To wonder what our next golden age will be?

[Brrrrrrrrrrrr]

Its a bit of an abstract one this but hear me out…

Given how bleak life seems to be for a lot right now both here and around the planet it has me wondering when humanity will take our next leap of greatness and what it might look like.

The last 100 years mankind has come so far in many ways and yet not so far in others, life today would look alien to someone living in just the 90’s let alone the 30’s

Think back to the eighties when life seemed decent enough, music was good, travel was good, lifestyles slowly started to embrace technology more, then the nineties came and brought the ‘world shrinking’ internet which has more or less shaped our lives until now. You’d think given this unfettered access to the world through your fingertips we’d choose not to have wars, have such polarised political differences or see people fall into poverty at the click of buttons ‘just because’, yet we do and it feels like it’s never questioned, ‘The way of the world’ so to speak.

Those on the breadline or living hard lives have very little light at the end of the tunnel, we can’t spend the next 10, 20 or 30 years in this stalemate when there’s so much potential waiting to be untapped, the need is there but the will to do it isn’t as strong. Right now money and the lack of it holds back and incapacitates billions of people, their path in life often resembles a very short dirt track with a wall a few staggered steps along when the fortunate ones seemingly have miles of beautifully tendered lanes to skip along. Mankind won’t last long if nothing changes soon, so what will give?

What do you think is going to be the next breakthrough that could change our lives in a positive way, once considered unimaginable? Free renewable energy, medical breakthroughs, AI takeover, Alien species contact, One World government?

What do you think is going to be the next breakthrough that could change our lives in a positive way,

One thing I can think of is if the human kind somehow manage to get rid of the negative movement like anti-science, anti-lgbtq, anti- climate change, etc. Otherwise, i don't see very bright future soon.

The age of Elizabeth III, commencing October 2108.

We have the developed world telling the developing world they can't have what we have because it's screwing up the natural resources yet we don't want to give up even 1% of our lifestyle to help ensure the world's resources are distributed more fairly.

Many have the whole of the internet in their pocket and mainly use it to show off on social media or porn.

We are screwed without clean air, water and a guaranteed supply of food there can be no next golden age.

A virus/ disease that wipes out half the population as there are too many of us.
Hydrogen for energy so global warming stops. We are on the way to this.

I can’t see anything really working with present size of populstion.

I agree with you here, there’s too many agendas which push ‘anti AND pro X’ beliefs which just seems to keep us in a state of constant polarised conflict. Something needs to give but what will it be? We’ve come a long way from tin baths in the front room and steam trains and you’d think we’d be happy with it yet we always seem to veer back to conflict and tough living.

Nuclear Fusion. If it's perfected then we'll have near limitless, clean energy.

Seconding nuclear fusion. We're slowly getting there: www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-63950962

Interesting idea. I feel like we reached the pinnacle of human progress with the adoption of gay marriage in some countries in the 2010s. Since then it's been unravelling fast. I don't think there's a golden age coming, sadly. Population growing too fast, global warming, consumption through the roof, social splits, political extremism ... it's either going to be nuclear war or a virus 1000 x worse than Covid. Kind of hope it might just be a meteorite, like in Don't look up. At least it would be fast.

I was veering more towards the hopeful side that something was coming to save us 😅 I agree about the ever increasing population and roof shattering consumption, what will be the straw that breaks the camels back?

honestly - every single futuristic film either has the whole world living in a post-disaster world where there are no resources and society has collasped or a sleek hi tech society for the select few and the rest in absolute poverty.

I think like others unless our population is reduced by half or more the above is the most likely scenario.

Look to the past, great empires rise and fall, iu think we are now in the decline of the current way of life.

OK, so the golden age bit comes after the meteorite. The planet is reborn or some such and a new type of kinder, more tolerant human emerges...

I watched a programme on space. The presenter said that with so many planets out there, there must be lots of alien lifeforms. And that the reason why none of them have made contact with us is probably that all advanced lifeforms destroy themselves before developing long distance space travel.

It's not just about numbers of humans it's about consumption.

So extremes here we need over 5 planet earth resources per person for everyone to live like in UK.
Under 1 planet earth to live like Bangladesh.

So one UK child uses as much resource as 5 Bangladesh children. 2 UK children, 10 Bangladesh children.

But we all expect to have as many kids as we like and if we have money for them to be fed. When countries start stopping exports until their own populations are fed, doesn't matter how much money you have if there is nothing to buy.

We need healthy soil. It's boring yes, but we need it. Climate, intensive farming erodes it.

What do we do then?

Yup this will make an amazing difference if used properly

My first thought was that the golden age of piracy felt a lot less golden for those being pirated. But I am going to be positive.

The whole nuclear fission thing is exciting and covid has led to a huge breakthrough in the mrna/vaccine technology. There is huge potential there to treat cancer and quickly develop treatments for new bugs. The lab grown meat stuff going on has potential to feed many more people protein with less animal cruelty. Driverless electric cars could lead to less car ownership, they just puck you up when you need, so fewer being made to begin with and polluting less. These and many other developments mean that there could be good things ahead. The whole of human history has been up and down cycles, just a shame we are currently the ones experiencing down.

Agree with nuclear fusion but it’ll be another 40-60 years before it’s making a difference.

It could go either way ...

Humans cease to exist.
War results in less humans.

There are too many of us, we are like a plague destroying our habitat. We are greedy, entitled, selfish and cruel.

I think one important factor for long term is education. Future generation understanding what's at the stake and change their way of life accordingly. And us older generation helping them, not hindering.

Short term, most imminent factor is Russia stopping the war on Ukraine. And rich politicians in the big industrial countries start taking climate change more seriously.

I really hope we get a breakthrough in clean energy sooner rather than later. I think it would fix a lot of problems.