The future closest to reality

[Deleted]

But you know, the discussion isn't about intelligent life on other planets.It's about how will we develop

[Farrago]

starwars = a long long time ago, so, not future

[Deleted]

I would wonder, what is better. Finding a life form that lives under completely different conditions than us. And don't have a clue what to do. Or find life on a planet that looks like ours and then have people wanting to take over that planet (Pandora Strip Mining Inc.), or them trying to take over us : /

[Collegeguy]

I'll throw some daleks and Hanar at you. And the Goa'uld say hi

That would be wicked nice if the Goa'uld existed. I would love to have a Tok'ra.

[Reucht]

About intelligent life in space:

Two options, either they're smarter than us or dumber than us. If they're smarter, they will find us first. If they're dumber, I don't want anything to do with them.

[Zanardam]

If humanity have the chance to spread out in the galaxy....it will be like the age of strife in warhammer 40,000 exit the Warp chaotic creatures and the xenos. It gonna be millions of planet and countless of small empires doing wars against eachothers for ressource and other human lol stuff.

But If humanity dont have any chance to spread out and managed to get stuck on Earth......it will end like Fallout.

tl/dr : humanity is fuck.

[Sketchy]

Am I the only one who's thoughts went immediately to the jetsons? LOL

[ProBubble]

None of the above:

Intelligent life may be very rare, but even if we do find it, the life in which we encounter will look nothing like Star Wars, mass effect or anything of those other scifi series.

For one, those scifi series love to depict aliens as bipedal which would in all realism is completely inaccurate. It is known by paeleontologists and scientists that bipedalism is not at all related to brain development or intelligence. Bipedalism is really a freak accident in evolution just as intelligence is but one doesnt come after the other. For example, t rex-bipedal-very dump lizard.

Prove it.. Prove to me aliens arent bipedal..

Yeah.. go away with theories 'disproving' anything anyone thinks, wishes or hopes.

[Viperdream]

I'd say Starcraft to be honest.

We won't all be rednecks and prisoners etc probably. But if you would say something like Starwars. Then I think Starcraft is a bit more realistic.

We will probably keep our guns with ammo forever and won't switch to laser guns. And the most important thing would be that in Starwars they live together on loads of different planets and together with loads of different species.

I just can't see us living together with several different species.

[Zanardam]

I just can't see us living together with several different species.

Indeed, never trust any Xenos...never 0o !!!

The warhammer 40k spirit!

[Collegeguy]

Prove it.. Prove to me aliens arent bipedal..

Yeah.. go away with theories 'disproving' anything anyone thinks, wishes or hopes.

I didnt say they arnt, I said it is highly unlikely. the poll asks what is closer to reality and science atm has a pretty good idea if you pick up a cosmology book.

edit: But if you look at the human ancestor record, you will see that humans have been bipedal for over 6million years, yet brain size stayed the same. There was a huge increase in brain size in about 1million to 2million yrs ago that is related to intelligence. This means bipedalism has nothing to do with human intelligence. Furthermore, the only reason we were bipedal was to save energy when running, not to pick up tools so we can get smarter. Ya, kinda sucks when science burst our fantasy bubbles; lasers dont look the same in science like they do on television. It always ruins the buck rogers feeling I always wanted.

[Zanardam]

I didnt say they arnt, I said it is highly unlikely. the poll asks what is closer to reality and science atm has a pretty good idea if you pick up a cosmology book.

Maybe there is a chance that some Alien species have some weird geometric disposition that our brain will not even understand the form and because of this...we will not see them at all....or become crazy only by staring at them.

Who know......

[Divada]

The results to this poll are so depressing.

[Sunseeker]

As time goes on, ways of tracking crime will improve, as will the technology to replace damaged/malformed/missing body parts. Utilizing that technology, we'll all be required to have tracking implants for government monitoring. The side effect will be though as more people become tracked, the more interconnected you'll become, once police technology it'll be used to keep track on ailing family members, children, or Mindbook with your friends.

So our future is: the Borg.

[detectivekr]

It is almost guaranteed that space travel will not happen within the next hundred years. It is not economically important to send colonists to different planets in our solar system, or even to the moon. The only way space travel would be realistic is, if there was a financial gain for doing it. The independent film "Moon" portrayed an accurate and viable reason for doing space travel, and even then, only a single company bothered (and became very rich for doing it.)

Without an economic reason, we are dependent on some other motivation to relentlessly pursue the stars. Beyond simple fascination and a nagging tension that the Earth won't last forever, there isn't much reason to convince a legislature to allocate tax dollars to it. Our best hope is a corporation like Virgin staying interested long enough to continue space research, but we'll see. The Cold War gave governments reasons to compete. Anyway, no space travel eliminates most of the choices on this poll.

I believe the most realistic future is Deus Ex, especially the one coming out in August, Human Revolution. Parts of it are unrealistic (a city built on top of another city, invisible cloaking), but the society is very realistic. For 2027, which is about the time 40-60% of the world will run out of fresh water, the idea that mass chaos will be happening is spot on. Especially since overpopulation will be out-of-hand, crime will skyrocket. The increasingly totalitarian actions that governments will have to take to maintain order is not unrealistic, and only the rich will benefit in such a society.

Also, about the bipedalism-to-intelligence argument, here is an interesting thought: there is more evidence that losing our fur has more to do with the development of our intelligence than the way we move. The loss of fur put a much greater emphasis on facial, hand, and vocal expressions to communicate, since mammals usually use fur to display different primal signals (think of hair standing up on an angry cat's neck). To interpret these expressions, we needed an increasingly more complicated brain.

[Deleted]

It is almost guaranteed that space travel will not happen within the next hundred years. It is not economically important to send colonists to different planets in our solar system, or even to the moon. The only way space travel would be realistic is, if there was a financial gain for doing it. The independent film "Moon" portrayed an accurate and viable reason for doing space travel, and even then, only a single company bothered (and became very rich for doing it.)

Without an economic reason, we are dependent on some other motivation to relentlessly pursue the stars. Beyond simple fascination and a nagging tension that the Earth won't last forever, there isn't much reason to convince a legislature to allocate tax dollars to it. Our best hope is a corporation like Virgin staying interested long enough to continue space research, but we'll see. The Cold War gave governments reasons to compete. Anyway, no space travel eliminates most of the choices on this poll.

I believe the most realistic future is Deus Ex, especially the one coming out in August, Human Revolution. Parts of it are unrealistic (a city built on top of another city, invisible cloaking), but the society is very realistic. For 2027, which is about the time 40-60% of the world will run out of fresh water, the idea that mass chaos will be happening is spot on. Especially since overpopulation will be out-of-hand, crime will skyrocket. The increasingly totalitarian actions that governments will have to take to maintain order is not unrealistic, and only the rich will benefit in such a society.

Also, about the bipedalism-to-intelligence argument, here is an interesting thought: there is more evidence that losing our fur has more to do with the development of our intelligence than the way we move. The loss of fur put a much greater emphasis on facial, hand, and vocal expressions to communicate, since mammals usually use fur to display different primal signals (think of hair standing up on an angry cat's neck). To interpret these expressions, we needed an increasingly more complicated brain.

Well I'll have to agree a Deux Ex future is what I'm afraid of the most. All the others have at least a semblance of optimism in there.

[coredumperror]

I think the future's similarity to various fictional portrayals is going to depend strongly on what kinds of science and technology we develop over the coming centuries.

If we discover a way to harness a nearly infinite energy source and use that energy to create replicators, I'd posit that the Star Trek future would be pretty likely, at least in terms of how Earth would function. With replicators, all current economies collapse as everyone is able to have everything they need, at no cost (since energy is "free"). Space travel would then also depend on the feasibility of faster-than-light propulsion, rather than the cost.

If nano-tech gets big, I can see a world somewhat similar to Duex Ex coming about (though hopefully without the whole "dystopian future" thing going for it). Human augmentation would be huge, and the repercussions would be almost impossible to predict.

A poster above me mentioned "invisible cloaking" being unrealistic, but I think he should take a look at what's already been developed in that area in reality. We're getting pretty damn close to having working cloaking technology right now. Imagine how much better it will be in a few decades? Especially considering that the military applications would be enormous, which ensures that a very big set of pockets will be willing to back up the R&D.

As for the question of "Is there other intelligent life in the galaxy?" I'm certainly hoping for "yes." It would be so much more interesting, seeing as how Terran life is automatically biased to assume things have to work like they do on Earth. If we find another civilization out there, we could both make huge leaps in scientific understanding by studying each other.

[Fenixdown]

Idiocracy.

Hell, it's getting close to that point as it is.

[Seahippo]

I hope for Startrek, because Im gunna Kirk the shit out of the ships

[Sunseeker]

As for the question of "Is there other intelligent life in the galaxy?" I'm certainly hoping for "yes." It would be so much more interesting, seeing as how Terran life is automatically biased to assume things have to work like they do on Earth. If we find another civilization out there, we could both make huge leaps in scientific understanding by studying each other.

Or we could make huge scientific leaps the more rational way....figuring out how to kill them all and take their stuff.