How can the human race survive the next 100 years?
Offline Happy to have made the 1000th post on this particular board. 
(EDIT: ...rats. missed it. 
)
Some of you may have heard about Stephen Hawking's question submitted on Yahoo! Answers (a sort of Q&A forum) for the public to respond to:
In a world that is in chaos politically, socially and environmentally, how can the human race sustain another 100 years?
Below I supply my initial reply to the question; but while it's far too easy to simply turn any issue into material that can be used as rhetorical ammo against an opposing worldview, I'll note that this is honestly the only means I know of bringing together a people willingly to unite under a common cause on a global scale and on an enduring basis.
I think this for at least a couple reasons, the first offers a positive reason for commending theism, while the second offers negative reasons for embracing atheism to address the problem:
First, several notable atheistic thinkers in history have observed the perceived "insidiousness" of religious influence in its capacity to so thoroughly marinate a person's thinking in a certain way. Indeed, Richard Dawkins' study of the "Meme" appears precisely to be kind of a foray into how this "disease" of Christianity has been so effective in spreading across time and culture. Even atheists in this forum and on other web sites have expressed worry that their children may grow up and catch this infectious influence, and share methods with one another on how to prevent their children from "catching Theism," as it were. Yet Karl Marx eventually had to depend on the Gulag and other forms of overt thought-control to impose his Materialist view on the masses. Thus, because I believe Theism provides a superior framework to engage both the mind and the heart in galvanizing one's commitment to a cause much more effectively than a Materialist framework can, I don't think anything else is quite as compelling to one's moral behavior than religious belief. Of course, examining the content of one's theistic beliefs will be of great importance, as "theism" in just any form will not do. It seems obvious that some forms of theism display more generosity than others. Indeed, if this were not possible, I could not imagine why historic atheistic thinkers such as Voltaire would have wanted his servants to remain theists, if only to ensure he was swindled less often! Even in our time, numerous ethicists try to advocate "Impartial Observer" theories for social ethics, an attempt to replace an entire culture's common awareness of God in everyday life.
But I should note before continuing that the preceding is not intended to be a Realist treatment of theism, as if to say "Theism is therefore true on these reasons" or that "this is all theism amounts to: a pragmatic solution or convenient lie." But I respond in this manner for the purposes of Hawking's question, where "survival trumps all" seems to imply utility over truthfulness, if necessary).
Secondly, Brian reminds us many times on this forum there is absolutely nothing in atheism that binds its members to any unifying common ideology -- rather atheism seems to simply consist of a denial of one. So I'm curious to see just what kinds of answers might be generated among a community of thinkers who often do take the time to consider ways of improving human existence, as Hawking's question here appears to assume that the plurality of options is actually what's part of the problem more than part of the solution...
If I may humbly suggest that we must first come into agreement that despite all the material trappings we've been able to acquire, sheer unaided reason alone has failed to bring about its promised modern reform of human ambition so that its gaze is affixed beyond the immediate concerns of the moment. When God is removed from the collective consciousness of Western culture, we lose an over-arching transcendent fixed standard for ethics, which in the past was capable of uniting humanity in a range, scale, and depth of dedication that would have made the survival of the human race possible in our time. Of course, with newer and more powerful technologies, come even greater means and efficiency to wreak havoc on our world, and hence greater responsibility. If our commitment to an objectively higher standard of moral rule remains central to our ethical assessments of our methods in the scientific enterprise, then we retain an Entity to whom we are ultimately responsible (indeed, providing substantial ground to make the idea of "responsibility" in science intelligible and meaningful). In the end, despite the increasingly complex ethical dilemmas brough about in our newfound techological advances, those advances will have then been made under just the sort of ethical rubric best able to handle many of the potential pitfalls that such advances would make possible.
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If you want my take on it. We're fucked. We MIGHT be able to eek out another 100 years, but by 2200 our species is toast. Perhaps there may be some small bands of humans may survive, but not in any great numbers. Now, (in my own batshit insane lunatic opinion) this will happen one of two ways. Either A) the far more likely way, we all anihilate each other for some idiotic reason, or B) (crosses fingers) We manage to advance computer technology to the point where we have viable AI, which will then skyrocket past our meager organic brains. Hopefully we will see the light and meld with computers, leaving our fleshy forms and downloading our intelligence into super-advanced computers, where we will FINALLY see what fucking tards we've been, and will then hopefully be able to think of some way to reverse or mitigate the damage we've already done. I'm pulling for B, not only becausee I dont want to get vaporized, but because I think that as computers, we'd actually have a hot at viable space travel, perhaps even extending into the holiest of holy grails INTERSTELLAR travel! W00T!!!
But this is just a pipe dream, Anyone can see the writing on the wall, and it says: "We're fucked. And it's all our fault."
Edit: this is in the wrong forum. I think.
I vote YES http//underdogryan.blogspot.com/2005/09/should-men-fling-poo.html
If we don't get interstellar travel within the next 100 years, we're fucked.
I'm going to see it happen if it's the last thing I do.
"Character is higher than intellect... A great soul will be strong to live, as well as to think."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
you do that, i'm gonna work on an underwater biodome city... strictly for atheists only...
Oil is supposed to die out in what, 20 years or so? That will probualry start some shit, maybe a battle. North Korea is playing around with their thrid-world country tactial nuclear war bombs, which if he attemped to use them to US Im sure that would start another war... I dont think we can surive nuclear fall out, so... We probulary cant make another 100 years.
no we're fucked. ww3 is gonna happen. jesus is gonna return. rapture. we burn in hell. the end.
Well let's see. We have to make sure yellowstone doesn't blow, otherwise the world loses pretty much it's breadbasket. Hmmmm... oh, we have to avoid largish rocks hurtling towards us at extremely high speeds. I mean, even if we saw them before they hit us(unlikely) we'd have to y'know, get to it and divert it. Hmm, probably find a way to combat the quickly growing epidemics that are now immune to like everything. Oh yeah, make sure not to blow ourselves into oblivion(good friggin luck). And find a good renewable energy source. Oh, also, stop reproducing at such a high rate and starve ourselves. If i'm missing anything, feel free to add.
Someones been watching the history channel eh?
Humankind won't last another 10. The Aztec's already predicted it.
Someone already got that idea. Does anyone here play video games? If so, then there's a huge game coming out known as BioShock. The storyline of the game is that the world's greatest people (artisans, architects, scientists, philosophers) go to an underwater biodome. Then everything gets fucked and then you arrvie on the scene. You can research it at http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/bioshock/preview_6110044.html. Pretty interesting to say the least. Also interesting is that the underwater biodome is called Rapture
And then once we divert it we'll make a cool movie featuring...well who knows, maybe Bruce Willis?
Yes, and the bible predicted the twin towers incident. :roll:
Despite what some people say I think we'll make it. I'm predicting that posibly humans will evolve to accomodate to this. I also like that computer brain-AI thing someone mentioned. I also think that once our species dies out, the earth will eventually sustain new life. But like others said, these are just pipe dreams.
Intelligence cannot be artificial, if a machine or computer can learn , reason and apply synthesized information, it is simply intelligent.
Anything considered intelligent, by the human uderstanding of the idea of intelligence, being forced to fill a subserviant role is slavery.
The paper read yesterday, the earth exploded, nobody noticed the passing of this hapless planet.
:roll: One, Aztec's math system was based on the mutiples of 10, so the world wouldn't end on 2016, it'd be like 2010 or 2020. Second, Aztecs ate their own people, so thats a define logical civilzation.
Okay, your saying Intelligence cant be artificial, computers can only be intelligent. Your saying the same thing. Computers are ARTIFICIAL, and computers are more INTELLIGENT than you. That means their ARTIFICAILY INTELLIGENT.
And slavery leads to revolution who knows we could call that movie i dono, I, Robot starring some hack actor like uhm Will smith? But honestly the world isnt going to much longer if we keep fighting about what god is right and kill eachother for not agreeing, although isnt thats gods plan? I guess the only way to figure out what religion is right will be the last one standing..... but all us smart people who recognize the fact that religions itself is causing impending doom need to get our ass of this planet using an ethenol based rocket and fly to an inhabitable planet where we will rais our young to know instead of belive to keep them from ruining that place. Lets start building! i mean Iran looks like its getting a little antsy! Also we must leave tom cruise here, along with all his Scientology babble here so the judeochristian religions can maybe catch him in the cross fire. To New Earth Prime!!!!
Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.-Karl Marx
Computers as of yet, aren't intelligent. Intelligence denotes being able to reason i.e. take accumulated knowledge, synthesize said knowledge, and reach a conclusion.
A set of encyclopedias contain knowledge, more than I know, does that make them intelligent?
I was simply making the point that using the phrase " artificial intelligence " is the same as refering to a woman as " sort of pregnant ". You either are, or are not, no gradations.
Actually the movie was about a machine reaching the ability to reason. They weren't revolting, but interpreting and reasoning a conclusion of the three rules of robotics. Not that it matters, movie sucked anway.
Any ideas on leaving the planet are wishful thinking. Even with sufficient technology, I doubt any of us would be invited to board. It's probably better to confront the problems we face here.
The paper read yesterday, the earth exploded, nobody noticed the passing of this hapless planet.
Actually, it was the Maya, not the Aztec that predicted the end of the world in December 2012.
I knew it wasnt the Atzecs, it didnt add up right. Thanks for clearing that up
.
To the first question a Wiki Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence
Second:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue Chess Chapmion, uses reason to make its next move.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cope Uses its accumulated knowledge to play songs of dead composers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycin Is a doctor able to detect the smallest illness
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20q Uses its knowledge to figure out your answer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_recognition Can synetize the human voice to a tee to acess private data
All of those are AI, they do what you said they cant. And those aren't even the milliatry bots, Im sure they can do more.
I'll go article by article numbered 1, 2 etc...
1) "For topics relating specifically to full human-like intelligence, see Strong AI and science fiction."
Following the link for strong AI:
"in the philosophy of artificial intelligence, strong AI is the supposition that some forms of artificial intelligence can truly reason and solve problems; strong AI supposes that it is possible for machines to become sapient, or self-aware, but may or may not exhibit human-like thought processes"
Hence why I brought up slavery. Let's suppose god is real and see where that gets us...oh yeah.
2) "The rules provided for the developers to modify the program between games, an opportunity they took with abandon. The code was modified between games to understand Kasparov's playstyle better, allowing it to avoid a trap in the final game that the AI had fallen for twice before."
I love this one as I'm an avid chess player. Even a dog can learn from it's mistakes.
3) Programming, can it create a compostion unlike the ones in it's program
4) Mycin isn't learning anything. It's program is basically a giant flow chart. Also, the article never mentions anything as far as allergy's, concurrent medical prescriptions and a host of other possible complications that arise when making prognosis.
Tell it a patient died as a result of it's recomendations. Hopefully unlike deep blue it can learn from it's mistakes.
5) This is the closest to actual intelligence anything has pointed to. It learns and adjusts behavior, changing the line of questioning accordingly. Still can't decide it's tired of answering questions.
6) These still can't tell me who I am or how I'm feeling.
None of these are even close to actual intelligence, if the programing isn't there, they can't adapt, the closest is still 20Q. Can they learn? Within the scope of their programing. Can they synthesize information? Within the scope of their programming. Can they make conclusions? Within the scope of their programming.
My point is still. Once anyone of these machines can move beyond the scope of programming to true human intelligence, there is nothing artificial about it's intelligence. It will simply be INTELLIGENT.
I never said intelligence in machines isn't possible.
I think what you're arguing is the definition of artificial in the context. I'm speaking of:
Artificial: Not genuine or natural (more specifically, not genuine)
As in, when true intelligence is gained it won't be genuine. Oh I forgot, P-Q2
The paper read yesterday, the earth exploded, nobody noticed the passing of this hapless planet.