How do you envision technology 50 years from now?

[Sarevok]

What are the chances some nations could start using clone armies by 2050s ?

Don't laugh. The advanced countries of the world are very averse to taking causalities. They often "lose" just because they can't fight. If they had expendable cannonfodder available they could flex their muscles more easily. The single biggest weakness developed countries face is inability to occupy hostile nations. If biotechnology advances maybe that could all change. Instead of private mercs of dubious nature legions of fanatical clone soldiers could be used to bring "peace and order".

[Stuart]

This has been on my mind a lot, recently. If so many things that would have been deemed technologically impossible or just weren't imagined just 50 years ago exist today, such as mobile phones, very powerful computers in the household, CAT scans, etc... what can we expect to have in 50 years, when it comes to consumer electronics (to narrow it down)?

Gone.

In the unlikely event of humanity surviving fifty or more years, the survivors will be scavenging for what they can find. When that runs out, we're talking a 17th century level of existance if that,

[General Zod]

What are the chances some nations could start using clone armies by 2050s ?

Don't laugh. The advanced countries of the world are very averse to taking causalities. They often "lose" just because they can't fight. If they had expendable cannonfodder available they could flex their muscles more easily. The single biggest weakness developed countries face is inability to occupy hostile nations. If biotechnology advances maybe that could all change. Instead of private mercs of dubious nature legions of fanatical clone soldiers could be used to bring "peace and order".

Somehow I don't see clone armies as being viable unless you get around the aging problem. Since clones would age at the same rate as everyone else (from what I understand), they'd be just as if not more costly to make as training standard soldiers.

[Ryan Thunder]

Ideally? Everybody uses a vastly expanded public transit system fuelled directly from the local power grid to get to work. Because of this, rush hour ceases to be a pathetically ironic term. (No, seriously. You could cut congestion by a factor of like... 20 or something just by getting people to take the bus. Good luck getting them to, though.)

Everybody has solar panels of some sort or another on their house and contributes this additional capacity to the power grid. The rest is powered by hydro-electric dams and nuclear powerplants that can run on reprocessed fuel.

If we're lucky, we've put a network of solar panels up in space and the considerable power that could be drawn from that is beamed back down to the surface.

Hopefully, the Grid (an information storage/sharing technology being developed for the LHC) is active and giving us ludicrously high bandwidth as promised.

Genetic manipulation would allow us to create food animals that literally cannot suffer, taking the piss out of PETA.

[Broomstick]

What are the chances some nations could start using clone armies by 2050s?

Zero.

Don't laugh.

I can't help it.

Barring the invention of truly viable artificial wombs, you have to get real, live women to carry said clonesoldiers to term in a real pregnancy. Why would they do that instead of having their own children? (Maybe a LOT of money....) Then it's at least 18 years to raise 'em to boot camp age. Meanwhile you must feed, house, educate, etc. these clonesoldiers. What's the advantage here?

It's cheaper and easier to either give natural-grown poor people incentive to be cannon fodder, or just draft your cannonfodder.

[DaveJB]

Gone.

In the unlikely event of humanity surviving fifty or more years, the survivors will be scavenging for what they can find. When that runs out, we're talking a 17th century level of existance if that,

You think the human race will go extinct within the next 50 years? I'd like to hear your rationale behind that claim.

[KrauserKrauser]

I believe he was referring to the state of consumer electronics in 50 years. Part of the sticks, swords, guns, bombs, nukes, sticks fighting cycle.

[Ryan Thunder]

Gone.

In the unlikely event of humanity surviving fifty or more years, the survivors will be scavenging for what they can find. When that runs out, we're talking a 17th century level of existance if that,

You think the human race will go extinct within the next 50 years? I'd like to hear your rationale behind that claim.

Oh, never mind him. He probably just woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. The alarmism should wear off. Eventually.

[Stuart]

You think the human race will go extinct within the next 50 years? I'd like to hear your rationale behind that claim.

Next fifty years is a bit close but I have very little faith in the ability of humans to survive to the end of this century. It's nota claim by the way, its a personal belief. My greatest concern is biological warfare, we're far into the arts of manipulating diseases (read Biohazard by Ken Alibek) and gene surgery gives us the ability to create new diseases that we have absolutely no defense against. We've already hybridized several old-time killers (like smallpox-marburg for example) and we're in a position now where we can create completely artificial biohazards.

Imagine, for example, a disease that is a construct of haemorraghic smallpox (97 percent mortality) and influenza so that it has the infectiousness of the latter. Breed in resistance to all known vaccines and a four-week incubation period during which the carrier is contagious but symptom-free. That's a major species-survival challenge right there. or, if you prefer, imagine an influenza virus that is genetically engineered to release the blue-ringed octopus toxin. That already exists.

There are other tricks like embedding the lethal virus inside a pathogenic bacteria. That way the victim gets infected and builds upa bacteria load in in his body. His immune system then engages and destroys those bacteria, releasing a massive load of pathogenic viruses into the victim. That overwhelms the immune system and he dies.

I honestly believe that modern technology allows the production of bio-engineered biological warfare agents whose use will be an extinction event for humanity. We're close to that position now and the state of the art is advancing fast. And biological warfare is so damned easy, all one needs to start an anthrax facility is a few spadefuls of dirt, some baby formula and some laboratory glassware. And the most probable perps believe that Allah will protect them.

Nuclear warfare we can survive but I doubt our ability to survive a fully-fledged biowar.

There are other threats as well, but biological warfare is the one that scares the pants off me.

[Stuart]

Oh, never mind him. He probably just woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. The alarmism should wear off. Eventually.

I always wake up on the same side of bed every morning. Alarmism is very different from pessimism. Alarmism is based on a lack of knowledge that leads to the assumption of severe risk where none exists. Pessimism is the result of knowing enough about a subject to fully understand just how critical a situation is. I'm a pessimist - I've been working in the field of WMD use for 35 years.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I sometimes wonder if a nuclear war would be a good thing, since it would kill all international commerce and thus make such a super-plague's spread across the planet impossible.

[TheLostVikings]

What are the chances some nations could start using clone armies by 2050s?

Zero.

It's cheaper and easier to either give natural-grown poor people incentive to be cannon fodder, or just draft your cannonfodder.

This. If we have PETA raising a shitstorm every time an animal is mistreated, or held in captivity, don't you think they (and everyone else for that matter) would come kick your ass when you tried to start up your clone-apartheid slavetrooper scheme. To put it this way: Anyone going that route better have some damn good PR people, thats for sure.

[Stuart]

I sometimes wonder if a nuclear war would be a good thing, since it would kill all international commerce and thus make such a super-plague's spread across the planet impossible.

That thought has actually occurred to some people. Burning out the major trade nexi (which would be heavily infected anyway) has been suggested in the event of a super-plague. Bringa c omplete halt to international trade and movement. The problem is that some of these things are carried by air currents and can by-pass such defenses.

[Guardsman Bass]

Assuming we survive the worst that viral technology throws at us, then in the next fifty years I predict:

Extreme high-quality prosthetics: Basically, high capability prosthetic limbs and other organs (eyes) that can be attached directly to the human nervous system and manipulated like the old limbs. You'll have legs where you can walk almost as if you had your old leg, and same with arms/hands. Sensitivity (as in skin sensitivity) will lag behind, but we'll be working on it.

High-Intelligence Search Engines: Basically, these would be agents capable of going through reams of data and even verbal/written reports, identify common ideas, themes, problems, and structures, then forming reports out of them. Think an analyst's best friend for identifying trends.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Imagine, for example, a disease that is a construct of haemorraghic smallpox (97 percent mortality) and influenza so that it has the infectiousness of the latter. Breed in resistance to all known vaccines and a four-week incubation period during which the carrier is contagious but symptom-free. That's a major species-survival challenge right there. or, if you prefer, imagine an influenza virus that is genetically engineered to release the blue-ringed octopus toxin. That already exists.
There are other threats as well, but biological warfare is the one that scares the pants off me.

The human population is now so large than 97% lethality would not bring the species even close to extinction. You would need something like 99.99% lethality on top of 100% infection rate, which is very difficult to achieve even with a slowly incubating pathogen. Yo also somewhat underestimate the resources needed for advanced genetically engineered bio-weapons. It would require a well equipped genetics and microbiology/virology lab with large well-trained staff and years of development time to pull it of. It would be a stretch for terrorist organizations; in fact making a simple gun type A-bomb would be easier if you can get you hands on the fissile uranium. Most third world countries have only one barely suitable facility in the main university of the country and the poorer and smaller ones have none. Anthrax may be easy, but it's not an extinction level threat even if the terrorists could come up with some efficient way to deliver it.

[Modax]

But anything which kills 97% of the population will cause the complete collapse of society, and the remaining 3% will almost certainly then die of starvation.

But I tend to think that the development of highly advanced germ warfare will also lead to the development of highly advanced countermeasures. Like genetically engineered antiviral proteins, or wide-spectrum antiviral drugs.

[General Zod]

But anything which kills 97% of the population will cause the complete collapse of society, and the remaining 3% will almost certainly then die of starvation.

97% mortality rate does not mean it will kill 97% of the population. It means it will kill 97% of the people it comes into contact with. Which could very well be 97% of the population depending on how easy it is to spread.

[Ryan Thunder]

Oh, never mind him. He probably just woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. The alarmism should wear off. Eventually.

I always wake up on the same side of bed every morning.

Maybe it's always been the wrong side?

Alarmism is very different from pessimism. Alarmism is based on a lack of knowledge that leads to the assumption of severe risk where none exists. Pessimism is the result of knowing enough about a subject to fully understand just how critical a situation is. I'm a pessimist - I've been working in the field of WMD use for 35 years.

Well, I'd expect that sort of career certainly would make one pessimistic...

But how do you figure such a disease would get released?

[Modax]

True enough. Hunter gatherers in the amazon would probably survive. As would the population of Easter Island. But our modern technological civilization would be toast.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

The evolution of technology, as I see it, will take one of several possible trajectories:
A) The Interregnum - We become resource-starved, and hampered by climate change. Technological progress comes to a screaming halt as the planet sheds some 80% of its present, grossly inequitably distributed, wealth. As this downsizing isn't going to be pleasant, or well-managed, recovery to present standards of living will take decades. Possibly centuries if we settle into a cyclic crash-exponential growth-overshoot-correction cycle. Once we, as a species, finally get our shit together and crawl out of the Interregnum, we'll go to Trajectory C. If we're stupid, we'll fall into Trajectory B.

B) The Catastrophe - Like the Interregnum, except the global down-sizing creates too much strain on human civilization, likely because whoever gets the 20% of the planet's present wealth after the downsizing will be determined by a very deadly game of Last Man Standing. Very, very deadly because of all the interesting ways we can produce to do ourselves in. To see the end result of the Catastrophe, refer to Stuart's posts in this thread.

C) The Slow, Hard Climb - The basis of all technologies we're capable of achieving is in place now. Resource-starvation will still get us, because we can't expand our resource-development fast enough to keep up with growing global demand. Global wealth undergoes downsizing and redistribution, but this is a better-managed reconfiguration than that seen by Interregnum or Catastrophe. But beyond that?

Well, vast sprawling suburbs will be a thing of the past. Personal cars? Only for the rich. Everyone else will take the bus, ride bicycles, or drive short-range urban runabouts that wouldn't seriously inconvenience a golf cart in a collision. Flying cars? Forget it. Beyond a few tiny niche applications, the flying car is never going to happen. Cities will become much tighter and more densely packed to make mass electric transit more workable. Transit between cities will largely be handled by high-speed train, as airlines will have been mostly driven out of business by previous decades' spikes in fuel prices and increasingly stringent emissions regulations.

Computing devices will become much more ubiquitous. Wearable devices should become increasingly prevalent, due to ground-up construction of wireless infrastructure, lightweight, flexible circuitry, and distributed computing to reduce workloads these personal devices would see. Your network connection (and there will be plenty of those, and they should be very fast) will supply your internet, your telephony, and your digital entertainment. The networks will also control traffic (because leaving it up to people inside the crowded cities of the future would be criminally stupid,) and monitor building environmental conditions.

Power generation will be handled by a combination of nuclear and 'renewable' energy sources. Nuclear fusion may finally become commercially workable, but I suspect it will not supply more than maybe 5% to 10% of the planet's total energy needs in this timeframe.

Medical technology is the field most likely to see significant gains in the next fifty years. I predict the first workable high-bandwidth mind-machine interfaces being introduced by this timeframe. Because people objecting vigorously to the notion of the human cyborg will still be alive and in power, MMI may see relatively little use. Possibly a limited extension to the wearable computer. Growing computational power will permit the simulation and synthesis of proteins hitherto undreamt of now. Genetic therapies, and organs grown on 3D-printed organic scaffolds will push the mean life-expectancy to the mid-to-upper 80s.

The 3D printer technology should be seeing limited mainstream applications by this timeframe. We won't have general-purpose fabbers, but the man on the street will know what a 3D printer does, and will probably own items produced or repaired by parts generated by them.

Space technology won't have progressed too far beyond where it is today. Presumably, we won't accidentally lock ourselves out of Earth orbit through debris-generating chain reaction collisions. If we do, then feel free to skip the rest of this paragraph and refer back to Trajectory A. Fifty years from now, we will have completed an Apollo-esque sequence of missions to Mars, and will have an established manned Lunar presence. Some government somewhere may be dabbling in asteroid exploration and exploitation, but nowhere near what will be needed to start us firmly towards Type II energy utilization. We will have a catalog of every potentially habitable planet within fifty to a hundred light-years of us, but this knowledge won't be useful for the next couple centuries, at a minimum. LEO space hotels for the ultra-rich won't be out of the question, nor will routine sub-orbital, or single-orbit flights for the rich, or those with really good credit. But O'Neil cylinders? Space habitats? Fughedaboutit.

[Broomstick]

True enough. Hunter gatherers in the amazon would probably survive. As would the population of Easter Island. But our modern technological civilization would be toast.

Oh, bullshit - some of us in the industrial world still remember how to grow/hunt our own food, it's just that the grocery store is so much more convenient. Assuming a 97% die-off (or anywhere near it) there'll be ample stocks of stored food and other supplies to last for years if one is a little sensible about raiding things like warehouses, allowing time for survivors to return to self-sufficient lifestyles.

But yeah, life will suck mightily for quite some time afterward.

[Modax]

I'm not a computer engineer (or any other sort of engineer), so I'm not in a good position to speculate on future computer developments; however, it still seems to me that it's almost impossible to predict computer capabilities past around 20nm or a bit smaller, as that necessitates some sort of fundamental breakthrough. I expect, though I'd be happy to be wrong, that this will be rather slow in coming, both because of technological difficulties in implementing something new and sheer economic momentum behind the current CMOS process. Instead, the current trend of making computers more parallel will probably continue without appreciable gains in density until that breakthrough.

Luckily, it looks like there are a lot of possible breakthroughs on the horizon. Like probabilistic computing, graphene, memristors and quantum dots just to name a few.

[Simplicius]

Oh, bullshit - some of us in the industrial world still remember how to grow/hunt our own food, it's just that the grocery store is so much more convenient. Assuming a 97% die-off (or anywhere near it) there'll be ample stocks of stored food and other supplies to last for years if one is a little sensible about raiding things like warehouses, allowing time for survivors to return to self-sufficient lifestyles.

But yeah, life will suck mightily for quite some time afterward.

I believe Modax was referring to those peoples as examples of isolated populations who are less likely to come into contact with any pandemic in the first place. Were it not for sanitation infrastructure and medical technology, diseases would go through modern societies like wildfire.

[Ariphaos]

*snip bioterror*

I'm actually a bit more optimistic. I fully agree that eventually, some asshats are going to attempt to perform what Stuart fears and release horrors into the wild before they kill themselves.

But note the rate of cell phone usage in African and other third world countries. And look at say, folding@home - 4.9 petaflops now, entirely dedicated to unraveling biology.

Now lets say in about twenty years, someone unleashes one of Stuart's doomsday scenarios.

What sort of power will distributed networks have available to them at this point? High zettaflop / low yottaflop range seems likely. High yottaflop in the event that humanity is faced with an extinction-grade biological threat, almost certainly.

Protein folding is a difficult problem, and completely unraveling the structure of a pathogen is a time consuming process... but twenty years from now we will not only have a far superior understanding of human biology and biological processes in general from raw experience. These networks are also going to be capable of performing in one second the entirety of all digital computing ever performed in all human history up to this point.

Sure, there are a lot of limits to computing, but I am going to be highly skeptical of any claim of a pathogen being that inscrutable. In twenty years the pathogen gets released, in twenty years and twenty-four hours a not-insignificant portion of humanity is already inoculated.

And eventually people get so fed up with the possibility that they alter their genetic structure to prevent the very possibility of viruses being an issue, ever again. Or prions. Or fungus. Bacterial pathogens will be somewhat harder to categorically eliminate but I would not rule out the possibility.

There is also the related issue of people pulling off in small subunits as it becomes more feasible to live independently of the rest of the world.

[Guardsman Bass]

True enough. Hunter gatherers in the amazon would probably survive. As would the population of Easter Island. But our modern technological civilization would be toast.

Oh, bullshit - some of us in the industrial world still remember how to grow/hunt our own food, it's just that the grocery store is so much more convenient. Assuming a 97% die-off (or anywhere near it) there'll be ample stocks of stored food and other supplies to last for years if one is a little sensible about raiding things like warehouses, allowing time for survivors to return to self-sufficient lifestyles.

But yeah, life will suck mightily for quite some time afterward.

It depends on how the whole die-off is distributed. If you got farming communities in isolation that survive (or even towns) because of luck of being off the main transport routes and the like, then you could probably hang on to at least 19th century tech as long as you had a mix of people with various skills who could do things like read books and make basic drugs/machines/etc.

Hell, the Native Americans survived a 90-95% die-off when the Europeans introduced the diseases that had been bouncing around in the Old World for centuries.