# Writing About The Future



## galaxydreamer90 (Nov 27, 2018)

I have some ideas for writing a story that takes place 10,000 years into the future in which everything is peaceful. I have decided that in this future most people will now live in space in space stations. My MC will be a young girl who is about 12 years old and lives in space with her parents who are inventors and energetic 9 year old younger brother. My MC's parents want her to grow up to be an inventor like them, but since she's young she doesn't have much interest in that yet. Unfortunately that's all I can think of for this story. I'm not entirely sure what the technology will be like though I really like the idea of something similar to the iPad today, but more advanced, that people carry around with them. I'm also thinking that the MC has a best friend who is a girly girl and into the latest fashion though I'm not entirely sure what the fashion will be like though I have done some drawing of what the fashion might look like in my story. I suppose I'm off to a good start, but still I feel as though I could use more in my story. I really like the idea of a Utopian version of the future and really dislike the popular idea of a dystopian version of the future.


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## escorial (Nov 27, 2018)

What future


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## Guard Dog (Nov 27, 2018)

10,000 is a very long stretch. Probably too long to accurately guess at what the technology will look like.

Based on what I see now though, and some of the things I've heard proposed, humans likely won't be doing much of the inventing, instead letting A.I. and robots handle those chores. And any hand-held device will probably be right out, with preference going to implanted devices.


Sorry if that's not helpful, but it's honestly what I suspect will happen at very minimum.



G.D.


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## Guard Dog (Nov 27, 2018)

escorial said:


> What future



The one that won't have any use for either of us, most likely.



G.D.


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## Ralph Rotten (Nov 27, 2018)

Y'know, there is nothing that says there could not have been some setbacks along the way.
So even tho it is 10k years later, they had a few restarts so they may not be as advanced as all that.

But if you really wanna go with 10k years of tech advancement, then you will need to think way outside of the box. Nannites in your bloodstream would provide internet, connectivity, entertainment, communication, medical assistance.  Also, nannites could adjust your metabolism, make you fat, skinny, muscular, smarter, better hearing, better eyes, better math processors. Just look at everything in your life and imagine that all being built into you.

example: 
notepad to remember stuff-built in
internet-built in
animated tattoos
ability to survive under harsh environments
drugs-built in
jukebox-in your head

Essentially everything but toilet paper would be built in. nannites would likely even allow you to make bland food tasty/palatable or inedible foods edible.


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## Guard Dog (Nov 27, 2018)

Ralph Rotten said:


> Y'know, there is nothing that says there could not have been some setbacks along the way.
> So even tho it is 10k years later, they had a few restarts so they may not be as advanced as all that.
> 
> But if you really wanna go with 10k years of tech advancement, then you will need to think way outside of the box. Nannites in your bloodstream would provide internet, connectivity, entertainment, communication, medical assistance.  Also, nannites could adjust your metabolism, make you fat, skinny, muscular, smarter, better hearing, better eyes, better math processors. Just look at everything in your life and imagine that all being built into you.
> ...



You left out the possibility of robotic avatars that allow a person to live virtually through them, out in the real world... like that silly Bruce Willis movie that I can't recall the name of.

Edit: Found it.  Surrogates (2009)


G.D.


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## escorial (Nov 27, 2018)

Guard Dog said:


> The one that won't have any use for either of us, most likely.
> 
> 
> 
> G.D.



I live it... it's ok


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## Ralph Rotten (Nov 27, 2018)

Guard Dog said:


> You left out the possibility of robotic avatars that allow a person to live virtually through them, out in the real world... like that silly Bruce Willis movie that I can't recall the name of.
> 
> Edit: Found it.  Surrogates (2009)
> 
> ...





No I didn't.
Surrogates would be antique technology in 10k.


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## Guard Dog (Nov 27, 2018)

Ralph Rotten said:


> No I didn't.
> Surrogates would be antique technology in 10k.



Probably... Maybe...

I would've thought texting was a step backwards too, but look how popular that's turned out to be.

Could be that having your very own avatar that's like the silver liquid terminator turns out to be the latest rage.

G.D.


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## galaxydreamer90 (Nov 28, 2018)

I guess I'll have to think more about the technology for my story. I kind of like the idea of living in a virtual world through an avatar. Perhaps the peaceful utopia in the future is actually a virtual world.


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## DarkGhost (Nov 28, 2018)

10,000 years is a bit overkill, I'd say 500 years is the farthest you need to go. 
I have a hard enough time thinking about stuff 20 years in the future, I can't imagine what 10k year wood be.


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## Olly Buckle (Nov 28, 2018)

DarkGhost said:


> 10,000 years is a bit overkill, I'd say 500 years is the farthest you need to go.
> I have a hard enough time thinking about stuff 20 years in the future, I can't imagine what 10k year wood be.



Agreed, think of Christ as 2k ago, alexander and the ancient Greeks not three and the development of agriculture around 4k ago, then think how much technology has accelerated in the last two hundred years and add the possibility of technology inventing technology. You are talking somewhere more than twice our past history into the future, I think that is unimaginable.


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## Guard Dog (Nov 28, 2018)

Olly Buckle said:


> I think that is unimaginable.



Oh, I can imagine it, but it ain't no utopia... Not based on how things have gone so far. :grumpy:


G.D.


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## luckyscars (Nov 29, 2018)

Olly Buckle said:


> Agreed, think of Christ as 2k ago, alexander and the ancient Greeks not three and the development of agriculture around 4k ago, then think how much technology has accelerated in the last two hundred years and add the possibility of technology inventing technology. You are talking somewhere more than twice our past history into the future, I think that is unimaginable.



I disagree.

In HG Wells's "Time Machine" the time-traveler travels forwards to something like 800 thousand AD where he encounters the Morlocks and Eloi, humanity's descendants. At the end of the novel he actually travels millions of years into the future and watches the sun and then the earth die. I found all of that fascinating. 

Granted there is going to be very little that is scientifically sound about any futurism to the tune of thousands of years in the future - especially given what we know now - but that doesn't mean it doesn't have potential for imagination. The important thing is to make sure that you reflect the immense time jump in the imaginative qualities of the work. It would absolutely be ridiculous, for instance, to have people flying around in spaceships in 10,000 years or living in any way that is recognizable to us today. 10,000 years is also likely going to be enough time for some pretty significant biological changes a la Morlocks. That has the potential to be interesting but it is definitely tricky.

I say do it. Hell, make it 100,000 years? Why not?


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## Sir-KP (Dec 2, 2018)

Well, people of Paleolithic age didn't know there would be a flying iron steel driven and ridden by human. They also didn't know there would be something with holes emitting sound controlled by something not even connected physically to it.

Writers of the 1800 wouldn't imagine how their fingers could cast letters and make copies without having to rewrite them with ink and paper.

I also have my own favorite imagination and concept of the future. There are things upgraded to give more quality of life improvement and at the same time there will be degradation in exchange.

We can't imagine what 10k years is like. But in my view is that what we have now will thread itself to the future. Some upgraded, some degraded.


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## Olly Buckle (Dec 2, 2018)

luckyscars said:


> I disagree.
> 
> In HG Wells's "Time Machine" the time-traveler travels forwards to something like 800 thousand AD where he encounters the Morlocks and Eloi, humanity's descendants. At the end of the novel he actually travels millions of years into the future and watches the sun and then the earth die. I found all of that fascinating.
> 
> ...



I don't think we are actually that far apart, my position is that the reality of imagining anything more than twice human history into the future is not possible, let's face it we don't know what next year will bring, the world is full of surprises. I think you are saying something along the lines of we should not put limits on our imagination, I can see that. But I don't think any predictions more than, shall we say one hundred years, into the future are likely to relate to the actual state of things when the time comes, there are just too many potential variables. So let's rephrase. I accept we can imagine anything we wish, I don't believe we can imagine the future with accuracy, and the accuracy will rapidly decrease the further into the future one goes.


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## luckyscars (Dec 2, 2018)

Olly Buckle said:


> I don't think we are actually that far apart, my position is that the reality of imagining anything more than twice human history into the future is not possible, let's face it we don't know what next year will bring, the world is full of surprises. I think you are saying something along the lines of we should not put limits on our imagination, I can see that. But I don't think any predictions more than, shall we say one hundred years, into the future are likely to relate to the actual state of things when the time comes, there are just too many potential variables. So let's rephrase. I accept we can imagine anything we wish, I don't believe we can imagine the future with accuracy, and the accuracy will rapidly decrease the further into the future one goes.




The thing is, when has any story set in the future predicted anything "with accuracy"? It's all relative...

A story set a few decades from now is always going to be more accurate than one set thousands of years away, that's a given. However since this is a writing forum, not a science or economics or environmentalism forum, I struggle to see the relevance of accuracy or why people are fixating on it in this thread. Accuracy alone doesn't make a story better. Credibility does, but if the OP's story is set in - for example - a society of post-human creatures perhaps learning about the ancient history of humankind based on fossilized remains of Starbucks Coffee Cups etc, it would probably lack credibility to set it any sooner than thousands of years away. 

In any event there is some basis for predicting the long-term future of planet earth based on what we expect to happen in terms of geology, astrophysics, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Earth Not much, but it's not a total blank. 




Sir-KP said:


> Well, people of Paleolithic age didn't know there would be a flying iron steel driven and ridden by human. They also didn't know there would be something with holes emitting sound controlled by something not even connected physically to it.
> 
> 
> Writers of the 1800 wouldn't imagine how their fingers could cast letters and make copies without having to rewrite them with ink and paper.




In fairness, you don't know what people in the past could or could not imagine - you weren't there.


Sure I bet they would have been pretty amazed and all, but imagination is a limitless power. There are plenty of ancient people who, through sheer luck or through ingenuity, did actually imagine some of what came centuries or sometimes millennia later. Da Vinci, for example, conceived of how a helicopter flies centuries before one was ever put into practice.


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## Cavex (Dec 2, 2018)

I think once leap forward by such big time jump you can do what you like. Who knows what will happen to human society, it gives you a free hand then setting a story just a couple of century from now. Look at Dunc books for an example that used a big time jump to build a very different society to anything we have now.


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## Jakov (Dec 2, 2018)

I personally think writing utopian fiction is extremely hard and complex; mostly because the centre of most novels is conflict and drama, an utopian society does not have that. Others also mentioned, and I agree, 10 000 years is quite a lot. It's impossible to accurately predict the technology of far future, especially considering the technological boom we're experiencing ourselves. I would personally be quite interested in a novel which discusses how humanity stopped living in the real world and chose instead to live in a virtual one when the techonology became sufficiently developed for that. I believe that could be a really interesting setting.


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## Dluuni (Dec 2, 2018)

At 10,000 years, you are effectively writing a story about a completely alien race. You can say pretty much ANYTHING. Everything is assured to be so different that there is zero reason to bother even trying to extrapolate. Just start worldbuilding an exotic alien race that looks humanoid and is born with generally humanlike properties.


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## Olly Buckle (Dec 2, 2018)

At least no one is going to be around to say 'I told you so' either way.


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## PiP (Dec 2, 2018)

...and the way life is going everyone will be gender neutral and sex will be a thing of the past.


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## Guard Dog (Dec 2, 2018)

Olly Buckle said:


> At least no one is going to be around to say 'I told you so' either way.



I dunno, Olly... There are people saying that the first person to live to be 1000 may already be alive right now.

And if a person could get that far, it's not out of the realm of possibility to expand that by yet another factor of 10.

Besides, I'm just contrary enough to stick around that long _just_ so I could say 'I told ya!"  :triumphant: :devilish: :icon_cheesygrin:





G.D.


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## Guard Dog (Dec 2, 2018)

PiP said:


> ...and the way life is going everyone will be gender neutral and sex will be a thing of the past.



Ah, the concept of sex will still be there... 

'Cause every time somebody goes to have their flyin' car worked on, they'll _know_ they're gonna get screwed. :| :dread::salut:


Edit: Another thought... Without sex, whatever will politicians do with their time?



G.D.


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## PiP (Dec 2, 2018)

Seriously...   imagine a world in which people aren't people. I've already been told by my 7 year old grandson there is no difference between men and women so we could take that a step further.

Look at this

https://allthatsinteresting.com/sequential-hermaphrodotism-sex-changing-animals


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## Guard Dog (Dec 2, 2018)

Eh, I know for a fact that bearded dragons' sex is determined by the incubating temp of the eggs. That happens while they're still developing, not once they hatch. ( I used to raise 'em. )




Same is true of chickens and other birds, to some degree, from what I understand.

As for the rest, animals do what's needed to survive, not because of some irregularity in their brains.
( Last I checked, it still took a natural biological male and female, or a really expensive lab, to make another human. You can't put a group of one gender or the other together and get 'em to reproduce by someone swapping genders. )



P.S. Wait 'til that 7 year-old makes it through puberty. Then the realization will set in concerning just how different men and women really are, and what a lie that 'no difference' crap actually is.



G.D.


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## Plasticweld (Dec 2, 2018)

PiP said:


> ...and the way life is going everyone will be gender neutral and sex will be a thing of the past.



A guy like me will then only be thought of as a myth, of days gone by. 

My Reason to finish school, girls don't date drop outs. 
My Reason to get a car, what girl would date a guy with just a bicycle. 
My Reason to get a good job, girls don't date guys that live in cardboard boxes. 
My Reason for good manners, what girl would date a slob with poor manners with no social skills.
My Reason to go workout,  learn how to fight, shoot a gun and learn the skills of diplomacy, girls don't date guys that can't protect them. 
My Reason to understand and practice my faith, my politics, my morals.  So that someday a woman would chose to have children with me. 


Without sex, and without a woman to have it with.

I would have no education, ride a bicycle, live in a cardboard box, have no manners or class. I would be fat helpless unable to articulate my views. 

I would have no faith to share, no ideology to pass on and no character to share.  Without a woman and sex, there would be no reason to do anything more than spend life behind a keyboard, nose buried in a book or do anymore than play a video game that inmates life. 

All the things that mean the most to me would be gone...I admit it, my life revolves around women and sex.   Boy am I lucky!


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## Guard Dog (Dec 2, 2018)

I also haven't bothered to point out that if humans become "gender neutral'... It won't be very long before there aren't any humans.

And that's even if they find other means of reproduction.

...they'll all die from boredom, and lack of motivation to do anything at all.



G.D.


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## PiP (Dec 2, 2018)

Guys - think outside the box  We are talking 10,000 years in the future, so anything is possible.



> I have some ideas for writing a story that takes place 10,000 years into the future in which everything is peaceful


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## Guard Dog (Dec 2, 2018)

Think outside the box???

Sugar, you're talking about the one 'box' most men ( and a fair number of women, apparently ) spend 9 months trying to get out of, and the rest of their lives trying to get right back into.

That ain't gonna change and have whatever comes next still be fit to call "human". :wink2:

Now, if somebody wants to write a story about whatever takes our place after we've annihilated ourselves, fine... but if a certain portion of the population doesn't have outdoor plumbing, and the other part the indoor variety, along with an almost-overwhelming compulsion to put the two together... it ain't human.




G.D.


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## luckyscars (Dec 2, 2018)

Guard Dog said:


> I also haven't bothered to point out that if humans become "gender neutral'... It won't be very long before there aren't any humans.
> 
> And that's even if they find other means of reproduction.
> 
> ...



Really? So all asexual people alive currently are bored all the time and lack motivation to do anything at all?

Such wisdom.


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## Dluuni (Dec 2, 2018)

*twitch*
I'm going to have to write on the asexual orientation at some point, aren't I? Gods, we are. Mighty and powerful gods. *nodsnods* Uncontrollable and about 1% of the population. 

Anyways, some gender distinction is inevitable just because of how it works with biological tags of various strengths to identify as one or the other and differentiate somehow. The specific forms vary wildly. 

Also, many cultures recognize three or more genders, and Romance languages are freakishly weird with the obsession with tagging everything, even inanimate objects and concepts, with what shape their genitalia supposedly is. For example, Ahtna uses linguistic "genders" to reference object properties like hard, soft, round, hot, wooden, metallic, etc. and you have to check for family relationships or other physical properties if you want to figure out what plumbing somebody uses.

Your language will be completely different, by the way, languages have a process of change. Each generation modifies pronunciation in a certain predictable way, and it continuously makes the language break and require innovation and change. Just because I keep seeing time travelers blend in because "It's still English" not recognizing that English will mutate rapidly.


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## Guard Dog (Dec 2, 2018)

luckyscars said:


> Such wisdom.



Such sarcasm.

And no, I'm not gonna go through 2 days talking about human motivations.

I've had more than my fill of psychology and biology lessons/lectures. I refuse to even attempt to give one.

All I'll say is that if that 1%  Dluuni is speaking of ever becomes a majority... The human race will very quickly become extinct.





G.D.


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## Guard Dog (Dec 2, 2018)

Dluuni said:


> *twitch*
> I'm going to have to write on the asexual orientation at some point, aren't I?



Well, you don't _have_ to, but if you want, go ahead.

I'll read it.

Doesn't mean I'll agree with it, but then, I don't always even agree with myself.





G.D.


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## Jack of all trades (Dec 2, 2018)

PiP said:


> Guys - think outside the box  We are talking 10,000 years in the future, so anything is possible.



This supports the potential of asexual humans : https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/asexual-lizards/

It would seem there wouldn't be any men at all. An unsettling thought.


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## luckyscars (Dec 3, 2018)

Guard Dog said:


> All I'll say is that if that 1%  Dluuni is speaking of ever becomes a majority... The human race will very quickly become extinct.



Do you have any scientific basis for this or are you just spewing stuff? I'm genuinely interested - I don't know what the world will be like either. 

I do know a liter of semen contains enough sperm to repopulate the entire world and that fertility clinics and research labs already have way more than that cryostored, with each sample having proven viability for 30 years and theoretically as much as forever. I also know IVF and other artificial reproductive technology is already well-established and reliable and constantly improving. I also know that it's 2018, there are hardly any asexuals, and Porn Hub is very popular.

Based on this, I think we can probably conclude that IF asexuality ever became the norm it would definitely NOT lead to human extinction. As a matter of fact there's papers about suggesting increasing artificial reproduction could actually make the process far more efficient, safer, and more beneficial (given the potential for genetic manipulation, which is not possible through traditional sexual reproduction) for humanity as a whole. 

You don't have to believe the latter point nor approve of asexual behavior, nor the promotion of non-binary gender politics, but if you are concerned about your reproductive value as a red-blooded hetero man then don't be: You have no reproductive value. No more than a gay or asexual man does, and that is an absolute fact. In 2018 sex is only essential for social/recreational purposes. Nobody is having sex because they have to in order to become parents. Women don't need men to reproduce and haven't for years now.


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## Dluuni (Dec 3, 2018)

Tsh. 
Apparently the Y chromosome is disintegrating over time, and furthermore, that's normal. At some point presumably it will go away, and then it will be up to us alphabet types - mostly the I's, really - to get past the hiccup while a new mechanism for regulating prenatal androgen/mullerian hormone levels develops, in a process that they know happens but haven't seen in action. That said, I wouldn't worry about aces taking over the world any more than gay or trans people becoming 100%. It's a statistical function, not a hereditary one, for the most part.

Aces are people whose orientation is partly or completely "None of the above", for the same basic reason that gay/lesbian people exist. We've learned a lot about how attraction works from them, because everyone demands they dig deeper to find something, and the notes on the scraps they individually find is very revealing. For instance, the fact that the kind of attraction you see people in the first 50% of a romance novel flaring out with is, biologically speaking, actually a completely different system of attraction than the kind they should have in the last few pages. Some people only have one or the other; Demi only gets the end kind, Fray only gets the beginning kind. Also, romantic attraction is separate from sexual attraction, and some people only have one or the other, or neither.

So I wouldn't worry about a takeover of LGBTQIA people, including total gender neutrality. Other than the bit of weirdness when the Y fizzles and the distributions go crazy until a mutation that substitutes for it appears.


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## Guard Dog (Dec 3, 2018)

luckyscars said:


> Do you have any scientific basis for this or are you just spewing stuff? I'm genuinely interested - I don't know what the world will be like either.



No, I'm not just 'spewing off'.
Scientific basis? Nothing I can hand you in one paper or report from one source on. You'll have to go through a ton of anthropological sites and sources, as well as biological and psychological ones.
( Good luck getting through all the Viagra ads when you type anything with "human libido" into Google's search bar. )

The claim is that the human libido is behind more than just a reproductive urge, and is behind the motivation for the human race to have survived many of the obstacles and hardships that got us this far. 
In other words, it is viewed as a "motivator" to survival and adaption of the species.
Its also stated that like the brain its self, the human sex drive and all of it's influences and effects are not well-understood.

As for any sort of asexual reproduction, adaptability ends up being lost there, resulting in less chance for survival if conditions change.

On a non-scientific side-note, turn on the TV and see how many times something is sold using sex, or some message is passed along with the same message.

Now imagine that going away.

Or better yet, try to imagine whoever's using those methods and making billions off of them allowing it to go away.

So... In the end, a loss of genders not only results in biological and psychological ramifications, it comes with socioeconomic ones as well.  

How soon and for what duration then becomes the question.



luckyscars said:


> I do know a liter of semen contains enough sperm to repopulate the entire world and that fertility clinics and research labs already have way more than that cryostored, with each sample having proven viability for 30 years and theoretically as much as forever. I also know IVF and other artificial reproductive technology is already well-established and reliable and constantly improving.



I already mentioned the expensive lab a few posts back up the thread. Yes, I know it's possible to reproduce that way.

But... What happens when reproduction is no longer a "do it at home" project, and ends up falling under the control of some outside agency? 

Do you really think that improves the odds of survival for the human race?

Do you not believe that could be the sort of thing that could and would start wars?

Am I afraid of any of this? No.





luckyscars said:


> I also know that it's 2018, there are hardly any asexuals, and Porn Hub is very popular.



I'm sure you do, but unless it's a joke, I'm not sure how it's relative.



luckyscars said:


> Based on this, I think we can probably conclude that IF asexuality ever became the norm it would definitely NOT lead to human extinction. As a matter of fact there's papers about suggesting increasing artificial reproduction could actually make the process far more efficient, safer, and more beneficial (given the potential for genetic manipulation, which is not possible through traditional sexual reproduction) for humanity as a whole.



No we can't. There's just not enough information to conclude anything for a certainty.

Especially not given the problems that would come along with non-natural reproduction.

Remember that when you throw real people in the mix - populations instead of figures on paper - shit tends to go sideways real fast due to the psychological factors.

Start TELLING people what they have to do? You generally have a fight on your hands.

...though I suppose a bunch of androgynous drones/clones might be pretty easy for an army well-supplied with testosterone to handle.

Still, it wouldn't bode well for the human race, no matter how that scenario turns out, would it?



luckyscars said:


> You don't have to believe the latter point nor approve of asexual behavior, nor the promotion of non-binary gender politics, but if you are concerned about your reproductive value as a red-blooded hetero man then don't be: You have no reproductive value. No more than a gay or asexual man does, and that is an absolute fact. In 2018 sex is only essential for social/recreational purposes. Nobody is having sex because they have to in order to become parents. Women don't need men to reproduce and haven't for years now.



First off, I'm not concerned one way or the other about asexual behavior. Nor do I give a damn about my own 'reproductive value".  My days of that even being a consideration are over.

And I sure as hell don't have any fears or phobias concerning gay or lesbians, or... much of anybody, to be honest.  I just find it amusing how little people see or understand about what's going on around them, and how things might/probably/will end up if some groups were to get their way.  ( And I am not talking about any QNE small group here. )

Btw... if nobody's having sex to reproduce anymore... why are fertility clinics doing so well?

Oh, and one other thing...

According to this... Men may have at least another 5 million years before the Y chromosome goes the way of the Dodo bird. And that's not the only article I ran across on the subject.


G.D.


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## bdcharles (Dec 3, 2018)

galaxydreamer90 said:


> I have some ideas for writing a story that takes place 10,000 years into the future in which everything is peaceful. I have decided that in this future most people will now live in space in space stations. My MC will be a young girl who is about 12 years old and lives in space with her parents who are inventors and energetic 9 year old younger brother. My MC's parents want her to grow up to be an inventor like them, but since she's young she doesn't have much interest in that yet. Unfortunately that's all I can think of for this story. I'm not entirely sure what the technology will be like though I really like the idea of something similar to the iPad today, but more advanced, that people carry around with them. I'm also thinking that the MC has a best friend who is a girly girl and into the latest fashion though I'm not entirely sure what the fashion will be like though I have done some drawing of what the fashion might look like in my story. I suppose I'm off to a good start, but still I feel as though I could use more in my story. I really like the idea of a Utopian version of the future and really dislike the popular idea of a dystopian version of the future.



Nothing wrong with a utopia. But for this to translate into a story, you will likely have to give your MC a problem or challenge that she must address or face the consequences. In a way this could function as a drama, with the future world as a backdrop for some themes or issues you might like to examine, but the fact of it being the future means readers may want some shiny stuff to not just feature but to be instrumental to the plot. Maybe the new device could be something grafted onto humans which is all fun and games until someone figures out how to hack it. Or maybe the space stations are running out of air or something. Just think of your utopia and think of one issue it may face, and write that. Good luck!


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## JustRob (Dec 3, 2018)

Ah, my specialist subject, although my skill is in writing about the near future, i.e. my own living memory. In fact my future was so near that it is now my past and I am currently checking how much of it I got right. When one writes about the distant future beyond all living memory then the rules are different. H G Wells took the precaution of doing that in _The Time Machine_. Nobody could ever deny that his time traveller was right about such a distant future.

The idea of being an inventor in the future must be a non-starter if necessity is the mother of invention because once all necessities have been met invention itself becomes unnecessary. Apparently sales of new smart-phones are already waning because the existing ones do pretty much everything that people need. In a sequel to my original novel someone invented a phone that could transmit a person's feelings directly to another, which made emojis and even sometimes words totally unnecessary, but I doubt that that's an innovation on the horizon yet. In fact to sell anything the first step is often not to invent the device but to invent the demand for it.

The distant future gives scope for imagining how humanity itself has evolved or devolved. Has it developed new abilities or just continued to lose the ones that evolution gave it as it devolved all its responsibilities to technology? Even during my working years I saw this happening at my company. As we developed computer systems to perform tasks the staff ceased to know what had to be done in them. Terrifyingly even the department managers who were effectively still responsible for the tasks that the computers were doing for them didn't know what was involved. I remember trying to discuss one such task with the manager notionally responsible for it and he just said, "That's nothing to do with us. The computer does it," as though the computer had relieved him of his responsibility for it as well as the work. Already most of us are effectively specialists barely able to survive without our complex social structures to assist us. I recollect reading one science fiction story where spaceships were ancient technology that nobody understood any more but just used because they kept on working unaided for thousands of years and their designers were long extinct. 

A friend who went to create and run a training course in computer technology at a college was disillusioned by the experience, saying that the students no longer truly learned about computer technology but just about the interfaces, the fundamental technology being regarded as all done and dusted and not something that they needed to know about. I have seen the same thing happen at my old school. In my time there they had a "manual school" where we learned the hands on skills needed to fashion wood, metal and so on into useful objects. Nowadays they have a "design and technology centre" where the pupils create designs on computer screens and then CNC machine tools and 3D printers create the objects for them. At home now I can create useful objects, both the design stage and the actual physical task, by simply walking into my garage, looking at the piles of junk there and making what I need. That's a survival skill, but it isn't what modern children are acquiring apparently. Evidently even my angel and I can achieve more between us than later generations and we must assume that this trend will continue until in the distant future the human race is actually incapable of survival unaided and the least thing, such as a glitch in the technology or the evolution of an apparently insignificant new life-form, is able to eliminate it entirely. Let's face it, the film _Wall-E, _although fun, was actually about an appalling dystopian future almost as bad as in _The Matrix_.

There's no problem with creating a utopian future instead of a dystopian one, but one must also create a sound basis for its existence, an explanation of how the so easily achieved dystopian possibilities were avoided and continue not to be a threat. That's the challenge of world-building, to have a plausible explanation of how that world ever came to exist and what its strengths and weaknesses are before one even thinks about the story to write within that context.

My thoughts and writing on not just human evolution but also humanity's full recognition of the abilities that it has already evolved are too far removed from this discussion here to be worth mentioning.


----------



## epimetheus (Dec 3, 2018)

Guard Dog said:


> ... along with an almost-overwhelming compulsion to put the two together... it ain't human.
> G.D.



That's quite dehumanising language - about 1% of the human population doesn't count as human in those terms: some 70 million people. Certainly seems to be part of the spectrum of human experience, though far from mainstream.




Dluuni said:


> Apparently the Y chromosome is disintegrating over time, and furthermore, that's normal....



I don't know the details, but that view is hotly contended with a 50/50 split in the bio science community.


Either way, seems there's plenty of fuel for a good far future sci-fi. How about an entirely sex/gender neutral branch of humanity that have founded some utopia. Until some freaks with male and female identities appear to cause trouble in paradise - not new though, Star Trek TNG covered this, but they left plenty of nuances unexplored.




Guard Dog said:


> As for any sort of asexual reproduction, adaptability ends up being lost there, resulting in less chance for survival if conditions change.



That's unlikely, even if we just limit it to biological reproduction - asexual species still exist after all. Then if we add technological reproduction into the mix it seems very unlikely. Adaptability is the consequence of a phenotype interacting with whatever environment it finds itself in. If we can choose the phenotype of our progeny then we are likely to choose one that increases the chances of survival to any given environment. A Chinese scientists already claims to have edited a baby to be immune to HIV, so it's not much of a stretch for a far future sci-fi for complete gene editing.


----------



## PiP (Dec 3, 2018)

Maybe in 10,000 years the world will have destroyed itself and there  will only be cavemen intent on survival.


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## bdcharles (Dec 3, 2018)

JustRob said:


> Ah, my specialist subject, although my skill is in writing about the near future, i.e. my own living memory. In fact my future was so near that it is now my past and I am currently checking how much of it I got right. When one writes about the distant future beyond all living memory then the rules are different. H G Wells took the precaution of doing that in _The Time Machine_. Nobody could ever deny that his time traveller was right about such a distant future.
> 
> The idea of being an inventor in the future must be a non-starter if necessity is the mother of invention because once all necessities have been met invention itself becomes unnecessary. Apparently sales of new smart-phones are already waning because the existing ones do pretty much everything that people need. In a sequel to my original novel someone invented a phone that could transmit a person's feelings directly to another, which made emojis and even sometimes words totally unnecessary, but I doubt that that's an innovation on the horizon yet. In fact to sell anything the first step is often not to invent the device but to invent the demand for it.
> 
> ...



It would be ironic if utopia were our extinction event, like a huge giant massive cosmic 'game-over'.


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## Phil Istine (Dec 3, 2018)

bdcharles said:


> It would be ironic if utopia were our extinction event, like a huge giant massive cosmic 'game-over'.



I'm imagining the stars forming into the word:

*TILT*​


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## Terry D (Dec 3, 2018)

10,000 Years from now humans will still exist (barring a cosmic catastrophe such as a near-by gamma ray burst, or a continent-sized comet dropping by to say, "Hi.") but they won't be significantly different from us biologically, just as we are not significantly different from out ancestors of 10,000 years ago. The population will be significantly lower than today, either because humans wake-up and realize an ever burgeoning population is not sustainable on the Earth's limited resources, or because the wanton consumption of those resources leads to cataclysmic results and the human population is pared down to a tribal level once again by war, disease, famine, etc.

The current rate of population growth is not sustainable and flies in the face of the popular concept of humans as a space faring race. Space travel is expensive and resource hogging, even at the current infantile stages. The massive expenditures required to make off-plant dwelling feasible will be impossible while trying to sustain an increasing population even if fertility rates continue to drop. By 2100 the U.N. estimates world population to exceed 11 billion people. Almost 50% greater than today. That estimate assumes falling fertility rates, at current fertility rates the number of people scurrying around our planet would be in excess of 25 billion. At those population levels it will be very difficult to divert physical and financial resources to moving any significant portion of the population off-planet.


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## luckyscars (Dec 3, 2018)

Guard Dog said:


> The claim is that the human libido is behind more than just a reproductive urge, and is behind the motivation for the human race to have survived many of the obstacles and hardships that got us this far.
> In other words, it is viewed as a "motivator" to survival and adaption of the species.
> Its also stated that like the brain its self, the human sex drive and all of it's influences and effects are not well-understood.



But that's not what you said. If it was I would have agreed with you. Obviously sex is a big motivator and maybe the biggest, but it is NOT the only motivator for everybody in the modern era. 1% of the population is asexual. I actually live next-door to a person who is trans and also asexual (aromantic actually). He told me about his life once. He's 56, never been in any relationship of any kind, lives alone but is generally a very happy person. He has a good job as an IT consultant and takes great care of his home and yard. In your world a person like that would likely be depressed, unemployed, homeless whatever -- "because why bother?"

I see the asexuals of the future world as being much the same...? Why would it make a difference?




Guard Dog said:


> As for any sort of asexual reproduction, adaptability ends up being lost there, resulting in less chance for survival if conditions change.



Don't know what this means. Somehow adaptability is lost because the pregnancy came about via scientific decision instead of by two drunk people forgetting a condom? Don’t get it. 



Guard Dog said:


> On a non-scientific side-note, turn on the TV and see how many times something is sold using sex, or some message is passed along with the same message.
> 
> Now imagine that going away.
> 
> ...



Absolute nonsense and nothing whatsoever to do with asexuality. 

First, I'm not sure what channels you are watching but most successful commercials these days aren't particularly sexual anyway. The most popular ones (such as what gets shown during the Superbowl say) are humorous or heartwarming, not sexy. That's true in the world generally. Sure sexual content is popular, especially in certain genres of advertising (cologne, for example) but its not a cornerstone of marketing. It's one single element.

Second, even if that's true, that sexuality is essential to sell things, so what? Society changes, finds new stuff. You know what used to be major material for use in advertising 100 years ago? Racism. Look at ads from the 1900's-1950's and there's very little sex but an awful lot of stuff about how certain dishwashing liquids can turn black skin white and that sort of thing. Yup. Then when racial themes ceased to be acceptable for use in ad campaigns there was no "socioeconomic" harm. 



Guard Dog said:


> I already mentioned the expensive lab a few posts back up the thread. Yes, I know it's possible to reproduce that way.
> 
> But... What happens when reproduction is no longer a "do it at home" project, and ends up falling under the control of some outside agency?
> 
> ...



I think this is verging into conspiracy theory stuff. Personally I don't have much of an opinion on the relative benefits of artificial versus natural reproduction. I don't have any experience with it myself and it's not my field. Guessing it ain't yours either.

What I do think is there is probably relative benefits of both, but that from a simple standpoint of "better genes, longer lives" that scientific innovation is generally a positive. I don't think there is going to be warfare over test tube babies, but I don't really know. Neither do you. 



Guard Dog said:


> There's just not enough information to conclude anything for a certainty.



"There's just not enough information to conclude anything for a certainty," says the man who one post earlier said that if asexuals ever become a majority it will *definitely* end up in humanity going extinct?

You’re right. There’s not enough information to conclude anything for certain. That’s why I picked on you for doing exactly that.




Guard Dog said:


> Especially not given the problems that would come along with non-natural reproduction.
> 
> Remember that when you throw real people in the mix - populations instead of figures on paper - shit tends to go sideways real fast due to the psychological factors.
> 
> ...



Ah yes, the clone-drone army with their dresses and make up and kale crackers and alternative pronouns, quickly dispensed of by an army of testosterone-fueled "real men". 

No, you're totally right, this is very likely to happen and is sure to be a total bloodbath. I'm sure the testosterone fueled alpha males will win though..?



Guard Dog said:


> First off, I'm not concerned one way or the other about asexual behavior. Nor do I give a damn about my own 'reproductive value".  My days of that even being a consideration are over.
> 
> And I sure as hell don't have any fears or phobias concerning gay or lesbians, or... much of anybody, to be honest.  I just find it amusing how little people see or understand about what's going on around them, and how things might/probably/will end up if some groups were to get their way.  ( And I am not talking about any QNE small group here. )



So you start by saying you are not concerned/phobic/etc and end by saying "nobody understands what will happen if some groups were to get their way" in relation to an alleged existential threat to humanity. That is two contradictory positions.

I hear this stuff a lot from people who worry about getting called bigots. Look, either you are concerned or you are not. If you are legitimately not concerned then you are one of those people who does not "see or understand" this immense threat, the one you are either certain or uncertain exists depending on the moment...

Head-bang-wall. Moving on.



Guard Dog said:


> if nobody's having sex to reproduce anymore... why are fertility clinics doing so well?



I think you should read this statement of yours again. Slowly.


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## Dluuni (Dec 3, 2018)

Yeah, I have doubts on 'inventing' as a career in a remote future. In one set of notes, now boneyarded, for a Star Wars themed story, I noted that everything about the universe was known. Case in point, in the movies, they aren't making advances with research and invention, they are making advances with civil engineering. In other words, tech in that setting isn't dreamed up in a lab under scientific research of new novel discoveries, it's a process like this:
"We know how to do it, but we can't build anything of a large enough scale to take advantage of it." - pretty much every science/tech literate person in the setting
"Hold my beer." - Person who has consolidated absurd amounts of resources to be able to coordinate mindblowingly massive feats of civil engineering


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## clark (Dec 3, 2018)

Lemmee play Devil's Advocate. Sci Fi has always struck me as an easy write, compared to 'conventional' fiction. A novel I'm currently working on features characters from the RCMP and JTF2 (Canada's elite, and secretive Special Forces).  Details of training, proper language for given situations, history of, ranks, etc. have to be _perfect,_ and research at times is exhausting.  In sci fi the writer must be consistent with details once a fictional 'world' has been created, and the science should parallel real science. . .but a world 10,000 years from now can be any damn thing you want it to be. Easy. Relatively.


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## luckyscars (Dec 3, 2018)

clark said:


> Lemmee play Devil's Advocate. Sci Fi has always struck me as an easy write, compared to 'conventional' fiction. A novel I'm currently working on features characters from the RCMP and JTF2 (Canada's elite, and secretive Special Forces).  Details of training, proper language for given situations, history of, ranks, etc. have to be _perfect,_ and research at times is exhausting.  In sci fi the writer must be consistent with details once a fictional 'world' has been created, and the science should parallel real science. . .but a world 10,000 years from now can be any damn thing you want it to be. Easy. Relatively.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Special fORCES



Mostly agree but with the crucial point that it can't be quite ANYTHING or else (1) It won't be recognizably "our world" and (2) There are some aspects of physics that are more or less certain with regard to, say, how tectonic plates will move and so on. Terry D and others already mentioned that there are certain things that can be considered likely. It's not a total blank slate.

Easy write? Not sure about that either. Certainly balancing the relative freedom of having fewer links to the present time with making sure there is at least _something _that makes clear it is the same world -  the fossilized Starbucks coffee cup lid - doesn't strike me as all that easy if one wishes to achieve a sense of credibility. But I guess that depends on the writer.


----------



## Guard Dog (Dec 3, 2018)

luckyscars said:


> But that's not what you said. If it was I would have agreed with you. Obviously sex is a big motivator and maybe the biggest, but it is NOT the only motivator for everybody in the modern era. 1% of the population is asexual. I actually live next-door to a person who is trans and also asexual (aromantic actually). He told me about his life once. He's 56, never been in any relationship of any kind, lives alone but is generally a very happy person. He has a good job as an IT consultant and takes great care of his home and yard. In your world a person like that would likely not exist and if they did would be depressed, unemployed, homeless whatever -- "because why bother?"



The higher the percentage of the population rises, the greater effect, no mater what you're talking about, what the condition or situation being discussed.

Also, it would be best to define the terms we ( you ) are speaking of; Are you talking about Biological Asexuality, or Mental/Emotional asexuality or some combination of both? 

And is the person's body still capable of acting as a biological male or female as far as reproduction goes?

If so, then the results will different ( for the general population ) than if it's otherwise.





luckyscars said:


> Don't know what this means. Somehow adaptability is lost because the pregnancy came about via scientific decision instead of by two drunk people forgetting to use a condom? Nah.



If you don't know what it means, go look it up and study it a bit.

And no, it has to do with an animal reproducing via one parent. Essentially biological cloning.




luckyscars said:


> Absolute nonsense and nothing whatsoever to do with asexuality.
> 
> First, there are far fewer sexually-themed commercials now compared to a couple decades ago, mainly due to changes in values, and yet the advertising industry is bigger than ever. I'm not sure what channels you are watching but most successful commercials aren't particularly sexual anyway. The most popular ones (such as what gets shown during the Superbowl say) are humorous or heartwarming, not sexy. That's true in the world generally. Sure sexual content is popular but its not the foundation of all modern entertainment. It's a single element.
> 
> Secondly, even if that's true, it doesn't matter. Society changes, finds new stuff. You know what used to be popular material for use in advertising 100 years ago? Racism. When racial themes ceased to be acceptable for use in ad campaigns nobody suffered from that.



If you think it's nonsense you either haven't been paying attention, or you're no where near as bright as I thought you were.

Commercials that are selling products that intended to make a person look prettier/younger/more appealing are SEX BASED.
Car commercials with what I laughingly call the "car bimbos" are SEX BASED.

Basically any advertisement that is using sex to distract, or to convince a person to pay attention to what is being said/sold.

I am not speaking about strictly-sexual products like Viagra, condoms, or anything of the like.






luckyscars said:


> You sound quite afraid.



I'm having a conversation/discussion. And that's something I can do with no fear at all.
Especially on a subject like this, that no particular impact or direct effect on me.
Yes, I find it interesting, but then, as I've said, biology, psychology, and the various other "ologies" have always been so for me.




luckyscars said:


> I think this is conspiracy theory stuff. I don't have much of an opinion on the relative benefits of artificial versus natural reproduction, honestly. It's not my field. What I do think is there is probably relative benefits of both but that from a simple standpoint of "better genes, longer lives" that scientific innovation is generally a good thing. No I don't think there is going to be warfare over test tube babies, but I don't really know. And neither do you.



It's always difficult to tell what someone else knows, especially if it's not a subject one doesn't know much or anything about.

Anyway, no, no one knows much of anything for an absolute certainty. However, one thing history has proven, it's that taking choices away from people, or taking control of certain choices, especially if they think something is a "right", never ends well.





luckyscars said:


> "There's just not enough information to conclude anything for a certainty," says the man who one post earlier said that if asexuals ever become a minority it will *definitely* end up in humanity going extinct.



I said MAJORITY, I believe... Meaning gender-neutral and androgynous, incapable or reproducing without the aid of laboratories and machines, and more than 50% of a population. At least it was my intention for that to be understood.

And yes, I did bother going through and reading up on what people far more qualified than you or I thought on the subject. 

Since it was simply their opinions, not any sort of documented study, I didn't bother mentioning it. However, their ideas on the subject are quite bleak when discussing the hypothetical possibilities of such things.

No, I won't look it all up for you again. You have the same resources I do in that regard.







luckyscars said:


> Ah, the clone-drone army with their dresses and make up, wielding kale crackers and alternative pronouns, quickly dispensed of by an army of testosterone-fueled "real men".
> 
> No, you're totally right, it will be a total bloodbath and is absolutely certain to happen. I'm sure the real men will win though.



More sarcasm and snark. Funny. And should be, since I was at least half-joking with that.
Still, when the tools for survival are in the hands and control of anyone other than the individual trying to survive... well, again, look back through history and see for yourself ho that kind of thing usually works out. 

So, no conspiracies, just observations. That's it.





luckyscars said:


> So you start by saying you are not concerned and end by saying "nobody understands what will happen if some groups were to get their way".
> 
> Either you are concerned or you are not. If you are not concerned you are one of those people who does not "see or understand". Do make up your mind.



I am a little confused, actually...

Why do you think a person MUST be concerned or afraid to have a conversation about a particular subject? 

Do you?

All I need is an interest in it. That's it.

No concern, fear, apprehension etc. required. Just interest.






luckyscars said:


> I don't want to be unkind to you, Mr. Dog, so I'll just say this: Go ahead and read this sentence again. Slowly.



Now you really are just being, snarky, sarcastic, and generally insulting.

And I can assure you my reading comprehension is just fine.

One last thing though... there's no need to call me "Mister" anything. Just G.D. or Guard Dog is fine here.


Anyway, not one of your better posts,, but still interesting and entertaining.

So, thanks for the conversation.




G.D.


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## epimetheus (Dec 3, 2018)

clark said:


> Lemmee play Devil's Advocate...



I can see your point, but i'll see your Devil and raise you a Cherubim.

Creating an entire world isn't necessarily easier than researching the real world. For one, even easy to research places, like an Emergency Department, are very often poorly portrayed in fiction - to the eyes of someone who worked there for 6 years anyway. Most people don't notice and when i scream out all the incorrect nuances  no one cares anyway. Apparently people want believable rather than realistic in their fiction.

Then, even a fantasy world needs tons of research (a good one anyway). Didn't Tolkien dissect the all the Norse mythology he could get - that stuff's not easy to get through. I once read P.K.Dick describing having to know all the nuances of ancient Greek literature - just because he's a writer and should know that sort of thing (maybe that was just him though). 

And if you're doing hard sci-fi then you've got your work cut out: there's a fanbase that expect nothing less than utter consistency with the known laws of science; with the time spent researching you might as well pick up a physics degree.


----------



## Guard Dog (Dec 3, 2018)

epimetheus said:


> That's quite dehumanising language - about 1% of the human population doesn't count as human in those terms: some 70 million people. Certainly seems to be part of the spectrum of human experience, though far from mainstream.



If you'll quote the whole bit in context, you'll notice I was speaking about something coming along after the human race was gone? So yes, it was dehumanizing in that what was described is a trait of a rather large percent of a population.

If it's a trait 1% don't share, that's one thing. Most or all don't? Something else entirely, don't you think?

But then, when you get into taxonomy, one small physical trait can make all the difference in the world, between classifying one animal and another. 

So how would that work if there's not only physical differences, but biological as well? 

I'm certainly thinking 'not human'.






G.D.


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## Dluuni (Dec 3, 2018)

Guard Dog said:


> Also, it would be best to define the terms we ( you ) are speaking of; Are you talking about Biological Asexuality, or Mental/Emotional asexuality or some combination of both?


When we talk about asexuals, we are using the established definition of asexual in terms of human beings: An individual whose inborn sexual orientation is such that they do not experience sexual attraction to other people, or to a lesser extent variations created by having only fragments of normal sexual orientation to other people.


Guard Dog said:


> I'm having a conversation/discussion. And that's something I can do with no fear at all.
> Especially on a subject like this, that no particular impact or direct effect on me.


Okay.. but you are talking about real people that exist and who are in some cases actually talking with you, so do try not to dehumanize them.


Guard Dog said:


> ..gender-neutral and androgynous, incapable or reproducing without the aid of laboratories and machines, and more than 50% of a population.


I see no movement toward that. I see pressure to CHANGE the present definition of what masculinity is like, but not to erase the category completely.
And that is because, to be quite blunt, masculinity as it has been is.. really bad. Centering the central ethos of half of the population around a pathological need to cripple themselves and do everything inefficiently, then to oppress and terrorize the other half of the population to prevent them from being able to do the same things is.. well.. garbage and a millstone around the neck of the culture that has adopted that ideal. It isn't mandatory, there are various counterexamples and the like scattered here and there that just didn't happen to have a bunch of iron and things like that lying around.


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## JustRob (Dec 4, 2018)

galaxydreamer90 said:


> I have decided that in this future most people will now live in space in space stations.



Why? On another thread I proposed a story where people lived in what appeared to be an enormous space station but it could simply have been that it used to be a planet before the population re-engineered the whole thing. If the back story is that mankind messes up the place where it lives so much that it has to move elsewhere, then it will also do that to the space station. 

The problems that humans have are the consequence of themselves, so they take those problems wherever they go. The things that we perceive as problems on our planet are a direct consequence of our having evolved on it; the planet itself doesn't have any problems that it can't sort out eventually. 

On a smaller scale one sees this happening in the case of refugees from countries that have descended into chaos. If the chaos is actually the result of the mentality and culture of the country's residents, then moving to another country can't work because they'll just take those flaws to the new country with them. The solution is for the people themselves to change wherever they live. Space stations are not the ideal place to live, so if humans couldn't manage to live on an ideal planet like the Earth then they'd never have any chance of dealing with the problems on a space station. This is another aspect of needing to explain how your utopia works.



bdcharles said:


> It would be ironic if utopia were our extinction event, like a huge giant massive cosmic 'game-over'.



I gave up thinking about my idea of utopia years ago when i realised that I, or rather people like me, wouldn't exist in it, so you are most likely right. As I mentioned above, we are the problem that this planet has, the reason why it isn't utopian. Anyone who can imagine a utopian world with humans dominating it has a lot of explaining to do.



Terry D said:


> 10,000 Years from now humans will still exist (barring a cosmic catastrophe such as a near-by gamma ray burst, or a continent-sized comet dropping by to say, "Hi.") but they won't be significantly different from us biologically, just as we are not significantly different from out ancestors of 10,000 years ago.



That's why I made the point about humans evolving not by changing but rather by fully realising what they were already capable of. My fiction writing focuses on human abilities that have lain dormant for millennia as the development of technology as a crutch has dominated human progress. It is claimed that what distinguishes humanity from other animals is that we became tool-makers instead of evolving further to solve our survival problems. Now we are wondering whether we stunted our evolution in order that the tools could evolve faster, even to the point that eventually they acquire their own ideas about how evolution should continue. Where we once used weapons to fight each other and deal with other threats those weapons may now have developed to the point where they can decide the strategies for themselves and we are starting to wonder whether we actually want to go there.

In effect that is why I have become interested not in advances in quantum computing, as a long term computer nerd like me might be expected to, but in the question as to whether the human brain itself is capable of a form of quantum computing already and whether that has been its advantage over what we see as highly advanced tools up until now. It's the same as the attitude that I have to my car. It is a high performance model but I still refer to it as a petrol-driven wheelchair and prefer to travel by public transport when it is convenient, which puts it in a different perspective. Public transport and a space station are similar in both being big complex machines that support our life-styles, but often fiction writers go to the opposite extreme and present utopia as being devoid of evident technology. 

H G Wells had it right all along in _The Time Machine_, that the question is whether mankind will evolve into Eloi or Morlocks or whether both are actually essential. In fact the real time machine in his story was humanity itself, not his mechanical invention, which is probably the point that I have been trying to make. Fritz Lang's 1927 film _Metropolis_ addressed a similar issue, that too having the elite race and the workers and the issue wasn't whether such a world should exist but how it should be managed to remain stable, which was not by oppression but by cooperation. If mankind evolves simply by delegating responsibilities then to whom or what will we delegate and will that in itself become our weakness as Wells's Eloi and Lang's elite encountered?

There are two ways to tackle such a subject, either as a frivolous but enjoyable space opera or as a more profound view of the human condition. You have to consciously decide which way to take it or at least how to balance those aspects for the story to have any integrity.


----------



## epimetheus (Dec 4, 2018)

Guard Dog said:


> So how would that work if there's not only physical differences, but biological as well?
> 
> I'm certainly thinking 'not human'.



Fair enough. 

Whether they're changed enough to be considered a different species depends on a few things. How the population became asexual (technological, natural biological, engineered biological, some mix...). 10000 years isn't enough time to evolve from sexual to asexual reproduction and i can't imagine what selective pressures could realistically drive evolution naturally that way (though it has happened in bdelloid rotifers). With the other two it totally depends on the direction it takes. If we have a population with no reproductive organs, entirely reliant on technological means for reproduction, but otherwise the same as humans i'm not sure we could class them as a different species. They could still take their DNA and mix it 'normal' human DNA to produce offspring otherwise identical to those created by sexual reproduction.  Species (like life) isn't a very well defined concept in science which makes it hard to gauge.


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## luckyscars (Dec 4, 2018)

Guard Dog said:


> So how would that work if there's not only physical differences, but biological as well?



Wait, can biological differences be separated from physical differences?


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## Terry D (Dec 4, 2018)

luckyscars said:


> Wait, can biological differences be separated from physical differences?



Diving this deep into the topic will require a more precise use of terminology, methinks. Since we are talking about the human organism, then, technically, any physical difference would be a biological one also. However, there can be dramatic physiological (physical) differences within the same genetic species (biological?). For instance, a six foot eight inch tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Swede has dramatic physiological differences (a different phenotype) from a Congolese pygmy, but both are still very much of the same species.

At this point we should start talking about things like phenotypes and genotypes instead of physical and biological traits.


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## luckyscars (Dec 4, 2018)

Terry D said:


> Diving this deep into the topic will require a more precise use of terminology, methinks. Since we are talking about the human organism, then, technically, any physical difference would be a biological one also. However, there can be dramatic physiological (physical) differences within the same genetic species (biological?). For instance, a six foot eight inch tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Swede has dramatic physiological differences (a different phenotype) from a Congolese pygmy, but both are still very much of the same species.



 Differences in height, hair color, blue-eyes and to some extent nationality (ethnicity) are all ultimately genetic differences even within a single species, which is still biology. There are zero natural physical differences I can think of between earth-based organisms that are no solely a result of biology. Other than identical twins, no two individuals are genetically identical and therefore no two individuals are physically identical.

Of course one could bring in cosmetic surgery, amputations, steroids, scars, burns, haircuts, tattoos, stretched-necks, stretched-ears, bones-through-noses, etc at this point as examples of "non genetic physical differences" but I don't think that's what he was referring to, nor would it be related to the topic in any way I can figure.


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## epimetheus (Dec 4, 2018)

luckyscars said:


> There are zero natural physical differences I can think of between earth-based organisms that are no solely a result of genetics. Other than identical twins, no two individuals are genetically identical and therefore no two individuals are physically identical.



The problem is that genotype to phenotype mapping is not one-to-one. Two tigers with identical genes will have different stripes. There's also environmental determinants in under or over-expressing many genes, meaning given identical genotypes two organisms in even slightly different surroundings can express different phenotypes (not to the point of having tentacles instead of arms though).

This paper's an interesting read, getting away from the 'DNA as blueprint' metaphor. Also further evidence that sci-fi is just as hard to research as 'normal' fiction, if not harder.


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## Terry D (Dec 4, 2018)

luckyscars said:


> Differences in height, hair color, blue-eyes and to some extent nationality (ethnicity) are all ultimately genetic differences even within a single species, which is still biology. There are zero natural physical differences I can think of between earth-based organisms that are no solely a result of biology. Other than identical twins, no two individuals are genetically identical and therefore no two individuals are physically identical.
> 
> Of course one could bring in cosmetic surgery, amputations, steroids, scars, burns, haircuts, tattoos, stretched-necks, stretched-ears, bones-through-noses, etc at this point as examples of "non genetic physical differences" but I don't think that's what he was referring to, nor would it be related to the topic in any way I can figure.



The conversation had devolved into a discussion of physical vs biological differences. I was simply pointing out that those terms aren't accurate for the discussion. In discussing the nature of humans 10,000 years from now talking about 'physical' vs 'biological' traits is going to cause confusion (and it seems to have done just that). More precise language is needed.

BTW: Even identical twins are not genetically identical for long. Environmental factors make subtle alterations between individuals at the gene level very early on. For all _practical_ purposes identical twins are genetically the same, but there are small, detectable, differences.


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## luckyscars (Dec 4, 2018)

Terry D said:


> The conversation had devolved into a discussion of physical vs biological differences. I was simply pointing out that those terms aren't accurate for the discussion. In discussing the nature of humans 10,000 years from now talking about 'physical' vs 'biological' traits is going to cause confusion (and it seems to have done just that). More precise language is needed.



And I agree with you... I was just clarifying that two organisms being of the same species, in this context at least, means nothing except they are more biologically similar than, say, a whale and a shark. That there are still biological (and yes, physical) differences within as well as outside of a species. 

The only reason the clarification felt necessary is because of this sentence: "Since we are talking about the human organism, then, technically, any physical difference would be a biological one also. *However,* there can be dramatic physiological (physical) differences within the same genetic species (biological?)." I just didn't want that "however" to be construed as allowing for wiggle room. You never know.

I think it's also fair to ask what counts as "physical difference" - like, how detailed are we going to be as to what constitutes an actual *difference*? Especially in the context of what could change over the course of thousands of years... Do freckles count as a physical difference, being that they tend to change seasonally and as the person ages from year-to-year? What about acne? Most people's hair color changes as they age, so even that is temporary. I fully expect eventually for there to be a cure for baldness and probably one for acne as well. Whether or not that necessitates a change to the person's genetics I'm not sure. Right now it probably would, but its hard to say when we talk about these small fixes.

 Of course cells live and die all the time so arguably there is no common physical presence in the body of a six month old baby and the same individual as a seventy year old man. A lot of what we deem as "a person" seems to come down to the genetic coding anyway, what dictates that the same birthmark will remain even if its constituent cells have long died and been replaced, and of course the rest is all non-physical.

 Epithemus mentioned the tiger stripes and presented an interesting paper on the subject of phenotype. Other physical changes can be the result of diseases, like polio - these are still "biological" factors regardless. As such the reasoning behind any Guard Dog's distinction between physical and biological, what he means by it, is still a mystery.


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## Guard Dog (Dec 4, 2018)

luckyscars said:


> As such the reasoning behind any Guard Dog's distinction between physical and biological, what he means by it, is still a mystery.



Sorry. First week of the month is always busy for me.

Anyway... By "biological' I'm speaking of the organs and chemistry of the body.

Does this organism produce eggs? Sperm? Both? Neither?

What organs does it have? What does it not? How many of each does it have?

I'm talking about anything that manages or creates chemicals., or what those chemicals do.

Physical would be the bones, muscles, etc. - Anything that has to do with the structure of the body and it interacting with the world.

Things like freckles, hair color, or even skin color to a degree tend to fall under the heading of 'chemical/biological' to me because they can change, whereas the width of hips and shoulders, the size of the head/skull, number and arrangement of legs, etc. don't once into adulthood.

And not that it matters, but I've just spent the last week going through various animal's taxonomic classifications researching some things for my wip.
And I've also spent a couple of decades raising various reptiles, and researching those and many others. This stuff is not unfamiliar to me.

Also, on a side-note related to the OP's subject of life in a far flung future, I ran across this late last night, once I had typed myself out:

Becoming immortal - VPRO documentary - 2018

It's a bit slow in spots, but if the OP ( or anyone else ) has 45 minutes to spend, and an interest, it's worth the listen. Might even be inspiration for further ideas.


Now then... back to my typing elsewhere. I'd kind'a like to get this current chapter done, since I didn't manage it yesterday due to other chores..


​

G.D.


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## midnightpoet (Dec 4, 2018)

Going back to the OP, it sounds like, with a 12 year old protagonist, they are writing a YA story.  It would be interesting, if that's the case, what would the future be like for a young person.  10,000 years, who knows - but it should, I think, be a story that would stir young imaginations as well as be something they could relate to.


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## luckyscars (Dec 4, 2018)

Guard Dog said:


> Sorry. First week of the month is always busy for me.
> 
> Anyway... By "biological' I'm speaking of the organs and chemistry of the body.
> 
> ...



Thanks for the clarification.

Still a little confused: You consider "physical" to mean things that don't change in a body once in adulthood? Because bones absolutely do change with age - their density changes and they become thinner, for one thing. That's why when an old person falls over it tends to hurt them more. 

It sounds like you are assessing anatomy based on relative degrees of apparent permanence. Of course hair falling out isn't visibly the same as bones rearranging themselves. The problem is the _concept _- that all of the organs in the body regardless of whether they are bones and teeth or blood and heart are subject to varying changes both on the micro level (within the body of a single organism within a single lifetime) and and the macro level (across a species over thousands of years) is roughly the same: Time + Environmental Influence = Change". What does it really mean to say bones are the "structure" of a body but something like blood or sperm/eggs are merely "biology" when both are equally essential to what it means to be human and equally needed?

Anyway, I think we can park this now that its clarified as this is not a science forum.

To return to the OP as I think I'm personally about done with the topic, I think the idea of setting a book that far in the future is a fine one provided, as always, there is some kind of utility to it and that there is nothing jarringly unscientific about your vision. Fortunately it will be hard to make any major errors given the timespan *but it is not impossible. *Definitely recommend not skipping the research, especially on geology and environment as both will impact majorly the outlook for the planet and there is research out there. 

Consider things that are expected to definitely happen over the next few millennia: You've got the high likelihood of super-volcano eruption (Yellowstone), massive earthquakes/tsunamis, genetic mutations, disease outbreaks, nuclear/biological/cyber warfare, and everybody's favorite - climate change. You should at least incorporate some of these ideas in or explain in some way how the issue was mitigated. Don't care if it's a YA book or not - kids deserve something that at least tries to make sense. 

By all means write your story how you want but if you try to write about a physical world that entirely resembles the one now it's not going to work IMO.


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## Guard Dog (Dec 4, 2018)

luckyscars said:


> What does it really mean to say bones are the "structure" of a body but something like blood or sperm/eggs are merely "biology" when both are equally essential to what it means to be human and equally needed?



You're exactly right. If it don't produce one or the other it ain't human. Which was my point all along: Androgynous/asexual on a biological level rather than just in appearance quits being human, even if there's a method of reproducing through outside means with stored or fabricated tissues.
( And we _are_ talking about as a species here, not an individual sample within one. )


Thanks.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread. *tips hat*




G.D.


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## JustRob (Dec 6, 2018)

Guard Dog said:


> Becoming immortal - VPRO documentary - 2018



Oops, at a glance I read that as "Becoming immoral" and wondered how far off topic the discussion had got. However, that prompted me to wonder whether the one leads to the other, whether an immortal can adhere to any morals eternally. It's even something that I hinted at in some of my fiction writing, that much of human morality relies on the fact that people don't live so long, so it's easy to define morals that work just in the short term.



midnightpoet said:


> Going back to the OP, ...



Too late for that. We're 10,000 years beyond that now.


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## Guard Dog (Dec 8, 2018)

Galaxydreamer90, something else for you to have a look at, concerning the future and what it might possibly look like:

National Geographic Documentary: Year Million (Artificial Intelligence)

Don't know how long this one will be up, so if you have an interest, best not put off watching it.


G.D.


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## JJBuchholz (Dec 12, 2018)

One of my short story series, 'Temporal Flux', takes place in the 27th Century. This is as far ahead as I have ever written, and it's always a challenge to research and come up with technology in that era without losing too many readers in the jargon or technobabble. It is by far the hardest set of stories I have written as of yet.

This suggests to me that while 10,000 years in the future might be fun to write about, it might also be a large pain in the rear as well.

-JJB


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## DarkGhost (Dec 15, 2018)

why does everyone think Space with the future? i don't care what happens to the earth but I doubt there would be an incident that would make me think that space would be better than here!


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## Guard Dog (Dec 15, 2018)

Go far enough into the future, and 'here' becomes uninhabitable.

And let the wrong thing happen in between now and then, and I guarantee you that you'll want off of this rock.

...and I'm not talking about human-made disasters. There's all sorts of natural situations that could turn ol' mother earth into no good place to live.

Remember, how things are now is _not_ how they're going to stay.
( Take a look at Mars if you want an idea of how Earth could look in a fairly short period of time. )


G.D.


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## JJBuchholz (Dec 15, 2018)

DarkGhost said:


> why does everyone think Space with the future? i don't care what happens to the earth but I doubt there would be an incident that would make me think that space would be better than here!



I didn't mention space. Nope, not me....

-JJB


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## Terry D (Dec 15, 2018)

Guard Dog said:


> Go far enough into the future, and 'here' becomes uninhabitable.
> 
> And let the wrong thing happen in between now and then, and I guarantee you that you'll want off of this rock.
> 
> ...



Mars isn't a good analogy for Earth's future, IMO. Mars is an arid, desert world because the planet is not large enough to maintain a molten/nuclear core. It had one, but due to the proportion of surface area to internal volume it's core cooled relatively quickly stopping the generation of any magnetic field to protect its atmosphere from solar winds. Venus is a better analogy, although Venus doesn't have much of a magnetosphere either and rotates much more slowly than Earth. Due to volcanic activity, Venus' atmosphere is thick with CO2 causing a runaway greenhouse effect which has resulted in surface temperatures of nearly 900dg F and atmospheric pressures at the surface some 93 times that of Earth.


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## Kyle R (Dec 15, 2018)

PiP said:


> Maybe in 10,000 years the world will have destroyed itself and there  will only be cavemen intent on survival.



... with the ruins of futuristic cities lying crumpled on the horizon ...

... while apex predators that are half-mammalian, half-reptilian stalk the lands ...

... and water is a rare commodity that people kill each other for ...

... and ... and ... :distracted:


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## Guard Dog (Dec 15, 2018)

Terry D said:


> Mars isn't a good analogy for Earth's future, IMO. Mars is an arid, desert world because the planet is not large enough to maintain a molten/nuclear core. It had one, but due to the proportion of surface area to internal volume it's core cooled relatively quickly stopping the generation of any magnetic field to protect its atmosphere from solar winds. Venus is a better analogy, although Venus doesn't have much of a magnetosphere either and rotates much more slowly than Earth. Due to volcanic activity, Venus' atmosphere is thick with CO2 causing a runaway greenhouse effect which has resulted in surface temperatures of nearly 900dg F and atmospheric pressures at the surface some 93 times that of Earth.



Let a large enough body (or multiple smaller ones ) pass close enough to earth to strip away a good portion of the atmosphere, and you end up with another Mars, not a Venus. 

And that's without a direct strike wiping out anything or causing a 'nuclear winter' by throwing up debris.

But as you've pointed out, there's that example too, which still leads to the same result; a need to be elsewhere.

And all of this precludes the fact that the star at the center of our solar system will eventually burn out in another 14 billion years or so anyway, burning this planet to ash when it turns into  red giant, long before then.

It really is a case of when, not if, something happens to change things for the worst. And if the human race isn't a space-faring species by then, it will become an extinct one.




G.D.


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## Jack of all trades (Dec 15, 2018)

Terry D said:


> Mars isn't a good analogy for Earth's future, IMO. Mars is an arid, desert world because the planet is not large enough to maintain a molten/nuclear core. It had one, but due to the proportion of surface area to internal volume it's core cooled relatively quickly stopping the generation of any magnetic field to protect its atmosphere from solar winds. Venus is a better analogy, although Venus doesn't have much of a magnetosphere either and rotates much more slowly than Earth. Due to volcanic activity, Venus' atmosphere is thick with CO2 causing a runaway greenhouse effect which has resulted in surface temperatures of nearly 900dg F and atmospheric pressures at the surface some 93 times that of Earth.




There's so much that's still being discovered about both Mars and Venus.

Actually, this link is kind of old : 
https://mars.nasa.gov/news/453/scientists-say-mars-has-a-liquid-iron-core/


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## Jack of all trades (Dec 15, 2018)

Kyle R said:


> ... with the ruins of futuristic cities lying crumpled on the horizon ...
> 
> ... while apex predators that are half-mammalian, half-reptilian stalk the lands ...
> 
> ...



Half mammalian, half reptilian? How did they mate? Or was it genetic modification?


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## Guard Dog (Dec 15, 2018)

Kyle R said:


> ... with the ruins of futuristic cities lying crumpled on the horizon ...
> 
> ... while* apex predators that are half-mammalian, half-reptilian *stalk the lands ...
> 
> ...



Mountain Gorillas gene spliced with Komodo Dragons?

...or maybe Tigers and Anacondas?

I know! Grizzly Bears and Rattle Snakes! :lol:

( Think "the Jungle Book gone wrong", with Baloo having his own built-in maracas :devilish: )




G.D.


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## Kyle R (Dec 16, 2018)

Jack of all trades said:


> Half mammalian, half reptilian? How did they mate? Or was it genetic modification?



10,000 years isn't really long enough on an evolutionary timeline, so I'd have to go with the ol' "science made new monsters" route.

Though, we did have some mammalian reptiles/reptilian mammals in our ancient past that were the top predators of their era, such as as the _Gorgonopsids_.



Maybe some enterprising _Jurassic Park_ scientists figure out how to bring a few into the modern age. Combine it with a future war that wipes out technology and further cripples the environment, and we're back to chucking spears and digging for water, while watching our backs for these things. :grief:

And what about weapons? Well, all of them they were of course destroyed during the Global Peace Accord in the year 5932, when it was discovered that humanity had evolved past the psychological need for interhuman conflict, thus we no longer needed civilian weapons. Which was why we were so decimated, with no defenses, after the unprecedented Future War in the year 7860.

... or something along those lines. :-k


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## Guard Dog (Dec 16, 2018)

Kyle R said:


> Maybe some enterprising _Jurassic Park_ scientists figure out how to bring a few into the modern age. Combine it with a future war that wipes out technology and further cripples the environment, and we're back to chucking spears and digging for water, while watching our backs for these things. :grief:



Might be entertaining to read about, but certainly not to try to live through...

By the way, that thing looks like somebody tried to cross a rhino with Komodo dragon and only succeeded in pissing it off. :nightmare:



G.D.


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## Guard Dog (Dec 17, 2018)

And yet another VPRO documentary on the future of the human race:

Scientists talk on the future of mankind

Again, a Dutch/English affair with English subtitles. 46:30 long.

It is mentioned in this program that "The emergence of post-humans could take just centuries".

That really makes that 10,000 years a near-guarantee that what'll be wandering around planet earth won't be human, *if true*.


G.D.


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## DarkGhost (Dec 17, 2018)

Why does there need to be a period of evolutionary..........evolution? It's just a theory remember.
it would be a more believable and interesting story, and more accurate BTW if you had a story set in a futuristic time, where corruption and moral depravity have caused the world to fall back to Stone Age but still keep futuristic technolgy. Have a blend of very old and very new.


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## Guard Dog (Dec 17, 2018)

Hey, the OP wanted a guess or other information about what things might be like 10,000 years in the future. 

We've all just been doing our best to provide those answers. ( such as they are )


G.D.


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## Jack of all trades (Dec 17, 2018)

Guard Dog said:


> Hey, the OP wanted a guess or other information about what things might be like 10,000 years in the future.
> 
> We've all just been doing our best to provide those answers. ( such as they are )
> 
> ...



I'm pretty sure DarkGhost is simply chiming in with a suggestion that is going in a different direction than some of the suggestions that have been made thus far. That doesn't negate anything already suggested.


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## Jack of all trades (Dec 17, 2018)

Kyle R said:


> 10,000 years isn't really long enough on an evolutionary timeline, so I'd have to go with the ol' "science made new monsters" route.Though, we did have some mammalian reptiles/reptilian mammals in our ancient past that were the top predators of their era, such as as the _Gorgonopsids_.View attachment 23071Maybe some enterprising _Jurassic Park_ scientists figure out how to bring a few into the modern age. Combine it with a future war that wipes out technology and further cripples the environment, and we're back to chucking spears and digging for water, while watching our backs for these things. :grief:And what about weapons? Well, all of them they were of course destroyed during the Global Peace Accord in the year 5932, when it was discovered that humanity had evolved past the psychological need for interhuman conflict, thus we no longer needed civilian weapons. Which was why we were so decimated, with no defenses, after the unprecedented Future War in the year 7860.... or something along those lines. :-k


My research into your example includes a bit of controversy about whether they were half and half (reptile and mammal). Even if they were, that was a step in evolution. To go back to such would be de-evolving. Though there could be an alternate reality sort of thing where they became the humanoid type animals. That would be different.


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