The human face in a 100,000 years.

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

colonelciller

Senior member
Sep 29, 2012
915
0
0
All the future evolution predictions will be flawed. It's based on the "survival of the fittest" mentality, except in the real world you don't know what "fittest" is until after the fact. Fit doesn't necessarily mean most attractive or healthiest. No one 50 years ago would have predicted that nerds would be accumulating the most wealth and power, and yet look at the nouveau riche billionaires in the business world.

Or if some super disease which produces a cytokine storm (like the Spanish flu or something similar to bird flu) comes around and wipes out a large percentage of the perceived healthiest among us, the ones who are left to repopulate the earth might not have any of the features that are chosen as the most attractive.

Plus the fact that social norms can change, and how populations and cultures mix can't readily be predicted that far ahead. 100,000 years is a ridiculous amount of time, though as a pure thought experiment you can come up with any ideas you want to.

In other words, this is just a sci-fi interpretation of one possible future. It's meaningless.

/thread
 

yllus

Elite Member & Lifer
Aug 20, 2000
20,577
432
126
It's popular to state that humans are getting fatter and slower, but the evidence says the opposite: We've never been a faster, stronger or healthier species. So why would in the face of that would we grow gigantic heads that our necks can't support?

Also, directly in contradiction of this article, humans brains appear to be getting smaller. This has been the case since we evolved away from Cro-Magnons, who also had bigger brains.
 

BUTCH1

Lifer
Jul 15, 2000
20,433
1,770
126
The world will still be here even if we are not as it's hard to blow up a entire planet to pieces short of building a death star.

When it's ready this planet will shake us off like a bunch of fleas, it's been here for 4.6 billion years and the sun has another 3-4 billion years of life left in it before it expands into a red giant and swallows up the inner planets. By the time another intelligent life form finds Voyager 1 all the information contained will be just ancient history...
 

SKORPI0

Lifer
Jan 18, 2000
18,503
2,430
136
Humans+in+100+000+years.+Guess+we+re+turning+into+anime+characters+Source_2412ae_4627087.png


http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthew...ow-the-human-face-might-look-in-100000-years/

Won't large eyes only be necessary because of the lack of light source, like those fishes who live miles deep under the ocean?
if the sun became suddenly dimmer (10% off original brightness), humans could evolve or shouldn't they just adapt to the changes.
I just don't see (no pun intended) this happening at all in 100k years.
 
Last edited:

HeXen

Diamond Member
Dec 13, 2009
7,840
40
91
That's kinda what I thought. I guess Aliens are really an advanced spices.

I like advanced spices, they make steaks taste so much better.


I just don't see (no pun intended) this happening at all in 100k years.

And just think back a measly 100 years ago, no one could see us walking around texting into a cellphone while ignoring everyone else, among hundreds of other things.

We have and experienced only this era's way of life and is why many have a hard time picturing it being any different. But change it will. We already have people who jerk off to watching anime cartoon girls with those overly large eyes.
 
Last edited:

Crono

Lifer
Aug 8, 2001
23,720
1,503
136
Humans+in+100+000+years.+Guess+we+re+turning+into+anime+characters+Source_2412ae_4627087.png


http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthew...ow-the-human-face-might-look-in-100000-years/

Won't large eyes only be necessary because of the lack of light source, like those fishes who live miles deep under the ocean?
if the sun became suddenly dimmer (10% off original brightness), humans could evolve or shouldn't they just adapt to the changes.
I just don't see (no pun intended) this happening at all in 100k years.

From the article:
Lamm isn’t talking about evolution, he’s talking about genetic engineering. He’s doing so somewhat naively, predicting that the only changes that will happen will be an enlarged braincase and enlarged eyes so we can use the computerized contact lenses that will apparently replace Google Glass. He’s not talking about real evolutionary forces, or even imagining the interaction between those evolutionary forces and genetic engineering all that well.

From the response:
Yes, I consulted Mr. Lamm for this project and the features we discussed are purely speculative (e.g. “one possible timeline”). So, secondly, I’m confused why these speculations are being misconstrued as “predictions” by you and your article.

It's a pointless article. Any one of us could have photoshopped something to that effect with a story to go along with it.
Sure, it's an interesting way to pass the time, but Yahoo Finance and Forbes really shouldn't be covering either side. It's a non-story.
 
Last edited:

tommo123

Platinum Member
Sep 25, 2005
2,617
48
91
All the future evolution predictions will be flawed. It's based on the "survival of the fittest" mentality, except in the real world you don't know what "fittest" is until after the fact. Fit doesn't necessarily mean most attractive or healthiest. No one 50 years ago would have predicted that nerds would be accumulating the most wealth and power, and yet look at the nouveau riche billionaires in the business world.

Or if some super disease which produces a cytokine storm (like the Spanish flu or something similar to bird flu) comes around and wipes out a large percentage of the perceived healthiest among us, the ones who are left to repopulate the earth might not have any of the features that are chosen as the most attractive.

Plus the fact that social norms can change, and how populations and cultures mix can't readily be predicted that far ahead. 100,000 years is a ridiculous amount of time, though as a pure thought experiment you can come up with any ideas you want to.

In other words, this is just a sci-fi interpretation of one possible future. It's meaningless.

in the not too distant future any natural evolution will be irrelevant as we'll be guiding our own genetic future.
 

Crono

Lifer
Aug 8, 2001
23,720
1,503
136
in the not too distant future any natural evolution will be irrelevant as we'll be guiding our own genetic future.

You can say that, but a World War III is inevitable long before then.
Human nature doesn't change.

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but world War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." - Albert Einstein
 
Last edited:

SlitheryDee

Lifer
Feb 2, 2005
17,252
19
81
I figure we'll have more radical changes than that in the next 1000 years.

He describes value being placed on looking more naturally human in 60,000 to 100,000 years. Seems more like that such trends will happen in rather rapid cycles with no clear overall tendency in any direction aesthetically, at least not one that can be pointed to over the course of 40,000 years. Not only that, but with the presumed widespread space colonization, it's likely that different groups of humans on different worlds will have radically different trends at the same time. Over the course of a millennium we could have pockets of humanity that strive to look as human as possible, while another embraces radical genetic modification, while still another favors genetic modification and technological implants. In the next millennium those pockets could completely switch places, with the natural humans suddenly favoring implants and so on. We can already see in today's society that trends can change massively in a single generation. Over the course of tens of thousands of years there's no way to make any kind of sweeping prediction for all of humanity as that article does.
 

tommo123

Platinum Member
Sep 25, 2005
2,617
48
91
You can say that, but a World War III is inevitable long before then.
Human nature doesn't change.

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but world War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." - Albert Einstein

but can it be changed via messing around with humanity itself?
 

CZroe

Lifer
Jun 24, 2001
24,195
857
126
Humans+in+100+000+years.+Guess+we+re+turning+into+anime+characters+Source_2412ae_4627087.png


http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthew...ow-the-human-face-might-look-in-100000-years/

Won't large eyes only be necessary because of the lack of light source, like those fishes who live miles deep under the ocean?
if the sun became suddenly dimmer (10% off original brightness), humans could evolve or shouldn't they just adapt to the changes.
I just don't see (no pun intended) this happening at all in 100k years.

No. Just like eyeglasses and other corrective vision technologies removing good vision as a survival trait, night vision tech an augmentation would level the genetic playing field with any naturally developed improvement and it wouldn't be much more prevalent than any non-beneficial mutations introduced in the same time. After that, we'd get genetic engineering an gene therapy for those born without.
 

alkemyst

No Lifer
Feb 13, 2001
83,769
19
81
People will genetically get larger eyes since they will learn they must see me everyday no matter how far away they are.

I am sort of a big deal.
 

zanejohnson

Diamond Member
Nov 29, 2002
7,054
17
81
This. Aliens are just humans from the future.

i'm actually starting to lean this way myself...

i'm starting think "humanoids" are all around us in the galaxy, at different levels of development!!! maybe some other forms of life too, and then there's the whole "dead" side...
 

waterjug

Senior member
Jan 21, 2012
930
0
76
So in 100,000 years we'll all look like anime characters?

Sounds like legitimate scientific research is going on here.


hahahhaha I know right. Looks like one of the pics from those 'personal trainers hate him!" spam ads on websites. Seriously. No one is going to fucking look like that. Looks like the person took 5 minutes in some shitty rendering program to make them. Fuck that link and fuck that 'study'
 

Gunbuster

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
6,852
23
81
I would think in 100,000 years we will have enough bio/nano-tech so people can look however they want and be able to change it on a whim.