Transhuman Space 2110, 2130, 2200

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I'm starting to think about a THS campaign to run, someday. But I have this inability to run a setting "straight", I always want to do it differently in some way. An obvious way for THS is to move a little way into the future, and thinking about that led me to an idea about SF in general.

What you expect to happen is biased by your view of what's wrong now.

So I'm interested to know what people think are the problems in 2100 that may yield to socially acceptable technological developments, and if there would be enough motive/budget to attack those problems.

Technological development is always only half the story of events, and sometimes not that much. The feedback flows both ways.

Some things that may lie in the 22nd century for the THS setting:

1. The Duncanites hit the limits of their social arrangements.

The libertarian-anarchic arrangements of the Dunanites work, even given the in-game boost they receive for playability, because their population is both small and culturally homogenous. As their population grows, and vested interests develop, and more power concentrates in conflicting centers, the libertarian paradigm will give over to some more open form of government.

(The Dunancites already have a government, of course, which happens to call itself Avatar Klusterkorp. But that isn't a stable arrangement.)

What will emerge as the government of the Duncanites? That's the interesting question.

2. The social debate about whether the ghost is the original person is likely to be settled, one way or the other. The question is not whether the ghost is the original in objective reality, but what society perceives to be the truth, the resolution will transform the society and have implications for other debates as well.

3. Increasing technological control over the interlocked global ecosystem, weather, etc, will force the emergence of a world government on Earth de facto, even if not du jure. The conflicting interests of the major states on Earth will be resolved one way or another, but how? And by who? Are we talking about Jefferson and Locke, or Bismarck and Caesar?