The Human Race to the Future: What Could Happen - and What to Do

Who doesn't wonder about the future... what things will be like some day, how long it might take, and what we can do about it? Substantive yet imaginative, readable, occasionally humorous, and science oriented, this book proposes future scenarios spanning from the current century to nearly eternity. Most chapters offer a concluding section with recommendations and often, agree or disagree, the author's occasionally inimitable opinions. Some of the recommended actions can be done by individuals, others by nations or other groups, and still others by the entire world.

Praise for…

The Human Race to the Future

“The 21st Century will almostcertainly see more technologicalchange than any century before Thecomputer scientist Daniel Berleantoffers a concise, readable guide towhat might come next, filled withspecific recommendations on what

we all need to do to prepare.”

—Gary Marcus, PhD, New YorkUniversity; best-selling author of

Guitar Zero; author of articles in

Wired, Science, Nature, and other

major popular periodicals andscholarly journals

“I read through much of the bookwhile teaching for the InternationalSpace University in Australia It is

… a thought-provoking enterprise

of the first order.”

—Joseph N Pelton, PhD, Director

of the Space and Advanced

Communications Research Institute(SACRI) at George WashingtonUniversity; founder and Vice

Chairman, Arthur C Clarke

Foundation; Pulitzer Prize nominee

“Berleant takes the reader on anelegantly written, thought provokingride that could inspire high schoolstudents to be more creative, theirparents and grandparents to be morefuture aware, and leaders of nationsaround the world to take heed andact.”

—Donald Maclean, MBChB,

retired family physician,

psychiatrist, and founding

department chair at the University

of Illinois

_

A clear alternative to Wesch’s “Theend of wonder in the age ofwhatever”… the reader will sharethe excitement and joy of thisintegration of futurism and popularscience According to the author,

“My goal is a view of the future at arange of topics and time scales,based on a foundation of science Inmelding futurism and popular

science, I have worked to illuminatethe significance and the beauty ofthat synergy.”

_

“The Human Race to the Future is

a wonderful, comprehensive andtimely contribution to the MUSTREAD literature on existential

“As a technology futurist I am

extremely interested in the topics ofthis book Thank you so much forwriting this excellent book!!”

—Elina Hiltunen, PhD, CEO andfounder of What’s Next Consulting

Oy (Finland); author of book Travel Guide to the Future (Matkaopas tulevaisuuteen)

“Daniel Berleant whizzes past thefuture and then loops back to look it

in the eye This is a … brilliant

—Sabiha Rumani Malik, President

of Sanghata Global; winner of the

2013 Ashoka U-Cordes Award forImpact, Innovation and Potential forReplicability

“I have been pleasantly surprised atthe quality and depth of the material

in this book.”

—Luke Hutchison, PhD (MIT),Google; TED fellow; SingularityUniversity alumnus

_

“Although many foresight andfuturism books belong in the sciencefiction section, Berleant grounds hiswriting in scientific facts andknowledge, while maintaining theexcitement the material deserves.

… the book can expand your view

of the possible.”

—33rd Square

(www.33rdsquare.com)

The Human Race

to the Future

What Could Happen — and What to Do

Daniel Berleant

A Lifeboat Foundation Book

Published by the Lifeboat

Foundationlifeboat.com

Copyright © 2013 by Daniel

Berleant

All rights reserved For

permissions contact the publisher or

author

Translator and internationaldistributor inquiries welcome

—Spiral clock cover design:Catherine Asaro

Clock art: Francesco De Comité ©

2007(see his site at

www.lifl.fr/~decomite)

Circuit board clock and highway

covers: Jason Batt

Alien landscape cover: Frank D

Smith

—

First edition, May 2013

Manufactured in the United States of

1 Science—forecasting 2 Technology foresight

3 Science and technology—social

aspects I Title

Includes bibliographic references

and indexQA175.5.B394 2013

This book reflects the views of theauthor and does not necessarilyrepresent the positions of theLifeboat Foundation

Publisher’s page:

Facebook group:

facebook.com/groups/thehumanracetothefuture

To Joy and Our Next Generation

Why Read This Book?

Who doesn’t have at least somecuriosity about the future… whatthings will be like one day? This

book gives some answers, spanningfrom the current century nearly toeternity itself This book is for you

if you are interested in the future,intrigued by science and technology,

or both

The First Generation:

The Next Hundred Years

Chapter One (4 Pages)

What it Means That an Hour’s Work Yields a Week’s Food

Labor productivity is so high wecould all live comfortably workingmuch less than we currently do.What does this mean? Will wework fewer hours in the future than

we do now?

Chapter Two (5 Pages)

Live Anywhere, Work Anywhere

Else

Current commuting and livingpractices continue in part becausewe’re used to doing it that way.These habits are ripe for change

The economic incentivesfavor telecommuting and robotictelepresence Here is what theinsistent push of these incentivesmeans for the future of living,working, and commuting.

Chapter Three (6 Pages)

Keyboards Yesterday, Mind Reading Tomorrow

Keyboards are the classic way tointeract with computers However,general use computers that interactdirectly with the electrical activity

of the brain are getting closer witheach passing year.

Chapter Four (6 Pages)

Wiki-Wiki-Wikipedia

Wiki-wikipedia, an extension toWikipedia, could provide a view ofany article from the “colored lens”

of any other article automatically.Yet the short passage conceptdemonstrated a hundred years ago

by Paul Otlet’s Mundaneum couldextend Wikipedia even further, fromWiki-wikipedia to Wiki-wiki-

Chapter Five (7 Pages)

Smart Pills’n Such: Cognitive Enhancement the Easy Way

The ancient Greeks used honeywater (which they called hydromel)

to enhance mental performance.Modern society presents otherpossibilities, from pharmaceuticals

to deep brain stimulation The future

will provide more Caveat emptor Chapter Six (14 Pages)

From Highly Centralized to Highly Decentralized Society

Modern civilization depends oncentralized food and energyproduction, and the resultantrequired distribution networks This

is risky, even dangerous In thefuture, gardening and farming robotscould mitigate the risks of the fooddistribution system, and solarenergy could mitigate the risks ofcentralized electric utilities Societywill be much more resilient todisaster as a result

Chapter Seven (6 Pages)

When Genomes Get Cheap

We are acquiring ever vasteramounts of information on howvariations in our 20,000–25,000genes affect our physical, mental,and medical characteristics Thiswill have major impacts, frommedicine to self-knowledge

Chapter Eight (10 Pages)

Cheaper Teaching, Faster

Learning

The growth of online learningmeans that one instructor couldoversee a course with a millionstudents in it What are theeconomic incentives involved andwhat will this mean for education?

Chapter Nine (4 Pages)

in a big way There will be nogoing back.

Chapter Ten (10 Pages)

The Turbulence of Short-Term

Thinking

Society is stuck in a short-termmindset, but we shouldn’t be Oddlyenough, optimizing the actions of anorganization or society with respect

to a long-term horizon providesbetter average yearly performancethan optimizing each yearindividually, one at a time

Chapter Eleven (7 Pages)

Battle for the Mind *

*Borrowed from the title of a book

Chapter Twelve (6 Pages)

Will Artificial Intelligence Threaten Civilization?

You’ve heard the story: Intelligentrobots try to take over the world.But this is only one possible future.Other futures are explained Onething seems nearly certain:Artificial intelligence technologywill continue to improve, and

winning chess and Jeopardy! is

only the beginning

Chapter Thirteen (5 Pages)

Deconstructing Nonproliferation

Nuclear weapons are spreading tomore countries Where can weexpect this trend to lead in thefuture?

The Second Generation: The Next Thousand Years

Chapter Fourteen (24 Pages)

Space Empire: From Mercury to

Neptune — and Beyond

The lure of interplanetarycolonization intrigues Let usexamine the possibilities forvarious planets and other bodies.Mars is interesting, but it’s only onepossibility of many

Chapter Fifteen (6 Pages)

Tastes Like the Singularity, but

Less Filling

Some think the world as we know itwill soon end, ushering in anunimaginable (but hopefully

utopian) future This chapterexplains why it is called the

“singularity,” and why it’s exciting.But it probably won’t radicallytransform the fabric of reality likesome people think

Chapter Sixteen (14 Pages)

Chasing the Future: Spoilsports

of the Prediction Game

What are the seven wet blankets ofthe prediction endeavor? Theyinclude the butterfly effect, theuncertainty principle, the observer

effect, and others It means we can’tpredict the future with certainty But

we can try

Chapter Seventeen (5 Pages)

Warm, Poison Planet

How bad could global warming get,worst case? Hydrogen sulfide couldpoison the oceans and the

atmosphere, make the air smell likerotten eggs and turn the sky green.This actually happened, evidencesuggests, long ago

Chapter Eighteen (4 Pages)

Day of Contact

New contacts between two cultures,each previously unaware of theother’s existence, have often proveddisastrous to one of them Thesearch for extraterrestrialintelligence is interesting, but weshould be very, very cautious aboutactually initiating contact Thestakes could be high

Chapter Nineteen (5 Pages)

Saving Daylight (in Memory of

Daylight Savings Time, R.I.P.)

Daylight savings time is a messypatch that no one really likes.People would function better, and

so would society, if people lived inbetter synchrony with the Sun.Normal clocks can’t handle such aconcept, but computerizedtimekeeping could This is what itwould be like

Chapter Twenty (9 Pages)

Science and Destiny

Pseudosciences have exerted

surprising influence on popularbeliefs in the past, but real science

is what enables technologicaladvances So how does scienceactually work? Here is the viewfrom philosophy of science Abetter understanding should enablefaster and more efficienttechnological advancements Thatwould benefit the economy as well

as help make life exciting

The Third Generation:

The Next Ten Thousand Years

Chapter Twenty-One (6 Pages)

Teeming Cities of Mars

The law of exponential populationincrease means that even a smallMartian colony could expandrapidly, overpopulating the entireplanet with billions of people injust a thousand or so years

The Fourth Generation: The Next Hundred Thousand

a much longer term, we’re actually

in an interlude between glacial deepfreezes, and glaciers will mostlikely descend again

The Fifth Generation:

The Next Million Years

Chapter Twenty-Three (4 Pages)

Topsy-Turvy: When the North and

South Poles Switch

The prehistory of the Earth containsnumerous cases where the polesreversed Currently, the Earth’smagnetic field is weakening, and themagnetic poles wander significantlyfrom year to year Another reversalmay be on its way

Chapter Twenty-Four (24 Pages)

New Plant Paradigms

The concept of “flower” was amajor paradigm shift in plantevolution long, long ago Futureparadigm shifts are also possible.Evolution might make some of themhappen over tens or hundreds ofmillions of years Yet humangenetic engineering could makeamazing plants a reality muchsooner The saying “they don’t grow

on trees” is exactly wrong

The Sixth Generation:

The Next Ten Million Years

Chapter Twenty-Five (14 Pages)

Asteroid Apocalypse

Asteroids have slammed into Earthbefore, and they will again Largeimpacts are dangerous but rare,while small ones happen often Infact, the smaller the size, the morefrequently they occur.Micrometeorites fall in suchquantity that you can collect themyourself if you know how

Chapter Twenty-Six (21 Pages)

Sic Transit Humanitas: The Transcent of Man

Ten million years ago our ancestorswere like us in many ways, butwere not human Ten million yearsfrom now our descendants willprobably not be human Were theNeanderthals human? Geneticstudies show that their blood runs inthe veins of modern humans Thepast gives hints about futurepossibilities

The Seventh Generation: The Next Hundred Million Years

Chapter Twenty-Seven (7 Pages)

Floating Prairies of the Seas

The surfaces of the oceans aresurprisingly empty There is anecological niche there and it couldget filled, by or design Things willget interesting and different, if andwhen it happens

Chapter Twenty-Eight (10 Pages)

Get Ready for the Greenish

Revolution

Plants may be changed to be moreuseful in many strange ways Butwhy stop with making plants better?Why not make animals whose skinscan photosynthesize, thus needingless food? There are animals thatalready do that, and geneticengineering could help take thisconcept to its strange but logicalconclusions

Beyond the Seventh Generation: Farthest Reaches of the Future

Chapter Twenty-Nine (16 Pages)

Chapter Thirty (9 Pages)

If the Universe As We Know It Ends, When Will It Happen?

Space is mostly vacuum, butvacuum is not really “empty.” Infact vacuum might really be “falsevacuum,” which could transition to

a lower energy state, ending theuniverse as we know it If that isdestined to happen, it probablywon’t be soon But it definitelymight be

Chapter Thirty-One (3 Pages)

About the Author (1 Page)

Foreword to

The Human Race to the Future

Comments by Gil Alterovitz and

Brandon H Lee

Thinking about the future can be anoverwhelming and dauntingendeavor Yet who is not thinking

or perhaps even worried about thefuture? We consider it constantly,regarding our career path, family,

technology, economy, politicalclimate, and more It is within ourcurious nature to do so In ourlaboratory at Harvard MedicalSchool, the future is something thatour students and researchers arelooking forward to Potentialdiscoveries and research ingenomics, networks, and standardscan have drastic impacts on society.Scientists question the norms andbuild methods to revise them As aresult, new knowledge is created.Yet in order to know what questions

to ask, we need to have a vision ofwhat the outcome may be.

This book looks not only at thecoming future of genomic data andpersonalized medicine, but alsoexamines various other topics atdifferent time scales By looking atthe history of discoveries andtechnology, we can only makeeducated guesses about the future.The book is organized accordingly,and envisions an evolution ofprogress spanning the future.Furthermore, it is not just about