Why shouldn't humanity last for billions of years?

[MunGazer]

I think I'd have to take the agnostic approach on this one. The various opinions and theories about what might happen are very diverse, unless you consider it to be a simple yes or no question as it relates to what the state of things will be in this context 1 billion+ years from now. However, it makes for great forum reading.

It is easy for me to say that, in my opinion, our chances at long term survival are better if we collectively embrace science. I'm an atheist, and although the demonization of science in history and the embracing of religious fundamentalism has proven to have very bad consequences (watch the Cosmos featuring Niel DeGrasse Tyson), I think that ultimately secularism may be the one way to achieve a better collective scientific world community. If we can just learn to not hate and kill one another based on religious differences, we can abandon spending all this money and time on war. If asking everyone to abandon religion doesn't work for now, then I'd simply ask them to at least be secular.

Please, stop turning global warming into a political football. It has nothing to do with some leftist agenda. Although I admire the work of Peter Kropotkin, and I wouldn't call myself "socialist", it's not like every single part of socialism is evil. We have to continue to adapt with population growth, and that could mean certain reforms are necessary. It isn't 1776 anymore.

I really do think that critical thinking and embracing the scientific method is the first step toward long term survival of humanity. Mutual survival is more than enough to serve as the basis for a moral standard.

[LN400]

On a slight side note, some intriguing ideas here

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150602-how-will-the-universe-end

Mind you, this article is not scientific, it is not written by scientists, but it is a layman's report on some rather strange ideas coming from science. Alan Guth, one who is quoted in this article is not a who's that? in the science community.

[Fel]

Mankind could, with the aid of technology. Let me start by debunking Malthus, the person who came up with the equation that many use today to claim the world is overpopulated. Malthus never calculated into his equation a variable for technology. He did not see the use of GMOs, hydroponic farming techniques, the experimentation being done on edible lichens, plankton, and algae by American, Israeli, German and Swiss scientists, archologies, or synthetic meats. Hydroponic farming could essentially change farming landscape from its current horizontal model to a vertical one - think of a farm constructed like a parking garage with multiple levels. Archologies are self-sufficient structures which contain an entire community and because of its enclosed environment, could theoretically be constructed in any climate or on any body within the solar system.

That's a 134 page essay that you did not read. 19 chapters and what you're talking about is only in the vaguest of references to chapter 2 which is only 6 pages of which you also did not read.

Malthus explains that in a state of unbridled population checks, sustenance included, the human population will double every 25 years. Arguing the statistic is argumentium ad absurdium, change the figures however you wish the notion of population expansion has been shown multiple times in human history.

Malthus also explains that sustenance has finite bounds in regards to land and resources committed to it; the chapter touches upon these bounds only to explain where the simulation is at fault, but does not fully consider the bounds as per technological advancements. In other words, your "debunking" was already debunked by Malthus.

Malthus argues that the rate technological advancements in agriculture is unlikely to be done at an exponential rate and explains such a situation would eventually become untenable due to the lack of natural restrictions to population growth. Should we have, at a given time, enough food to satisfy the present population we would need the next day enough food to satisfy the FUTURE population in terms of babies and this would have to continue until the human race destroys itself.

So, the "argument" is really that we're always trying to catch up to adequately supply the present population. Eventually there are periods where the population is no longer expanding and these periods are used to change the poverty divide before we again rapidly expand due to the increase of resources.

In truth, the argument is likely an analogy for economics and has nothing to do with food but everything to do with supply and demand, explaining that the cycle of poverty has continued throughout history. Having needs fulfilled gives the impression of "plenty" instead of "just enough to survive" thus giving the impression that bringing offspring into the world would have no impact upon the ability to provide for the additional population, since the lack of supply only becomes apparent many generations down the line, a population contraction is not seen until the economic situations have become very poor.

There are several factors that would keep humankind from achieving a billion year organism span and many of those factors is man himself. Our current use of technology has created some health obstacles - obesity, diabetes, etc., which are nature's way of trying to get our attention as a species.

Chapter 7 appears to touch on health, epidemics, and other issues likely caused by population growth or perhaps technological inclinations (via the abstract.)

We also have a war-like violent tendency - and look at the number of KSP players that arm their vessels to the teeth with weaponry (not trying to offend:P). We also have the age-old problem of power - while many of us are "live and let live", there are others that are not. It is for these reasons we see man's propensity for war.

Chapter 14 appears to touch on human vices, this would include tendencies for war.

As a species, we would also need to have a common vision; man has the ability to do this and we have seen the results - the American space program in the 1950s through 1970s are a prime example.

Oh, you mean the bankrupting and utter destruction of the soviet nation? That was a great vision. (Chapter 10 touches upon an "ideal society" envisioned by some other philosopher who attributed the vices to the society in question... again, inferred from the abstract)

If humankind is going to be a species that lasts a billion years, then space colonization and the ability to create self-sustainable colonies on all types of planetary bodies are going to be two of the most important developments that will allow this.

Chapter 6 talks about the drive for colonization.

It doesn't look good to dismiss the writings of someone then talk about the same things that person talked about. While I did only read the table of contents and chapter 2, you're touching on enough of a similar topic that it looks really poorly upon you.

I'll leave you with an abstract people should think about:

The second, or positive check to population examined, in England - The true cause why the immense sum collected in England for the poor does not better their condition - The powerful tendency of the poor laws to defeat their own purpose - Palliative of the distresses of the poor proposed - The absolute impossibility, from the fixed laws of our nature, that the pressure of want can ever be completely removed from the lower classes of society - All the checks to population may be resolved into misery or vice.

Not saying social darwinism is good, just saying that humans tend to create more problems the more they treat the symptoms rather than the cause.

[ChrisSpace]

Call me an optimist, but I think that human civilization (or at least a descendant of us) has a strong chance of lasting billions of years into the future. That is, if we maintain a strong space program.

And by "human civilization" I mean whatever species or civilization evolves from us. Since it would be unlikely for any species to last a billion year without evolving to be almost unrecognizable, and even less likely for a culture to last a thousand without such radical changes.

Now I know this sounds kind of absurd. Billions of years? That's a lot. But look at it this way: Why not? The obvious answers are things like huge asteroid impacts, horrible climate change, disease, nuclear war, etc. But all of those things only affect one planet at a time. If we get some extraterrestrial colonies going, then there will always be a few people left after these sorts of disasters. And I think it would be entirely feasible to put a colony on Mars within a few decades, if only there was enough funding for the space program.

Okay, I don't mean to sound pessimistic, but I think the chance of us, in some form, surviving for billions of years is unlikely.

First, it is quite possible that humans will go extinct, or at least deplete all required resources, before colonies on other planets become self-sufficient. The earth's climate is changing, ice sheets at both poles are raising the sea levels, more floods, powerful cyclones and heatwaves are happening, fresh glacial water in the Himalayas (the water that feeds a large portion of earth's population) is running out, millions are dying from air pollution, climate denialists are running for president, entire forests are turning into barren wastelands, ocean currents are collapsing, coral reefs are disappearing, invasive species and crop-killing pests are growing resistance to the human methods of controlling them, the trees that produce the oxygen we breathe are being chopped down for toilet paper, the oil, coal and natural gas that the entire transportation system, energy grid and industrial system runs off will cease to exist in 50 years, the global economy is still unstable, more nations than ever have nuclear weapons, formerly democratic nations are turning into fascist militarized police states, the war on terror is almost lost, almost every natural disaster type is growing more powerful by the decade, basic freedoms are being suppressed in so-called 'first world' countries, and for some reason we simultaneously have around the same number of obese people as starving people.

But, say we managed to get through all that. Say we now have self-sufficient colonies and nations across the solar system. We're all good, right? NO. There are still countless events that could wipe out everybody easily. An ASI, or more advanced alien species would have no problem at all cleaning up the solar system for themselves. Even humans themselves could still wipe each other out with powerful enough war machines.

I still think it is possible, though.

Given enough time, a runaway greenhouse could potentially lead to total extinction, but that's not what I'm talking about. That's the long-term threat, but we're in deep trouble long before we have to deal with that.

The short-term threat of climate change is that it is a risk multiplier: it makes all of the existing problems worse. Famine, pestilence, war; the danger of all of these is enhanced by climate change, and they all feed into each other.

Food crops are both location and climate dependent. As the US rain band shifts north to the defrosting Canadian tundra, you can't just shift the crops with it; the recently-thawed mud needs time to develop into proper agricultural soil. Shifting climate also trashes pollination mechanisms for wild flora and drives extinction of endangered species. Changing watercourses exacerbate already-dangerous shortages of potable water. Expanding tropical zones bring tropical diseases with them; you can already track the march of Dengue fever etc. southwards along the north Queensland coast.

For the most obvious example: almost all of Bangladesh is within spitting distance of sea level. On current rates, the country is likely to be largely uninhabitable (without Dutch-style water management, which the Bangladeshis don't have the resources to implement) within a century. Bangladesh's neighbours (India, China, Pakistan etc.) are all nuclear armed and have a history of military conflict. How do you think they're going to react when 100 million Bangladeshi refugees land on their doorstep? What will India do if China attempt to divert all of the Bangladeshis to the south and vice-versa?

That's just one example, but similar scenarios recur again and again across the world. Throughout history, most military conflict has ultimately been caused by competition over resources. Climate change, in the near future, is going to substantially damage the global food supply and the already-running-short supply of potable water. Desperate people do desperate things, and there's nothing like hunger and thirst to drive desperation. Historically, starvation leads to revolution.

If you go talk to the academics who specialise in conflict studies, they'll tell you that we're already seeing the first climate-driven wars. So will the people in charge of medium-term planning for the militaries of the industrialised world. Marginal environments like northern Africa are the first to go, but it will spread beyond that with time. We live in an interconnected world; everything affects everything else.

The situation we are seeing now is not "the climate changing as it always has". Yes, climates change over geological timescales; the slow pace has historically given the biosphere time to adapt (and, in the rare cases of sudden change like Chicxulub, the slow pace afterwards has provided time to recover). What we're doing to the place is unprecedented in both its suddenness and its momentum. We're driving the change way too fast, and there is enough momentum built up (warmed oceans, melted permafrost, defrosted methane clathrates) that it's either too late to stop it or very close to that point.

If you aren't frightened by climate change, you don't understand the situation.

Here is a guy that has done his research.

Once humanity has overcome the current inertia, the first step will be to develop the resources of the inner solar system. The resources of the main Asteroid Belt are effectively inexhaustible. While the main belt is hard to get to from Earth, it is within easy reach of Mars, which has the resources needed to support a major industrial and technological civilisation. Anything the asteroid miners can't produce for themselves at their relatively small outposts can be imported from Mars.

Later, the outer solar system will be settled to bring it's effectively inexhaustible reserves of helium3 fusion fuel into play. There are many ways to get sustainable energy on Earth, but since the energy needs of an advanced civilisation will be vastly greater than the present day, fusion will quickly become the cheapest game in town. The outer solar system will not only give us unlimited energy, it gives us the energy needed to propel starships. For a mature civilisation that had developed the resources of the home solar system, starflight would be the next step.

From that point onward, humanity should be able to expand indefinitely, evolving onto a galactic civilization.

You underestimate the jump from an interstellar civilization to an immortal intergalactic one.

Add oil depletion to this equation. Global transportation and shipping infrastructure is oil-based, and it's hard to see a viable alternative. (Coal is one, but would require replacing or retrofitting almost the whole existing global vehicle fleet, and would grossly exacerbate the climate problem.) I don't see how global technological civilization outlasts fossil fuels. There's no other energy source that's remotely as versatile, energy-dense, and portable.

This too. The depletion of oil will be bad for 2 reasons: Firstly, pretty much every vehicle on earth, on land, in the sea or in the sky, will stop moving. Second, it will destabilize several nuclear-armed countries.