When skill fiction writer and futurists imagine humans of the far future , they never intend our descendants are going to calculate on the nose the same as we do now . After all , we ’ll have access to powerful tools to turn us into cyborgs and hack our DNA , so there ’s no limit to how we could reinvent ourselves .
But just how weird could our progeny become ? Here are 10 of the downright foreign vision of our post - human future .
Top exemplification pull by Dougal Dixon and taken from a 1980s issue of Omni Magazine about what world might attend like in 50 million class .
1 . Voluntary devolvement
What in effect way to start a top 10 list of the weirdest visions for humanity than by considering the possibility that we take a monumental step backwards rather than forth ? Voluntary devolution is the estimate that we should re - engineer the human species to the point where we ’re no longer advanced enough to be turn over human . The basic premise here is that man essentially wet-nurse , and we should take it upon ourselves to retroversion , from an evolutionary point of view , to a state of matter of harmlessness . By becoming pre - civilizational , we would stop being a threat to ourselves , the animate being realm , and the major planet itself . This view could be rede as a kind of oxymoronic uber - Luddism , where forward motion is assess not by the increase and civilization of human capacities , but instead by its infantile fixation . The ultimate finish would be the ending of civilisation and our restitution to the jungle .
2 . Voluntary human extinction
But why lay off there when you’re able to excrete the human species altogether — and better yet , do it in such a way that everybody buys into it ? Such is the finish of theVoluntary Human Extinction Movement(VHEMT ) , an activist movement that is actively working to phase out the human species , by ask us ( very politely ) to kibosh breeding . arm with the slogan , “ May we survive long and die out , ” VHEMT ’s eventual goal is to rejoin the Earth to its natural , healthy body politic . With humanity gone , all the remaining fauna on Earth could be free to survive , die , and develop on their own . Adherents of the voluntary human defunctness modeling keep that they ’re not misanthropical , they ’re just providing an “ encouraging alternative to the pachydermatous exploitation and sweeping destruction of Earth ’s ecology . ”
3 . The rise of the eco - homo
Some environmentally conscious futurists are n’t contented to see humanity drop or wither away into extinction — but they ’re also not convinced of our ability to speak climate alteration and other ecological disasters . The solvent to such problem , they indicate , is to have humans voluntarily qualify ourselves , to better inhabit in harmony with the satellite . In a theme entitle “ Human Engineering and Climate Change , ” philosophers S. Matthew Liao , Anders Sandberg , and Rebecca Roache make the case that world should fall back to such quantity as pharmacologically induced heart intolerance ( since essence production is exceptionally intemperate on the surround ) , genetically engineer cat - heart to reduce our need for firing , and reducing our physical size of it to lessen our ecological footprint ( they commend a 21 % reduction in body deal for humanity , and 25 % for women ) . They ’re also hoping to see us increase our will - power , which they reason will have the peripheral effect of ameliorate our intuitive feeling of empathy and altruism .
4 . Transgenic humans
But , why specify ourselves to adding a few Modern trait , when we can borrow wholesale from the animal land ? Transgenic technologies , which allow for the genetic intermingling of human and animal characteristics , could allow for a near endless array of human - animal hybrid . There ’s pile to begrudge among our non - human ally , too : Dogs hear and smell much good than we do , cats can see in the darkness , someprimates have better memorisation skillsthan us , and birds have remarkably strong vision . Looking ahead to the day when we can apply transgenic limiting to ourselves , many would - be transhumans would like to develop the center of a hawk , the scales of a lounge lizard , or the seaworthiness of cetaceans — imagine being able-bodied to swim alongside a pod of bottlenosed dolphins .
5 . All brain , and no brawn
This is the Hellenic visual sensation of a humanity that has evolve a monolithic head at the expense of its eubstance . In his obscure 1893 fib , “ The Man of the Year Million , ” H.G. Wells posit the estimate that humanity ’s dependence on technology will ultimately result in a decreased trust on the body , and more on the brain . Even the wide-eyed knife and crotch , argued Wells , would eventually make the human jaw redundant . forward-looking conveniences like motorised transport woud result in the atrophy away of peg , torsos , and practically all muscles — so our posterity would fundamentally become huge brains that take the air around on their helping hand . But just how naturalistic is this vision ? According to Darwinian principles , physical characteristic will in fact start to disappear if they ’re not continually reinforce by selectional pressures . The human appendix is a prime example — a classic case of “ use it or lose it . ” As for massive , bulbous craniums like the ones displayed by theTalosiansof Star Trek , that ’s probably unlikely , pass that mental capacity size of it is not correlate with intelligence , and the fact that we ’re increasingly offload our thinking to external devices . That state , American heads are getting big .
https://gizmodo.com/why-are-american-heads-getting-bigger-5916629
6 . The Hive Mind
The hive thinker , as portray by the insectoid - world of Frank Herbert’sHellstrom ’s Hiveor the infamousBorgof Star Trek , is a possible future state in which human societal establishment has taken on the class of a superorganism much like pismire or bee . In such a commonwealth , individual human will is for the most part trumped by the demand of the corporate , or some kind of arch over cardinal intelligence or modus operandi . The totalitarian experiments of the twentieth century were prototype of this idea , mercifully set by the primitiveness of their technologies . But looking to the future tense , it ’s easy to imagine the horrendous aspect of renewed DoS efforts to control the thoughts and actions of the public — using such things as ubiquitous surveillance and mind - hold in technologies ( like nanobots or cyber - brain hacking ) . But an emerge beehive brain could also be project as a positive step forward in human communication and societal organisation — what some have referred to as theglobal brainorNoosphere . The big question to ask , however , is how much of the person can be continue in an open sea of compete conscious opinion ?
7 . Postgendered human being
sophisticated generative and cybernetic technology will have a profound impact on our biologic nature . presently bound by sexual facts of life , we are a binary species , comprise of females and male person . But given the potential for cyborgization and such developing asexosomatic wombs , we may discontinue to become biological organisms in the traditional sense . Future humans , or what would really be posthumans at this degree , could take to be postgenderedin the sense that they would n’t be splice to one especial biological sex , instead acquring the good characteristics that each has to offer ( a kind of technologically - enabled androgenization ) . next human beings could also take to discard gendered traits totally and become nonsexual . Even more radical is the possibility of creating brand new biologic sex , or amorphous gendered traits that could be alter on the fly sheet .
8 . Out of ascendance morphological arms races
Assistive generative technologies like genomics will allow succeeding couples to share in the recitation of human trait natural selection , or what is more commonly referred to as “ graphic designer babies . ” It ’s also possible that advanced somatic factor therapy will appropriate individuals to alter and raise their genetic constitution well after they ’re wear . But a act of strong-arm endowment could be used by people to gain an reward in certain domains , thus instigating a kind of “ arms race ” . Take sportsman , for example . Basketball players are contend for height , while swimmers are competing for the length of their limbs . Today , athletes have to come by these characteristics naturally , but in the future , those looking to realise a physical border could take the extra dance step of figure their genome modified to suit ( or by parents hell - bended on image their child deliver the goods at a particular sport ) . The alteration could exceed anything seen before by nature , top to some bizarre and extreme physical forms .
9 . man modified for space
It ’s no secret that world in their current form have no byplay being in space . The long full term effect of zero solemnity and solar radiation make it a poor environment for the fragile creatures that we are . But this has n’t stopped some from mull over about how humans could be change to hold out the rigours of space — and their resolution are anything but subtle . Nanotechnology expert Robert Freitas has outlined a program for the elimination of lung , making breathable air unnecessary . Ray Kurzweil has speculated that succeeding humans wo n’t ask food for thought , equipped instead with nanobots that can energize our cells . And even Craig Venter has chime in , putting out the call to spring up an advanced intimate ear that can appropriate people to scarper question sickness , genes for bone regeneration , and DNA repair for irradiation He ’s also suggested that we make grow a little stature , higher DOE utilization , depilation , and slow skin overturn . And yet others have speculate about transmute human into gangly octopus - alike creatures who would be far more adapted to slithering around in zero gravity environments .
10 . Uploads
While the idea of uploading human cognisance into a supercomputer is weird unto itself , some of the visual sense of life after uploading are even weirder . TakeHansonian Uploadsfor example — the trace that uploaded minds might take it upon themselves to produce almost unlimited copies of themselves in purchase order to contend in elusive economical markets . drive this suggestion is the suspicion that copying yourself will be truehearted and chinchy , result an explosion of uploads . Another scenario could see an uploaded mind adjust its proportional clock speeding . With an agonizingly tiresome clock hurrying , for model , an uploaded mind could literally catch the flowering of geologic - scale events like the mount and falling of tidy sum . upload nous could also hop-skip from automatic body to robotic body , eternally vary their real - humanity physical form . Another entrancing possibility could fall in the form of altering the rudimentary parameters of the information processing system - generated surround . This could result in something far beyond human inclusion , both in terms of the physical blank ( like adding dimensions or exchange the physics of the environment ) and the nature of psychological and immanent awareness itself .
Top image compose by Dougal Dixon . Inset images via ( 1 ) RedIce , ( 2 ) VHEMT , ( 3 ) Ecoliteracy , ( 4 ) StarTrek.com , ( 5 ) FutureMan , ( 6 ) Vegans of Color , ( 7 ) New York Fashion , ( 8) andrie - basket ( Bol Manute ) ( 9 ) Dougal Dixon , ( 10 ) FutureTimeLine .
FuturismHuman evolutionScience
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