[Serious] The Post-Technological World.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

If we can't sustain the current level of technology what will follow it? I see subsistence agrarian society as the future. Humans will stumble on, probably, but at a lower level of life than we have now by a long shot.

[Yonadav]

What's the reason that humanity would not be able to sustain its current level of technology? I imagine that reason would have a lot to do with shaping things.

[FatAndFaithless]

What's the reason that humanity would not be able to sustain its current level of technology? I imagine that reason would have a lot to do with shaping things.

I agree, and if we aren't able to maintain our current level of technology, it doesn't automatically mean we revert to the 1850s.

[Yonadav]

What's the reason that humanity would not be able to sustain its current level of technology? I imagine that reason would have a lot to do with shaping things.

I agree, and if we aren't able to maintain our current level of technology, it doesn't automatically mean we revert to the 1850s.

Yeah, I could actually imagine a really wonderful world where we just sort of start rejecting technology. That might actually be our future, if we were to come to the conclusion that the only way that we are going to get global warming under control is to live vastly simpler lives. We could keep tractors and their implements, and the average work week for most people could be like 16 hours, and people would spend the rest of their time learning to enjoy their leisure time without spending money or setting a bunch of gasoline on fire. We wouldn't really lose our technology doing that, but most manufacturing would be stopped, we would lose most of our gadgets, and the pace of technological advancement would slow way, way down. A world like that could be pretty wonderful.

[Brian37]

What's the reason that humanity would not be able to sustain its current level of technology? I imagine that reason would have a lot to do with shaping things.

Greed. Pollution. Hubris.

Humans certainly have the capability to adapt. But at the same time we are also tribal and can be very greedy, and in that process, we can be self destructive without realizing it.

There are powers in the world, like Kim Jong Un, that would rather start WW3 than to value the long term survival of our entire species. 

Trump talks and acts like he would rather start a civil war, than to accept his divisive rhetoric is toxic to national and global stability.

Neither of them represent our entire species collectively, but individually they do represent narcissism and ego and lust for power.

Don't confuse our species ability  to potentially  adapt, as meaning we will adapt. 

Just like it is possible for an individual to stop smoking cigarettes doesn't mean they will.

We have had solar technology, for example, for almost a century. But greed has kept the planet on fossil fuels. 

It isn't a matter of can we adapt, but will we adapt.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The bulk of the human race would be in a degraded state, I think. Lots of folks are getting by because they're provided with technology they can't produce themselves. Monsanto goes out of business lots of people starve.

[The Grand Nudger]

Alot of people already live at that point (the op).  

There's a push for something called "appropriate technology" which, briefly summarized, are things that could replace current technologies so as to maintain our QOL while, at the same time, being available to people who live in developing countries (and, by extension, the poor in developed countries) without the nasty environmental side effects.

Alot of them actually do draw their inspiration from indigenous and positively ancient strategies..but endowed with the knowledge and tech of the intervening centuries and millennia covering for the flaws that caused us to abandon them. There will always be a need, however, for the sort of distributed and deep supply chain types of stuff that we can all use. No single person on earth knows how to (or could) make a mouse, for example.

Monsanto, great example...and food production in general is a big sector...but to put it more accurately, people actually starve right now because monsanto is -in- business. Their products could do a hell of alot of good, but they aren't available in the meaningful sense, and their model isn't geared to do what good they otherwise might.

A world like that wouldn't be "post technological", even if it presented itself as much closer to an agrarian state than we currently live in, it would simply be post horse-and-buggy cartel.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Whether Monsanto feeds everyone or not, I don't see things being ... as comfortable as they are now in the next century.

[The Grand Nudger]

IDK, I suppose that depends on where or how you draw your comfort.  Less comfortable for billionaires..probably.  Less comfortable for the poorest of us, it's hard to see how that could be the case and I prefer to think that we'll get our shit together after having tried everything wrong first, like usual.

I could tell you that I already live pretty comfortably and I employ alot of the things we're working on with appropriate tech. Ideally, I'll replace every bit of conventional tech I can in the next couple of decades - but it's a slog getting there from here.

[Yonadav]

Whether Monsanto feeds everyone or not, I don't see things being ... as comfortable as they are now in the next century.

It might depend on what you call comfort. I am a little skeptical about how comfortable western comfort is. Most people that I know live from paycheck to paycheck, don't know how to enjoy themselves without spending money, have never seen a dollar that they don't want to pour gasoline on and set on fire, and are completely miserable when they don't have money to do fun things. Is that comfort?

If we were to make a very concerted effort to cut down on consumerism and learning to enjoy life without spending money, we might become more genuinely comfortable.