly diminished the number of researchers and their funding. Novel discoveries are few and far between and most researchers spend their lives learning about past discoveries and how it can be applied today.

>> No.4771769

>>4771758
It seems as if the society of this hypothetical world wouldn't really been to prepared to terraform.

>> No.4771770

>>4771758
>I think by that time, Earth's population would require relocation.
They did require relocation, and the means didn't exist to relocate them, so they died. It's that simple.

>> No.4771772

>>4771769
be too*

>> No.4771784
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4771784

>>4771716
The scary thing is that I find this future plausible.

What if none of the miracle technologies like thorium, genetic engineering, quantum computing, nanotechnology, and AI pan out /sci/?! The only bright future independent of these technologies depends on space colonizations, and that is still going nowhere fast!

>> No.4771792

>>4771784
*colonization

>> No.4771988

>>4771784
Me too, quite plausible. Also global trade and travel would be greatly reduced. Jetliners would be a distant memory, and there would be just enough orbital launches to replace aging commsats, because fuel is too expensive. Most engineering would be focussed on doing more with fewer resources (the story of life, really).

The most active disciplines would be those not requiring lots of energy. So biology, genetics, neuroscience, mathematics, software; all of these could make great strides in 500 years. I bet HDTV, phones, and internet would be replaced by some sort of cortical implant by then, due to advances in the understanding of our own brains.

We have only had 40 years of the computer age. Imagine what we could accomplish in four centuries with that technology!

>> No.4772116

>>4771760
We could give blind people synthetic eyes. It's basically the holy grail of prosthesis.