yeah I think it's plausible that no naturally evolved species can stably industrialize. tech grows faster than brains, and hydrocarbon energy doesn't come back when it's gone.
There’s something very bleak about a future where humanity survives, rebuilds, and hits the wall of having exhausted the resources we need to get back to where we could have built a sustainable industrialized society. A world humanity can once more dream of the stars while knowing we cannot ever get there, the weight of the past holding us to the earth we ravaged just as much as gravity itself.
I wager our successors aren't going to wax romantic about us or our "achievements." I would think that the future myths about the ancestors who fucked everything up with their hubris and left the world covered in poison and plastic garbage are going to be something to behold
If we get actual "can think better than a human being" AI - that will likely be the first baby step towards our destruction. And if develop quantum computing and then smart AI - I am 100% certain we will quickly destroy ourselves. A mention of Pandora's box can be a cliché but what else can I say?
eh, we won't get either of those things. we (probably) won't even destroy ourselves. but industrial civilization is already on the downward swing. the whole thing depends on fossil fuels and the math doesn't check out on their replacements. over the next couple hundred years, in fits and starts, we'll make our way back to an iron age. maybe with some solarpunk characteristics.
yeah I think it's plausible that no naturally evolved species can stably industrialize. tech grows faster than brains, and hydrocarbon energy doesn't come back when it's gone.
There’s something very bleak about a future where humanity survives, rebuilds, and hits the wall of having exhausted the resources we need to get back to where we could have built a sustainable industrialized society. A world humanity can once more dream of the stars while knowing we cannot ever get there, the weight of the past holding us to the earth we ravaged just as much as gravity itself.
I wager our successors aren't going to wax romantic about us or our "achievements." I would think that the future myths about the ancestors who fucked everything up with their hubris and left the world covered in poison and plastic garbage are going to be something to behold
Yeah, it’s a lost future unless something unexpected happens. We could have been more though.
If we get actual "can think better than a human being" AI - that will likely be the first baby step towards our destruction. And if develop quantum computing and then smart AI - I am 100% certain we will quickly destroy ourselves. A mention of Pandora's box can be a cliché but what else can I say?
eh, we won't get either of those things. we (probably) won't even destroy ourselves. but industrial civilization is already on the downward swing. the whole thing depends on fossil fuels and the math doesn't check out on their replacements. over the next couple hundred years, in fits and starts, we'll make our way back to an iron age. maybe with some solarpunk characteristics.