As the bent of this sub seems to have continued notably towards the "collapse" trend, I wanted to ask, what are the ways that the future could turn out to be hopeful?
That is to say, are there any tech innovations, policies, or programs being undertaken that could possibly alter our current projectes trajectory?
For example, a breakthrough in fusion energy that occurred last year, is that promising to fix anything?
Thanks for listening anyways.
Possibilities for a hopeful future?
byu/VolitionReceptacle inFuturology
5 Comments
I think the breakthrough to a hopeful future will come through social progress, not technological.
We’ve had non-stop technological progress for the last 200 years or so, yet the capitalist society, with all its problems, remains largely unchanged – we just have much better standards of living than before. The real breakthrough would be figuring out our place (as humans) in a new society that can largely automate everything.
What will we do? How will we exist when AIs can do everything humans can? Do we even need money or UBI? Should the societal rewards exist – and if yes, what should they be tied to? These are very hard questions that should be thought about and answered for that hopeful future to exist.
Better tech just won’t solve it. It’s like moving from a Ford Model T to a BMW Series 2 – yes, it’s much, much faster, but conceptually it’s the exact same thing. What we need is a radical shift, from cars to planes.
[Maybe Mars life](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd725pj0g9ro) – they don’t know if it’s from life at all (unless they take back the sample) but they also no ideas what it could be from if it’s not life as the rock hadn’t been heated to create a similar effect.
I mean, if they did say they found life, maybe humanity could get a bit of the blue marble effect? It might put a dent in populism.
Renewables can power the world year round if we fix energy storage. Sand batteries can work wonders. Storing it underground as hydrogen too but that might be more expensive. Finland has a large sand battery just now. Create solar electricity to heat the sand during summer months, insulate it and keep till winter. There’s many different ways to do it, one could also compress and decompress co2 for energy storage. If we scale those it’s basically over for climate change.
Honestly no, there’s as close to zero chance as you can get to fix any of this
There’s a three headed hydra looming,
Wealth consolidation and class disparity
AI and increased automation
Climate crisis
we can collectively avert or mitigate the consequences caused by one, but the other two are waiting to take its place, and if we take on two, the third will get us
The chances for a better future are orders of magnitude greater than the the chances of a gloomy future.
Just check history – despite the endless doom and gloom prophecies, everything is getting better at an ever increasing pace.