What is the next age?

[Jaz]

This was our lunchtime discussion today:

If this is the information age, what will the next one be?

My short term (1 decade) was that information age will morph into security age. Everyone will be concerned with both physical and digital security. Strong firewalls (and alarmed doors, and other security measures that are only currently implemented by fanatics) will become commonplace and a natural part of society.

Another long term (10's of decades) answer was the resource age (all resources, not just fossil fuels will be in demand).

But we all know the real answer is the Mad Max age, where everyone chases each other in XC coupes.

[Scythe]

The advertising age, in which large corporations will find more and more intrusive ways to push their products in our faces, whether we want them or not.

[That Bloke]

Originally posted by Scythe
The advertising age, in which large corporations will find more and more intrusive ways to push their products in our faces, whether we want them or not.
Aren't we already about 2 years into that age? On that subject I think that e-mail spam should be outlawed globally & carry a penalty of Castration, lobotomy & having hands cut off.

[Cassa]

This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius

[pleed]

I think it will be an age where people are all relaxed.
ATM everything is so fast paced and we all work too much etc. I think we will realise this soon and then every thing will become much less demanding.

[ersatz]

haven't you played SimEarth? Next up is the Nano Age

[Scythe]

Originally posted by Cassa
This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius

Wasn't that a few years ago?

Oh, and as for the advertising, you ain't seen nothing yet. Wait till the police start getting sponsored by Smith & Wesson, people start getting paid to put giant billboards in their front yards, and people just over 18 start getting ten or twenty thousand dollars a year, in exchange for getting corporate logo's tattooed somewhere visible. Then we've reached the advertising age. :grr:

[iaidoka]

next is the THUNDERDOME age, where we ride around the desert with guns, and force people into arena's to FIGHT TO THE DEATH!

and if you break the deal.. YOU FACE THE WHEEL !

[oracle]

Well, there's a bit of dispute on that... Some Astrologers say the Age of Aquarius began in 1997, some say it wasn't ushered in until 2000. I always thought that the Age of Pisces began in 60BC, and with a processional age taking 2160 years to complete, that would put the Age of Aquarius at 2100AD.

Of course, I am willing to accept the fact that I may be wrong.

[MisterBishi]

I think the next age is going to be the Sausage.

[Urban3300]

Jaz already mentioned Mad Max but...
Nuclear winter age.

[sagit]

73h 1337 463!

[Jaz]

Originally posted by sagit
73h 1337 463!

We already had this. This was the period when:

* optus cable was uncapped
* napster was working
* TF (not tfc) was played often
* CS was enjoyed by everybody and was in beta < 6
* using the word 'uber' was in fact uber.

[utopian]

I'll let you know when we get there. It's pretty hard to predict the next breakthroughs in society and technology. I bet nobody saw microprocessors (or bronze) coming.

[Asmodeus]

Long term, I realisticaly see coming is: The Neo-Dark Age .. things will lull and grind to a stop, ludditism will be re-embraced as we suffer a backlash from the rush of technology outsrtipping humanity and culture's resources to absorb it.

[Lujan]

Originally posted by Asmodeus
Long term, I realisticaly see coming is: The Neo-Dark Age .. things will lull and grind to a stop, ludditism will be re-embraced as we suffer a backlash from the rush of technology outsrtipping humanity and culture's resources to absorb it.

I agree, the next age will be the 2nd dark age. Humanity's failure to embrace and adopt new technology will always be our downfall, if it wasn't for the first dark age, brought about by the church refusing to let people try new things, we would have reached the information age hundreds of years ago.

[BlueBoy]

Originally posted by Lujan
I agree, the next age will be the 2nd dark age. Humanity's failure to embrace and adopt new technology will always be our downfall, if it wasn't for the first dark age, brought about by the church refusing to let people try new things, we would have reached the information age hundreds of years ago.

I'm hoping you're wrong, but somehow I know you're right. :(

[Lujan]

Originally posted by BlueBoy
I'm hoping you're wrong, but somehow I know you're right. :(

Think about it. The Catholic church is trying harder and harder to stop people using condoms, which will increase the spread of aids, and other diseases, which in turn will wipe out a large percentage of the popultion, ok, so most of the dead will be from third world countries, but the more the viruses spread, the more chance of a mutation. How does airborn aids sound? A combination of SARS & Aids. Or maybe airborn Ebola. Now thats a real killer. With international Air Travel, it doesn't tale long before the whole world is at risk.

[utopian]

Just because they're trying to stop the use of condoms doesn't mean they're actually going to succeed. People are still having anal sex and they've been going on about that for centuries.

[Fuzzy Dice]

Originally posted by Lujan
but the more the viruses spread, the more chance of a mutation. How does airborn aids sound? A combination of SARS & Aids. Or maybe airborn Ebola. Now thats a real killer.


The HIV virus mutates so quickly that the virus you get is not the one you give. It's one of the things that make it so frustratiing. ps - it's a good thing that those viruses are all completely incompatible...they could never join up like the constructicons and make a super virus.

The age of antibiotic resistance is what's next. We're heading into it right now. Soon - very soon - there are going to be bacterial strains circulating in the population that are completely resistant to every single antibiotic we've got. There are lab strains that are totally resistant already. Even to Vancomycin, the so called 'silver bullet', the one that gets kept in the drawer as much as possible. They're working on new antibiotics, but....

So essentially....well, when you have a chance to get vaccinated for bacterial infections, uh, DO IT. Oh and the new flu strain is potentially lethal. Get your goddamned flu vaccinations.

[DrDivad]

it's gonna be the sexor age

[Cassa]

The cabora age!

I agree with what people have been saying about the neo-dark age though..society is long overdue for a downfall.

[Goat Boy]

I can't wait until the Olsen twins are of legal age.

[jmello]

i'll be keeping an eye open for the divided age, where the rich and the poor are so socioeconomically far from each other that the rich hold all of the wealth in the world, and gain control over everyone else, somewhat similar to the gilded age in the states..

[Cassa]

The gulf between the rich and the poor, assuming it continues, could well lead into a kind of speciation, where the rich can afford healthcare, longevity treatment, eugenics, embryo tweaking and so on where the poor cannot.

[rosamund]

The age of consent.

and I'm not just being funny. Increasingly we're living in an apathetic, sensual, anything goes atmosphere, or at least so I've observed.

The majority of society nowadays follow the path of least resistance, accepting or disregarding our governments' plans for us and other countries, or the rights of religious nuts to shoot their mouths off and cause us all some serious pain.

Dutifuly, they proscribe to the wage slave, weekend culture mentality in return for the knowledge that their culturally ingrained desires can be sated with the aquisition of wealth, and that their fellow citizens are just as willing to slide into this moral torpor with them, in return for their very own 20ft³ dream cube in the city.

This is the age in which we consent to almost everything thrust upon us, because hey, there's no other option quite as easy, is there?

[Lujan]

I highly recommend reading the essay's this guy has done http://marshallbrain.com/ its the guy who started the how stuff works site, read the robotic nation and manna essays. Very interesting

[kyuss]

Countdown to extinction...

9 years, 68 days, 2 hours, 58 minutes, 1 second

[iaidoka]

How about a slowly decaying empire where everything stagnates, technology is lost, everything slowly de - evolving ?

Why yes, I just re-read the Foundation series recently. why do you ask?

^_^

[That Bloke]

The science community seems to think it'll be the "Nano" age, tiny machines will be inside people, they'll be able to deconstruct things(dead, alive or inanimate) & rebuild them at the atomic level.

[Conny!]

I'm really hoping it will be the age of renewable energy, or somekind of cheap effecient energy like controlled fusion.

The nano age would be interesting. Anyone played Devastation? And elevators to space, that would be totally excellent.

But i was wondering could there possibly be a way for social upheaval that could be seen as a leap of advancement. Where everyone would just get along. Would probably require copious amounts of weed though.

[That Bloke]

Originally posted by St. Anger
I'm really hoping it will be the age of renewable energy,

Government needs to stop putting tarifs on Bio fuels.

[ersatz]

the last age?

[robotoverflow]

Originally posted by Goat Boy
[Olsen twins photo]
You're the man, Goat uhh... boy.

[rosamund]

Originally posted by Goat Boy
I can't wait until the Olsen twins are of legal age.

Goat Boy has attached this image:

I demand a follow up picture of what happened next!!!

[hazza]

The consumerist age?

The advertisement age?


Teh Pr0n Age?

[iaidoka]

Originally posted by hazza


Teh Pr0n Age?

Long live The Pr0n Age !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[reaperman]

The space exploration/colonisation age. (yeah right, but it'd be cool, huh?)

[wolfpac181]

We're pretty much in the age of SPEED..... Fiber Optics, broadband, uberhertz computers......

Next age is either the "holy shit, we fucked that up?" age or the "wheeeeeeeeeee Bush is out of the office, let's celebrate with world peace and a Thai hooker" age.

[utopian]

From the day that we were born we've been heading down a track
Sometimes it's made for good sometimes for bad
But if we look behind us there's a wave coming down
Carrying us forward to a new age

What about the world around us
How can we fail to see
And now that our fathers have gone
And we've been left to carry on
What about the age of reason

[kyuss]

This is a precision instrument for exploring the theory of time as a fractal wave derived from the King Wen sequence of I Ching Hexagrams. Based on extraterrestrial communications to Terence McKenna.

Timewave Zero 4.30 for DOS (http://deoxy.org/download/software/timewavezero/twz_win_4.3.zip)


bring on 21.12.2012