You've probably heard the dictum that most people expect too much change in the short term and too little change in the long term. That has been true generally, I think, and it may be why we hear complaints about 'No flying cars yet!' and so on.
But if too many people are looking for short term exaggerated change, and if they aren't fully comprehending the extreme changes that can occur over the long term, I'm also concerned that the middle range is badly underrated and could catch us by surprise.
Let's call the short term from one to five years. It's almost certain we won't have flying cars by then, or a colony on Mars, or a pill we can take to cure all diseases. Of course, we might be well on the way to having online access everywhere all the time, and that could be quite useful, but it's unlikely that people will see anything within the next five years that will knock their socks off.
How about the long term? Let's call that from 50 to 100 years. How much technological, social, and political change should we expect to see in that time frame? Given the vast differences in the world today—in all three of those realms—as compared to the lives of people from early in the last century, it seems beyond argument that enormous changes are in store.
By the end of this century, if not before, many millions or even billions of people will spend much of their lives in nearly indistinguishable virtual realities. Fully developed biotechnology and genetic engineering will allow the creation of tailored plants, animals, chimeras, and whole biomes. Advanced nanotechnology, well beyond early generation molecular manufacturing, will completely revolutionize our infrastructures for living, working, traveling, and creating energy on earth and in space.
All of that is dependent, however, on our ability to get safely past the formidable barrier of the mid-range.
What happens during the period from five to twenty years from now is very likely to determine whether the remainder of this century will be one of unparalleled abundance, of devastating war and destruction, of warming-induced ecological collapse and mass deaths, or perhaps some miserable but survivable combination thereof.
We can illustrate the challenge with this simple chart where we see an early period, the near-term, with somewhat evenly matched levels of existential danger and our capacities to adequately manage and avert the worst of those dangers. So far, so good.
Over the long term, our human (and posthuman?) civilizations may be able to acquire enough capacity from growth of technological aids and scientific know-how that we can dependably stay ahead of the greatest dangers.
But it is in that mid-range period, as we rapidly develop powerful new technologies, and as we have to grapple simultaneously with huge new problems—caused by sea level rise, species depletion, mass human refugee migrations, crop failures and famines, state failures, pandemics, and more—that is when we will reach the test of whether we are fit enough, mature enough, and wise enough to make the right decisions.
And the time to begin making those decisions is now, not when the barrage of problems is upon us, but today.
A good start would be to make a thorough examination of all the issues raised by exponential general-purpose molecular manufacturing. CRN urges every large corporation, every big NGO, and every government body to undertake their own evaluation of the mid-term risks and rewards they may face, especially in the context of advanced nanotechnology, which will have deep and lasting effects on all of us.
IEET Blog