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[Vitor Goncalves]

How long to we have exactly? Not soon (even remotely soon), but doesn't the sun expand and consume planet Earth at some point? I could just be making this up, but I do feel like I heard it somewhere.

No you didnt make that up, although we dont know if the Sun will grow enough to consume the earth, some projections say yes, others say no, but despite that, either before or after the sun will loose significantly power and if the earth survive that will become too cold and dark to sustain life.

But that wont happen on the next 8 million years, more on the next 8 billion years. So irrelevant to the discussion here.

 

[Kitteh]

1) all of human life killed by anti-biotic resistant disease
2) nuclear (or other doomsday device) holocaust
3) global warming sorta thing
or
4) sun transforms into red giant and engulfs earth. you can figure out what would happen to humans at that point.

 

[elvor0]

8 million years...

We'll all be immortal and good looking.

Well don't know about you, but I'm already that way. snarf snarf. (Surprised no one had said it yet)

OT: MECHAS! Teleportations! ALIEN INVASIONS! MEGA CITIES! Robots that become like humans and betray us resulting a bloodywar. Ancient atlantian civilisation! Go nuts...doughnuts.

 

[Vitor Goncalves]

But you would be really surprised by how predictive genetic testing is done on babies these days, and how much information parents can learn about their child before he/she is born. That's prenatal genetic testing. But then there's preimplantation genetic testing where couples can test their embryos for all sorts of information and then use that information to decide which one they want.

You would be thou surprised that despite havind decoded the human genoma, we decoded it like reading a book, from the first line on the first page to the last line on the last page. But genes don't work just like that, we know things can be encrypted in section scattered through all cromossomes, almost everything actually, so we barely scratched the surface. If we did manage to decode all by now the arguments about this behavior or that disease having or not genetical explanation would have ceased. And all advances beyond that are not very reliable, I mean you still have 50/50 results on genetic studies.

And having genetic studies on embryos is quite expensive, the majority of the population wont use it ever. Of course it would allow evolution speed up but because you dont know all or you just know what could be best for humans now, you have no idea if that will be best for humans on new circunstances, keeping variety is another important thing for survival, when things get tough too specialised populations are the first to die out.

 

[kingcom]

Basiclly we turn into Vorlans? Im still hoping for the beings of energy evolution.

 

[Baron_BJ]

I apologize in advance for any grammatical errors that I will make, I currently have a terrible head-cold and I'm not thinking completely clearly. So please take this into consideration.

A small fact that many here don't seem to know or remember (it's very much understandable not to think of); that the Y gene (of the X/Y genes that determine a persons gender, XX is female XY for males, a female passes on the X gene regardless, a male passes on either the X or the Y gene, which then determines the gender) is shrinking and deteriorating out of mankind's genes. This is also one of the primary reasons that the male population of the world (in comparison to the female population) is getting smaller and smaller. Scientists theorize that men will be wiped out in approximately 125,000 years, HOWEVER, that's not to say that women will be wiped out.

Allow me to explain, some animal species have been able to do away with the need for genders without becoming Asexual (The most amusing explanation for Asexual creatures is this; They fuck themselves, they reproduce without needing another of the species), a good example is a particular species of lizard (I'm afraid I've forgotten the name, I'll search for it if no one else can think of its name), they're all female, they have a 0% chance of EVER producing a male of the species. They still need to mate to fertilize their eggs, the act of their mating (we shall call them "lesbian lizards" because you can google search it and because it's a popular term, and it is what they are in a sense) will end up fertilizing the eggs that both females had, not because they received anything from their sexual partner, but because the species had to learn to adapt without a male, and the lizards adapted (evolution, adapt, whatever fits with your beliefs, things change) by copying their own X gene to fertilize their eggs (I won't go into a detailed explanation, I'm tripping over my own words already), thus allowing them to mate without a male.

The aforementioned (and unfortunately loose and weak explanation) could very well apply to humans at some point in time with the male counterpart of man most likely disappearing some time in the very distant future.

EDIT: Regarding the earlier comments about the suns growth, science has said that a star the suns size should take approximately 8.6 billion years to burn out fully, however it wouldn't engulf the Earth. It would completely engulf the first planet from it and turn the Earth into a Barren, lifeless wasteland (either way we're fucked), before eventually shrinking in and imploding. This growth would obviously happen over an unbelievably slow period of time and have a gradual effect, but it wouldn't be stoppable, water would be gone and so would everything else (We're water's *****).

 

[scornedbythenine]

if we haven't killed ourselves by then i think an older race may have done it...
the problem is our society is based on entertaining ourselves.... imagine a race that was equal to us for example but ignored pleasures and focused its 6 billion population on research and development.... we're screwed....

 

[Chaos-Spider]

Well, considering the almost exponential growth of the human population in the past century, the loss of arable land, the effects of climate change and general confusion about genetically modified foods the planet would run out the resources needed to support the number of humans in about the next hundred years.

About three years into this time some bright spark will decide to resort to cannibalism rather than starve to death, this trend will eventually spread, causing a dramatic population decrease soon afterwards.

in about 8 million years you would probably have had two or more separate species that are vastly different from previous expectations.

1) all of human life killed by anti-biotic resistant disease
2) nuclear (or other doomsday device) holocaust
3) global warming sorta thing
or
4) sun transforms into red giant and engulfs earth. you can figure out what would happen to humans at that point.

...That is, if we're not killed off completely by anything else mentioned here by the end of the century (millennium at absolute best)

 

[Tiny116]

*snip*

Why could I have been given essays lie this!
it couldessentially be a great work of fiction!
Personally I think we ould expet a robot apocolypse befor Homo Cyberneticus but still.

 

[Acier]

Smaller jaws because of softer modern food, the little toe is vestigial so well lose that, huge loss of muscle mass from being lazy idiots.

I thought we needed a little toe for balance, it's pinky fingers that are completely unnecessary at this point.

That's not to say they won't be vestigial in 8 million years.

 

[latenightapplepie]

And having genetic studies on embryos is quite expensive, the majority of the population wont use it ever. Of course it would allow evolution speed up but because you dont know all or you just know what could be best for humans now, you have no idea if that will be best for humans on new circunstances, keeping variety is another important thing for survival, when things get tough too specialised populations are the first to die out.

So expensive! Yeah, I was just bringing it up as an example of how, if evolution has somehow stopped, then there would be another way humans could affect their their species genetic future through the methods I mentioned. I'm not saying we should do it. Eugenics, as I understand it, is a terrible idea partly because, as you said, we still don't know everything about the human genome. All that "junk" DNA, that really might not be "junk" after all.

 

[Korolev]

No one knows or can know. Either we'll have advanced very far, probably terraforming at least a few planets in the solar system (like mars or the moons of Jupiter), or we'll all be dead and extinct. Those are the two possibilities. In 8 million years, the sun will still be shining just as ever before, so no one knows. We could get hit by a gigantic meteorite, or not. We could have a nuclear war, or maybe not.

I can't imagine society remaining stagnant for 8 million years. Definitely the future will be different from how it is now, considerably so. Either we'll reach technological singularity or die in the process.

There's no other way, really. Even if society falls apart, humanity will rebuild it, endlessly. So either we'll reach the status of virtual gods, or we'll blow ourselves up. There's no other pathway. Total success or Total failure.

Doesn't matter to me. I highly doubt we'll be around in 8 million years.

Oh and the other posts about how humans will change physically are also interesting. I strongly believe that technology will be incorporated into our bodies as it advances. We'll almost certainly genetically engineer ourselves, maybe even clone ourselves. You might be troubled at the prospect of this, but it's almost assuredly inevitable. You can't destroy science. You can block it for as long as you can, but you can't get rid of humanity's innate curiosity and intelligence, no matter how hard you try.

 

[Baron_BJ]

Smaller jaws because of softer modern food, the little toe is vestigial so well lose that, huge loss of muscle mass from being lazy idiots.

I thought we needed a little toe for balance, it's pinky fingers that are completely unnecessary at this point.

That's not to say they won't be vestigial in 8 million years.

No, only the Big Toe is used for balance purposes, a person can easily go without the other digits on their feet. It does assist though, so a person can quite easily do without any of their toes (aside from the big toes which are necessary) the remaining toes do make things a bit easier, it's much like fingers, we could easily do with 3, but isn't it far more convenient and useful to have the full 5?

 

[thenumberthirteen]

We will download our minds into computers and live as machines.

Nah we'll probably be dead by then.

 

[brunothepig]

How long to we have exactly? Not soon (even remotely soon), but doesn't the sun expand and consume planet Earth at some point? I could just be making this up, but I do feel like I heard it somewhere.

Of course the future of humanity is not necessarily linked with the habitability of Earth, but it's significant, I would think.

More OT: I don't believe in all that robot/cyborg stuff. I just struggle with the idea of 'true' artificial intelligence. Well, I can conceive it, but I don't understand how it could be possible.

EDIT:

I don't think humans'll have changed all that much.

I mean, natural selection doesn't really apply to the modern human now does it? Anyone can have a child.

True, except for those poor sterile/infertile folk.

But you would be really surprised by how predictive genetic testing is done on babies these days, and how much information parents can learn about their child before he/she is born. That's prenatal genetic testing. But then there's preimplantation genetic testing where couples can test their embryos for all sorts of information and then use that information to decide which one they want.

It's expanding slowly, we'll die long before it envelops us. There's two theories, one it just becomes too hot and we die. Two, it explodes. Which would also suck for us. But as you said, long long long, long, long long long long, long, long long long long long, long long long long long long long long long way off.
If it actually happens, just saying, I heard that too.

 

[Prince Regent]

We'll evolve into the übermensch and worship the great prophet Nietzsche.

Either that or we'll blow ourselves up in the next eras.

 

[Sjakie]

I think humans will than have improved itself through genetic manipulation that we will hardly look like and think like todays humans anymore. We would have cleaned up and added extra DNA to our own. But that is only for when we need a body. we will spend a lot of our time as thoughtpatterns in machines a la Matrix
If we want to concquer space we will have to anyway.

 

[DigitalSushi]

Smaller jaws because of softer modern food, the little toe is vestigial so well lose that, huge loss of muscle mass from being lazy idiots.

I thought we needed a little toe for balance, it's pinky fingers that are completely unnecessary at this point.

That's not to say they won't be vestigial in 8 million years.

Its a yes and no answer apparently, does the little toe affect balance? you get a different answer from different people.

The best Yahoo Answer to the above question happens to be "I've broken my little toe twice", yeah thanks for that enlightening answer GeeoGeeo@Yahoo.

There's only only one way to find out, I'll go on webcam and cut my little toe's off and see what happens, stand back children THIS IS FUCKING SCIENCE!

As for the pinky finger, of course thats needed!, at 4pm everyday the Brits need it to stick it out while sipping tea, if Natural Selection deprives Brits of afternoon Tea I'll lose my faith in Darwin.

 

[AdmanUK]

My sister is a genetic consultant, so she knows rather a lot about good old evolution. She told me that apparently we are losing our little finger and are going to become shorter, and if the next ice age happens due to global warming,wider, fatter, hairier and more intelligent. The more intelligent part I think needs explaining. You see during the ice age, humanity accidently evolved inteligence as it was a side effect of having a more powerful brain. We evolved to have a more powerful brain because it made our head produce more heat, and therefore kept us warm during the harsh cold of the ice age. So yeah we are all going to become fat, hairy,short blokes who are all super-intelligent. Sucks to be a woman then, we are going to be like the guys from The Big Bang Theory in twenty years :|

 

[holographicman]

we'll all be dead