Will you accept a microchip implant as a payment method?

Sort of where I land on this one.

We ain't going to Mars (or any other type of next level advancement of the human race) without digital technology.  We weren't going to get there without fire either, right?

I've heard a few people claim that our future is in moving beyond this planet - presumably to cope with the eventual death of our Sun. To be honest, I don't think we will ever as humans have any other home than this planet.

The phrase "next level advancement of the human race", well, it's open-ended, it can mean whatever we want it to mean, so there will be a range of ideas there. Personally I'm more favouring spiritual progress rather than technological. When one looks at the broad sweep of human history, it's difficult to evaluate such things, there are steps backwards as well as forwards. In that respect, I think it is an individual journey, we can travel at a different pace and in a different direction relative to whatever else is going on during the era in which we live.

I'm often reminding myself that every generation has always lived in modern times. No one ever lived in antiquity.

I've heard a few people claim that our future is in moving beyond this planet - presumably to cope with the eventual death of our Sun. To be honest, I don't think we will ever as humans have any other home than this planet.

I don't think the human race's drive to move beyond this planet is motivated by survival.  I think its motivated by something more akin to curiosity.  There was no existential threat driving the need to risk life and limb for the Euro's to sail west across the Atlantic.

Whether we'll be able to do it or not is another question.  I'm an optimist at heart so I feel the opposite of you: I think it will happen but I can't tell you when.

The phrase "next level advancement of the human race", well, it's open-ended, it can mean whatever we want it to mean, so there will be a range of ideas there. Personally I'm more favouring spiritual progress rather than technological. When one looks at the broad sweep of human history, it's difficult to evaluate such things, there are steps backwards as well as forwards. In that respect, I think it is an individual journey, we can travel at a different pace and in a different direction relative to whatever else is going on during the era in which we live.

Agreed but it seem impractical and highly unlikely that the entire human race will suddenly decide that technological advances are no longer worthwhile and instead we should all just focus on our spiritual journeys.  At our altruistic best, there will always be those (often some of our best and brightest) who will strive to make the world a better place, to reduce suffering through advances in medicine, energy, etc.  For some, I imagine it takes on a bit of spirituality for them as well.

Again, I think this is just in our nature: innovation and exploration.

I'm often reminding myself that every generation has always lived in modern times. No one ever lived in antiquity.

I love this.  I've thought of this concept often but never heard it so articulately put!

"I'm often reminding myself that every generation has always lived in modern times. No one ever lived in antiquity."

I love this.  I've thought of this concept often but never heard it so articulately put!

Me too ! It drives me up the wall when people state, "This is 2020!" usually meaning we are so much more advanced than those 'backwards' in the past. It makes no sense at all, everybody that's ever lived said the same thing.

On the other side of the tradeoff ledger, I just found another at least partially positive trend caused by the progress of modern technology, this time due to continued trends in female educational attainment and access to contraception. It looks like the "Soylent Green" overpopulation crisis may be averted due to these same technological trends.

From "Researchers Say Earth Is Headed for “Jaw-Dropping” Population Decline", “23 countries will lose half their populations by 2100”,  and "The World Might Actually Run Out of People" at https://futurism.com/global-birth-rates-...8ba7a4cb43, and https://mercatornet.com/23-countries-wil...100/65204/, and https://www.wired.com/story/the-world-mi...of-people/:

"By 2100, 183 of the 195 countries in the study are forecast to have a fertility rate lower than the global replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. As a result, it is forecast that the populations of as many as 23 countries will more than half between 2017 and 2100, including Japan, Thailand, Ukraine and Spain. Another 34 countries will likely decline by 25–50%, including China which is forecast to experience a 48% decline.

Noting, from the same study:

The global population will peak at 9.7 billion around 2064, according to the new projection, and then drop off to 8.8 billion towards the end of the century."

“That’s a pretty big thing; most of the world is transitioning into natural population decline,” Christopher Murray, co-author and researcher at the University of Washington, Seattle, told the BBC. “I think it’s incredibly hard to think this through and recognize how big a thing this is; it’s extraordinary, we’ll have to reorganize societies.”

Of course, there is always the negative side of all complex tradeoffs. On the negative side here are the factors of the obvious economic crisis that can be expected when the population age balance in hundreds of countries swings way over to the elderly (how to pay for retirement and the other functions of government to sustain the drastically aging population), and even possible eventual human extinction since the birth rate is clearly trending toward eventually getting below the replacement rate globally.

Sort of where I land on this one.

We ain't going to Mars (or any other type of next level advancement of the human race) without digital technology.  We weren't going to get there without fire either, right?

Why do we need to?  Have we weighed up possible long term consequences before harping on about "human advancement?"  Isn't it "Human advancement" that has turned the earth into a s**t hole in the first place? Why can't we ever enjoy what we already have before jumping on the next digital gimmick?  Do we all have ADHD?

I actually wonder if a mass unplugging will occur.

After all if more & more jobs are lost to AI, who exactly pays for anything? Some will gravitate to Universal Basic Income but I think that underestimates the number of people who'd asked for, or just take from, their governments for some plot of land to make their own way.

Of course people who talk about automation sometimes have little real world understanding, as was the case when someone admiring automated trucking was surprised when I pointed out a lot of people would happily rob a truck where they don't have to hurt a living person.

Also consider those self-driving cars that could be bound by a circle of salt. Or the stickers that can disrupt machine learning visual systems used for object recognition. You can also cheat self-checkout systems, some people pay for only a third of the actual cost IIRC.

Hackers or just run-of-the-mill thieves haven't yet put effort into really disrupting these systems, because automated systems aren't pervasive enough in replacing human jobs. I expect that will change as technology advances.

Why do we need to?  Have we weighed up possible long term consequences before harping on about "human advancement?"  Isn't it "Human advancement" that has turned the earth into a s**t hole in the first place? Why can't we ever enjoy what we already have before jumping on the next digital gimmick?  Do we all have ADHD?

Today's earth seems to be the absolute best time to exist if you are a human being (on average of course, which applies to any prior time as well).  Technology has a lot to do with that.

Today's earth seems to be the absolute best time to exist if you are a human being (on average of course, which applies to any prior time as well).  Technology has a lot to do with that.

Do monkeys in the wild miss technology?

Do monkeys in the wild miss technology?

Plenty of animals - bison, elephants, tigers, rhinos and many more - would be grateful for a bit less technology, since it has been responsible for their mass slaughter and likely extinction as well in some cases.

Do monkeys in the wild miss technology?

What does that have to do with anything; we're not monkeys?

That said they use technology (tools) as well, so yes I'd imagine they would miss them.