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What do you think our future holds for us?

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Book Review

Big History And The Future of Humanity by Fred Spier

This is a very explanatory book on the history of general history. It breaks down history in a universal aspect to simplistic understanding. But I will be focusing on chapter 8 “Facing the Future”. The chapter is organized by subtitles that go over universal and human history in a very detailed and understanding way.

Even though most of this book revolves around the explanation of human/universal history, but I would recommend this book to anyone who would want to learn more of complex history or those who are simply interested in human history and how it lead to what we are today. 

Spier dives into many possibilities of how life/humans on earth will die out. He discusses the possibility of the “Black Hole Era” which is self explanatory. A black hole is created from the collapsing of stars and galaxies. But he states, “a very long time from now, all of the matter in the universe will have disappeared as a result of the expected decay of all the elementary particles, protons, neutrons and electrons” (Spier 300). May not sound happy, but the good news is that we have time between that and us.

He also discusses the limited resources (soon to be declining) and how the world is being changed through technological advancements. “At the same time, ever more powerful computers are increasingly replacing human brains, which may lead to societies in which large numbers of less privileged people willl have no salaried work, and thus no energy resulting from it to maintain their complexity” (Spier 296).

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Academic Articles

https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=sso&db=asn&AN=65315878&site=ehost-live&scope=site&custid=s3915793

The article above discusses climate change and what the youth will face in the future. “Climate change describes the interrelated effects of this rise in temperature: from changing sea levels and changing ocean currents, through to the impacts of temperature change on local environments, which affect flora and fauna in varying ways “ (White 2). Though the change is happening slowly, it also brings up social conflict of environmental resources and causation of harm. The article then goes over the obstacles the youth will face such as inequality and diversity, survivalism and activism. 

https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=sso&db=asn&AN=134748797&site=ehost-live&scope=site&custid=s3915793

Artificial Intelligence has been part of governments for some time now. This article is strictly focused on answering questions people may have about AI in the government. A question asked was “ What are the distinctive characteristics of Artificial Intelligence from a political or international governance point of view? How can AI be governed adequately” which is responded with “AI is the study of machines capable of sophisticated information processing. AI systems enable us to automate, improve upon, or scale up critical human skills in prediction and decisionmaking. This makes AI a critically important, potent technology which—like electricity, the internal combustion engine, or the microprocessor—has the potential to transform the economy, society, and the military” (Dafoe 121).

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Op-Ed Post

In recent history, the Holocaust has been the biggest mass genocide recorded and has scarred this world for good.

https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/the-holocaust

But why though? Well obviously its because one person influenced the world to believe its ok to wipe out an entire race. Yea in the end its well known THAT’s not right. But the problem is that the reaction time to such actions took too long to prevent such horrific events to occur.

To list another event, Trail of Tears, also had a similar impact to the population of Native Americans that lived in throughout the North America. In the 1830s, the newly independent states created a law discriminating against the Natives and drove them out of their homes.

To bring it in back to the present, discrimination continues to corrupt this world we live in. Just a little over a year ago, a hate crime which ended up in the death of woman who seemed to have been targeted along with 3 others who are all lesbian.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/lgbt-history-month-queer-transgender-violence-discrimination-a8189036.html

And its not just about gender identity, but also race, religion and social standings. Yes its normal to judge and be judged, but to take it to the extreme to where a life/lives must be taken is no where near humane and is where our biggest threat lies.

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Primary Post

The Day That Crafted Modern Day Communications

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIRQg8AJxuw

Steve jobs introduced the iPhone to the world back in 2007. With a well thought out, humored speech, Jobs was able to hook onto his audience. He changed everything about the phone and the way we communicate as a species.

The iPhone was a big step into the future of modern technology. A lot of companies put time and money into creating apps on the iPhone as simple entertainment for the user and keep them occupied. A few years later, the popular phone came with the AI “Siri”. Siri came with a lot of benefits such as searching answers and listing reminders for the user.

As time went on, the world started to catch up with the future. Businesses began to build their own artificial intelligence products that will draw attention and give most benefits to consumers. But has the question about an AI take over cross the mind? Well that may not quite happen, but modern AI can become a threat to us humans. 

Today,AI has become so advanced that they will start to replace jobs. Researchers have robots mimic human movement and training them to move as such. Now we have politically powerful countries competing over AI.

http://fortune.com/2019/04/09/eye-on-ai-china-artificial-intelligence/

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Documentary

Have you ever wondered about the end? How it could happen and what might cause the end? Well the documentary below goes over this topic very well. 

This documentary consists a handful of professionals in their realms of science give their opinions on related topics of world ending scenarios. They list seven most likely world ending events to happen while humans are still around.

Death of a Star; Gamma Ray Bursts/Black Hole:                                                            The death of a star brings along two deadly factors gamma ray bursts and a black hole. Gamma ray bursts are explosions of radiated energy, extremely hot and (if near life such as on Earth) would cause horrific events to occur and deaths of millions. Black holes would collapse and suck-in everything around itself causing gravitational changes.

Artificial Intelligence:                                                                                                        Artificial intelligence is used so often by humans and collect endless amounts of information. It can evolve and adapt into a deadly threat to humankind that can have our days limited. AI would have access to military weapons and nuclear codes which can be catastrophic.

Super-volcanoes:                                                                                                           Super-volcanoes are massive canyons that are hundreds of miles across and hard to find. Scientists have theories that they are scattered all over the world, but hard to discover.

Asteroid:                                                                                                                        The dinosaur extinction is believed caused by an asteroid. Scientists stated that there could be one that will just pass Earth, and will eventually make its way back around and land in the ocean. It would wipe out every living thing on the planet and causing massive tsunamis and earthquakes.

Nuclear War:                                                                                                                   Humans and their different points of views are often exchanged in violent ways. Nuclear war between world super powers is stated that its a very devastating possibility to the end of humanity.

Plague:                                                                                                                          Flu and modern plagues threaten the life of today humans. with advanced technology, humans endanger themselves with possible release of deadly illnesses/diseases.

Climate Change:                                                                                                           Ice caps are melting, forest fires continue to outbreak and plenty more of environmental changes occur. More than enough of political views debated about climate change is going on for too long.

The end of the world is a well thought on topic. There are endless ways this world can end whether it is from a natural sense to mankind destruction. We humans try to keep a stable, living environment for us and others around us. Though we see that there are a few problems that do happen caused by us, a question we should start to consider is: how much help/chaos are humans causing to this world?

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Library Meeting

I’ve met with librarian Bob Flatley and he seemed very interested in my topic. He listed and emailed me sites of podcasts and sources that can be in great use for me. The End of the World and Future of Humanity are both podcasts that discuss over topics that are similar to my topic and the direction our future is heading.These two sources will most likely be the best source I have for my topic, but Bob also suggested I check out the library’s database, New York Times and the Future of Humanity Institute which I believe is going to be more of fact check sources. 

I plan on focusing more on events that seem more realistic than we actually consider. I will break up each potential event into its own part and go in more depth about how it could play out. I will also be comparing and contrasting how humans were before and after potential event. I have three main subjects I will be discussing throughout this topic and it will consist history, science and politics (I DO NOT HAVE INTENTIONS TO CONVINCE AND/OR CHANGE YOUR POLITICAL VIEWS AND SCIENTIFIC BELIEFS).  But I do genuinely believe these are three subjects that keep this world from growing. A lot of problems we deal with as a whole has at least one of the three subjects I named involved. Though there are plenty more problems around the world that are beyond this and more complicated, and I may even get into that on a more depth post.

A generalization for my posts will go over relations worldwide, critical scientific discoveries and recycled history. Fair warning, but I may bring in religion into the picture since that has a related connection to my topic and can even influence my argument into the message I want to get across. I will discuss serious events, but I will also probably go over events that are “impossible” which I believe has an influence in the world today.

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Human Race Over Time

We, humans, have a roller coaster of a history. From the separation between humans and apes to modern day crowded cities. The world went to war against itself twice, but have also achieved extraordinary feats. The end of segregation in schools of America and the birth of peace spreading world wide. We must agree that humans are an interesting species itself alone. Everyday history seems to be made with records being broken and discoveries coming to light, but not all things are always good. About a few years ago, a disease that has been frozen for about 75 years has killed a boy and hospitalized many more people. A couple of years ago, scientists have discovered “ 10-50,000-year-old microbes inside crystals in a Mexican mine”. With a test in 2016, researchers concluded that Paenibacillus was resistant to a majority of antibiotics, and with other bacteria coming back into the world through the glaciers.

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170504-there-are-diseases-hidden-in-ice-and-they-are-waking-up

But ignore that, the future of humans has been viewed as a tech-ruled world where humans travel to different star systems meeting alien species. Where scientific fantasy could become a reality. There has been plenty of talk about potentially colonizing Mars. But is that goal really realistic? Lets be real, with the modern circumstances we face today make it more difficult to believe that we can last that long enough to even witness it. People being divided against one another. There have been “over 270 reported murders of trans and gender non-conforming people in 2017″. This is just a small part of the problem that occurs worldwide and definitely has a role into the future of humanity.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/lgbt-history-month-queer-transgender-violence-discrimination-a8189036.html

I will talk about the paths that humans could possibly end up taking and what seems more realistic. How history can potentially repeat itself and scientific studies/evidence that might have us in doubt about the future. Our future has many outcomes, but which one is most likely to happen first?