Topic: Crystal Ball
This is a series of articles of my speculations about the shape of the future. Featured prominently are energy/peak oil, global warming, food supplies, power/politics, technology, and nature/evolution.
Does More Social Acceptance Eventually Mean Fewer Gays?
Posted in Unfounded Speculation
on February 3rd, 2010 by
Stephen DeGrace
Topics:
Crystal Ball,
Gay Stuff
"Randy McDonald wonders, like Sam, whether if homosexuality is genetic, there will be fewer gays born as fewer masquerade as (breeding) straight people and pass on their genes, himself suspecting that since it seems to by a byproduct of female sibling's reproductive strategies--at least among queer men--that it won't matter that much" (quoting Randy). I respond:
Human Evolution Today
Posted in Unfounded Speculation
on December 29th, 2009 by
Stephen DeGrace
Topics:
Crystal Ball
There are those who claim that all human evolution is in the past, and that today, human beings exist outside the forces of evolution. Another viewpoint envisions evolution as a striving, creative force and human beings evolving to possess a god-like level of intelligence. My position is that both of these views are utter nonsense. A simple appeal to first principles can show that we must be evolving, but that there is no grounds to believe that the results of present-day human evolution is anything like what rational people would consider "improvement."
Finding A Way Through
Posted in Unfounded Speculation
on December 29th, 2009 by
Stephen DeGrace
Topics:
Crystal Ball
There is simply no way to avoid a massive human die-off in the coming century without maintaining a high-energy technological civilization. In the long run, of course, human survival with any semblance of a decent standard of living depends on there being a lot less humans. Nine billion human beings is simply too great a strain on the earth's carrying capacity for us to get away with it for very long (and that's making the possibly unfounded assumption that we can get away with it at all). But we would like to get to a sustainable place the painless way, by having less babies and waiting for the old folks to die off on their own. Since that is likely a tall order, we need to be thinking very seriously about how we're going to manage the relatively short term of the next fifty or a hundred years or so.
Hundred Year Survival
Posted in Unfounded Speculation
on December 24th, 2009 by
Stephen DeGrace
Topics:
Crystal Ball
If our civilization makes it to Christmas, 2109 in basically one piece, it will be a true miracle. Between here and there we have to get through food supplies which are flattening out while the world population is projected to continue to grow to nine billion people before declining, and on top of that, dangerous political instability caused by climate change in an environment of food scarcity, peak oil, and Great Power reorganization. The path to survival requires effective supernational institutions and active government involvement, loathed by the right, and robust free markets and heavy investment in science and technology (with nuclear firmly on the table and interference with the climate seriously under consideration), loathed by the left.
Technological Progress
Posted in Unfounded Speculation
on December 20th, 2009 by
Stephen DeGrace
Topics:
Crystal Ball
One's view of scientific and technological progress depends on the time in which one lives. In the ancient world, progress plainly occurred, but the way in which a person lived in general tended to differ very little from the way their grandparents lived or the way their grandchildren would end up living, so the state of human knowledge and skill must have seemed very static. As we progressed towards the end of the second millennium, the advance of science and technology was obvious and changing lives in real time, and people conceived progress as a linear process. Finally, as science and technology exploded in the 20th century, people could actually see the rate of progress itself increase in real time, and progress was conceived of by many science fiction authors as an exponential process leading to God-like and unimaginable powers for those who command it.
Global Warming, Oil, and American Supremacy
Posted in Unfounded Speculation
on December 15th, 2009 by
Stephen DeGrace
Topics:
Crystal Ball
I recently read a couple of very interesting books. Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization by Jeff Rubin (blog) is about our rapidly diminishing capacity to keep up with demand for oil and its consequences for the world economy. The other, Climate Wars by Gwynne Dyer, is a frank and realistic assessment of the global strategic challenges posed by global warming. The topics of these books are heavily interrelated, but each has its particular concentration. I believe that a synthesis of the arguments presented by these authors leads to some interesting and disturbing conclusions about our future.