The Next Millennium and the Remote Future Lecture 47
Is it possible that the dangerous knowledge that accumulates within a species like ours that’s capable of collective learning is bound to eventually outweigh the more creative knowledge that such species generate? Or is it simply that such a species is eventually bound to construct societies of such complexity that they’re not sustainable?
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ow we return to larger spatial and temporal scales. We consider ¿rst the next millennium. Then we consider the rest of time, asking about the future of the Earth, the galaxy, and the Universe as a whole. Oddly, we will see that it is easier to discuss the remote future than the next millennium. On the scale of a millennium or so, we have far more questions than answers! Human societies are so complex that, even if we can identify some trends, we know of none that are certain to continue for more than a few decades. All we can really do is to play with different scenarios.
Some scenarios are disastrous for humans and perhaps for the entire biosphere. In A Canticle for Leibowitz (1st published in 1959), Walter M. Miller imagined a future in which nuclear weapons were developed and used, then redeveloped and used again. Is this the fate of all species capable of “collective learning”? Is there a necessary limit to collective learning? Could that be why we have failed to detect other species like ourselves? Geologists now understand that the Earth’s history has been interrupted by periodic asteroid impacts such as those that killed off the dinosaurs. Though astronomers can now keep an eye on potentially dangerous objects, we do not yet have the means to protect ourselves adequately from such impacts. Some scenarios are more optimistic. Perhaps, after a near brush with disaster (such as the regional nuclear wars described in the future histories written by Wagar as well as Stableford and Langford), we will avoid the fate of Easter Island. We will slow consumption levels and ¿nd new ways of living that can be satisfying without putting excessive pressure on the environment. If our ancestors avoid disaster, the “Modern era” may turn out to be the prelude to 219
