space!

[rtil]

the earth's inevitable demise is still around 3 and a half billion years away

What you're talking about is the end of our solar system which is a goddamn dead end, even for other planets that we moght be able to reach.
If mankind should ever survive till that day, we're all fucked. -end
Fortunately, the chances for that condidion are slim.

However, maintaining colonies on other planets could save mankind from extinction by itself... at least to a certain degree... I mean epidemics could also spread through space travellers and I'm pretty sure there would be intergalactic nukes at some point and a new kind of nationalism based on the planet you were born. Can't wait until they come up with the first insult for someone born on earth...
I just hope they don't find our secret underground-Nazi-moonbases in the progress.

yes i'm aware that that's what i'm talking about but i'm assuming if humankind is still around in 3 and a half billion years we'll have learned how to travel outside of our solar system

[Kött]

Well, considering the little timespan mankind has existed and taking into account the progress it has made in the past century, I think it's hard to judge how the world's going to look in a couple of decades.

Nevertheless, I predict a regression as the human brain is limited and most progress that has been made in the past years were accomplishments in the amusement and entertainment industry which inevitably lead to the destruction of man's ambitions in regards to scientiffic progress.
I wonder what this place would be like if all of us were a bunch of scientists instead of artists, using the time we spend on watching cartoons and anime on extending out knowledge and doing research... We might have found a cure for cancer and could have invented teleporters already. On the other hand, life would be dull without any form of entertainment and doing what you enjoy just makes life so much more pleasant. That exactly might be the natural limit of man's development...

[Flash]

yeah this is an age of serious scientific withdrawal we are all a bunch of goddamn useless romantics and we'll make science die

[ZennyPLUS]

What if you have a passion for.... science?

[rtil]

I predict a regression as the human brain is limited

please explain yourself. we barely understand the human brain and how it functions. in what way is it limited beyond the obvious in that it cannot function in the same way as a computer.

and most progress that has been made in the past years were accomplishments in the amusement and entertainment industry which inevitably lead to the destruction of man's ambitions in regards to scientiffic progress.

again you're going to have to explain yourself - arguably the greatest achievement of mankind in the last two decades has been the internet and making it accessible and functional for everyone. it has accelerated the travel of information, expanded available knowledge to billions, encourages the free and open flow of ideas and speech, allowed people from all over the world to collaborate on massive projects, and continues to generate mountains of useful data. what exactly in the entertainment industry has trumped the internet?

I wonder what this place would be like if all of us were a bunch of scientists instead of artists, using the time we spend on watching cartoons and anime on extending out knowledge and doing research... We might have found a cure for cancer and could have invented teleporters already

...what? everyone has their role in society and everyone excels at different things. i'm not a scientist because i'm terrible at science. while i personally enjoy the subject and it fascinates me, i would be a terrible scientist and would most likely contribute nothing of worth to the scientific community in my lifetime. on the other hand, i'd bet most scientists make for terrible artists. it goes the same way for just about every field that involves a master craft.

does that make either profession more or less valuable to society or mankind? no. human culture is rich in all its creations equally - every human passion and ambition is embedded in our DNA. if they didn't exist, they wouldn't have any use to us.

On the other hand, life would be dull without any form of entertainment and doing what you enjoy just makes life so much more pleasant. That exactly might be the natural limit of man's development...

the true limit of man's development is that when someone dies, all their expertise and knowledge is lost except for what they left behind, and when a new human is born, they must be taught everything over again. that is why we create, and because we've gotten so good at it, we are thriving.

and if you really think all art and entertainment is a waste of time and purely for leisure.. you really went wrong somewhere.

[Blordow]

i dont think i will visit space in my lifetime, however when I die, maybe my spirit will be able to wonder the universe as it would move up into a higher level of consciousness and make contact with other civilisations via my space craft made out of pure energy and thought matter.

[rtil]

i dont think i will visit space in my lifetime, however when I die, maybe my spirit will be able to wonder the universe as it would move up into a higher level of consciousness and make contact with other civilisations via my space craft made out of pure energy and thought matter.

[manny]

transcedentall meditation cannn imanstipate the mannn and make u feelin grannd its cooooooooool its coooooooooooool its coooooooool

[manny]

to be able to afford to go to space in our generations life span sounds like a oil rich muslim luxury or a white supremacist excuse of a "g00d timee"

[raymond]

Going into space seems silly to me, especially if you're just gonna hang around out of Earth's orbit for a while.  There's no point, yo, you're just gonna be weightless for a little while then head back down and forget about it.  If you were, like, going to visit Mars after they established some sort of base there (which i doubt will happen in our lifetime) then I guess it'd be sort of cool but otherwise eeeeeeh.

[Kött]

I predict a regression as the human brain is limited

the true limit of man's development is that when someone dies, all their expertise and knowledge is lost except for what they left behind, and when a new human is born, they must be taught everything over again. that is why we create, and because we've gotten so good at it, we are thriving.

You pretty much explained it yourself there... Although, I went into the wrong direction when I tried to focus on the brain. It is rather its lifetime that limits its capacity and while the human lifespan has increased dramatically in the past centuries, we have gotten to know the true forms of human decay that is reached at old age. You can always extend someone's lifespan but it's hardly imaginable to maintain the brain functions at 100% of its capacity throughout an entire lifespan.

There is an urban legend that we only use 10 to 20% of our brain but this has never been proven and doesn't seem to be founded on any kind of scientific proof. Of course no one knows to what extent the human brain is limited regarding its capacity but fixed time that we have creates is a limit by itself.

and most progress that has been made in the past years were accomplishments in the amusement and entertainment industry which inevitably lead to the destruction of man's ambitions in regards to scientific progress.

again you're going to have to explain yourself - arguably the greatest achievement of mankind in the last two decades has been the internet and making it accessible and functional for everyone. it has accelerated the travel of information, expanded available knowledge to billions, encourages the free and open flow of ideas and speech, allowed people from all over the world to collaborate on massive projects, and continues to generate mountains of useful data. what exactly in the entertainment industry has trumped the internet?

Interesting... because I would have used the very same example for the entertainment industry. It is a great network of communication and it certainly has made the acquisition of facts and knowledge as well as human communication way easier. Especially as a student, I couldn't imagine a life without the internet as it has become the most important and especially quickest method to acquire information. I don't think a Third Reich 2.0 would be possible at a time like this which is mostly based on trust that I have in this new worldwide communication network.
Nevertheless a major part of the activities that we do online serve our own amusement or personal satisfaction. No matter if we spend an evening of watching Youtube videos, play online games, download tools or multimedia, have a nice chat with people from across the globe or spread our newest creations online. Some of these activities might inspire people, touch their hearts and create new interests. But they are still part of our own amusement.

I wonder what this place would be like if all of us were a bunch of scientists instead of artists, using the time we spend on watching cartoons and anime on extending our knowledge and doing research... We might have found a cure for cancer and could have invented teleporters already

...what? everyone has their role in society and everyone excels at different things. i'm not a scientist because i'm terrible at science. while i personally enjoy the subject and it fascinates me, i would be a terrible scientist and would most likely contribute nothing of worth to the scientific community in my lifetime. on the other hand, i'd bet most scientists make for terrible artists. it goes the same way for just about every field that involves a master craft.

I simply said that I enjoyed the idea and was trying to fuel your imagination. It was a mere scenario simply created for our own amusement and while it was as well supposed to include a thought-provoking message, the main focus was based on the mere thought, as in, "I wonder how tba would be like if we were all a bunch of astronauts". Besides, you never know where you would be now if you would have chosen a different path in life at some point. If we all were martial artists and you were as devoted to BJJ as you are to arts today, you would most likely kick all of our asses. I'm not even saying that it would have been a better or more suitable thing to work in a scientific area than persuing whatever goals you have in life right now but just as in arts, expertise if a product of interest, spirit, experience and practice and I don't think someone is born an artist/scientist.

does that make either profession more or less valuable to society or mankind? no. human culture is rich in all its creations equally - every human passion and ambition is embedded in our DNA. if they didn't exist, they wouldn't have any use to us.

I never said that. Comparing artistic creations to scientiffic achievements would be like comparing apples with oranges. Maybe I shouldn't have used the "cure for cancer" thing... it always seems to have such a strong impact...
However, I think that the idea of passion being embedded in our DNA is quite horrible as it would limit us from the start. Thinking the very same way, one could also argue that some people are simply born dumb as they have no passion and ambition for any kind of thing and that would make men unequal unless these attributes are distributed equally by "nature", which, again, has a rather religious undertone...

I think passion and ambition are created by/based on the way you are raised and the experiences that you make in life. The thought is based on the very same fact that people can change and widen their horizons. Having passion and ambitions based on our genes would mean that we would be limited in certain areas in which certain experiences in life might later lead us to develop new interests. Of course certain features such as hair color, height might be determined by your dna, but those features rarely dominate our interests. Do you really think passion is a question of genes rather than development?

and if you really think all art and entertainment is a waste of time and purely for leisure.. you really went wrong somewhere.

As I said, I don't know where or who I would be today if all the time that I have wasted in front of the TV, used to play video games and killed by browsing random websites had been spent on studying mathematics or playing guitar.
One of these activities is a science, the other one could be considered a leisure activity but even in the latter case I am not consuming but producing and that is really not what I would consider a waste of time.
But even if we talk about consuming entertainment, I simply think it is necessary every now and then simply to avoid going insane. No one can spend an entire life perfecting his skills without any kind of leisure. I would go mad if I didn't have any time to kill and there is one thing I can say for sure: I definitely wouldn't be a happier person if I devoted my entire life to my studies without spending any time on personal amusement.

Nevertheless, I still think that there is an oversupply of entertainment nowadays that might keep quite a few Picassos or Einsteins from exploiting their full potential and that was what I was hinting at.

[valiums]

Going into space seems silly to me, especially if you're just gonna hang around out of Earth's orbit for a while.  There's no point, yo, you're just gonna be weightless for a little while then head back down and forget about it.

                                                                                           

[rtil]

There is an urban legend that we only use 10 to 20% of our brain but this has never been proven and doesn't seem to be founded on any kind of scientific proof. Of course no one knows to what extent the human brain is limited regarding its capacity but fixed time that we have creates is a limit by itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_percent_of_brain_myth

Interesting... because I would have used the very same example for the entertainment industry. It is a great network of communication and it certainly has made the acquisition of facts and knowledge as well as human communication way easier. Especially as a student, I couldn't imagine a life without the internet as it has become the most important and especially quickest method to acquire information. I don't think a Third Reich 2.0 would be possible at a time like this which is mostly based on trust that I have in this new worldwide communication network.
Nevertheless a major part of the activities that we do online serve our own amusement or personal satisfaction. No matter if we spend an evening of watching Youtube videos, play online games, download tools or multimedia, have a nice chat with people from across the globe or spread our newest creations online. Some of these activities might inspire people, touch their hearts and create new interests. But they are still part of our own amusement.

it may be a major part of your online activites, but not everyone uses the internet for the same reasons you do. humanity has accomplished a lot of incredible things because of the internet. it's easy to glance them over now that we're so spoiled with technology, and the fact that we grew up with it.

I simply said that I enjoyed the idea and was trying to fuel your imagination. It was a mere scenario simply created for our own amusement and while it was as well supposed to include a thought-provoking message, the main focus was based on the mere thought, as in, "I wonder how tba would be like if we were all a bunch of astronauts". Besides, you never know where you would be now if you would have chosen a different path in life at some point. If we all were martial artists and you were as devoted to BJJ as you are to arts today, you would most likely kick all of our asses. I'm not even saying that it would have been a better or more suitable thing to work in a scientific area than persuing whatever goals you have in life right now but just as in arts, expertise if a product of interest, spirit, experience and practice and I don't think someone is born an artist/scientist.

you're certainly not born anything, but the early years of your development shape a majority of traits that can determine what you will do or are inclined to do when you get older.

However, I think that the idea of passion being embedded in our DNA is quite horrible as it would limit us from the start. Thinking the very same way, one could also argue that some people are simply born dumb as they have no passion and ambition for any kind of thing and that would make men unequal unless these attributes are distributed equally by "nature", which, again, has a rather religious undertone...

no, that doesn't make any sense. you don't understand what i am saying, which is that it is a FACT that we do the things we do because we are genetically inclined to do so. i'm sorry if reality upsets you but that's just the truth.

I think passion and ambition are created by/based on the way you are raised and the experiences that you make in life. The thought is based on the very same fact that people can change and widen their horizons. Having passion and ambitions based on our genes would mean that we would be limited in certain areas in which certain experiences in life might later lead us to develop new interests. Of course certain features such as hair color, height might be determined by your dna, but those features rarely dominate our interests. Do you really think passion is a question of genes rather than development?

i don't think it, i know it. it's scientific fact. like most things, reality is not a flowery or happy thought, it's simply chemical reactions triggered in your brain determined by your genetic makeup. you can think whatever makes you comfortable, but the underlying truth is that you do the things you do because your species is driven to do them. it's a complex survival system that all living things have. we want to make our mark and have the things that we've touched and created live on beyond our mortal lives. that's why when people lose that it is treated as a disease or a problem - it's abnormal to not have a survivalist instinct.

[ZennyPLUS]

Kott sounds like one of those crazy ass A.I.'s from the end of MGS2. Shots have been fired. IMO, we lost a lot of progress in terms of development when the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Greece bit the dust.

[Kött]

you're certainly not born anything, but the early years of your development shape a majority of traits that can determine what you will do or are inclined to do when you get older.

Ye, that's what I'm saying...

...it is a FACT that we do the things we do because we are genetically inclined to do so.
...i don't think it, i know it. it's scientific fact. like most things, reality is not a flowery or happy thought, it's simply chemical reactions triggered in your brain determined by your genetic makeup. you can think whatever makes you comfortable, but the underlying truth is that you do the things you do because your species is driven to do them. it's a complex survival system that all living things have. we want to make our mark and have the things that we've touched and created live on beyond our mortal lives. that's why when people lose that it is treated as a disease or a problem - it's abnormal to not have a survivalist instinct.

I'm not gonna argue with you on that because I never claimed the opposite. Of course we are controlled by our instincts to a certain extent and have this kind of inner desire that motivates us to create and to accomplish.
It just seems new to me that potential areas of interest are pre-determined by our dna or did I misunderstand you there?

...a major part of the activities that we do online serve our own amusement or personal satisfaction. No matter if we spend an evening of watching Youtube videos, play online games, download tools or multimedia, have a nice chat with people from across the globe or spread our newest creations online. Some of these activities might inspire people, touch their hearts and create new interests. But they are still part of our own amusement.

it may be a major part of your online activites, but not everyone uses the internet for the same reasons you do. humanity has accomplished a lot of incredible things because of the internet. it's easy to glance them over now that we're so spoiled with technology, and the fact that we grew up with it.

Be my guest! Throw the first stone if that goes for you! I will gladly admit that I mainly do use the internet for my amusement, even though it has become a mandatory tool for studying as well. Nevertheless, I am convinced that those who mainly use it for work/study purposes are the minority, presumably those who only have an internet connection at work. The majority of users are part of the younger generations. The older minority might use it differently but even collecting unrelated knowledge on Wikipedia or via google-search might simply be part of your own amusement if it doesn't help you to become better at your profession. Again, it's all a matter of perception but I guess it would actually make wonderful material for a research project...

[rtil]

your genetic makeup can tell you a lot about yourself, but not everything. it does play a part in what your interests in the future might be, but it doesn't force you down a single path.

the internet is now accessible to billions, so yes, for most people it is simply a means of entertainment and sometimes knowledge that they use for their own purposes - which i think is fine. but for me and others, it's more important than that. my career is dependent on the internet, i do all my work and networking online, and it's given me a better life. i no longer have to commute and i can work on my own hours, and it's opened up a huge world of opportunities and inspiration for me.

[Jon]

the idea of continuing human life on another planet is a comforting thought, and i hope we'll be able to do that before the earth dies