What if?

[Shig O'nella]

What would happen if we could eventually scientifically prove whether or not an afterlife exists? If there isn’t how do you think the world would react, would we enter a state of worldwide panic, despair and chaos? Would all secularised religions crumble? Would people erupt into war, would many go mad not being able to accept that there’s nothing for the billions awaiting beyond the grave? How could humanity cope if we ever discovered such a staggering truth?

The chaos if it was proven there is no afterlife would be quite bad, yes, as people adjusted to the fact that they've literally only got the one shot at doing anything.

Proving there is an afterlife would end the species within a century or so. Think about it: angsty teens + guaranteed knowledge they won't just disappear if they killed themselves?

 

[ShittlerNiggler]

What if we ban smartphones for everyone under 18 years?

 

[zo.]

What if 4chan was banned where would all the normies go?

 

[ToroidalBoat]

What if the limits of tech have more or less been reached?*

- No reactionless drives, no Bussard ramjet, and no FTL: the most advanced propulsion is rockets, solar sails, and that Project Orion thing with bombs?

- Scarcity remains a thing as replicators like in Star Trek may not be possible?

- Computing limits means "quantum computing" or adding more processors may be the only way to go, and the limits of it will soon be reached?

Or in other words, what if the modern world is more or less at the limit of what nature allows technology to do, aside from new uses of tech like smartphones or Twitter?

*(Despite What You Might Think, Major Technological Changes Are Coming More Slowly Than They Once Did - Scientific American)

 

[NewRetroVagina23]

What if the limits of tech have more or less been reached?*

- No reactionless drives, no Bussard ramjet, and no FTL: the most advanced propulsion is rockets, solar sails, and that Project Orion thing with bombs?

- Scarcity remains a thing as replicators like in Star Trek may not be possible?

- Computing limits means "quantum computing" or adding more processors may be the only way to go, and the limits of it will soon be reached?

Or in other words, what if the modern world is more or less at the limit of what nature allows technology to do, aside from new uses of tech like smartphones or Twitter?

*(Despite What You Might Think, Major Technological Changes Are Coming More Slowly Than They Once Did - Scientific American)

I guarantee this is not the case. That innovation is slowing I also believe, and the cause of that is obvious.

 

[Isaac]

What if 4chan was banned where would all the normies go?

Another alt-chan

 

[ToroidalBoat]

It may be said that animals aren't that smart because they don't develop civilization.

But what if they're smart enough to not develop civilization?

 

[Isaac]

It may be said that animals aren't that smart because they don't develop civilization.

But what if they're smart enough to not develop civilization?

Read Galapagos if you want to engage with this concept further. The entire point of Galapagos is that humans should've never developed large brains because it just overcomplicated things. It's also a pretty good read, even if it's just Vonnegut.

 

[skjora]

- No reactionless drives, no Bussard ramjet, and no FTL: the most advanced propulsion is rockets, solar sails, and that Project Orion thing with bombs?

That's fine. We've a whole solar system, and there's no pressing need to reach another star in a single person's lifetime.

- Scarcity remains a thing as replicators like in Star Trek may not be possible?

In a state of complete post-scarcity, people would eventually seek it out at some kind of frontier or make it at home through conflict anyway.

- Computing limits means "quantum computing" or adding more processors may be the only way to go, and the limits of it will soon be reached?

You have to factor in accumulation of data. The more pre-calculated information you have and the more efficient your processes become, the less brute force you need for a given task. I don't know if there's really a limit to this.

Or in other words, what if the modern world is more or less at the limit of what nature allows technology to do, aside from new uses of tech like smartphones or Twitter?

We're nowhere near any limit in for example medical science and genetics, and new applications/increased affordability of previously known technology still creates fairly significant changes. Probably can't expect as many massive immediate paradigm shifts, but that's not really a problem.

 

[Narutard]

Or in other words, what if the modern world is more or less at the limit of what nature allows technology to do, aside from new uses of tech like smartphones or Twitter?

We just need a big brained millennial or zoomer to figure out how to exploit quantum mechanics.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

We just need a big brained millennial or zoomer to figure out how to exploit quantum mechanics.

I doubt it. There's the fad of "quantum mysticism".

also there's this:

So you know, university Physics is essentially three years of this discussion among like-minded enthusiasts.

Done with supercomputers, access to the textbook collections of five continents and thirty languages.

On four hours sleep a night.

With no sex.

You're not going to find the loophole these guys missed.

(source)

I think it's still possible - however unlikely - that there's an exploit in quantum mechanics or other physics that allows FTL though.

 

[Narutard]

I doubt it.

So do I, but whenever humanity thinks it has it all figured out some Einstein, Newton or Tesla figure comes along and shows just how retarded everyone else is.
And quantum particles don’t seem to follow the established laws of physics, so who knows?

 

[Ms. 45]

What if we ban smartphones for everyone under 18 years?

I'll see your 18, and raise it to 25. It would be the healthiest thing we could do for society.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Can you imagine if water rotted somehow?

I don't mean through proton decay (if that happens) or fusing into iron via "quantum tunneling" over even longer eons, I mean like milk.

 

[Professor G. Raff]

Is there actually such thing as a libertarian leftist? The parallels between auth-right and lib-right are pretty pronounced, but no matter the persuasion, leftist wanting major government control over the individual is pretty baked in. People who are called or identify as lib-left are pretty much without exception calling for the same things the auth-left are in terms of control.

About the only way I can imagine actual lib-left people are commune hippies who have their own land and do the controlled redistribution thing, but with a group who chose to do so and agreed to it rather than being forced. Am I off base here? Is there something about the lib-left that seperates them from authoritarians I am missing?

 

[AnOminous]

Is there actually such thing as a libertarian leftist? The parallels between auth-right and lib-right are pretty pronounced, but no matter the persuasion, leftist wanting major government control over the individual is pretty baked in.

Yes, but left-libertards generally focus on civil liberties while right libs focus on property rights. Both of them are wrong. You don't have civil liberties if you don't have property rights and vice versa. If you focus solely on property rights you end up with a rape train without brakes, which is to say unfettered capitalism, and if you focus on civil liberties, while that's nice, enjoy having the right to own property, a gun, whatever, without the money to buy any of it.

The current flood of divisive, nihilistic wokeshit flooding society is from these capitalist corporations we were told would be controlled by market forces. Well that hasn't happened. Despite flop after flop and people making it abundantly clear they're sick of this fucking garbage, the supposedly profit-driven corporations continue trying to force this shit down everyone's throat.

 

[Cats]

 

[ToroidalBoat]

I seem to have noticed that every time Homo sapiens has a "progress revolution", it seems like the species as a whole goes crazy.

With invention of agriculture and developing large society, crap like slavery, tyranny, severe class division, large scale warfare.

With invention of industry, crap like wage slavery, overthinking academia, isolating anonymizing "society", communism, consumerism.

With invention of the internet, crap like wokeism, "social media culture", "smartphone zombies", "cancel culture", "The New Normal".

So if there's another "progress revolution" that brings about positive change, it'll also likely cause yet more insanity.

 

[Jewthulhu]

What if the limits of tech have more or less been reached?*

- No reactionless drives, no Bussard ramjet, and no FTL: the most advanced propulsion is rockets, solar sails, and that Project Orion thing with bombs?

- Scarcity remains a thing as replicators like in Star Trek may not be possible?

- Computing limits means "quantum computing" or adding more processors may be the only way to go, and the limits of it will soon be reached?

Or in other words, what if the modern world is more or less at the limit of what nature allows technology to do, aside from new uses of tech like smartphones or Twitter?

*(Despite What You Might Think, Major Technological Changes Are Coming More Slowly Than They Once Did - Scientific American)

I'm not 100% sure that the limit has been reached, but I think we can see the limit on the horizon and it disturbs people who seriously believe their Star Trek fantasy of a post-scarcity FTL Type V civilization (redundant I know) could be real with time.
The one thing I can speak with some minor level of authority on is biology, and while there is still plenty of potential for research and technological advancement, there are still some hard limits to what we can do. TLDR from what I understand gene editing will never replace eugenics as a viable way of creating a "superhuman," there will never be a way to run a comprehensive full blood test from a pinprick of blood, and we will never reach immortality.

 

[NewRetroVagina23]

I'm not 100% sure that the limit has been reached, but I think we can see the limit on the horizon and it disturbs people who seriously believe their Star Trek fantasy of a post-scarcity FTL Type V civilization (redundant I know) could be real with time.
The one thing I can speak with some minor level of authority on is biology, and while there is still plenty of potential for research and technological advancement, there are still some hard limits to what we can do. TLDR from what I understand gene editing will never replace eugenics as a viable way of creating a "superhuman," there will never be a way to run a comprehensive full blood test from a pinprick of blood, and we will never reach immortality.

Once the hard limits on what a human can do have been reached they'll just build a better human. When the limits of biology itself have been reached it's time for the rise of the machines (only at that point the term "machines" won't quite suffice, more like "artificial life"). Thinking the saga of humanity is anywhere near complete unless by our own choice is the acme of foolishness.