In your opinion, what sci-fi story do you think will be the most accurate for our future?

[Suave Charlie]

Got to go with "The Flintstones is in the future" theory, I mean, why the hell not.

 

[bigfatcarp93]

In your opinion, what sci-fi story, movie, game, etc that you have seen do you think paints the most accurate picture of our future? Not necessarily in terms of plot events, just in the world.

For instance, I could easily see Halo's UNSC and its technology, politics, ship design, etc as our future 500 years from now.

What about you? And why?

While I agree with you that Halo's universe is very practical and makes a lot of sense, I have to say that the idea of it being 500 years in the future is a little bogus. Halo's level of technology and cultural advancement always struck me as being a bit closer to 200 years.

Anyway, for a slightly closer look, I have to say that the world of Deus Ex is far from a fantasy as far a couple decades from now, though I must admit I haven't played much of it yet, only the first couple hours of Human Revolution.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Ender's Game, which probably has been said. A lot of the technology either already exists, or is grounded in such realism that it probably would have existed if the world was interested in space again. The lot of things from the simulated space combat, to the prophetic VR game Ender kept returning to, satellite military bases, computer tablets, a military force that becomes outdated by the time it arrives to battle because of the time it took to cross distances, and the means of anonymity that Valentine and Peter used to spread their faked reporter identities (which was a really good prediction of the entire Internet). Pretty good predictions and very good standing in realism. This was from a book that was written before the Cold War ended.

Minus the whole buggers and shit, and the instant communication device that the characters in the book recognized as against most logical reasons.

 

[pNZyRNQJ]

In the name of all the gods who ever have, do or will exist I hope it isn't star trek. You want reasons? Here's three:

1: Antimatter. The Enterprise D has about 12,500 ton of the stuff on board. Given how often the various Enterprises have almost hit a planet, this seems a tad dangerous. The original enterprise seemed to be in a decaying orbit once a month or so. Looking at a map of the federation there don't seem to be that many inhabited planets in it. The truth is you can measure the size of the federation by counting the asteroid belts. And if you lived on a space station, would you really want a ship like that to dock with you?

2. Captain Kirk. How many times did this barbarian land on a non-federation planet and not destroy the culture? Was he ever punished? No, he was promoted, and revered as a hero. The Klingons, Romulans et al aren't violent races, that's just federation propaganda. They're terrified, and with good reason.

3. Wesley Crusher.

 

[lechat]

gataga
we are already half way there by licensing off bits of the genome so all we need is a few more "medical breakthroughs" and a couple of labs greedy enough to capitalize on it and i expect to see all low income earners dieing of cancer while the rich live to 200 years old

 

[HannesPascal]

Part of gattaca and no not the editing of the human genome since that is still too complex. I'm talking about the part where you can analyse someone's genome to see for example the risk of heart disease and such, it's already possible and sooner or later for example insurance companies will demand your DNA. Whether this is a good thing or not I'm not entirely sure.

Don't believe in cybernetic augmentation since humans are vain and probably want to look "all natural". It will take while before we can put computers in a brain and replacing limbs with artificial is pretty useless (except when the limb is already missing) since we don't really need to be stronger because any job that requires augmentation could probably just as easy be accomplished by robots. I can see an application in sports but there augmentations would be banned because if I recall correctly there was this Olympic runner that lost his legs and replaced the with artificial (non-robotic) limbs that worked too well and he was not allowed to compete any more (I think it hurt the other athletes feelings or something that they sucked).

Corporations like Google have power but if people think they have too much power the will be uprisings just look at the formation of unions in the late stages/after the industrial revolution. Sure they will keep their power for a few years but it will return to the people soon enough.

Keep in mind that the current rate of exponential population growth can see this happening within our lifetimes. There are people still alive today from back when the world population was at half of what it is today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World-Population-1800-2100.svg

Extrapolation is a dangerous thing that rarely is correct. In the case of the wikipedia graph the red curve is definitely wrong since it assumes a population rise that is equal to the one today, the green one is probably a bit exaggerated as well (since they max/min it makes sense), I would bet the population growth is somewhere between green and yellow.

 

[Bestival]

Firefly obviously.

Space hookers. Space hookers everywhere...

 

[Aramis Night]

And yet the amount of damage a single person can do to this planet has seen an exponential increase over just the last few hundred years. How many men does it take to push the button now?

Besides i did mention a malthusian catastrophe which doesnt even require violence. All it takes is continued unchecked breading without the resources to suport the surplus population. Once we reach the tipping point, its a safe bet that those trends in violence will start reversing themselves pretty quick. Keep in mind that the current rate of exponential population growth can see this happening within our lifetimes. There are people still alive today from back when the world population was at half of what it is today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World-Population-1800-2100.svg

Data indicates resource deprivation is not a predominant casual factor in violence. IE population increase straining resources does not increase violence. Though this thread is about opinions, just rest assured that data indicates anything short of total nuclear war between nuclear nations (1 person setting off 1 bomb isnt enough) will result in the world being a much better place

Not sure why my quote was attributed to someone else in your post. But to your point above... You do realize that lack of resources is a pretty common reason for countries to go to war and that war is violent. Im not sure what data your refferring to, but i get the impression for whatever reason wartime acts didnt make it into your data sets. Since you show no actual data or links to your evidence im only able to guess at how you would have to sanitize so much of human violence by ommission to come to the incredibly optimistic belief that we are trending away from violence sufficiently.

Nuclear War is of course always a possibility. Though my position is that nuclear war may in fact make the world a better place if it succeeds in culling enough of the surplus population without destroying too much of the earths resources and land mass in the process. Seeing as how most nations with capable nukes and delivery systems tend to have them aimed at thier enemies major population centers would indicate that the powers that be see things in a similar light.

Unfortunately since we do seem to view breeding as a human right, even this would just be a stop gap measure that would buy us some time at best. China had the right idea with the 1 child policy but sadly didnt have the stomach to enforce it as much as they should have and now they have given up on it. Its no coincidence that they are struggling now to obtain enough resources to support thier population. China has always tried to be self sufficient. It is a shame that is no longer an option for them.

 

[Aramis Night]

Keep in mind that the current rate of exponential population growth can see this happening within our lifetimes. There are people still alive today from back when the world population was at half of what it is today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World-Population-1800-2100.svg

Extrapolation is a dangerous thing that rarely is correct. In the case of the wikipedia graph the red curve is definitely wrong since it assumes a population rise that is equal to the one today, the green one is probably a bit exaggerated as well (since they max/min it makes sense), I would bet the population growth is somewhere between green and yellow.

Extrapolation over the long term would be likely to be inaccurate. But without a drastic change there would be no reason for the change in population to happen. And this data is not exactly long term. As i stated, there are many people alive today who were alive when the world population was half or less what it is today.

If i have any issues with the graph, it is that the people who made it also suffered from irrational optimism when looking at the possible future of population growth. They were only willing to look at the possibility that maybe the population explosion would trend downwards at some point when they have just as much reason to think that the population curve could just as easily get steeper towards overpopulation but werent willing to be intellectually honest enough to put forth any such projections showing such a possibility. In truth the red line projection shown on the graph isnt the worst case scenario but in fact simply the average possibility of what we have to look foward to if no new influences are brought in to discourage population growth.

Enshrining reproduction as a right was one of the most foolish and self destructive things we could have done to ourselves as a species. On the plus side however, lest people think im attempting to push a "child-free" agenda, i am looking foward to the point where we see reproduction less as a means of breeding progeny and more as a means of food production.

 

[BNguyen]

Ideally Star Trek, that would just be awesome. A little more realistically I could see Firefly. I would call Star Trek optimistic, I would call Warhammer and it's ilk pessimistic. I would call FireFly a little more real.

As long as we don't have the Enterprise or a James Kirk, first off that ship has been involved with so many near human extinction events it's hilarious and Kirk has helped guide it to those disasters personally more times than I care to count - and if he likes your ship, he'll override the highest station and take it out from under you just because "I want to be the captain"

 

[HannesPascal]

Extrapolation over the long term would be likely to be inaccurate. But without a drastic change there would be no reason for the change in population to happen. And this data is not exactly long term. As i stated, there are many people alive today who were alive when the world population was half or less what it is today.

If i have any issues with the graph, it is that the people who made it also suffered from irrational optimism when looking at the possible future of population growth. They were only willing to look at the possibility that maybe the population explosion would trend downwards at some point when they have just as much reason to think that the population curve could just as easily get steeper towards overpopulation but werent willing to be intellectually honest enough to put forth any such projections showing such a possibility. In truth the red line projection shown on the graph isnt the worst case scenario but in fact simply the average possibility of what we have to look foward to if no new influences are brought in to discourage population growth.

The US is one of the few industrial countries with a population growth not caused by immigration and there's a trend in that the better the living standard the lesser the population growth and this is why it's important in improving the living condition in developing countries.

...I am looking foward to the point where we see reproduction less as a means of breeding progeny and more as a means of food production.

Is this a Jonathan Swift reference?

 

[loc978]

Shadowrun minus the magic and crazy sci-fi. Megacorps will make policy, and said policy will be largely ignored despite the massive deathtoll. Government will be obsolete. The population needs to be stabilized somehow, after all. We can only really support about 13 billion, and we'll probably be there some time in the next century.

 

[Ariseishirou]

Sadly im unaware of any movies based on a Malthusian catastrophe dark enough to realistically show our future. They always make the mistake of keeping up the pretense of "survivors" either managing to eek out a living or escaping from the planet before it happens. We would need to drop alot of our irrational optimism if we ever hope to aim for a realistic future or even a accurate portrayal of one. Beyond that probable near future, They will never make a movie about the far future as movies about dead planets with just irradiated rocks and nothing going on arent likely to sell big at the box office.

The Road may be what you're looking for, especially the novel.

 

[Aramis Night]

Extrapolation over the long term would be likely to be inaccurate. But without a drastic change there would be no reason for the change in population to happen. And this data is not exactly long term. As i stated, there are many people alive today who were alive when the world population was half or less what it is today.

If i have any issues with the graph, it is that the people who made it also suffered from irrational optimism when looking at the possible future of population growth. They were only willing to look at the possibility that maybe the population explosion would trend downwards at some point when they have just as much reason to think that the population curve could just as easily get steeper towards overpopulation but werent willing to be intellectually honest enough to put forth any such projections showing such a possibility. In truth the red line projection shown on the graph isnt the worst case scenario but in fact simply the average possibility of what we have to look foward to if no new influences are brought in to discourage population growth.

The US is one of the few industrial countries with a population growth not caused by immigration and there's a trend in that the better the living standard the lesser the population growth and this is why it's important in improving the living condition in developing countries.

...I am looking foward to the point where we see reproduction less as a means of breeding progeny and more as a means of food production.

Is this a Jonathan Swift reference?

Actually thanks to our rather open and unsecured boarders this is something that we cannot actually know for certain. Truth be told we have some of the most relaxed border policies in the world for an industrialized nation and only have vague indicators for information about immigration, but little actual solid data. Even mexico's own southern border is guarded more fiercely than the US does its southern border. Given the amount of illegal immigration we have, it is unlikely that many of them will come foward to be counted officially. We have enough anecdotal evidence to suppose a downward trend away from immigrating into america, but i would be reluctant to assume The US as a data point.

As for the importance of improving conditions in developing countries, there is a cost. In order for that to happen you have to pull resources from other places to spread them around. In the process of reaching a world equillibrium it become a question of: Where is the line that resources=population decline? And is there enough resources to pull every country up to that line? Regrettably i do not believe there is. Even for those countries who are already above that line, our lifestyles are not sustainable in the long term with the resources available even after we have taken them from those countries who had little resources of there own to begin with.

Forgive me for not being familiar with your Jonathan Swift reference. My conclusions on breeding for food seemed like a natural conclusion of overpopulation where as the more of something you have, in this case people, the less value it will be seen to possess. Eventually as people becomes a resource plentiful in a world of little else, we will make use of the one resource we have left in any way we can.

 

[Aramis Night]

Sadly im unaware of any movies based on a Malthusian catastrophe dark enough to realistically show our future. They always make the mistake of keeping up the pretense of "survivors" either managing to eek out a living or escaping from the planet before it happens. We would need to drop alot of our irrational optimism if we ever hope to aim for a realistic future or even a accurate portrayal of one. Beyond that probable near future, They will never make a movie about the far future as movies about dead planets with just irradiated rocks and nothing going on arent likely to sell big at the box office.

The Road may be what you're looking for, especially the novel.

I enjoyed The Road since it was essentially a long blackout. I think humanity would live beyond a mere blackout. Though it would lead to a massive population culling. A return to a more lowtech means of survival would actually be ultimately beneficial since then its more likely that we would be subject to outside forces that may help keep our numbers in check and make it more difficult to have a small handful of people wipe us all out casually and en mass like they can now.

I think that The Road may in fact be the most realistic yet optimistic potential likely future.

 

[Datsle]

Really, so little Mass Effect?

Of course 90% of it is just ridiculous, but i don't know, i feel the Mass Effect universe would be "accurate" as a long term, multi-planet/galaxy / multi species future. hue hue

At least i like to think so.

 

[Patrick Buck]

The firefly universe. Y'know. Should we survive the end of the world.

 

[theSteamSupported]

I'm stunned nobody has mentioned Futurama. Even if we erase all of our current world problems, we would still have personal issues to deal with, which has always shaped our lives and made us what we define as human.

Also, we choose our future. If humanity goes to shit, it's because that's where we wanted us to go.

 

[HannesPascal]

snip

I've already said all I know about population growth and besides I fell that it's getting a bit off-topic so I won't discuss it any more (because I don't know more not that I'm angry at you or anything).

Forgive me for not being familiar with your Jonathan Swift reference. My conclusions on breeding for food seemed like a natural conclusion of overpopulation where as the more of something you have, in this case people, the less value it will be seen to possess. Eventually as people becomes a resource plentiful in a world of little else, we will make use of the one resource we have left in any way we can.

He basically wrote a satire about pretty much that conclusion that the English should start eating babies because there were too many people in England and selling their babies to the rich would solve that problem and give the poor people an income.