What will be the next thing that everyone goes through together?

[travelingtortoise]

I was just looking through my journals from 2020 and thinking about how I'd never experienced something like COVID where absolutely everyone was affected in some way by it.

Of course there are loads of political / social events that impact large swathes of society, but that clear, defined period of lockdowns, government updates, and everyone thinking/talking about the same topic because every single household was impacted was totally new (to me at least).

It got me wondering - is that going to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience? Or might there be other events that have the same reach? And if so, what might they be?

Not asking this to be a downer, by the way – I know it's unlikely to be anything very positive, and I wouldn't wish a repeat on anyone, but there was something really quite remarkable about it.

It's not rocket science to see disasters worldwide are getting worse and worse.

Anyone who waffles on about iPets has never had a cuddle with a real, stinky, slobbery and affectionate dog.

I feel sorry you!

You're not getting it.

People who don't/can't own a dog because of their circumstances, may just get an "iDog" because they don't have to walk it, clean it, feed it, pay vet bills, kennel fees, vaccinations, don't need to worry about what their landlord would say.

Once the "iDog" becomes popular, and it will because it will have a "personality" and be able to post on social media all by itself, text it's "owner" send pictures of what it "gets up to" when left alone. People will look down on owners of real animals, they will be called cruel, accused of imprisoning animals, abusing them, social media groups will push for a ban on people owning a real animals.

It will happen. Remember this will be driven by people who will have never owned a real dog, so they won't know what that bond is like, they will equate it to their smartphone. They will believe anybody without an "iDog" is a luddite and and animal abuser.

Donald Trump's hair will write its own AI programme involving golf courses, locker room chat and covfefe. From then on, all bets are off.

Of course not, because you believe the electronic pixels displayed on your screen are "real" money.

Do I?

If the tenner in your purse is "real", how can it also be "real" if its just a number on a screen? See what I mean?

No, frankly.

The high street bank then loans that money to you

The money in my account is money I have loaned to the bank and that I can require them to repay at any time. I've only got a loan from the bank if I'm in overdraft.

None of the rest of what you've typed makes sense, although I'm willing to concede that might be me.

Yes yes yes, everyone will be touched by this, mainly from loss of work. People will be moving en mass to technical jobs because the more mundane "office work" simply wont exist anything like it does now.

Nuclear war? A full exchange isnt even worth thinking about, A more conventional war is maybe possible but unlikely.
An accident at a certain nuclear powerplant, also pretty possible, lots of panic would spread like wildfire.
Tit for tat covert "accidents" and coincidences nordstream style reasonably likely.
Wait for communication lines between Europe and the US to get cut or interconnectors for power/energy to start to fail, that will effect everyone in the west as, for example banking systems fail and were back in time 50 years without the systems to work like that.

None of this is somewhere in "the future". By 2030 our daily lives will be unrecognisable

Back in the 60s in '10 years time' we were going to be travelling to work by jetpack while wearing our futuristic shiny spacesuits and not bothering with eating because it was all going to be in a daily pill. A decade or so later computers were going to be doing so much of our work we'd have more leisure time than we knew what to do with.

You think the money in your account is money YOU have LOANED to the bank?

Please Google Fractional Reserve Lending and get back to me.

Your understanding of money is seriously flawed.

Please Google Fractional Reserve Lending and get back to me

No thanks. (That's getting back to you, not googling).

I'm going to buck the trend here and say I think things will carry on pretty much as they have, no end to humanity. Some people will succeed and some will fail as has always happened.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Understanding Fractional Reserve BankingWhen you create an account at a bank, in the contract, you agree to allow that bank to use a percentage of your deposits as loans to other bank customers. This doesn't mean you don't have access to the money you deposited; it only means that if you want to remove more than the percentage a bank keeps on hand, such as the entire balance, from the account, the bank will need to access funds from somewhere else to give you your balance.
When you deposit money in your savings account, your bank can use an amount specified as capital to fund loans and pay you for using your money. For instance, say you deposited $2,000 in a savings account. Savings accounts pay interest—generally between 0.5% and 2%—so you receive an interest payment on your money, and the bank can use part of it in a loan. In turn, the bank might want to access 80% of your money to use as loans to other customers

In effect, I have deposited money with the bank, with the understanding tha tthey can use that deposit to lend out (which has always been my understanding). In return they might (or might not) pay me interest depending on the account my money is in and they have to make that money available to me when I require it. They aren't 'lending' me anything, I don't have a loan agreement with them. They're simply holding my money.

This is right up there. 👍 we are in a pivotal time in history.

Agree.

Agree with all of this, @onefinemess and choose to take an optimistic view of much of it. Like the internet, there will be upsides and downsides. One huge upside is AI will be vastly more intelligent that us and should be able to invent new materials, processes, ways to adapt physics and so on that will solve many problems. Not to mention the revolution in medical science and many, many other areas of science. The benefits to mankind are limitless.

On the other hand, we will have less and less incentive to think for ourselves, since the answer to absolutely anything we want to know will be right at our fingertips.

Back then we didn't have the current generation of AI.

Do you understand what AI is and why so many people are talking about it now?

Imagine a computer that is smarter that you.

Now imagine a computer which is smarter than every human on the planet.

Now imagine a computer which has knowledge of everything that has ever been written.

Now imagine a computer which can instantaneously process all of the above, can analyse it, contextualise it, and crucially, can improve on it. All in a fraction of a second.

Say you want to write a piece of code to make a robot dog run faster. AI can do that in a nanosecond by referencing every single article, book, paper, that has ever been published on the subject. It can then consider that code and suggest improvements to itself, then it can immediately re-run the code it just created and make it even better. AI can do in literally seconds, what a human coder would take weeks to do.

That's the difference.

AI is like a Nuclear Chain Reaction. One code leads to another, and another, and another, all within the blink of an eye.

Easily the best outcome - this one doesn't terrify me 😬😅

@Thetowelsareallwrong there all ready is an ai pet ‘dog’ it popped up on my feed the other day. You can YouTube it. I’ll try to link but not very good!

I would assume there will be another pandemic in our lifetimes, perhaps worse.

It will be a world war
World food famine due to climate change
Another pandemic
Ai

@onefinemess "Money" is literally created out of nothing by someone typing numbers into a Central Bank computer. The Central Bank then loans that "money" to the Bank of England, who loan it out to your high street bank. The high street bank then loans that money to you.

The Bank of England is the UK central bank.

The Central Bank then loans that "money" to the Bank of England, who loan it out to your high street bank. The high street bank then loans that money to you.

The Bank of England is the UK central bank

I didn't pick that major boo boo about the BoE up in the poster's comment, I'll admit. I mean, I'm pretty sure they're talking rubbish but that pretty much confirms it.

Gawd. I hate threads like this. They make my palms sweat. Not just the 'end of the world' stuff, it's the relish with which people talk about it.

Plus, if AI is such a threat, why was it created in the first place? What was that? A fucking accident? And why aren't folk just pulling the plug on it now, before it goes rogue?

I get the impression they are losing control of their bowels over AI. We know it is coming and it is going to have a major effect on society but I see it as beneficial in the long run. I mean, if it is not then why would we have it. If it is of no benefit then no AI Lord can profit from it.

Note the poster does not mention AGI.

Plus, if AI is such a threat, why was it created in the first place?

I don't think people deliberately create something like AI to be a threat, but some things can take off because people see the potentialities and the downsides only emerge later. And the media loves to tell you that AI is going to take over the world because they know that people love to read about doom and gloom and impending disaster - good news gets no clicks.

I recommend the book ‘sex robots and vegan meat’. You might find yourself surprised by the appetite for AI, uh…’companions’