Some Stuff on Energy.

     Energy, it runs our lives and we're made of it.

Reproduction, Energy and Planetary Annihilation.

     The above title is a play on the pop culture phrase "Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll", the three things people commonly associate with life in the fast lane. 

     As far as article starters go what could be better?

    Our planet is currently racing headlong down a similar fast lane as a result of one of it's inhabitant species. No, I'm not referring to the smartest of the bunch that would be the dolphins (Haha, a Hitchhikers reference)

     I'm referring to us human beings and the rate that we are using the resources of currently our only home in the Cosmos. We are now in the process of reworking the environment of planet Earth towards more extreme conditions that have never been seen before on the planet in its entire 4.6 billion year history. 

    We have caused most of that change within the past 100 years resulting in more alterations to the surface our homeworld in less than 0.00000217% of the time that it has ever existed.

    Amongst all that change, human population growth from reproduction is increasing. We're addicted to energy and we still keep those pesky nuclear weapons on hair trigger alert, prepared for a war with no possible winners.

    So we really are living in the fast times of "Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll".  An exceptional time of living on the edge, except it's our planet that is going to have to deal with the massive hangover.

Sorry Earth, We are never ever ever, going to reverse this.

The Cosmic Afterparty.

     All this talk about drastically changing landscapes, planetary engineering and global catastrophes has got me thinking of the vitality of addressing these challenges for emerging spacefaring civilizations.

     Imagine how across the entire Universe similar dramas are being played out on other planets and in other civilizations.

     I've been reading a lot of Isaac Asimov recently. I find his prose to be far more gripping and imaginative than Arthur C. Clarke. Many of Asimov's stories follow the adventures of spacefaring civilizations that have already made it past the fragile single planet stage. 

Our world, our struggles and the hopes and dreams of our species may be shared by other living things on other worlds as well.

     A common thread that lines Asimov's stories is the setting of a future civilization where all the challenges of today have already been dealt with.

     Asimovs' stories commonly reference the 21st century as the "Time of Troubles" or the "Perilous Days". The idea is that sometime in the future when we finally do solve our energy problems, our population growth problems and the various differences that divide the members of humanity we will look back to today and realize how childish it all was.

    I am an optimist. I look forward to the future and I try the best I can to communicate ideas that can hasten the arrival of that "World of Abundance" that everyone has been talking about. 

     But there is a big problem with this that I find very unsettling. 

    If we do solve today's problems some time in the future wouldn't there be equally greater problems to face once we've done so.

     This is where Sci-Fi stories commonly fall short in the details and leaves me reeling back to discover reality. 

We can imagine getting there, but can we imagine actually living there?

Infinity and Beyond

     Perhaps it is because of a lack of comprehension. We simply do not know where the future may take us and are content with just seeing the good that may come out of Science and Innovation without considering the consistent side effects.

    I think that even if we do solve the problems plaguing the humans of the 21st century, the problems plaguing the humans of the 22nd century would no doubt be 10x greater. Their energy crisis would be far beyond us. The algorithms they use for population control would perplex us to no end. Their ways of solving problems would simply stupefy us.

   All it takes is a little extra wisdom for our heads to catch up with our tails and realize that we are already living in the future and that all of tomorrows stories are written from the adventures of today.

Sincerely,
SonOfTerra92,
31/1/2014