What is the next age? (i.e., industrial age)

[bennyboy]

Age of PC anti-realism.

[Anomalocaris]

Why?   The eternal meaning of what it is to be human has changed as often as the whether.   The only difference is people normally aren’t always so conceited about the whether of the day being the one eternal immutable meaning of weather.

Maybe it would have been better if we defined the comfortable conceits about what being human means that would have to be gotten rid of before I said it was a pipe dream.

If we're talking about the sort of green revolution Khem supported, as good as that sounds, for it to really have any real effect, well, I'm sure you remember the IPCC report a few months ago that said if we drastically reduced carbon emissions in the next few decades, we could mitigate the effects of global warming. They said it would require "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society." And, of course, Trump, president of the country with the biggest production of carbon emissions behind China, more or less said, "Fuck that." Yes, one of the nations that really needed to pull their weight in this decided they didn't give a shit.

If you're thinking of the sort of "we must love one another or die" sentiment that W.H. Auden expounded upon in 1939, well, all you need to do is look at the news and see that (at least on a macro level) we've made our choice. And it ain't "love one another."

Honestly, I've had a deep abiding pessimism about humanity's chances towards self-improvement and self-destruction since I was a preteen, and the last few years have done nothing short of galvanising it. Sorry, Nom, but even if we do manage to make things better for ourselves, I know we'll find some way to fuck it all up somewhere down the road. I know this because that's what we've always done.

I am pessimistic about our chances of actually meeting with the fate we deserve in any reasonable amount of time.

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Age of PC anti-realism.

As opposed to the age of making up self-serving shut and claiming them to be reality so as to better oppress our fellow men?

[bennyboy]

As opposed to the age of making up self-serving shut and claiming them to be reality so as to better oppress our fellow men?

No, as opposed to industrial production and business growth. I think the age of economic expansion must end, and without growth, a lot fewer people will have families. Then, there's nothing to do but find new roles and role identities to keep us busy.

I was a little snarky maybe in my last post, because I dislike PC, but in reality, I think all of that pretty much comes out of where the west is at technologically.

[Rev. Rye]

Age of PC anti-realism.

And also Anti-PC anti-realism. And as annoyed as I can get with the former, the latter is worse and a demonstrably bigger threat. Just look at the White House.

[The Grand Nudger]

In fairness, a third green revolution will not be all roses and sunshine.  We'll get new weapons out of the bargain, like we did in the other two. We'll find new ways to massively fuck up something we don't even know about yet, like we did in the other two.

[Aoi Magi]

The next age will definitely be space age!

Based on current trends, either we will royally screw-up the earth, or turn it into a boring utopia (and then royally screw it up), so either way, we have to turn to space for our survival.

[Anomalocaris]

The next age will definitely be space age!

Based on current trends, either we will royally screw-up the earth, or turn it into a boring utopia (and then royally screw it up), so either way, we have to turn to space for our survival.

We are already in space age.


But if you mean humans actually colonizing other worlds, I think that is at least a couple of century away. In the meantime, advances in genetic, microelectronic and manufacturing technology will probably change humanity all out of shape.

Before we are ever in any position to embark on serious space colonization, we will probably all be deeply connected cyborgs where the concept of privacy and even individuality fade and perhaps disappear. Reproduction will be gradually less biological and more manufacturing. But even before we reach that stage, we will likely experience social upheaval comparable to original migration of rural population to cities at the primary stage of industrial revolution.

[Aoi Magi]

We are already in space age.

We are not in space age till we have the space force (with multi-coloured slow-moving inaccurate laser weapons).

But see, from my perspective the upcoming technological revolutions and the social changes it causes are still part of the current age. I am more interested in what happens after that

[Anomalocaris]

We are already in space age.

We are not in space age till we have the space force (with multi-coloured slow-moving inaccurate laser weapons).

But see, from my perspective the upcoming technological revolutions and the social changes it causes are still part of the current age. I am more interested in what happens after that

If by what happens after that, you mean what happens after all trends that can be discerned now have run their courses, then by definition it is impossible to have any grounded and informed opinion about what happens after that.

But if you define the start of a new age as when a new factor begins to dramatically alter roles and ways of life of much of the composition of the society, then I assert the new age will be when connectivity, cybernetics and genetic engineering erases much of the concept of privacy and individual identity.

Instead of being conditioned by our biology to perceive the world first and foremost as an individual, connectivity will begin to make the amalgamation of individual into collective occur at the most elementary cognitive and perceptual level. At the same time cybernetics and genetic engineering will increasingly enable us to tailor ourselves eventually we will bear little resemblance in appearance, behavior, life cycle, and instinct from both what the original homosapien gene pool would have had these, and from each other.

I think it’s quite possible in a couple of centuries one human being will be as different from anotherbin appearance, capability, and role as a lathe is different from a 3D printer, and both can perceive eachother seamlessly as if the other were oneself and collaborate over connectivity with no more bandwidth and information content bottleneck between two individuals as between two thoughts in one single brain.

[ignoramus]

If the dick's in charge aren't careful, our next age may be the Mad Max age.