I know that you are saying ‘What is this guy going on about?’ ‘Universe is 93 billion light years across. So what?’ and I understand why you say so. All I am doing is putting a few base facts on the table which I will refer to later but in my mind all I am saying is that we are very likely not unique, the earth is not going to shrivel up and wither out no matter what we do and whatever happens to the human race is up to us. The Universe does not care, time does not care and the odds are stacked against us. We need to sort our own lives out and not leave anything to chance.
The base facts very basically being;
- We are in a single place, the Earth, and for the foreseeable future all our resources must come from here.
- Whilst here we must make sure we do not make it uninhabitable as we have nowhere else to go.
- We are basically animals and forcing us to go against our nature is going to generate unintended consequences.
- We are easily manipulated. Usually through the money for nothing route but the fear route works just as well.
- Men and women are wired differently.
- Everyone has a sliding scale and it all depends on where the pointer stops. However, we are all generally in agreement about what is best.
- Everything we do is for short term benefit. Sometimes by necessity but usually because of human generated events beyond our control. No one is looking at the big picture for our species.
So IMO, the main short term objectives we should be looking at are;
- Develop a food source that uses less land space to give us room to grow.
- Develop power generation facilities that are safe and efficient.
- Develop health care to expand our life spans and make us healthier longer.
- Look at our transport facilities.
- Look at our use of land space.
- Sort out our social system.
- Develop robots to do our menial tasks.
- Introduce true leadership using technology and get rid of professional politicians.
- Look at the impact on our society of changes such as fewer menial jobs.
As longer term objectives we need to invest in the research for;
- Developing Faster Than Light travel and get out there.
- Developing habitats for deep space, either our solar system or beyond.
- Immortality.
To be honest I believe we can do the initial stages for all the short term objectives now. It’s just nobody is really investing the money. Ironic really as in the medium term money won’t be an issue.
Over the next few days I’m going to look at each of these in turn and add a few more. Then I’m going to get down at looking at what is going on now and see where we can go. Beyond that I’m not sure. Maybe get back to looking in disgust at what is going on and commenting on each and every one. Where will I get the time?
The way I tend to look at things, both here and in my RL, is that I look at where we are now. Define, as much as I can, where we want to end up. Then work out a plan from moving to there. Too many people believe that by starting again they can get Utopia but it generally causes too many problems. Move on from where we are. Little, clearly defined steps until we get to where we want to be and then do the same for the next stage and so on. This is a long term project for the human species and needs to be treated as such.