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The next ten thousand years;: A vision of man's future in the universes,
Science & Technology, Global & World History
- GenresScience
218 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1974
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 24, 2013
It was published in 1974, so one would expect some of the material to be dated. That's fine of course. However, there is a lack of critical thinking going on in this book as well, and that doesn't seem excusable regardless of the starting information.
Example: Terraforming Mars would be really expensive because the atmosphere is thin. So hey, let's go terraform Venus instead. Granted, the atmosphere is 100x thicker than Earth's and almost pure CO2 and the surface is a baked hellscape, but that can all be fixed by scattering some algae into the air to suck up all the CO2 and transform it into a paradise world. *smacks head* Here's what I mean by lack of critical thinking...photosynthesis requires WATER.
The rest of the book touches on the theory of relativity and deconstructing Jupiter to build a Dyson Ring around Sol, and wraps it up with a theological discussion about the laws of nature. Thin gruel.
Example: Terraforming Mars would be really expensive because the atmosphere is thin. So hey, let's go terraform Venus instead. Granted, the atmosphere is 100x thicker than Earth's and almost pure CO2 and the surface is a baked hellscape, but that can all be fixed by scattering some algae into the air to suck up all the CO2 and transform it into a paradise world. *smacks head* Here's what I mean by lack of critical thinking...photosynthesis requires WATER.
The rest of the book touches on the theory of relativity and deconstructing Jupiter to build a Dyson Ring around Sol, and wraps it up with a theological discussion about the laws of nature. Thin gruel.
February 5, 2020
This book is a long form love letter to Francis Bacon, an Englishman to whom the author credits the industrial revolution, the scientific method as we currently understand it, capitalism, free trade, MI5, and the success of the British Empire, which was an 'Empire For Good' as Guy Verhofstadt would put it. The author makes a compelling argument for the above, and I adore his 'Starship Troopers' style confidence in the British Way :D. It's genuinely inspiring, and nobody can say that this is a man who does not want progress! This is a man that sees it as humanity's manifest destiny to rule the galaxy! Some would say that the British Empire was, broadly speaking, a force for good in the world, and I suspect that the author is one such.
An excerpt from the last chapter:
'The long-term trend towards ever greater mechanisation was given a new and powerful impetus by Francis Bacon. In the 20th century, two important rulers have tried to rebel against Bacon's philosophy. Both failed. The first of these was Hitler, who drove genuine scientists from his country and proclaimed that 'a new and magical interpretation of the world is coming'. The second, Mao Tse-Tung, had a more flexible mind and was able to change his policy when he saw that it was leading his country to ruin. All such 'rebellions' in the future, even if at first appearing to succeed, will be similarly doomed. All the passionate ideological movements which can be imagined, all possible brands of millenarianism, Communism, militarism, anarchy or Fascism, will avail themselves nothing against the dead hand of Francis Bacon. Let these enemies of human progress exercise their free will to the full. Let them attack by propaganda or actual subversion, by local acts of terror or wholesale devastation, by single bombs or a holocaust, by declared war or sudden ambush, and they will always lose. The Baconian scheme can be delayed, but it cannot be stopped. People who think otherwise, who seek to relegate large parts of humanity to the status of animals, and who thereby challenge Bacon's law of progress, take the risk of being answered, as the Japanese warlords were answered at Nagasaki and Hiroshima, by a Power that admits of no dispute.'
An excerpt from the last chapter:
'The long-term trend towards ever greater mechanisation was given a new and powerful impetus by Francis Bacon. In the 20th century, two important rulers have tried to rebel against Bacon's philosophy. Both failed. The first of these was Hitler, who drove genuine scientists from his country and proclaimed that 'a new and magical interpretation of the world is coming'. The second, Mao Tse-Tung, had a more flexible mind and was able to change his policy when he saw that it was leading his country to ruin. All such 'rebellions' in the future, even if at first appearing to succeed, will be similarly doomed. All the passionate ideological movements which can be imagined, all possible brands of millenarianism, Communism, militarism, anarchy or Fascism, will avail themselves nothing against the dead hand of Francis Bacon. Let these enemies of human progress exercise their free will to the full. Let them attack by propaganda or actual subversion, by local acts of terror or wholesale devastation, by single bombs or a holocaust, by declared war or sudden ambush, and they will always lose. The Baconian scheme can be delayed, but it cannot be stopped. People who think otherwise, who seek to relegate large parts of humanity to the status of animals, and who thereby challenge Bacon's law of progress, take the risk of being answered, as the Japanese warlords were answered at Nagasaki and Hiroshima, by a Power that admits of no dispute.'
June 19, 2022
Time has been particularly unkind to this book and its precariously specific picture of growth. In its closing chapter, Berry argues that this model of technological progress is so uniquely possible that it may be evidence that the universe is optimised for it. No alternatives - especially ones based on renewable energy and materials - seemingly exist. And yet sadly scientific progress has shown that many of the necessary steps here are not achievable, and the rest are stalled due to entirely imaginable social and political problems.
The author’s failure to deal with scale and growth, or at least to internalise their implications, means the book lacks a strong foundation of a priori plausibility upon which to place these specifics. An opening chapter attempts to refute some early arguments about future energy and resource scarcity, but he never makes much of a positive argument for the limitless growth he needs. If he had, he might have anticipated the situation we find ourselves today. In fact, when the need arises, he frequently invokes resource scarcity as a motivator for mega-projects like lunar colonisation. Faced with the hard limits on expansion caused by slower-than-light travel, he can only offer a pretty ropey description of wormholes. (Aside: the descriptions of relativity and protein synthesis are shockingly bad, and I had to go back to the original 1970s work to figure out what he might have meant.)
Not everything has aged as poorly as his argument for a healthy space industry in vacuum tubes and CRT monitors, or his assumption that space exploration will face only temporary reductions in funding post-Apollo. And not all of his reasoning shows the incuriousness of, say, the paragraph where he argues that we’ll be able to rely on fusion and plastics when oil and metal run out. (Spot the problem?) But what’s left is ultimately unoriginal and had, and has, been done better elsewhere.
The author’s failure to deal with scale and growth, or at least to internalise their implications, means the book lacks a strong foundation of a priori plausibility upon which to place these specifics. An opening chapter attempts to refute some early arguments about future energy and resource scarcity, but he never makes much of a positive argument for the limitless growth he needs. If he had, he might have anticipated the situation we find ourselves today. In fact, when the need arises, he frequently invokes resource scarcity as a motivator for mega-projects like lunar colonisation. Faced with the hard limits on expansion caused by slower-than-light travel, he can only offer a pretty ropey description of wormholes. (Aside: the descriptions of relativity and protein synthesis are shockingly bad, and I had to go back to the original 1970s work to figure out what he might have meant.)
Not everything has aged as poorly as his argument for a healthy space industry in vacuum tubes and CRT monitors, or his assumption that space exploration will face only temporary reductions in funding post-Apollo. And not all of his reasoning shows the incuriousness of, say, the paragraph where he argues that we’ll be able to rely on fusion and plastics when oil and metal run out. (Spot the problem?) But what’s left is ultimately unoriginal and had, and has, been done better elsewhere.
September 24, 2017
Un libro al que le ha sentado muy mal el paso del tiempo. A diferencia de otros sobrepasados por los cambios económicos, sociales y científicos, el énfasis en una visión radical de una ideología muy circunscrita a un periodo histórico lastra la lectura para el lector. Se salva por el tratamiento de algunas ideas sobre la colonización de otros mundos y la astroingeniería, pero sólo para un aprobado bajo o un suspenso alto. Nada más.
January 12, 2024
A dispassionate look into Earth's future (I say "Earth's" since Berry has no problem contemplating the end of human life).
I remember reading it as a child to find out what a truly advanced technological civilization would be getting up to: terraforming Venus and Mars, ripping the Jovian worlds apart to build a Dyson sphere, exploring the nearby galaxy, etc.
I remember reading it as a child to find out what a truly advanced technological civilization would be getting up to: terraforming Venus and Mars, ripping the Jovian worlds apart to build a Dyson sphere, exploring the nearby galaxy, etc.
November 17, 2012
Had this since I was a teen - now I'm not so teenish I wonder 'why ain't we doing this stuff already?! Y'now: Flying city states, dismantling Jupiter for minerals, colonies on Venus, space journeys through 'holes' in space! C'mon world!!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews