I postulate........

[Admin]

I postulate that any genuinely major technical advance would destroy the world.

Teleportation, FTL travel, free energy, anti-gravity....any of those things would completely destroy the economic and social structures of the world and plunge it into chaos like never seen beofre.

Whole industries would collapse overnight, taking the financial pinnings of the planet with it.

Telelportation alone would make obsolete nearly everything we do, and how we do it. All trucking, moving, and transportation-related industries would die off in a heartbeat, along with the social structures that both supported and used them. Total world-wide collapse of most industry and manufacturing business would follow, and it might not be the kind of thing that we'd survive.

If 90% of the jobs today suddenly disappeared due to something like this, can ou imagine the anarchy that would ensue?

[kitten]

I do agree with you for the most part, but FTL?  I would think it would give rise to a lot of new industries, as well as allowing the most adventurous humans to explore the galaxy.  If done for the common good instead of simply corporate or national enrichment it could bring people together with a united goal.  Once mankind has traveled that far, it would be much harder to obsess with rivalries on one small planet.  I think it would be the mental stimulus to get people moving forward again, as in the early days of exploring the unknown areas of the globe.

[TehBorken]

I do agree with you for the most part, but FTL?  I would think it would give rise to a lot of new industries, as well as allowing the most adventurous humans to explore the galaxy.

I'm all for it, but I think few people would live through the upheavals that would occur as human society went into convulsions trying to figure out how to cope with the changes. Maybe I'm a pessimist. I just think things would be pretty hairy until a new equilibrium was reached. Whether that would take a decade or a century I have no idea.
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[Future Canadian]

It seems as though FTL would enable corporate evil at an unheard of scale. Imagine those a-holes hiding in deep space with no rules whatsoever. Literally the sky's the limit as to what they could get away with.[/DIV]I agree that our economic structure is a house of cards. So many areas are dependent on others that if one thing changed big, the whole network is affected.

[kitten]

Despite all the evidence around me, I still remain an incorrigible optimist.  But you are right, if there's a way to abuse power instead of using it for good, there are always people who will take advantage of others.  One always hopes for a selfless individual who will come up with something that will benefit all, instead of an unscrupulous few.

[tenkani]

Upheaval and short-term stresses, certainly. I think it would be worth it, however, if a totally clean, limitless source of power were discovered. Providing, of course, that it could be properly controlled. I don't particularly want my crack smoking next door neighbor to have a fusion reactor in his basement.

Anyway, if you've been following the latest rumblings out of the climatology world lately, we are likely fast approaching a climatological "tipping point", past which regaining control over climate change will be nearly impossible. At the same time, as massive markets open up in Asia and elsewhere, we're looking at millions of new drivers in the next few decades. Our dependance on oil as a source of power will be our undoing. So it was written in the great book of Shabu; so shall it come to pass.