Comments on: What our civilization needs is a billion-year plan

By: SmartAndSober

SmartAndSober — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 02:02:57 +0000

I don’t believe a total lack of plan will be optimal.
I guess humanity need a meta-plan (very complex plans only comprehensible and will only be followed by cyborgs and super-AI) that takes “complexity theory” into consideration.

By: SmartAndSober

SmartAndSober — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 02:00:15 +0000

This idea of planning ahead for very long term sounds great to me, too.
Can human diplomats (possibly cyborgized ones) proven useful in pacifying and unifying the world?

By: Bri

Bri — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 22:47:22 +0000

Although I like your sentiment and both of the posts here, you may find that the ” other side” as I call it, is a little bit different from what you are expecting. Everything is there, and I do mean ” everything”.

By: tj

tj — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 21:27:23 +0000

Your so right,your dream is my dream. The greatest adventure of all begins when we leave this body within which we live for a short while. Live long and prosper buddy.

By: rightway4500

rightway4500 — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 13:54:08 +0000

world NOT ENDING on December 21,2012

By: Alpha

Alpha — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 21:42:28 +0000

I like to live in the moment. But this is freaking awesome!

By: freshideas

freshideas — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 21:45:09 +0000

The invention of writting is only 5000 years old

By: Shadow

Shadow — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 22:16:53 +0000

Great read. Loved the visuals.

By: Craig

Craig — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 22:08:36 +0000

This whole idea is representative of the 19th century mind. Plan plan plan, top down command and control. So 2 cneturies ago. Complexity theory explodes this Neanderthals thinking. We would be on mars today colonizing it if poltics hadnt stopped us and stood in our way! (Nixon burn in hell!)

By: GatorALLin

GatorALLin — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 14:55:09 +0000

Its always that first million years that is the hardest to plan for inside a billion year plan…. (grin).

By: zEke

zEke — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 14:18:27 +0000

and people believing media-created and government-created propaganda. What oh dear! would happen if people actually realised demonstrations againsts americans had more to do with their killings than an insult to a prophet. CIA is seen in the woodworks, you probably haven’t read the article but some of the protesters were /paid/. And if youve ever picked up a non-government-sponsored-white-wash book on the CIA youd know that the CIA also has a long history of riling up people to do whatever bidding they choose. Master propagandists they are, indeed half their organization is dedicated to it!

By: GAUSS

GAUSS — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 19:14:37 +0000

The crazy thing is, I totally agree.

I’ve long had this idea/intuition that a viable path toward peace between major superpowers would be to unite them under a common project, namely that of building an interstellar spacecraft. In truth, the Russians do many things better than us Americans, and vice versa. The Chinese have a lot to weigh in as well. Instead of being in competition and war, a common project of this kind would make each civilization’s abilities complementary to one another, speeding progress and hopefully avoiding conflicts.

Many (if not arguably all) of our conflicts are over resources. Working together to reach the realm of infinite resources – space – can only be a good thing, in my opinion. It’s not to say that people will lose national pride – Russians will still be Russians, Americans their usual selves, and so on. I imagine the Russians building the engines, America building the communications & computers and such, and the Chinese building the hull and other pieces. Just a vague vision, really.

By: Nick Eftimiades

Nick Eftimiades — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 10:30:17 +0000

Best response on the thread.

By: alliwant

alliwant — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 04:33:08 +0000

Maybe as we merge with the machines we will take a more sober and responsible view of reproducing. Maybe we can even reduce our numbers to a sustainable size gracefully, just be being less prolific. Beats most other solutions.

By: alliwant

alliwant — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 04:23:22 +0000

No need for an overt act on that count. Take a good look at past religious practice; Thor and Zeus have few followers these days. The rest will slowly slip away as it becomes obvious that we don’t need those myths any more. Won’t be fast to our perspective, but on the scale of this article it won’t take long at all. Science and other facets of the rational mind will slowly take over, and will themselves evolve over time.

By: Jack

Jack — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 01:56:07 +0000

Violence does appear to have played a significant role in the development of the human race. However, if an alien life form were, for example, asexual, then aggression and violence may not have been necessary for reproduction and may not have played a significant role in their development. In addition humanity is by and large a race of followers. Consider a race consisting of mostly creative thinkers as opposed to followers. A race not able to adopt structures of possession or dominance over each other due to their intrinsic asexual nature. A race capable of sharing to the degree that their ¨brains¨ adapted to run concurrent hive-mind and individual thought processes maintaining both separate. Capable then of instant communication with no need for the semantic disasters that the spoken or written word brings with it. Just a possibility.

By: Bri

Bri — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 22:21:24 +0000

I’ll tell you what. In one million years, I’ll check on how things are going on this plan. Then every million years after, or another thousand times!

By: Bri

Bri — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 22:12:13 +0000

I’m thinking that for the next article, we should plan for a universe going out of business sale.

By: Jack

Jack — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 21:57:04 +0000

There are those, capable of planning over the course of hundreds and thousands of years quite effectively, the results permeate almost every aspect of our lives.

Indeed, everyone is capable of planning of this sort and much more, merely not quite aware of their own possibilities.

Finally, not all aspects of ones life or actions need be planned out meticulously of course, those men and women that have acted toward goals for centuries also understand and enjoy the fact that reality can never be totally planned merely ¨nudged¨ into a direction or another, and use this to their enjoyment and advantage.

The grander the goals the grander the costs.

By: Jack

Jack — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 21:43:36 +0000

Perhaps they already know themselves exempt, yes.

By: Jack

Jack — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 21:42:25 +0000

Unless your eugenic ¨ disaster¨ did not do the math like you have, and the whole of humanity were wiped out. This is as has been foreseen by more than one. Go ahead, take your chances.

By: alliwant

alliwant — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 21:27:25 +0000

Nice riposte. It’s sometimes hard to convey that for actions like planning to move an entire civilization, the timescale involved will be far beyond anything we have experienced to present. Yes, civilization and technology will be vastly different, but it’s all going down the drain if we don’t move before the sun goes dark.

By: alliwant

alliwant — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 21:10:09 +0000

Excellent commentary that echoes much of my thinking on the distant future. If the next billion years is to be the gestation period for humanity to seed a galactic or universe wide civilization, it will be because ideas such as those herein are taken seriously. A vastly different perspective from the next news cycle or quarterly revenue targets. Think big, and long. It’s a vast future (if we manage to see it).

By: robert

robert — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 18:12:53 +0000

brilliant article, amazing to be able to speculate and try to plan to survive all of our current human made disasters waiting to happen and come out the other side to a world we would like to live in. I hope people learn to be more understanding and kind to one another as well otherwise kaboom is coming with or without the singularity.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 15:30:19 +0000

If We Do Nothing – America In 2050
http://rense.com/general95/2050.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGChGlE&feature=player_embedded

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 14:05:40 +0000

I have to admit I did not read the whole article as most of which was way over my head, but what I did read was excellent. After all “It’s what Dreams are made of”. There are some really fine Dreamers out there as the comments express. I for one would not hesitate to step through, The “Stargate” and step into a world void of insanity where beings work for the common good of all. Where poverty, death and disease are things left in a long ago distant past. A place where enslavement, wars and mutually assured destruction will never happen. If only Dreams could come true. I dream of such a place where I will go after this old clay jar I call a body is worn out, where “I can live long and prosper” and I only need is faith to get there. This is my Dream and I feel many others share the same Dream. I have the faith and I have the dream and no man can take them away.

By: GatorALLin

GatorALLin — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 13:50:25 +0000

I like the idea of planning ahead….. but have to agree that any plan past about 30 years seems needing major (unforeseen) overhauls if you believe the singularity is on the horizon. Still I think it is important to start thinking or planning for the what ifs….. that could be planet killers, or singularity stoppers. Of all the obvious ones listed like meteors hitting the earth, or the sun heating up, or just trying not to blow ourselves up… the one that was left off the list is the Super Volcano threat….. I hope by then we just turn it into an energy source…but still that threat would put a dent in lots of things, so I think it should make the list of What if..and how would we fix it.

By: Ken

Ken — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 07:02:25 +0000

Wonderful article!
Ques: If information can be self organizing (which it can)
and form can maintain it’s internal relationship within a dissipative system (which it can)
then, I suspect, thought can exist dependent only upon ‘intent’.

I’m not certain
that there need be
a future nor a past
nor a purpose nor a task.

By: John Bonomolo

John Bonomolo — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 22:39:12 +0000

My issue is that if Einstein’s proposition that its physically impossible to travel faster than the speed of light winds up remaining a fundamental law of physics billions of years into the future, and factoring in that the closest planet with the possibility of being a habitable planet is 100,000 light years away, one suddenly realizes the need to act now.

By: jmldavis

jmldavis — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 18:57:43 +0000

Yeah, like the Death Star ;-) Only we’d call it the “Life Star” …kidding aside that may be one plausible future.

By: Jared

Jared — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 16:41:54 +0000

Agreed, what tools are we to prepare with for the extinction of our sun? Lets let the generations 3 billion years smarter deal with that. We still have people rioting and killing over 15 minute videos on youtube.

By: Peter the printer

Peter the printer — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 09:24:15 +0000

‘about to decommission natural selection’ hardly. We are about to go extinct through natural selection and can’t adapt or evolve fast enough to survive on a planet we have radically altered in ignorance and greed.

By: Peter the printer

Peter the printer — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 09:21:46 +0000

Well the state of education in the US is dire

By: Peter the printer

Peter the printer — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 09:20:39 +0000

Stats lie according to what they are required to ‘prove’. Looks to me like IQ is diminishing generation on generation.

By: Peter the printer

Peter the printer — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 09:18:25 +0000

Seems my realist posts are too much for fantasists and censors. Dream on as our planet dies from our ignorance.

By: Mr.X

Mr.X — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 20:13:27 +0000

@smb: I hate religious people who try to fake being atheist.

Please stop that, or learn to actually do it the right way.

I really hate that.

And your claims are typical bs.Sry.

Do you want me to impose sme who is religious?

By: smb12321

smb12321 — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 19:16:14 +0000

Will mankind suddenly become kind and understanding? I’ve argued with fellow atheists that morality does not depend on religion OR non-belief. Before organized religion, society was brutal. Nations that banned religion also treated their citizens horrifically. Humanity has a dark side and getting rid of religion will not cure that.

By: Peter the printer

Peter the printer — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 11:02:37 +0000

We will be lucky to survive the next fifty years. Man has always dreamed way beyond his capabilities, women tend to be more grounded and centred on the real. How can we do anything about the distant future when we can’t even agree to what to do to avoid total collapse from climate change? Droughts in some places and floods in others as the climate goes chaotic are not good signs for a highly complex global society surviving. Current response is ‘we can drill for oil in the arctic now’, which is about as crazed as it gets. Like putting more fuel into the furnaces of the Titanic.

By: Editor

Editor — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 16:29:58 +0000

OH SNAP We’ll get right on that!

By: Jonathan Gibson

Jonathan Gibson — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 11:10:22 +0000

I’m just saying… that nobody here is talking about the looming Y3K bug

By: Sally Morem

Sally Morem — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 21:37:26 +0000

It could be even more advanced than this. IF we choose uploading into an incredibly rich VR world(s), we might also choose to replicate this noopshere an endless number of times, upload the copies into tiny space probes, and launch them in all directions. Perhaps our duplicates will choose to do the same from the many star systems they get to. A slow, but sure and intense way of exploring the galaxy and later (much later) the entire universe.

By: Editor

Editor — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 21:33:45 +0000

Well, then you probably won’t like my follow-up post, “A trillion year plan.” :)

By: Sally Morem

Sally Morem — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 21:30:53 +0000

When somebody says “nothing but” I grab my anti-reductionist word processor.

By: Sally Morem

Sally Morem — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 21:28:16 +0000

A large number of engineers, scientists and visionaries are doing things right now that will lead directly to the Singularity. They aren’t sitting, twiddling thumbs. The point is, with acceleration, a billion years from now is literally inconceivable. We can’t do any sort of planning for it at all.

By: Sally Morem

Sally Morem — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 21:22:57 +0000

A billion-year plan? Considering the impact of the doubling effect of accelerating tech, I wouldn’t even trust the projections of a 30-year plan. What will happen will be unimaginable to us today.

By: Alexandre

Alexandre — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 20:28:00 +0000

Thank you Lt Col Garretson. Your article made me dream farther than ever, and it’s always better to dream than to have nightmares like the ones we live today.

By: Editor

Editor — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 18:30:28 +0000

Hi, Paul. Thanks for joining the discussion! By way of introduction, Dr. Werbos is a Program Director at the National Science Foundation, responsible for Adaptive and Intelligent Systems (AIS), Quantum systems and device modeling (QMHP), and systems-level power grids (GRID). He also handles the EFRI 2008 topic in Cognitive Optimization and Prediction (engineering-neuroscience collaboration to reverse engineer intelligence). He is especially famous for the backpropagation concept in neural networks. More: werbos.com.

By: John Kennard

John Kennard — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 17:20:26 +0000

We need to worry about quite a bit quite a bit sooner and quite a bit more than we need to worry about the Sun’s going red giant or white dwarf on us.

But when it comes to it, and presumably well before it becomes necessary, move the the whole planet, man, including the moon, to a nice safe globular cluster well outside the galaxy, far away from all the nasty things that go on in galaxies.

How? I haven’t the foggiest.

But then I’m not a galaxy-spanning transportation engineer of, say, 500K AD, either.

By: Paul Werbos

Paul Werbos — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 16:29:51 +0000

What is a “plan?” I agree 100% with Peter that humanity really ought to support serious thinking about the long-term future, including at least a few of us who do think a billion years or more ahead. Yet see http://www.stateofthefuture.org; even just 100-1000 years ahead, rational thinking really has to account for UNCERTAINTIES. We need strategic thinking, more in the spirit of Raiffa than in the spirit of Soviet 5-year plans. For starships, especially, we need to buy information, per the strategic analyses I have posted in places like vixra.org, and in some papers in press or recently out. But yes, if we don’t think long and hard about possible futures, premature extinction is more than likely.

By: Editor

Editor — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 13:19:42 +0000

This is a standard forecasting exercise. Having the big picture in mind helps in near-term planning and cuts down on short-term miasma. It’s a given that a Type II civ would not resemble our current one. I don’t think the author puts many constraints on the scenarios. This is a useful exercise.