User:Nironsuku/sandbox

= Future of Humanity = Humans have been on Earth for about two hundred thousand years, and have been the dominant species for at least the last five thousand years. Throughout this time, human advancement has been relatively stagnant compared to the advancements that have been made in the 20th and 21st centuries. There are various possibilities for humanity in the near and far future, with a possibility of reaching a posthuman condition and an opposing possibility for the extinction of humanity as well.

History
For most of human history, the idea of a vastly different future to the present was not a widespread one. This was because human advancement was very slow in the past compared to modern times, and it would take multiple generations for social progress to occur. The concept of divine apocalypse was probably the most prevalent notion of the future. The Ancient Greeks believed that Zeus would eventually destroy the human race, and similar ideas were also widespread throughout the Dark Ages (and still persist in some modern ideologies). It was not until the 18th century until more sophisticated ideas became commonplace.

Thomas Malthus was one of the first individuals to make very specific and significant predictions of the future, and is renowned for his contribution by the "Essay on the Principle of Population" in the late 18th century. He disagreed with the growing notion that society was approaching a state of utopia and argued that populations will increase to the point of exceeding the world's ability to feed itself. His belief was that the human urge to reproduce increases geometrically, while the food supply can only increase arithmetically. Hence, uncontrolled population growth will eventually lead to starvation and poverty. However, Malthus' ideas, which included usable farmland as a limiting factor, were preceding the industrial revolution. With the advent of farming technologies and land becoming a less important factor, these aspects of the theory were easily dismissed. Furthermore, Malthus being a religious follower during his time, considered birth control to be inappropriate and suggested moral restraint as an alternative.

The rapid technological development in the 20th century has made predictions of the future commonplace both in popular media and by technology experts. Past predictions of the near future have largely been inaccurate. The movie Back to the Future II, for example, predicts the year 2015 to have flying cars and power clothing. In 1949, Popular Mechanics is famously known for having said "Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tonnes".

Future of Human Evolution
Due to the advent of birth control, natural selection in humans is different than it was in the past. Because sexual behaviour is largely removed from reproduction, selection does not favour many traits that have traditionally been favoured (such as strength and intelligence) in human populations. Rather, only mutations and characteristics that directly affect reproductive success (such as infertility or genetic conditions that causes death before reproductive age) are largely impacted by natural selection. Some models of human evolution predict the long-term accumulation of mutations that negatively affect traits that no longer influence reproductive success (such as strength, coordination, sexual prowess, etc.) in human populations that employ birth control. These models also predict the loss of sexual dimorphism for similar reasons.

Eugenics is also a growing field that has many implications for human evolution. Evolution is defined as the change in allele frequencies over time. If controlled genome alteration becomes established as common practice, humanity will evolve in a very unprecedented and unpredictable manner.

Over the course of human history, the geographic isolation of different populations has resulted in ethnic diversity within humans. However, the increasing globalization of human mating patterns has made human monoethnicization (minimal racial differences within human populations) a possible future outcome.

Clean Energy Reliance
By the year 2050, global energy consumption will be doubled from what it is currently, and humanity's increasing reliance on fossil fuels to provide this energy may have devastating consequences for the Earth. Fortunately, a shift to cleaner sources of energy has been initiated, and although many experts believe that fossil fuel exploitation will continue for some time, most agree that humanity will eventually completely transition to clean energy usage.

The immediate future of clean energy is in solar power and nuclear fission technologies. However, the ultimate future of clean energy is nuclear fusion, which scientists have not yet been able to achieve on earth. The energy yield of this process is great enough to satisfy humanity's growing energy consumption for a long time.

Risk to Biodiversity
The rate at which species are currently becoming extinct has caused many scientists to classify the current extinction rate as the greatest mass extinction in the history of the Earth. In addition to the many species that have become extinct, there are many more that are on the verge of extinction. There is a significant concern of a severe lack of biodiversity in the near future.

Global Carrying Capacity
According to the Earth Policy Institute, humans are consuming 150% of the maximum level that can be considered sustainable, and consumption is only increasing exponentially. Left unchecked, the human population will reach a point where humans will have to compete directly with one another for access to resources. However, it is likely that some sort of population control will be implemented before this eventuality is reached.

Artificial Intelligence
Computer science experts predict the advent of human-superior artificial intelligence to occur within twenty years to a century. Many agree that this will initiate a social transformation where the endpoint is a society largely controlled and run by highly advanced artificial intelligence, creating a world that is currently unpredictable in terms of the economic, judicial and political systems that will be implemented.

Extraterrestrial Colonization
The twenty-first century has already seen the initiation of the Mars One project as one of the first attempts to colonize beyond Earth. The process of terraformation on Mars and Venus will be initiated within this century, and scientists predict many planets and moons within the Solar System to be fully colonized by humans at some point in the future. Scientists are currently researching alcubierre drive as a method of interstellar travel that would make extrasolar and perhaps even extragalactic colonization feasible. However, a future where humans have colonized the Milky Way Galaxy detract from many solutions proposed to Fermi's Paradox.

Transhumanism
Transhumanism is a movement that is focused on researching technologies that would boost human capabilities. These technologies include mechanical transplants to increase physical limits, and computer transplants to increase mental and intellectual limits. Modern technology has already allowed humans to reach the genetic limits of longevity. Transhumanism may become the norm rather than the exception in the far future.

Extinction as a Solution to Fermi's Paradox
Fermi's paradox is the apparent contradiction that exists between the estimated high likelihood of extraterrestrial intelligence, and the inability of humanity to connect with any other intelligent species. One solution to this problem is the idea that all intelligent species are doomed to extinction by virtue of their intelligence. There are many existential risks to the survival of humankind, and almost all of them are a result of human advancement. Many intellectuals believe this to be a likely future for humanity.

Posthuman Condition
Nick Bostrom of The Future of Humanity Institute says that humanity will have become "posthuman" if one or more of the following criteria are met: (1) The human population exceeds a trillion individuals, (2) The human life expectancy surpasses 500 years, (3) Most of the human population has an intelligence level that is two standard deviations greater than the maximum intelligence level in the current population, (4) Complete control over sensory input, (5) Instances of human suffering are rare.

Immortality
A leading view in genetics and evolution is that death and aging are evolved phenomena that are controlled by specific genes within the genome. Senescence may have evolved as a result of lack of selective pressure against mutations that have a phenotypic effect only after reproductive age. Once these genes are identified, gene silencing or eugenics can be used to prevent senescence and make humans immortal. Some experts believe immortality will be possible in as little as 25 years.

Mind Uploading
Mind uploading is the process of uploading an individual's consciousness onto a computer. The concept is premised on the idea that all of an individual's personality, sensory experience, memories, etc. are materially encoded in the brain. A perfect scan of the brain to the most fundamental level would therefore provide information that could be used to reconstruct an individual's mind as it was at the time of the scan. Not only is a future possible where humans are no longer confined to their biological bodies, but humans will be able to interact with one another and themselves (multiple copies of the same mind can be created) in a completely new way.

Climate Change
The term "Anthropocene" has been adopted to describe the current epoch as "The Age of Man". Humans have altered the Earth so drastically that these changes threaten the survival of humans themselves. Almost all environmental scientists agree that the current rate of climate change is unsustainable and one that holds many negative consequences for the future of humanity. Many scientists even believe that the opportunity to become more sustainable and to guarantee a safe future has passed. It is not a question of if humanity will face the consequences of climate change, but when.

Artificial Intelligence
Many intellectuals and scholars, including Steven Hawking, believe that the greatest threat to humanity is badly programmed artificial intelligence. Because empathy is not a product of intelligence, there is a risk of severe collateral damage in an artificial superintelligent entity's pursuit to fulfill it's programmed goal. For example, if a robot is programmed to create pencils as quickly and efficiently as possible, it may see it's end goal as converting all resources in the Solar System into pencils. Since it will foresee humans objecting to this, it may take measures to terminate all human life (including its creators) in order to fulfill its programming.

Warfare
The Cold War was the first human experience of a war which had the potential to cripple life on Earth. Nuclear warfare continues to to be an issue that threatens the continuance of human civilization, and as technology progresses, this threat will only increase. In addition to nuclear bombs, there are other hypothetical weapons, that if developed in the future, could have the power to destroy entire planets. Fortunately, most governments are well aware of such threats, and take measures to protect humanity from them. Biological warfare is also a threat to humanity. Although generally seen as something of the past, there is a real risk that a genetically engineered biological agent with the capacity to eradicate humanity will be developed in the future.