[wolram (OP)]

So what do the future scientist know that we did not, the rate of (fundamenal) knowledge, seems to be stagnant to me, will this change?

A born optomist

[ukmicky]

The world in the year 3000 technology wise will be  mind blowing compared to today. scientific advancements in basically all fields today are marching on at a rapid pace. Take all the advancements going on in genetics for instants ,in the year 3000 every disease will probably be treatable and possibly curable,even now there researching things like limb re-growth. I doubt even 100 years from now will be comparable to today.

 The future looks rosy in my view its just a shame i'm only gonna be alive for another 50 or so years, unless that is them geneticists prove you wrong.

Michael

[another_someone]

Firstly, one has to distinguish between scientific achievements and engineering achievements.  What Robin (wolram) was referring to was fundamental knowledge, not the application of that knowledge.  Genetic engineering is just that, engineering.

But, beyond that, sometimes a system becomes the hottest just before it burns itself out.  Science itself may possibly be going in that direction, as might be humanity itself.  By 3000, human beings may simply be something that robots learn about in history legends and talk about a mythological golden age (that was never so golden, but always looks like that when looked at from a distance) when robots served this God-like creature called man.

George

[Soul Surfer]

The potential achievements of the next thousand years are truly fantastic but we will have to collectively achieve control of the global population and hopefully reduce it to and mainain it at a genuinely sustainable level.  If we fail this test, competition for resources and the straight operation of hard natural selection will solve this problem without worrying to much about human technical or artistic achievements.

Learn, create, test and tell
evolution rules in all things
God says so!

[another_someone]

The problem with population control is that we have a catch 22 situation.  Either large populations are an asset (as they were in the past, when most labour was done by human beings), and there is a definite disincentive for population reduction, or even population stabilisation.  Alternatively, large populations are a liability (as is increasingly the case with ever for labour being undertaken by robots – even intellectual labour), and there is no incentive to having any population of humans at all, and thus no economic reason why the population of humans would not be allowed to drop to zero (as increasingly looks to be the direction things might move in in the industrialised world).

The only argument in favour of maintaining a population is really a political one, particularly with regard to a democratically based political system, where one's political influence is proportionate to population size.  In reality, democracy is largely fictional, and money still speaks louder than votes.

George

[Hadrian]

I like to look at the positive side of things and I hope that we will have advanced to new levels of prosperity and eradicated poverty and war from our planet. To do this it will mean that we will have had to change a lot of our thinking. If not we will only continue to accelerate the rate at which the differences between people grow. You can imagine where that will leads us and the damage we will do in the process.

What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.

[another_someone]

quote:Originally posted by Hadrian
I like to look at the positive side of things and I hope that we will have advanced to new levels of prosperity and eradicated poverty and war from our planet. To do this it will mean that we will have had to change a lot of our thinking. If not we will only continue to accelerate the rate at which the differences between people grow. You can imagine where that will leads us and the damage we will do in the process.

The issue of war and peace was debated in:

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2277#28566

I cannot see that poverty ever can be eliminated.  World poverty, in an absolute sense, has not gotten any worse than it ever was; although, ofcourse, as world prosperity has increased, so the difference between the richest and the poorest has increased, but not because the poorest have gotten any poorer, but only because the richest have gotten richer.  The usually left wing response to this is that the gap can be best closed by ensuring the none are richer than the poorest.  This is certainly a valid argument, but whether it is a desirable outcome is open to interpretation.

The fact is that wealth is always distributed such that there will be a spread of wealth within a population, with a few very wealthy, and as one moves down the spectrum of personal wealth, so one will find ever greater numbers below any given level of wealth than above it.  Ofcourse, by limiting the amount of wealth within the community at large, so you will inevitably reduce the amount of wealth available for the tip of that spectrum, and as you increase the amount of wealth in the community at large, you will be able to push ever more individuals up that spectrum of wealth, but in doing so, you will also increase the range that spectrum covers, and so inevitably increase the difference between those at the very top and those at the very bottom.

George

[Hadrian]

all i can say then is i hope that i will have found true enlightenment by then.[]

What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.

[RRR]

(I did delete my message)..

[another_someone]

quote:Originally posted by RRR

1) With a parameter of the world's ecologic situation  our civilization have  not any "progress"  and the world's  ecologic situation  of any times of  1000  years ago it  was much more pure than now, in the 2006 year. .
A modern industry "throw out"  industrial pollutions and  industrial durty  into a nature.
 The view of the world of the 3006 year it can be  something  similar to  a giant cesspit of industrial pollutions and radio-active contaminations.

Pollution is a highly subjective issue.  There are very many measures of pollution which are in fact better in 2006 than they were in 1906.  What is clear is that human productivity has increased, and with increased production there must inevitably be an increase in waste output; but what is also true is that we are now more discriminating about the nature of that waste than we were in the past.

We actually have cleaner air and cleaner rivers (at least in the Western world – the newly industrialised economies are still to catch up in that respect) than we had in the past, but the total volume of waste cannot be reduced without reducing industrial output.

quote:
2) In a future "a progress" is expected in the military field..

Each country in the  future will be have a nuclear weapon.
The wars of future it can be  wars with  nuclear weapon.
The world terrorists of future  they can have nuclear bombs
and make teracts with nuclear bomb..

This is probably true, although it will not happen in isolation, and no doubt there will be some mitigating developments as well.

quote:
3) In past times and in modern times some world's countries "produces" biologic weapon with military goals.
Mortal diseases like AIDS is one of results of the works.
Maybe and the AIDS is a result of the works.
 In a future "a progress" is expected in the field and  the world receive a lot of  new diseases like AIDS..

AIDS cannot be of military value, nor can any disease such as AIDS be of military value.  It is possible that some crackpot terrorist regime could let loose such a disease, but the primary need for a military weapon to be of any use is to be able to achieve effective targeting, and AIDS (and no presently foreseeable biological weapon) can be effectively targeted – they are by, their nature, totally indiscriminate.  It is highly doubtful that any biological weapon could be developed that would have a military use in the modern world that could not better be achieved by some other technology.

George

[RRR]

(I did delete my message).

[another_someone]

quote:Originally posted by RRR
Ànd what are the measures and figures?.
Dear George! In the 1906 year our civilization had industrial pollutions only. Now, in the 2006 year,  in addition to industrial pollutions  the Earth has a lot of new areas with "nuclear contaminations, radio-active contaminations, industrial contaminations. Now we have and "space refuse"  with remains of space apparats etc.
In the 1906 year the Earth had much more areas of forests, than we had it now.
You can see that In the past times our civilization had much more pure nature than we have it now.

Clearly, the issue of nuclear contamination is seen as more acute in some areas of the world than in others, but if one removes Chernobyl from the equation, the overall risks that nuclear waste poses in still less than historic risks associated with industrial waste.  Worldwide, the number of people killed by the civilian nuclear industry is less than that killed by the chemical industry (even allowing for Chernobyl, was Chernobyl really that much more deadly than Bhopal? - although I accept that its long term economic damage was worse).

It is probably true that the Earth had more forests in 1906 (although this is not quantifiable), but the loss of forest is not of itself a form of pollution, although it may cause, or be caused by, pollution.  The more significant, but more difficult to asses, and always neglected, question is not whether there are more or less forest, but whether there is more or less chlorophyll.

I am not sure what is meant by more pure nature.  In this country (although, again, I accept that this varies from country to country) there has not been a single acre of land that has not been modified by human activity since at least the beginning of the 11th century, and probably long before.

For all the complaints about industrialisation, the industrial economy may have a greater impact upon air purity than the pre-industrial world, but it actually places less demands upon the land than does an agricultural economy.

quote:
ANOTHER SOMEONE wrote:
"This is probably true, although it will not happen in isolation, and no doubt there will be some mitigating developments as well."

Why "it will not happen" ?

Sorry, I think you misunderstood what I said (probably my fault in using somewhat idiomatic language without thinking that there might be people who read my posts for whom English is not their mother tongue).

I did not say “it will not happen”, what I said was that “it will not happen in isolation” - in other words, that I accept it will happen, but that other compensating factors will probably develop alongside.  I fully accept that the increasing spread of nuclear weapons is an inevitability (it was always naïve to believe that it could ever be otherwise), and its spread will present challenges and serious risks, but there will also be some development in the means to protect against nuclear weapons, although I do accept that such protection will never be a complete solution.

quote:
About development of the civilization..
100 years ago the countries of our northern civilization of "the christian countries with white men"(USA,Canada,Europe, Russia, Australia etc) have much more lands and colonies than now, in the 2006 year.
Now the countries of our "democratic" civilization have not the world's lands..
Leaving the lands Our "democratic" civilization has a movement to political decline,but the islam and countries of the islamic civilization have a movement to the great political growth.

A huge amount of  population in islamic countries they do not support an US idea of "democratic society" but support of idea of "islamic revolution in the world" with islamic cultural priorities without any democracy.
Now a population  of islamic countries it is more than 1 billion persons and the islamic peoples increase theirselves with giant speeds towards to a figure of  2 billion persons..

An impotence of military actions of USA in wars in  Vietnam(1963-73)and in Iraq (since 2003)  it is a sign of an impotence of the USA ..
The military impotence is a movement to political decline of the western civilization.

In 1906, probably less than 20% of the adult population of Britain had the right to vote (women did not have the vote, and those who did not own property did not have the vote); and this situation would have been even more severe in Russia (one of the factors that drove the country to civil war in 1917).  By comparison, countries like Iran, Turkey, and even Egypt, are today very much more democratic than any major European country was in 1906.

There are many in the West who actually view President Putin's premiership in Russia as moving in a direction away from open democracy (I cannot say how his premiership is viewed from within Russia itself).

It must also be said that many in the West are themselves increasingly cynical and disillusioned by what they see as little more than a veneer of democracy, with little real voice for the people.  There are countries, such a Switzerland, which do practice something that might be viewed as a more genuine democracy than that practised in Britain or the USA.  Many view the veneer of democracy found in Britain or the USA as better described by the term “an elected dictatorship”.

You talk about the Islamic world not supporting the USA and its political doctrines – it must not be forgotten that US foreign policy towards the Arab nations has rarely been to their benefit, so it might not be surprising if there is not unqualified support for the US view of the world within the Arab world.

I do accept, as I suspect most people do, that the heyday of Western global dominance is coming to an end – nothing lasts forever, and all that flourishes must also someday die.  We are not dead yet, but we will never be as powerful again as we are today.

But, coming back to the subject at hand, all that we have discussed here are the challenges of the 22nd and 23rd centuries, and will be old history by the start of the 3rd millennium.

It may very well be that between now and the start of the third millennium, the Western world, maybe the whole world, will go through a dark age, as it has many times in the past.  In the past, whenever the world (or a region) has gone through a dark age, it has eventually emerged from it, and come out stronger than it was before.  It is quite possible that this will also happen again, and that for the next few centuries things will look very bleak, but maybe by the 3rd millennium, or maybe a little later, the world will emerge from that dark age with fresh vigour and fresh ideas for the future.

George

[Mad Mark]

I would think that by 3006 our communication/information skills will have reached a level where we will have evolved into something like the Borg and become a mental collective living in what ever reality we chose, leaving the barren sterile earth under the control of machines.

Tomorrow lies outside our universe without it there would be no tomorrow.

[RRR]

(I did delete my message)

[RRR]

ANOTHER SOMEONE WROTE:
It is probably true that the Earth had more forests in 1906 (although this is not quantifiable), but the loss of forest is not of itself a form of pollution, although it may cause, or be caused by, pollution. The more significant, but more difficult to asses, and always neglected, question is not whether there are more or less forest, but whether there is more or less chlorophyll.

You forget that a chlorophyll's source is trees and plants.
But global forest's areas are diminished..  

SOME FORECASTS of REAL ECOLOGIC TRAGEDIES for FUTURE:
Spain's scientists they'll give forecasts that in 100 years Spain can be a desert like Sahara.
Italia's scientists they'll give similar forecasts for Italy.
China's sources they'll give similar forecasts for the Northern half of China.
In 100 years Spain,Italy, Turkey  and others Mediterranean countries can be a desert like Sahara..

Scientists write about causes of it:
1) Diminishing of forest's areas .
2) Global getting warmer. An average year's temperature becomes
more and more hot.
================================
It will be not a surprise if in 100 years the Southern Europe(Spain, Italy etc) and The USA's half   will be a desert like Sahara.
It will  be not a surprise if In 1000 years the Earth will be global desert like Mars .
======================================

[another_someone]

quote:Originally posted by RRR


ANOTHER SOMEONE WROTE:
It is probably true that the Earth had more forests in 1906 (although this is not quantifiable), but the loss of forest is not of itself a form of pollution, although it may cause, or be caused by, pollution. The more significant, but more difficult to asses, and always neglected, question is not whether there are more or less forest, but whether there is more or less chlorophyll.

You forget that a chlorophyll's source is trees and plants.
But global forest's areas are diminished..  

There are two issues to this.

Firstly, while there has been a fall in forest size, the major reasons for the fall in the size of forest over the centuries has been to make room for more farming, much of which grows  chlorophyll is different forms.

Beyond that, while it is true that  chlorophyll converts CO2 to O2 and sugars, but unless that sugar (or cellulose) is somehow permanently fixed (as in a peat bog, or by conversion to carbonate rocks), then sooner or later (and more usually sooner rather than later) the natural cycle of things will convert that sugar and cellulose back to CO2 and water (whether this be by forest fires, or by decomposition, or being consumed by animals).

Although newly growing forests will absorb CO2 in order to grow, a forest that is stable in size must be balanced in the amount of CO2 it absorbs from the environment and the amount of carbon (either as CO2, or worse still, as CH4)  it emits back into the environment.

quote:
SOME FORECASTS of REAL ECOLOGIC TRAGEDIES for FUTURE:
Spain's scientists they'll give forecasts that in 100 years Spain can be a desert like Sahara.
Italia's scientists they'll give similar forecasts for Italy.
China's sources they'll give similar forecasts for the Northern half of China.
In 100 years Spain,Italy, Turkey  and others Mediterranean countries can be a desert like Sahara..

There has been problems of over farming that has effected not only central Spain, and North Africa, but even the moorlands of Britain, but this is more about overuse of the soil than of loss of tree cover.  Britain only has the smallest fraction of the forest it had before humans came to these Islands, but yet continues to be regarded as a “green and pleasant land”, as much of that land that had been forest was then converted to grassland.

One thing we can be certain of is that the Earth will not become like Mars for many millions of years, if ever, simply because of the density of its atmosphere.

In general, from what I see, Spain's agriculture seems to be flourishing as the country is introducing high tech means of growing food in arid conditions, ideas that were pioneered in Israel.  There remains the problem, at least in Israel (and I believe some parts of Australia) that overuse of the water is causing a build-up of minerals, so nothing is without a price; but it certainly is a more complex picture than simply to say that the deserts are always winning.

quote:
Scientists write about causes of it:
1) Diminishing of forest's areas .
2) Global getting warmer. An average year's temperature becomes
more and more hot.

Both of these have been true (forests have been diminishing since the dawn of civilisation, and the Earth has been getting warmer since the middle of the 17th century), but it does not follow that the reduction in forest is causing the Earth to warm (there are many other factors that are known to contribute to global warming, such as variation in solar output).

In fact, it is generally assumed that even today the temperature today is far less than at many periods in the geological past.  A significant factor for this is the fact that there is a land mass covering Antarctica, and land mass that is permanently covered with ice, which then reduces the albedo of the planet as a whole.  Even allowing for the fact that our climate is warmer now than when mammoths roamed the earth, it is still considered that in geological terms we are living through a cold period in the Earth's history.

Clearly, if global temperatures were to get warm enough to trigger the removal of ice, even for part of the year, from the surface of Antarctica, it would create a feedback that would trigger a step change in the environment; but it would not be a situation that is unprecedented in the history of the planet.

quote:
================================
It will be not a surprise if in 100 years the Southern Europe(Spain, Italy etc) and The USA's half   will be a desert like Sahara.
It will  be not a surprise if In 1000 years the Earth will be global desert like Mars .
======================================

There is no way that Italy will ever become like the Sahara – it has a totally different terrain, and is surrounded on all sides by water.

Unless all of the water on this planet were to disappear (and no more water were pumped into the atmosphere through volcanism), then it is not possible that we will become like Mars.

In any event, life developed first in the seas, not on land; so whatever we do on land, until we understand what is happening in the seas, we cannot predict what is the future of life on this planet.

The only permanent capture of CO2 that is happening is, as I said above, not in the forests, but either in peat bogs, or by the creation of carbonate rocks, and the letter happens only in water.

George

[RRR]

Thanks for your answer, George!
A part of questions I answer with the message,
a part of questions I'll answer with next message.

Another Someone wrote:
the major reasons for the fall in the size of forest over the centuries has been to make room for more farming, much of which grows chlorophyll is different forms.

1)An agriculture do not give chlorophyll's growing.
One of basic parts of an agriculture it is a cattle breeding.
Cows,sheeps and pigs do not produce chlorophyll. With paysants
they consume O2, they drain pastures, and they produce CO2, urine and  excrements. Village's air is an air of cow's excrements..

2)Major reasons for the global fall in the size of forest:
-fast increasing of human population.
-An agriculure with growing areas of new  pastures and  farming lands.
-An industry with  growing areas of cities,new roads and factories.
-Growing productions of wood-working industry, paper-working industry etc.
-A nature's pollutions by human activity.  
===================================
3) Another Someone wrote: we cannot predict what is the future of life on this planet.

The Earth's life depend on the Sun's light.
We can predict Earth's  end by a knowledge of Sun's future.
The Sun transforms the Sun's hydrogen into the Sun's helium.
A science knows Sun's amounts of Helium and Hydrogen and a science can predict the future of the Sun.  
In 4.5 billions yeas the Sun will become a red giant star with total destroying of the Earth, the Venus and the Mercury.
 ======================================
It was a surprise for me to read the strange Soul Surfer's text:
The potential achievements of the next thousand years are truly fantastic but we will have to collectively achieve control of the global population and hopefully reduce it to and mainain it at a genuinely sustainable level. If we fail this test, competition for resources and the straight operation of hard natural selection will solve this problem without worrying to much about human technical or artistic achievements.
Learn, create, test and tell evolution rules in all things God says so!
==========================
At first.
It is not a fact that "we will have to collectively achieve control of the global population and hopefully reduce it to and mainain it at a genuinely sustainable level". Why do you think so?
But if the mankind's population will have not it?

Soul surfer wrote: "Learn, create, test and tell
evolution rules in all things. God says so!"

According to the Bible the God does not say so.
The Bible says that the God did create men but that the God's production was resulted with defects. The God did repent of his action.
The God did decide to destroy "the unsuccesful  creature" of low quality.
The God did destroy the mankind with a deluge.  
In the Bible the God did determine the Earth's humans like a civilization of scoundrels, sinners and criminals.  
About "the God's plans for future" the Bible wrote about Apokalypsis's plan of the God to annihilate the mankind.
======================================

[realmswalker]

Humanity will be an asset in the future, where robotic labour replaces manual labour (only truly feasible in a world with cheap energy), solely because of our ability to create new ideas.
After manual labour is eradicated, as it will undoubtedly be, and before a thinking computer is created, which it undoubtedly will be(start a new thread if you want to argue about that one there...), humans will all become educated and create ideas, artwork, and science. So, i hypothesisse, that, if cheap energy can be found, and robotics replace human labour, AND humans dont kill themselves out, the future rate of scientific and artistic creations and development will skyrocket.
Think about it...

If you notice, the rate of scientific advancement has, in general, increased as the population has increased in the world.
This is because, with a higher population, more people will end up being scientisits. In a world where other jobs disapear, the carreer of science will surely be chosen more often!


So large population isnt a bad thing...
People say we need to devise population control, this isntr true, we need to devise expansion!
Space colonies would certaintly help solve over crowding, the harvesting of galactic resources would allow for an increase of population, and conversly and increase in scientific development.
It seems to be exponential!

i bet it could be graphed
i suppose youd have to graph the pupoulation as X axis, and then measure scientific advancement somehow...
anyone got a good idea how scientific advancement can be quantified?
im guessing it will appear somewhat exponential

[another_someone]

quote:Originally posted by RRR
1)An agriculture do not give chlorophyll's growing.
One of basic parts of an agriculture it is a cattle breeding.
Cows,sheeps and pigs do not produce chlorophyll. With paysants
they consume O2, they drain pastures, and they produce CO2, urine and  excrements. Village's air is an air of cow's excrements..

While this is true, it is no less true that forests are full of animal life (in fact, few trees or other vegetable life can properly reproduce without the help of animals).

The cows do not produce chlorophyll, but since the only source of carbon that cattle and sheep consume is which they derive from vegetable matter, which is generated by chlorophyll.  Thus, one can say that for every once of carbon in a cows body, at least one once of carbon must have been absorbed from the environment through the chlorophyll in the grass they eat.  Since grass is much faster growing than the average tree, so it must consume a great deal more carbon than the average tree.

It is true that once the carbon is consumed by the cow, much of it will then be released back into the environment through various secretions and excretions, but that then will have to be balanced by more carbon being absorbed by the grass, otherwise the cattle will not have enough food to eat.

I accept that modern factory farming methods provide the cattle with food from a wider variety of sources, so what I am describing relates only to traditional farming methods.

OTOH, the amount of land used in animal husbandry has tended to be reduced as the amount of free grazing that cattle require is reduced.

quote:
2)Major reasons for the global fall in the size of forest:
-fast increasing of human population.
-An agriculure with growing areas of new  pastures and  farming lands.

Probably true, but as I said above, this is different from the argument pertaining to the amount of chlorophyll.

quote:
-An industry with  growing areas of cities,new roads and factories.

Not as true as all of that.

It is true that roads and cities do consume land, but not enough that they alone have made such a great impact upon the area of chlorophyll.  Indirectly they have a greater impact upon the are under forest, because as the roads make the inner parts of the forests ever more accessible, they become ever more available for other uses.

In fact, as for cities, it might be argued that if the population of people living in cities were to spread out more thinly across the landscape, there demands upon the land might be even higher than they are.  So, while I agree that the growth of population does increase the demands upon land, the growth of cities may actually mitigate the demands this population makes upon the land in general.

quote:
-Growing productions of wood-working industry, paper-working industry etc.

There might be an argument regarding hard woods, there is absolutely no argument here with regard to soft woods (which is the primary source of feedstock for the paper industry).

Most trees used by the paper industry were grown for that purpose, and so the reduction in the usage of fresh wood for the paper industry is simply a cause for the reduction of trees grown for that purpose.

quote:
-A nature's pollutions by human activity.  

Pollution can change the environment, which will change the vegetation that is suitable to be grown there, but as we have seen with Chernobyl, nature is incredibly resilient and adaptable, and something will grow in most environments.

quote:
The Earth's life depend on the Sun's light.
We can predict Earth's  end by a knowledge of Sun's future.
The Sun transforms the Sun's hydrogen into the Sun's helium.
A science knows Sun's amounts of Helium and Hydrogen and a science can predict the future of the Sun.  
In 4.5 billions yeas the Sun will become a red giant star with total destroying of the Earth, the Venus and the Mercury.

There are numerous variables regarding the future of the solar system.

At least one sight suggests that already in 1.1 billion years time, the sun will be hot enough to boil all the water from the surface of the Earth.

By about 5 billion years, the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy will be in collision.

In the mean time, maybe in a few years, maybe in a few decades, maybe in a few millennia; but certainly long before the Sun will burn us up, we will be hit by an asteroid or comet.  This will not be enough to destroy all life on Earth, but it will certainly provide a thorough spring clean.

George

[another_someone]

quote:Originally posted by realmswalker
If you notice, the rate of scientific advancement has, in general, increased as the population has increased in the world.
This is because, with a higher population, more people will end up being scientisits.

While the correlation is true, I think there are other factors as well.

It probably has as much to do with higher population densities allowing better communication (in the days before telecommunication), thus a better sharing of information between people working in science.

But there is no doubt that increased efficiency of producing the necessities of life meant that more manpower was available for other functions.

quote:
So large population isnt a bad thing...
People say we need to devise population control, this isntr true, we need to devise expansion!
Space colonies would certaintly help solve over crowding, the harvesting of galactic resources would allow for an increase of population, and conversly and increase in scientific development.
It seems to be exponential!

Not sure that space would solve the problem.

The question you have to ask is whether the driving force of science is population number or population density.  If the idea behind space exploration is to thin the population density without reducing population size, then it is critical to ask whether retaining the high density of population does not have its own benefits.

Clearly, population density is better measured in terms of the time taken to communicate with a given number of people.  With modern communication technology (both in terms of information transfer, and the movement of goods and people), reducing the physical density of the population can still retain the communication speeds across the population that would be comparable to a few centuries ago; but that would only allow us to travel as far as Mars or Venus, not out to other star systems.  Even then, dropping the population density (as measured in communication time) to that of a few centuries ago might still have the effect of slowing down communication from today's level.

quote:
In a world where other jobs disapear, the carreer of science will surely be chosen more often!

I would hope not.

The reason I say this is because science is meaningful only so long as it serves the other needs of humanity.  If humanity loses its other needs, then science will lose its reality check, and will simply become a religion.

George