Are you generally speaking, positive, about the kind of future mankind is heading, or seems to be heading for? So i'm talkig bout 10 years from now, 20 years from now, maybe 30 years.
With all the climate crisis happening on our planet by that time...we're only beginning to see the beginning of it. And the rise of artificial intelligence. Society's where 80% of the workforce is going to be replaced by machines. Beautiful machines. Machines that make the most beautiful music you've ever heard. Music that makes you want to fall deeply in love. Music that, when you listen to it, causes you to feel in a subtle way the, not so beautitully subtle, irresisting urge to buy a bag of potatoes. The web of machines that makes everybody's life just so much easier...so. Are you optimistic about the current state of our species. And it's future?

My personal opinion is that things could probably go several [or many] ways, I think it's hard to say definitively. Especially with the internet today - people are able to access whatever it is they wish to focus on [and it can become mind numbing to attempt to wade through it all and make an entire picture]. Not to say that there isn't alot of negative in the world [there certainly is, and it's important to be aware of these things], but there's also alot of good people in this world - doing alot of good things. I think it comes down to what one chooses to focus on [and where they choose to go from there-on in their life], and I think that can be even further cemented by owns own personal beliefs, doings, hopes, fears, ideals, etc.

I'm truly on the edge of my seat waiting to see how this farce plays out.

The magic 8 ball says: Outlook not so good.

Melting ice caps, over-fished acidified oceans clogged with plastic, vanishing forests, peaking non-renewable resource extraction, exponentially increasing extinction rates and loss of bio-diversity, diminishing water sheds, progressively detrimental natural disasters.

Meanwhile, we find ourselves right on the verge of singularity level technological breakthroughs in dozens of disciplines. Never before in history has there been so much ongoing research and availability of resources to address these catastrophes. Education and living standards are at the highest levels they've ever been. The sociopolitical landscape is shifting, and I dare say consciousness, in it's multiple and varied definitions, is increasing across the board.

It's a choose your own adventure, our day-to-day choices ultimately determine how this chapter ends. On that note, I remain optimistic and choose to maintain and manifest the vision of just how good it can get.

And in the end
And in the end
And in the end

This is how the world goes out:
Not with a Bang, but with a Whimper

Yes, i'm very positive, since mankind has proven itself to be a highly adaptable species. This does not mean there is no chance of us becoming extinct but i do think we'll become interplanetary before that happens on earth, probably within the next 50 years max.

My answer is entrenched in the final conclusion of the second law of thermodymanics

I answered 'yes' to the poll, but I took a day to gather my thoughts to post a reply.

I am genuinely optimistic about the future of mankind and the world. Despite the media sensationalists and efforts on both political extremes to try and polarize the global discussion... I'm certain we're heading in the right direction. The technologies that we're bringing online every single day are improving our lives at an exponential rate. Technology begets technology, and the freedom of information drives the global consciousness forward. The global access to information in the last decade alone is absolutely mind boggling. There are young men and women in developing worlds teaching themselves through freely available lectures and courses online. Entrepreneurs of all sorts starting businesses and bettering their communities through collaborative efforts.


My only hesitation in being fully committed to an optimistic attitude is that it isn't yet common knowledge that the true betterment of society and culture is had through the education and empowerment of women. Full stop. Do not make the mistake of confusing me with a [third wave] feminist with this little diatribe, but screw the men. They're about as effective as a thimble trying to bail out the Titanic. Educate the women. Teach them to read and write. Teach them personal finance. Teach and empower them to utilize effective and proven birth control to escape the cycle of being nothing more than child-bearing marriage chattle. Empower them to make wide-sweeping cultural and regulatory changes within their governments and local communities, and make their voices powerful. By raising the standards of women you raise the standards of their children, and the men are forced to play along whether they want to or not because this is how the game is played now.

This is the reason the church doesn't want women to have power in the church. It's the reason they don't women to have reproductive rights. It's the reason they want women to be ignorant and dependent on their husbands to provide for them. So that men and the church maintain control of the rigged system.

I'm just not happy with the slow progress we're making in this domain of society at large. And it's the only sticking point I have at being truly optimistic.

In honesty I'm not all too optimistic but I have a tendency to be cynical. I do however think we have the means to make things a hell of a lot better and improve the Living conditions for people who need it and curb environmental problems. What to go about doing and how to go about doing it is another set of questions that have to be focused on separately..

Dragonrider, what do you mean with the beautiful robots making beautiful music and the chips?

I meant that i fear the impact on society that A.I. will have. We live in structures that tend to identify people with the work they do. What if, at some point, 60 to 80% of the people can't find a job, or only jobs that don't pay too well, like burgerflipping?
I think it will cause a lot of political instability...most of the people voting for trump or bexit, live in areas with high unemployment figures.

Experts on A.I. believe that A.I. will cost more than 50% of all jobs. Many people working on A.I. deeply fear the impact of A.I. themselves. They just want to be the first ones to discover it, or being the ones in control of it.

But there's no stopping it. Nobody wants the competition to have it before they do.

I think that when computers will start to outsmart people, human intelligence and creativity will be considered a burden to most people. Smart people ask too many difficult questions...they're merely being tolerated because they can be usefull. But when that's no longer the case, stupidity will become the norm. If women get pregnant they will pray to god:"please god, don't let him/her be smart".

Productivity has been increasing steadily since the industrial revolution and the world hasn't collapsed due to job loss. The old, mundane jobs have been replaced by new, more interesting ones, where human intellect and creativity can shine through.

Automation has allowed us to work less for a better standard of living, although the increase in the standard of living has been faster than the decrease in how much we work. Now it's time to balance it out and work less.

This increase of productivity and reduction in need for human labor can only be a good thing in the long run. AI is a natural next step for automation, which will shift the meaning of 'labor'. It may replace or assist, for example, jobs in call centers and customer service (it's already happening), but I wouldn't worry about the prospect of AI replacing scientists or creatives.

Not long ago people worked most of their waking hours to pay for their food and shelter. Now maybe only a third of our work week covers those needs; the rest we spend on other things like entertainment, education, travel etc. As machines assist us more, the number of hours of work needed to cover our basic needs will reduce ever more.

And so we will work less - not just fewer hours per week, but we'll retire earlier. More people will choose not to get a job at all and devote their lives to their passions. Those who choose to work will generally do interesting jobs, for the enjoyment of it and not for the money.

Because human work will be such a rare phenomenon, it will be appreciated more. In a world where hamburgers are made by machines, even the burger flipper will earn a decent wage as many will be willing to pay a premium for a hand-made, 'craft' burger. But only if he wants to.

Yes, you have a point. But this optimistic view rests largely on the assumption that the structure of society will change, and that politicians are willing to change the fabric of the whole economic system....aka 'redistribution of wealth'. Wich is more or less considered to be sacrilige by the vast majority of politicians today.

What i fear, is how unemployment will affect society as it's structured today. Again, if you look at the areas where people voted for trump or brexit, then you'll see that these are the areas most affected by automation and globalisation.

Mass unemployment in todays society, is Always paired with lots of problems. The opioid crisis, political extremism, crime...redistribution of wealth is the only thing that will prevent this from happening (this is the main reason why continental 'socialist' europe is less affected by all of these phenomena). But it goes against all the current political dogmas.

Yes totally. Psychedelic revolution, to global enlightenment, to space travel, I am totally optimistic about that. Considering clean energy sources would come out, could change lots of things we are seeing today. Really looking forward to that. War on drugs, will slowly diminish. War and poverty will probably be reduced. Bad scenarios is a good sci-fi book material, I highly doubt in zombie apocalypse, natural apocalypse, or any apocalypse in fact.

I'm optimistic that genetic material in general has endured 6 major catastrophes and it will likely endure the human catastrophe, whatever that may be.

Automation and globalization may cause short term problems (or merely reveal them, depending on how you look at it) as people need to adjust, but they will adjust eventually and no one will want to go back to the old days.

We can make the transition easier for them and while there is no guarantee that we will, at least with the generally increasing productivity and wealth it will be more doable than ever.

You seem to imply the areas most affected by automation and globalization are those with high unemployment, as if there were only negative effects. What about the positive ones? And how do you measure the degree to which someone or something has been affected?

One one hand you have an area in England that once had a thriving coal mining industry and is now suffering from 20% unemployment. Those without work receive state benefits to pay their housing and food bills. However, since they have nothing to do, they're bored or feel useless and therefore abuse alcohol and drugs.
On another you have a village in Africa whose inhabitants now have access to the Internet, education, better healthcare, have clean water and solar panels on their roofs and are learning permaculture to turn their arid land into a lush, food producing forest.
On what basis do you claim the former has been affected by automation and globalization more than the latter?

By most people's standards: No [pessimistic]
By my own standards: Hell Yes [optimistic]

Yes, it's true that globalisation redistributes wealth globally. The differences in wealth between nations becomes smaller, but within nations, it becomes bigger (even according to the world economic forum, wich isn't exactly known for it's scepticism, considering the benefits of globalisation).

The point is: There IS a backlash, and it DOES feed political extremism. Even with just 20% unemployment. Think of what over 50% unemployment will do to people. If politicians like trump become the norm, or even more radical leaders..then war, economic meltdown and tirany is innevitable.

Hitler managed to become the leader of Germany because of massive unemployment. There is no reason to assume that something like that couldn't happen again. Rather the opposite: the election of trump has shown that an angry, dissilusioned electorate will not shy away from radical solutions...no matter how radical. Or utterly weird.

And btw. I am far more worried even, about climate change, the mass extinction of so many endangered species (like bees), and overpopulation.

I don't know whether i'm optimistic or pessimistic. But i do know that we need to change the way we live. Climate change is not decreasing, but accelerating, and so is the current mass extinction.

koornut

orionfyre

Espurrr voted on the great polar potentiality of the situation
thinking we are doing anything catastrophic to the world is WRONG
there have been major catastrophe events in the world's history that SHADE what we are doing to it now
HOWEVER :
humanity is just out of balance, that is to say, we're in a bad place and we're starting to kick
now as to why we are in a bad place, is like a learning disorder, we never learn the god damn thing
so the results will always be in such a way, that we will always evaluate it to realize, we are ignorant, ignoring something
personally, i'd like to say finding unity in the self and the other, would be the answer to all of the questions
but, theres not a lot of finding that, and theres not a lot of easy ways to maintain that, it slips
and theres not a lot of easy ways to show people that

so maybe its best to ask "how do we find, maintain and spread unity in the self and the other?"
and to answer that, i'd have to say many times it has been answered, but not correctly and properly
maybe its a "learn or die" situation?

We are in the middle of the greatest mass extinction in 65 million years caused by ourselves, I'm very pessimistic about humanity surviving even into 2100 - or from the point of view of non-humans: optimistic

The rate insects are dying off lately is alarming: 75% loss of flying insect biomass according to a recent German study (not just bees).
I miss them... a decade ago there were plenty here, but last summer I heard no crickets chirping, saw no moths, butterflies, bees, wasps, dragonflies, etc, not even mosquitos.

nitpicking, there is no such thing as "mankind". there are at least 3 major kinds of human animal and numerus sub-kinds. the thing is only 1 kind is close in behavior to what is popularly known as "kindness". the vast majority are those who conciously (or unconsciously, as mimicry is a HUGE HUGE HUGE, did i mention it's HUGE, thing among human animals) live by "homo homini lupus est".

so the very question "Are you optimistic about the future of mankind" is kinda meaningless, given the distributions of vastly different kinds of human animal. rather simplified, at least for the simple reason that many of those likely to answer "yes" (if we don't take complex cases of mimicry/misdirection into account) actually mean "yes, because there are increasingly more and more others to feed on". as if assuming that in a sheep's herd infiltrated by quite a few wolven in sheep's clothing, ignoring the fact of infiltartion makes any sense