Before reading this post, please be sure to check out the intro to the Future Timeline series.
PRIMER: In each of the five Future Timeline sections, we will list the relevant predictions from the FutureTimeline.net website. Beneath each individual prediction will be any specific comments from our panel. Following all of the predictions will be a section of general impressions from the panel.
Space Exploration & Travel (Reactions)
Consumer, Government, & Military Technology (Part I)
Consumer, Government, & Military Technology (Part I)
REACTIONS
Question 1: What is your overall impression of the predictions?
NATHAN: I’ve got a lot fewer objections to this week’s projects because the bulk of them deal with physical science rather than cognitive science or bioethics. Despite the tone of my responses last week, I’m really not a technological pessimist in terms of our ability to create machines to do what we want. (My concern is usually much more about being careful lest we actually DO get what we want because it probably won’t turn out like we hope.) Thus, I’m much more open to many of the predictions this week.
KARA: The idea of space exploration excites me a lot. The thought of there being other life out there has big implications for me on a personal faith level, but also I think for us as humans in general. What if there really are Martians who have been living happy lives longer than we've been around? What if Pluto really is still a planet and the Plutonians are angry we took their planet classification away? What if Venetians are super smart and can help us solve some of our earthly problems? Would us going out to space start causing the same problems on other planets we have created here on earth? If other planets can sustain life, does that mean we need to care about the earth less? Does the possibility of inhabiting another planet make the threat of climate change and limited resources a moot point? What if God created the earth and the heavens, and also created Jupiter and life there, and other places we don't even know exist yet? Does that make God bigger? Does that change my inherent value? Does that mean God is more loving than I think He is already? If there is life out there, does God delight in all of us the same? Does He want all of us to come to know Him? Will we meet them in heaven? Like I said, the implications on faith are big, and the list is long. I don't know the certain answers to any of this, all I know is I do like the idea of space exploration, and if I thought it was in any way accessible to 'regular folks' I'd be signing up in an instant to do some of this stuff.
DUSTIN: This is a question that has always perplexed me: If we assume (and I think it's safe to do so) that propulsion technology (anything in the category of getting something from point A to point B) will always be improving, won't it always make sense in long-distance space exploration to wait until the next advancement arrives before launching the next mission? Take the following example- Let's say that in year x, our best technology would allow a spaceship to travel 10 AU (astronomical units) per year. Imagine that our mission is to get to some planet that is very, very far away (but not too far that it would currently be impossible for a ship to get there eventually). If our mission is just to get there as soon as possible, it becomes difficult to know exactly when to leave. Let's say that our spaceship engine technology improves by 50% every 30 years (it doesn't matter what rate you choose, the principle works out the same). That means that in year x + 30, we would be able to make a spaceship that can travel 15 AU per year, and in year x + 60, 22.5 AU per year (it's always 50% improvement over the past point, so that's where we get the additional 7.5 years rather than 5 years). As you can see on the graph below, delaying the launch of a spaceship actually saves you time in the long run.
It should be noted that if you have a particular destination, there will always be one "optimal" point for launching your mission. As you can see in the graph (you might have to click on it), if our destination is 500 AU away, launching Ship A now is the fastest option. If our destination is 1,000 AU away, waiting 30 years and launching Ship B is the fastest option (though it would only slightly beat Ship A). And if our destination is 1,500 AU away or more, waiting 60 years for Ship C is the fastest option. But if our mission is purely to cover as much distance as possible (purely exploring), waiting will always make us more successful.
Question 2: What is the biggest oversight of these projections? (What wrong assumption do they make or what idea do they neglect to consider?)
NATHAN: Like I mention at the top of the timeline, I grant that there are a lot of political conditions held constant to make these predictions possible. Man is a political animal in that scientific advancements though history have tended to come during periods of political stability (not peace, but structural stability). We look at the classical age of Greece or the Renaissance or the Industrial Revolution, and these halcyon days of invention came at the ‘peak’ of their relative civilization arcs, where the patterns of authority and political interaction were well known and provided funding and direction and access to resources and infrastructure within which to explore our world and our capabilities. I think that these conditions will need to be present (either held constant or, more likely, continually changing but with advancements only taking place in periods of stability between transitions) in order to support the predictions given. As a converse, look at the Dark Ages after the fall of Rome and the stagnation or even regression in terms of scientific standard of living. Imagine what the collapse of the current international order (led by Anglo-American derived values and institutions) would do to our current path of scientific progress.
KARA: In my opinion the cost and accessibility of these projects are the biggest oversight. Honestly, I can't see some of these things happening (space elevator just to name one of many) because of the sheer cost involved to make some of the stuff needed to make these things happen. These projects seem to assume an unlimited supply of resources(aka money) and I'm not sure people are going to be willing to fork over billions/trillions to have space travel to Mars only take a week when the economy is in it's current state. To me, this implies a certain excess of economy that I'm not sure any nation (exception being China?) can justify. How can the US justify space spending when unemployment is at 9% for example. The space hotel is predicted to open in 5 years. Right now, who would go there? Warren Buffet? Bill Gates? Mikhail Prokhorov? I don't see anyone but a billionaire being able to go to space anytime soon. Does this mean it is a “hobby for the rich”? It seems it reinforces the divide between the “haves and have nots” and truly doesn't seem like a good use of resources.
DUSTIN: The biggest oversight here is the factor of special relativity. This is probably the most perplexing concept I've ever learned, so I won't attempt to describe the how here, but I do want to address what is known about the effects of the concept (and I assure you, this is not science-fiction, it's entirely well-accepted... after all, Einstein discovered it). As I've mentioned elsewhere, when you get at speeds of the magnitude listed in some of these predictions (for instance, the 2030 prediction), there are major time dilation effects- meaning that whoever is in the spaceship would have time pass at a slower rate than it did on Earth (or wherever else they left). I have no idea if the speeds listed in this prediction are possible in roughly 200 years (or at all), but if so, it would mean that you could hop on a spaceship to get as far into the future as you'd like (once you returned to Earth). If I found out I had the 2230-version of terminal cancer, I could just take a trip on one of these ships for a few months and by the time I returned there would be a cure for my cancer. At the extreme speeds (99% of the speed of light or more), you could literally travel millions of years into the future of Earth or any other place that you start from. Perhaps even more significant than that, though, is that anyone who travels at these speeds would be leaving forever all of the people who they knew on Earth. Even relatively short trips would entail missing out on huge amounts of time on Earth. Travelers would potentially face the decision of doing some important thing that requires high-speed travel (maybe a diplomatic mission to the other end of the galaxy?) OR watching their children grow up. Even though they could make the trip in a week- they could have lost out on years (or lifetimes) on Earth.
Question 3: If you could pick one specific prediction among the ones on this list to come true in your lifetime, which would it be? Why?
NATHAN: I think I misread this question last time, thinking it meant which one was I certain would happen in my life. But if I understand it correctly now, it’s asking which one I want to have happen during my life, right? If that’s the case, then I choose the light-year array of telescopes. The idea, particularly, of the Big Bang simulation fascinates me.
KARA: Ok, throwing out everything I said in the oversight answer, I would love it if there were actually a space hotel, and I would add to this that regular folks would need to be able to go to this space hotel, not just the uber rich. Why? Because how freaking awesome would it be to sleep and eat in space?!! I've always loved watching the stars, and being able to be among the stars would be incredible.
DUSTIN: Cliche though it may be, I'd love to be part of an interstellar space mission. Even if there were no aliens, I'm sure there are many incredible things to see. It is, after all, a big world. So yes, I want to be Captain Kirk (though I'd settle for Spock).
Question 4: If you could ensure that one specific prediction one this list would not come true in your lifetime, which would it be? Why?
NATHAN: If I misread Question 3 last time, then I misread this one in a similar fashion. I would ensure that the ‘vanishing’ of religion would not happen. I don’t think it will anyway. Much of what I’ve read in these timelines seems to be based on a libertarian-rationalist understanding of the world, in which everything is ultimately explainable and solvable and that problems or mysteries or religions or traditions are only evidence of insufficient information that we’ll eventually possess. There’s an assumption of progress, that the forces of ‘Reason’ will win out over those backwardness. Regardless of whether I even want ‘Reason’ (so defined) to win out, I think that the timeline writers ultimately underestimate the essential nature of religion and tradition to the human experience.
KARA: I'm not sure I can think of one I wouldn't want to happen per se. There are many that I don't think would happen, but I don't feel like I have any reason to not want these to happen in general. Outside of the arguments of monetary and environmental impact/implications I can't think of anything that would make me not want one of these to come to fruition.
DUSTIN: Just in case no one else says this, I'm pretty sure we can all agree that asteroid terrorism sounds a bit unpleasant. I mean, maybe it's something you get used to after a while, but it's got to hurt the first few times, right?
Question 5: If every single prediction on this list were to come true exactly how / when it is stated here, what kind of impact would it have on your view of the world?
NATHAN: Unlike last time, when we were playing with the definitions humanity and consciousness, I don’t think that this timeline has the potential to ‘shock’ my worldview as much. I guess my worldview is relatively agnostic about technological possibilities or what happens to be ‘out there’ or not. Whether earthbound or intergalactic, humanity is humanity, and the same flaws that haunt us here will haunt us out beyond the Oort Cloud.
KARA: Well, first of all it would remind me again that I am not uber-rich. Aside from my personal jealousy of not being able to go to space, I think the impact of my world view would be determined by what is found in all this exploration. Right now the earth feels finite, and limited (not in a bad way, just in a realistic way.) If it is found that there is life on Venus, then my world view suddenly gets expanded to a degree I can't even fully comprehend right now. If though, it turns out there is no other life out there, then my world view stays pretty much the same. Along with this though, if these predictions come true in the time line given here, then the world economy has changed drastically. Well, maybe not the whole world economy, but the rich world economy. What I mean is all these predictions need a lot of money in order to come to be. So, the economy of the developed world has to stabilize a lot and the countries have to work together to get all these things to happen in the time frame given. To me this means that countries will be spending money on space exploration, and maybe aid to the developing world suffers because of that. Maybe I'm putting too much emphasis on the economics of the projects, but it seems to me these things will all have a very high price tag, and maybe the “real price” of going to space is something we shouldn't be willing to pay. Is it better to have a manned mission to Mars, or to eradicate poverty worldwide? I know the poverty question is a big one, and the solution is a complicated one, but it seems that the question of global spending priorities should at least be asked when thinking of sending people to Jupiter and making life on Mars possible.
DUSTIN: Surprisingly, this set of predictions is actually harder to synthesize with my world view than last week's. The issue of time dilation, which I discussed in an earlier question, would mean that time would no longer be a limiting factor in life. We all live with this sense of a clock that is counting down. Maybe it's counting down the days until we get that promotion. Maybe it's counting down the years until we retire. Maybe it's counting down the moments until we die. But the sense of a clock is arguably one of the most undeniable, fundamental aspects of life as we know it. I can't fully wrap my mind around what it would mean for that to be removed (and I'm not sure we can). The strangest thing of all is that this "game-changer" isn't dependent upon some huge assumption (like the Singularity in artificial intelligence). All of the pieces are in place, all of the major patterns being played out, all of the concepts fairly well understood. Quite honestly, this notion has the most potential to alter our lives yet it's also the most likely to happen. Hmm.
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