Future Earth

[qube_TA]

Terminator X said:

qube_TA said:

The planet isn't old enough yet to know whether complex life can survive that long. Humans are too established now that something fundamental would have to happen to 100% wipe us off the planet. A human descendant in 3Bn years time would possibly be unrecognisable to us now, the environment and atmospheric conditions by then may be so different that if you went forward in time you'd not be able to breathe, just as you woudln't be able to if you went back the same distance.

Not on Earth. Sun is getting hotter and in 1bn years will have boiled away all our water = dead Earth.

TX.

True, but that went back to an earlier point that in 3bn years the Earth will be destroyed by the Sun physically, but the increased output from it towards that time would mean that we can migrate away to different moons/planets within with solar system before the whole lot goes splat as they'd have been warmed up by that extra heat and will find themselves in the 'goldilocks' zone.

[qube_TA]

Different conditions on one planet would cause people to grow differently, different environmental and biological conditions would also favour certain people over others, different gene pools etc. It would obviously take an awfully long time but if you had two planets with different physical and environmental properties, each with a separate colony of humans & wildlife on then you would start to see differences between them, the longer they were separate the greater those differences would become.

[SpeckledJim]

ash73 said:

qube_TA said:

populations of humans that are born and live of different rocks will start to evolve differently to each other

Evolution requires selection, would there be any? One could argue modern civilisation circumvents it and our ethics constrain any eugenic replacement.

If one were to argue that, one would be very wrong.

[Simpo Two]

qube_TA said:

you would start to see differences between them, the longer they were separate the greater those differences would become.

'Divergent evolution'; see Darwin's Finches.

[Efbe]

IainT said:

ash73 said:

Simpo Two said:

...all other species have done nothing.

D Adams said:

Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.

That was exactly the quote that sprang to mind after reading Mr Two's comment. Good as the quote is though Simpo's right.

how do you know?

[Efbe]

WeirdNeville said:

g

Politics: Globalisation seems to be spreading, but is it working? National boundaries change so frequently anyway, will we come to view them as arbitrary? I can envisage large blocks, broadly aligned by continent, represented by commitees such as the EU. Perahps 5-6 globally aligned bodies that discuss issues between continents. With the internet and mass media shone into dark corners, barbarity and abuse should become harder to get away with. As people realise there's no point, or win their little wars. We need failed states to burn themselves out, and we need ancient disputes to be resolved IMO, to share in prosperity. But people are more mobile than ever, and I think that the more you travel, the more you find in common with people from foreign lands. Hopefully we can learn to put those shared goals to common good. Personally I feel we're already past the tipping point where global war isn't possible any more. Countries are too busy trying to sort out internal issues and the costs of empire building and colonialism have come home to roost. PLus, you can't just march across foreign borders any more and not have it tweeted about. If only America and Russia would learn that....

Without different countries and boundaries it becomes hard for there to be super rich countries benefiting from a majority of poor third world countries.
If Britain wasn't able to dominate poor countries then it wouldn't have had an empire, the same with all the major civilisations that have provided human progress... and the same for the US now. As soon as they can't dominate poor countries to take their wealth then all the technological advances will most likely stop.
Globalisation enables the rich to get richer, the poor to be trodden upon, but also technology to progress.

WeirdNeville said:

How about this though... can you imagine how the world would look if they invented the teleporter tomorrow....

tbh it would probably be the military, and it would probably be used for quite weird stuff and kept firmly under wraps. I doubt the people who develop it will advertise it. it's too dangerous, far too dangerous for our society.

[Efbe]

ash73 said:

SpeckledJim said:

ash73 said:

qube_TA said:

populations of humans that are born and live of different rocks will start to evolve differently to each other

Evolution requires selection, would there be any? One could argue modern civilisation circumvents it and our ethics constrain any eugenic replacement.

If one were to argue that, one would be very wrong.

Go on then, argue against it here

on an American website about a video of a lecture given in a church? how odd.

evolution happens even if you think it doesn't. people that die young still die young and don't have kids. Evolution doesn't have to be a massive jump like gaining wings, it can be as simple as a slightly better resistance against influenza or aids
a bit more controversially. it's slightly harder for ginger people to find mates. If the current social perceptions of gingers was to continue, you may well see the hair colour disappear.

[SpeckledJim]

ash73 said:

SpeckledJim said:

ash73 said:

qube_TA said:

populations of humans that are born and live of different rocks will start to evolve differently to each other

Evolution requires selection, would there be any? One could argue modern civilisation circumvents it and our ethics constrain any eugenic replacement.

If one were to argue that, one would be very wrong.

Go on then, argue against it - see here

Give me strength. You are the current end of a succession of genetic ancestors going back 2 billion years. Each different to the previous, and each very different to you. I haven't watched your video but you think that the inexhorable process by which you were brought-about has now stopped?

Because of Hep-B jabs and the welfare state? Come on...

[davepoth]

SpeckledJim said:

ash73 said:

SpeckledJim said:

ash73 said:

qube_TA said:

populations of humans that are born and live of different rocks will start to evolve differently to each other

Evolution requires selection, would there be any? One could argue modern civilisation circumvents it and our ethics constrain any eugenic replacement.

If one were to argue that, one would be very wrong.

Go on then, argue against it - see here

Give me strength. You are the current end of a succession of genetic ancestors going back 2 billion years. Each different to the previous, and each very different to you. I haven't watched your video but you think that the inexhorable process by which you were brought-about has now stopped?

Because of Hep-B jabs and the welfare state? Come on...

It's not stopped, it's different. We live in a world where people with profound disabilities who might have been left to die a few decades ago are not only leading fulfilling and long lives but are having children. That is a fundamental shift away from traditional Darwinian "survival of the fittest".

[SpeckledJim]

davepoth said:

SpeckledJim said:

ash73 said:

SpeckledJim said:

ash73 said:

qube_TA said:

populations of humans that are born and live of different rocks will start to evolve differently to each other

Evolution requires selection, would there be any? One could argue modern civilisation circumvents it and our ethics constrain any eugenic replacement.

If one were to argue that, one would be very wrong.

Go on then, argue against it - see here

Give me strength. You are the current end of a succession of genetic ancestors going back 2 billion years. Each different to the previous, and each very different to you. I haven't watched your video but you think that the inexhorable process by which you were brought-about has now stopped?

Because of Hep-B jabs and the welfare state? Come on...

It's not stopped, it's different. We live in a world where people with profound disabilities who might have been left to die a few decades ago are not only leading fulfilling and long lives but are having children. That is a fundamental shift away from traditional Darwinian "survival of the fittest".

It isn't a 'fundamental shift', merely a small expansion of the viable reproductive spectrum. Just like that of the Mines Act which reduced deaths underground, the shift from feudal agrarianism, mechanisation, germ theory, and a million other incremental improvements to our reproductive chances, over millenia.

That hasn't altered selection. I still don't want to hump the leprotic, though maybe future generations will.

The principles haven't changed a jot, and it's arrogant to consider ourselves and our epoch to be different or more significant than any other.

[qube_TA]

The random genetic mutations which are then either passed on or discarded by subsequent generations would be unique to the rock that the mutation occurs if breeding between humans on different rocks didn't happen.

Given that the environment, gravity, radiation etc is likely to be quite different on each planet, then if the separation is maintained for long enough, humans on Planet X would become increasingly different to those on Planet Y and it'll get all Star Trek.


Also the technology required to get to and colonise those off world places would be complex and not something we could do for the foreseeable future that by the time we can medical sciences will have possibly also advanced enough to adapt humans so that they're compatible with alien climates/atmospheres, thus exaggerating the evolutionary changes further.

[Efbe]

qube_TA said:

The random genetic mutations which are then either passed on or discarded by subsequent generations would be unique to the rock that the mutation occurs if breeding between humans on different rocks didn't happen.

Given that the environment, gravity, radiation etc is likely to be quite different on each planet, then if the separation is maintained for long enough, humans on Planet X would become increasingly different to those on Planet Y and it'll get all Star Trek.

Only if there was a benefit to survival through the mutation.

defence to illness is a much more likely evolutionary path given that on any other rock we would be adapting the environment to ourselves.

[Kozy]

Something like this:



with elements of this:



is pretty spot on the money I feel...

[IainT]

WeirdNeville said:

I wonder if a termite at the bottom of a termite mound, looking up, feels the same as a human gazing at a great pyramid, or sky scraper?

I'd put a lot of money that a termite feels no sense of awe or satisfaction at the results of it's labours carried out from pure instinct.

Clearly the boundaries will blur as we move through higher levels of intelligence and, at what point we can say something is intelligent or has human-like intelligence is tricky.

I'm fairly certain that, as far as intellect goes, we're at the top of the tree.

[qube_TA]

Efbe said:

qube_TA said:

The random genetic mutations which are then either passed on or discarded by subsequent generations would be unique to the rock that the mutation occurs if breeding between humans on different rocks didn't happen.

Given that the environment, gravity, radiation etc is likely to be quite different on each planet, then if the separation is maintained for long enough, humans on Planet X would become increasingly different to those on Planet Y and it'll get all Star Trek.

Only if there was a benefit to survival through the mutation.

defence to illness is a much more likely evolutionary path given that on any other rock we would be adapting the environment to ourselves.

Exactly, so those benefits would be different depending upon what planet the humans/life settles on.

Other life, such as bacteria would also evolve depending on those planetary benefits, which we'd have to evolve to defend against.