How long humankind will survive?

[OkTex]

No way more than 500 years in my opinion...too much population and too little food and resources lead to wars of annihilation

 

[last-resort]

That's right! The radioactive materials that cause heating of the Earth center right now will decay as time goes by. As a result the magnetic activity will decrease and the high energy particle will hit the atmosphere. The phenomenon of aurora that we observe in polar areas will be observable and intense all over the planet. That means the Earth will be striped of its atmosphere and without atmosphere there will be no life. Also as time goes by the Sun loses gravity which in turn causes it to expand and the intensity of the heat will rise. None of them is good for life. Other words even everything else goes perfect on Earth in 500 milion years there will be trouble.

From #18 Things like magnetism, an active core, volcanoes, deep ocean currents, atmosphere, a Van Allen Belt (if that is still a thing), etc. are why Earth, our beautiful blue orb, is such a rare thing - regardless of discovery of many 'earth-size planets within a certain radius of a similar sun'.

I may be overstating it, but to support life, what Earth is, is what is required. Eliminate one of the features contributing to life on this planet, and likely within a short time, there will not be life - at least not as we know it. But, perhaps it only takes a certain distance from a similar sun (or equivalent distance-sun relationship), and an active core? In any case, we humans ought to appreciate Earth as the treasure it is.

 

[last-resort]

It is actually a very interesting scenario, and possibly coming soon to disrupt money flow in our economies. Right now people go to work, they make money, they buy stuff, money goes to factory/business, business buy materials, make new stuff, pays employees for work making stuff, people spend...etc, etc. Money goes in circle. Also people make money and pay taxes, government spends on services for people acting like one communal customer, money goes to businesses and people. In close future however, there will be almost only robots working in factories and services. Robots don't get paid and they don't buy stuff. Money flow as we know is interrupted.

Technically there still should be prosperity. Robots produce goods and serve, people consume. The problem is how do we distribute goods and services without people making money? Give them for free equally, or by needs? Total communism.
Should we tax businesses to the max? Businesses produce and sell, government gets most of the money in taxes, gives money to people (huge welfare system), people spend buying stuff, money goes back to businesses. The money flow is restored. There is another problem, industry can pack and leave to a country with lowest business tax, leaving high tax countries without production and will sliding into a poverty. Unless in the future, there is same high business tax for the whole planet.
Anyway, this problem will crop up soon, when more and more factories will employ only robots. There is interesting phenomenon happening in US during last decade, and related to this phenomenon. Thanks to robotics more and more US firms comes back to manufacture in States. When robots produce stuff the labour cost is of no consequence, therefore the best business location is close to the consumers, for cheaper and faster transportation. It is a good new for States, business people, few professionals, but not necessarily to US working force. Businesses come back but it doesn't translate in lesser unemployment and richer working class. This disrupting trend will only speed up, and at some point money flow will be severely skewed with huge consequences to whole economy and people. New economic model of money flow might be urgently needed.

One of my ideas is to make sure that all citizens become shareholders of local companies, or micro shareholders in every company in a country, and will be paid in money as dividends, or some kind of profit sharing. Money flow will be restored from producer to customer, and money that people make will mirror success and production of entire economy. Here is a funny question. Should citizens become shareholders at birth or at age of 18? You don't need to buy shares, it is an automatic process to share economy equally among every citizen.

I'm afraid, we like it or not, beck door communism might be around the corner, even if it is only on worker or consumer side. Business people and monetary capital will still operate as usual. Unless, at some point, robots can take these jobs away too?

From #16 You got to it, but I see a different denouement. As robotics, automation, remote mechanization (like farming with smart machines), internet commerce, digital commerce come into their own, say, within 25 years, there will be great disruption in society. A few will benefit, such as those Behind (owning/controlling/servicing) the new economy. Also benefitting will be those (few) who heal/treat/amuse/house/clothe/aestheticise those Behind the new economy. THE REST will be either fully impoverished or in low wage helping roles. In democratic societies, what will be the consequences? Maintain the status quo, or retard the process? (I think the election of Trump was America's answer to this. Hopefully not the final answer to this.)

Move the timeline another 25 years - and assume that 'progress' has not be retarded. Many of the (former) Behinds will be impoverished, too - no longer needed. Robots will be servicing robots. THE REST will be more impoverished. Move the timeline another 25 years, and very few Behinds will be needed. So, if 25 years seems too aggressive (I doubt that it is), then change it to 35 or 50 years. Within your children or grandchildrens' lifetime, they will face the effects of the hyper-automated economy.

So, as to communism, or whatever label is put on it, it will likely be prudent that society share in the benefits that the new economy brings. The danger will be retrograde and return to a primitive culture. The critical point is right now. The general society will never be again what it is now. How society handles those displaced/made excess in today's version of the future will likely determine how humankind handles the near future. If there is a future Jesus, then soon would be a great time to make His (re-) appearance.

 

[Nicu]

Hard to really say but probably at least a few thousand more years; not sure how long our current world order is sustainable though. I think that even though, sadly, there will be some brutal, vicious essentially apocalyptic war, at least some elements of humanity may survive. At that point it depends what is left of culture, knowledge, infrastructure, institutions, and ability to keep moving forward despite monumental loss. If it's too much we may regress into another long dark age or something tribal for a while. I'd like to think, perhaps somewhat naively, that we'd have put some roots down elsewhere off planet by then, but who knows.

I also fear that in order for humanity to move on to a greater form of governance, there may have to be some terrible conflict first, unfortunately. That's often how it's been historically.

I think the show The Expanse does a pretty decent and interesting job of presenting a somewhat "near" future in a few centuries and the early stages of space colonization in our solar system around us. We won't have contacted alien life really or live in some grand galactic society like Star Trek, but may have some colonies on the moon, mars, and people mining the asteroid belt for resources, and then these places become nations of their own in a way. People will always find ways to escalate politics and their endless competition over resources into conflict, of course. And weapons will only be getting more destructive.

Then of course there's the AI/robotic takeover/singularity scenario that others mention. I don't know, I still think we're a pretty far way off from that happening, at least a century. I've had discussions with people in the field as well as in quantum computing and they say we have a long way to go for some of these technologies to truly take off.

There's also the cyberpunk track where in another century or less people will start modifying themselves heavily with cybernetic implants and we will be communicating directly through our heads or tapping in to some wider system that way. And that will cause it's own problems, as rogue actors or even malicious government entities can take advantage of these things or cause massive damage. It's scary to think about.

I also wonder that if somehow humanity will survive long enough to colonize other distant planets, and then some of those get cut off from the rest of humanity for sufficiently long periods of time that they eventually develop into their own isolated subspecies that can look markedly different from others. There's a somewhat disturbing book and video about possible futures of humanity in the very distant future if we somehow spread around the galaxy and then get biologically highly diverged, partly by interference of higher alien powers, called All Tomorrows

 

[Cloud7]

Either Russia or the United States is going to press the launch button and the fall of civilization will commence.

 

[amandarogers]

Hard to say, but I think the end of humankind will not come that soon. And it's good that I will be gone sooner than it will happen