Iirc, it wasn’t just that as far as Star Trek goes. Iirc, most world governments and economic systems were destroyed, humanity was a mere fraction of its peak population. Humanity literally physically came together because it was necessary to rebuild.
Its one thing to have a common enemy/suffering without changing anything else as far as governments and social systems goes. It’s completely different when you not only have the enemy/suffering but to also need to literally rebuild everything from scratch
That’s just not true. WWI had a definitive winner in Europe, but not in the Middle-East. And Turks are still killing people unpunished. And Germany wasn’t a definitive loser, despite Entente countries making it really feel that role.
During the 2060s, Cochrane and his team of engineers began developing the warp drive. (Star Trek: First Contact) The challenge of inventing warp theory took Cochrane an extremely long time. (ENT: “Anomaly (ENT)”) In 2061, he was responsible for Earth’s first successful demonstration of light speed propulsion, though his work was far from complete. (VOY: “Friendship One”; ENT: “In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II” library computer file) His primary motivation for commencing warp technology was financial gain in the devastated, poverty-stricken America that existed in the wake of the Third World War.
He finally built Earth’s first warp ship, the Phoenix, in the hope its success would prove profitable and allow him to retire to a tropical island filled with naked women. A historical irony was that, contrary to the fact he went on to use the Phoenix to inaugurate an era of peace, Cochrane incorporated a weapon of mass destruction into its design; he constructed the Phoenix in a silo on a missile complex and used a Titan II missile as his launch vehicle.
(WWIII ended in 2053; First Contact was on 5 April 2063)
Ah yea it looks like I was forgetting large parts, either way I think it still reinforces my main point, we will probably go through a lot more pain and suffering before we can even come close to Star Treks timeline
I remember that space is completely unforgiving and we just aren’t up to the task for anything more than a token selfie by the best dozen humans we can possibly produce with great effort and training.
Astronauts aren’t superhumans and there is nothing “special” about their training. They are just pilots with stricter physical requirements. The reason why there aren’t many of them is because there is no need for more. Our technology is not there yet for cheap and “boring” space travel beyond low Earth orbit (and probably won’t be for a century at least). And there isn’t anything worthwhile for humanity out there anyway. At least at the current stage in our “evolution”. So for now manned spaceflight programmes are just vanity projects funded by politicians (for “national pride” or whatever) or some billionaire celebrities like Musk.
Also I don’t think that world peace would be necessary for space colonization. It could be born out of conflict or for economic reasons, like colonization of Americas. It’s simply that it will take centuries for us to reach a point when the prospect of leaving Earth will become attractive for regular people (if we survive that much of course).
As a species, we aren’t going to spread out there.
Well not with that attitude!
Yeah, space is hard and yeah mistakes have been made along the way. But things are definitely changing. Reusable rockets are nearly here… Between spaceX, rocket lab and stoke aerospace, there is real potential for these rockets to work. Hell, SpaceX has already conducted a successful orbital test flight.
With reusable rockets we’ll start to see a drastic reduction in the cost to get to orbit, probably by two orders of magnitude, but possibly even more. With the cost down people will reassess the value of space and the resources available there. In other words, people will start doing more in space, and getting more from space. Resource collection, refining and specialized manufacturing are three most likely industries to start expanding into space. Once there is work to be done there it will begin to make sense for people to live there.
As a species, we aren’t going to spread out there.
Not today, no. But within my lifetime, I expect we will. Remember, change is usually slow and this would constitute the most profound change in human history.
We aren’t even capable of caring for one another, let alone the EASIEST to maintain, most naturally human friendly habitat we would ever encounter in the cosmos as we evolved to fit it.
I would argue that having 8 billion people in the same place makes earth the hardest place to live in some ways.
One of the options that space habitats would allow for is smaller communities. What if you lived in a space station with roughly the population of a city? Your community wouldn’t necessarily need to be affiliated with other communities to make up a “country”, but it could be. Your community would have that option. And if the community is not geographically connected to the other members of its nation, there’s no reason they couldn’t change their mind, join a different country if you’re views seem better aligned. For the first time humans would have opt-in governance.
Would opt-in governance lead to a more stable society? Would not being stuck geographically near communities with opposing views lead to less violent aggression? I don’t know, but I hope so.
While everything living grows old and dies, and has its limits, we separate “<T> revolution” from “<T> normal development” for a reason.
I mean, what currently exists (with consumerism, incredibly wasteful production of electronic devices doing mostly useless work, less efficient production and organization being preferable when it allows someone to preserve power, Ponzi schemes of various kinds, ignorance and tribalism) is sometimes just a culture, not basic instincts (which have their downsides, but those are solvable). It’s not all cultures.
That culture has brought us revolutions unseen before. Then it stagnated and may die, but the humanity may survive and have more revolutions in the future.
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Tbf, in order for humanity to get where they’re at in the Star Trek timeline they had to go through WWIII: Nuclear edition
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Iirc, it wasn’t just that as far as Star Trek goes. Iirc, most world governments and economic systems were destroyed, humanity was a mere fraction of its peak population. Humanity literally physically came together because it was necessary to rebuild.
Its one thing to have a common enemy/suffering without changing anything else as far as governments and social systems goes. It’s completely different when you not only have the enemy/suffering but to also need to literally rebuild everything from scratch
The most horrifying possible outcome of a World War is, arguably, there being a definitive “winner”.
That’s just not true. WWI had a definitive winner in Europe, but not in the Middle-East. And Turks are still killing people unpunished. And Germany wasn’t a definitive loser, despite Entente countries making it really feel that role.
I’m pretty sure that didn’t really happen until after the Vulcans showed up, TBH.
From Memory Alpha:
(WWIII ended in 2053; First Contact was on 5 April 2063)
Ah yea it looks like I was forgetting large parts, either way I think it still reinforces my main point, we will probably go through a lot more pain and suffering before we can even come close to Star Treks timeline
The Bell Riots (and Irish reunification) are due in a few months.
“Wow, rude!” – Carl Sagan, probably
Astronauts aren’t superhumans and there is nothing “special” about their training. They are just pilots with stricter physical requirements. The reason why there aren’t many of them is because there is no need for more. Our technology is not there yet for cheap and “boring” space travel beyond low Earth orbit (and probably won’t be for a century at least). And there isn’t anything worthwhile for humanity out there anyway. At least at the current stage in our “evolution”. So for now manned spaceflight programmes are just vanity projects funded by politicians (for “national pride” or whatever) or some billionaire celebrities like Musk.
Also I don’t think that world peace would be necessary for space colonization. It could be born out of conflict or for economic reasons, like colonization of Americas. It’s simply that it will take centuries for us to reach a point when the prospect of leaving Earth will become attractive for regular people (if we survive that much of course).
Well not with that attitude!
Yeah, space is hard and yeah mistakes have been made along the way. But things are definitely changing. Reusable rockets are nearly here… Between spaceX, rocket lab and stoke aerospace, there is real potential for these rockets to work. Hell, SpaceX has already conducted a successful orbital test flight.
With reusable rockets we’ll start to see a drastic reduction in the cost to get to orbit, probably by two orders of magnitude, but possibly even more. With the cost down people will reassess the value of space and the resources available there. In other words, people will start doing more in space, and getting more from space. Resource collection, refining and specialized manufacturing are three most likely industries to start expanding into space. Once there is work to be done there it will begin to make sense for people to live there.
Not today, no. But within my lifetime, I expect we will. Remember, change is usually slow and this would constitute the most profound change in human history.
I would argue that having 8 billion people in the same place makes earth the hardest place to live in some ways.
One of the options that space habitats would allow for is smaller communities. What if you lived in a space station with roughly the population of a city? Your community wouldn’t necessarily need to be affiliated with other communities to make up a “country”, but it could be. Your community would have that option. And if the community is not geographically connected to the other members of its nation, there’s no reason they couldn’t change their mind, join a different country if you’re views seem better aligned. For the first time humans would have opt-in governance.
Would opt-in governance lead to a more stable society? Would not being stuck geographically near communities with opposing views lead to less violent aggression? I don’t know, but I hope so.
While everything living grows old and dies, and has its limits, we separate “<T> revolution” from “<T> normal development” for a reason.
I mean, what currently exists (with consumerism, incredibly wasteful production of electronic devices doing mostly useless work, less efficient production and organization being preferable when it allows someone to preserve power, Ponzi schemes of various kinds, ignorance and tribalism) is sometimes just a culture, not basic instincts (which have their downsides, but those are solvable). It’s not all cultures.
That culture has brought us revolutions unseen before. Then it stagnated and may die, but the humanity may survive and have more revolutions in the future.