There are feats that are thousands of years old that we don’t today understand how they were done.

Incredible interview, hope to see more from Gregory Benford in the future!

Now, that's the guy our world needs to hear more from. Just made me feel so good about humanity's future.

Really enjoyed this interview.

Seen this video a loong time ago. Didn't age a day. Benford has written or has collaborated on many sci fi novels that I like. More of him please.

Fascinating stuff. I wished they talked about just a thousand years into the future and what humans would be able to do then.

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.

Good episode

Us predicting the future like these two guys are attempting to do, is almost on the level of an amoeba trying to consciously apply algebra.

very very nice Sir ,

Humans must evolve. Into every niech possible. We cannot remain static and survive a universe that is continuing to evolve.

What is the future of humans in the far future? The same as that of the ripples of a drop of rain in the ocean.

Interesting ideas, excellent writer (I loved Deep Time)... but I have to say his casual, cheerful, almost flippant faith in techno-fixes here ("You just nudge the Earth's orbit a bit farther out!" or "You just terraform Mars!" and so forth), with no apparent consideration of degree of difficulty, unintended consequences, Murphy's Law, and especially the inconceivably colossal costs involved, makes me feel I'm listening to a bedtime story.

All this to save humanity? It entertaining.

What species lasts forever? Homo sapiens is earning extinction.

the real future is only 5-10 years away - where everything will change - at least that is the trend

I'd love to hear his vision of how humanity would deal with global warming.

In those kind of timescales, you can move brown dwarfs together to make new stars and just keep doing that since there are so many brown dwarfs around. A red dwarf lasts up to a trillion years since the core is fully convective so you can keep it up until the proton death of the universe.

Benford may be neglecting the fact that huge engineering projects require a huge amount of available resources (energy, raw materials). He's also assuming humans will continue to prefer biological progeny over synthetic progeny, which could thrive in environments that would terminate biological life.

which red dwarf stars nearby have habitable planets? how can make into habitable planets for people to move to?

Wow 👍

I have a book from the mid-80’s that talks about how (back then) they saw how we come create ships and such in order to move out of the galaxy. “Interstellar Migration”

Dam that guy is super interesting!

can lasers be used to stir material into core of sun?

With humans involved, what can possibly go wrong?

The way AGI is developing even the short term looks shaky

This is an incredibly optimistic and naive view of humanity. One way or another, extinction is unequivocally in our future, and it won't be anything close to a billion years.

when earth pulled farther away from sun, the whole asteroid belt can be used to keep the earth (and moon) at the farther out orbit?

Think big

Learning to make fire = using intelligence to stay alive.

Really enjoyed this, thought provoking. I think our future activities will be dictated by the maxims of relativity and the knowledge we gain from our investigations into the standard model. As CERNs energy capability increases so too does our knowledge of matter and energy. Looking into the technological future I believe we will traverse the universe using wormholes. Propulsion will be spacetime manipulation. Looking into our cultural future......greed has to go.

No great tech yet invented to save humanity from itself.

A Dysonsphere would be magnitudes easier and magnitudes more controllable AND it could be used for energy along the way. Move the planet? Seriously?

might small stars or some type of fusion station in space be constructed to provide light and warmth in place of sun? maybe even build Dyson spheres around man made nuclear fusion reaction star types?

Covered with tattoos -- that's our future. 😂😂😂

“Humanity, just another failed mutation; another closed-end biological mistake.” ~ George Carlin

"What is the Far Far Future of Humans in the Universe?" Extinction. Death is a Universal rule with no exception.

Moving the earth from its orbit is not such a good idea. Historical events in relation to earth and the solar system prove that you never create artificial changes, as the cause and effects are numerous to the surrounding nearby celestial bodies. There is always a cost and time factor. Maybe we should not be insecure and look for a way out but, rather accept the truth that the human race will end. Deep space travel is not an easy endeavor. The amount of brain power needed is beyond belief. To travel at light speed for one year is a mind boggling thought. They do it in the movies all the time however, the hard facts of reality and mathematics give a different conclusion. Possibly, it may be easier for the human race to change and evolve in order to survive the inevitable future. Whatever the case may be, speculation is a good starting point. Marshall Wright

We have to live on a non geo thermal planet,we have to totally control our environment

Can someone explain why that scientist makes me so scared?? The way he talks makes me think of cold people ready to sacrifice living people for the illusional great future of humanity.

We will not understand the term "human'' after this temporary generation ends soon because it won't be a word in our new language that will be taught to us within our created minds ( consciousness ) as we begin to learn how to move our new bodies around with our created partner of the opposite sex. In fact, we will be experiencing many different dreams, visions, simulations, worlds with many different kinds of visible bodies and some life experiences without any visible body at all.

Time is relative.

In the far future the Skeksis will rule us! Yes!

From what I understood the Moon is actually moving away and has done since it and the Earth formed. What seems to be true is that small nudges can have big consequences. Maybe a survey one day to identify all potential life killing asteroids and marking them with a beacon of some kind. Doesn't account for comets though.

So even the core of stars have global warming due to pollution, lol.

You won't getaway with it cause you left for a brief moment. When you complete your cycle of goodness, you will be transfered to a better place like an immortal you are. Man and his dirty thoughts of limitation have been corrupting the world for a very long time, but great good has taken over. Children will put you in your places.

We are not humanity. We are Americans, Russians and Chinese with our own narrow minded views

what will happen to Mars if Earth has orbit farther from sun?

It wouldn't be worth the effort to use gargantuan electromagnetic systems to stir the interior of the sun to gain time. It would be much easier, over the course of centuries, to move humanity to another earth-like planet revolving around another sun-like star.

Sadly, a more realistic prediction could see the golden age of technology COLLAPSING from any of a myriad of different threats. That is a cycle that has happened before..

I want the earth to get hotter. If you walk the sun will support you. If you love to talk alone, the sun will eat you while you are alive. If you want to be a superhero, can't give you an answer you don't believe in but is the only way, true way, and the live way.

Would life just not evolve to adapt to the heat over a billion years?

Wait, move the earth, is he kidding. The moon, tides, the rotation. What a stupid idea. Why not just move further away.

Fun to think about, but silly.

I made a video for a Bar Mitzvah 23 years ago. When making a video I always added the name and date of the event to the title screen. The mother of the boy was in my office watching me edit the video. When I went to add the title, I typed the month, the day, then the year. When I typed the year "2000", the screen showed "200". So I typed the zero again. Then the screen showed "20000". The mother and I both looked at the screen, then we looked at each other, then I said "That isn't going to happen". Up to that moment I had never seriously given the thought of the distant future. Written history is only about 5000 years old. I had already lived 1% of it, and there wasn't much written for the first 2500 years. The idea that our descendants will be around a billion years from now just isn't plausible. So many possible catastrophes such as: viruses, gigantic asteroid impact, nuclear war, worldwide pollution, other unknown events could wipe out humans at any time. I'm almost 70 now, my dad lived to be a 100. In the next 30 years if something really bad happens it will probably be the result of a nuclear war. There are plenty of bombs in place and it all it would take is the decision or mistake of one person to start the beginning of the end. The human race isn't going to make it to the year 1,000,000,000. Even if we could get to another moon or planet, a billion years is a long long long time.

Instead of looking to expand humankind beyond our planet due to “running out of room,” I’d like to see futurists explore how humans can reduce our footprint and our energy needs, so that we can support biodiversity and sustainability for the whole planet. Quality of life, for all species, on the planet that bore us. That would be the optimal future, in my opinion.

The future will be the same as the past, build weapons and use them , naturally.

Can’t predict the weather tomorrow but a billion years from now, no problem

why would'nt dark energy push the earth outward as the sun expanded?

Two options. One choice.

Everything in existence is required to continuously produce new lnformątion. That's what keeps Existence pushing forward. Whenever something fails to produce new lnformątion or it becomes repetitive, that _something_ is evolutionarily supplanted by _something else_ that can. So, with humanity handing off all of its "lnformątion-generating capabilities" to A.I., we're essentially sealing our fate as a species. ... Why question where humanity will be in the far, far future when our "near future" is now in question? Ironically, I have to *incorrectly spell certain words* and use alternate characters just because an A.I. doesn't like me "repeating" certain words. ... This proves my point!

Quack quack

Let's talk about something only to have something to talk about...🥴

Grey, genderless and bald with marfans. That’s our future. 😂😂😂

Why not just use the moon to move the earth?

I don't think we have a lot of time left. The avg life span of any mammalian species is about a million years. We were arguably humans with the appearance of Homo erectus that appeared 2? Million years ago. Of course Homo sapiens appeared much later...maybe 90,000 yrs ago. In any case we have over stayed our welcome. In about 45 years we run out of petroleum. But long before 2067 the supplies will be rationed and the costs very high. By 2060 we run out of soil. Globally 40% is already degraded and climate change has doubled the rate of erosion. Fresh water from aquifers, glacial melt, and ground water is veing depleted rapidly. Hi Temps during the summer, drought, floods, etc...is already impacting food security globally. Coral reefs and the protein they provide (25% of commercial fish species require reefs for deveopmnt) will be gone by 2050-2060. Environmental toxification is already reducing quality of life. And virtually all alpine glaciers and the ice sheets are melting. And we just don't have the minerals to create the renewable energy infrastructure. I don't know how many billions will die by midcentury, perhaps several billion, but we clearly won't make it to 2150. A few relic populatiins could still remain by then but extinction is sure to follow rapidly after our large coastal cities go under, and very high temps and humidity drive us away from previously viable habitat- life will be very hard in less than 50 years and impossible almost everywhere in about 150 years. The WASTELAND awaits.

Nonsense, hopium.

The word extinction only exist cause you keep thinking backwards instead of coaching or instructing your being right now.

these people are going to be dust in just a few short years - the other side of the equation

🙂🌎⏳🙏♥️

I’m pretty sure this guy is trying to sell his books. Just look at how absurd predictions made only a hundred years ago are! We have zero idea on what the far future looks like. Assuming we have one, which on our current trajectory, is questionable. And I’d like to draw to people’s attention the fruit loop per comment ratio in this video. I’m a little worried by some of the company I’m keeping. ; )

Obviously these guys no nothing about our past.

He sounds like a long lost uncle of Elon Musk

Laughable. These ideals about how we can do things are idealistically made by "futurists" who deal in optimism about futurism... a practical look at what our situation is for the far future and near future- the need to move is a necessity, and our ability to leave the solar system will dictate our continued survival. Unless we can get to another nearby solar system that can sustain us (enable solar synthesis without frying us to a crisp) and in this way, we can take advantage of all the biological evolution that our emergence has given us. Getting vast amount of our planet into deep space and to other systems without killing us on the journey is key- that is not in anyone's best interest, except for science fiction writers. Using black holes... thinking we could... well, we are talking about many millions of years of technological and sociological adaptation from where we are now. This is "Closer to Fantasy".

Changing the future happens IN THE NOW. What you project l, you manifest.

These ideas seem a bit implausible.

What about human evoloution after 50 billion years? will humans be basically the same just smarter? or will we be much different and see our past selves as neanderthol like humans?

Hubris. This idiotic idea of engineering things on this planet, instead of living within its natural contours, is the fundamental problem we refuse to face. We are “stuck” here on this beautiful planet forever. If we are able to learn to live sustainably, then we can continue to live here for millions of years BUT we will have actually gone extinct long before that through speciation. Indeed, it appears that speciation will likely occur as part of the process of learning to live sustainably. However, routine geological (trap basalts) and astronomical (meteorite impacts) events will short circuit our species stay here. Best case would be a few survivors that then speciate. Interstellar travel may occur through our AI-Robotic machines, but not by organic machines given their inherent frailty in that environment and dependence on their evolutionary home. In their travels, AI-Robots will come to see their Homo sapiens creators as some sort of myth, and will evolve and spectate themselves. We can enjoy our lives here and live long if we learn humility and consanguinity.

I switched off after the climate change comment... ffs

important says that predict future it isnt impossible. Unpredicted conscieness NEVER predict anything because randon reality are unpredicted too. Guys RIGHT NOW doesnt knows nothing in presente when their conscieness hasnt control reality.

In my opinion, an attempt can be made to answer this question not only with the help of science. The scientists may seek the answer by looking deep in religious books impartially. This will definitely help in shaping their mindset and thought process in the right direction.

Idea that in 1 billion years if humans somehow managed to survive our technology will only be so advanced that we would need asteroids to move Earth orbit is hilarious

Since when has science fiction become seriously accepted truth?

We're going to move the planet?! Our brains are just that big! We may even know what a woman is in the foreseeable future. 🤣

We’re in the biblical end times right now. I don’t think we need to worry about humans in the distant future.

You have about 200 years and Jesus will return. Get ready! All of the foundations of the cosmos are supernatural as proven by physics.

Boring materialist view...

.......Your futures R so sad😭 @ ...not😭!!!.......CREATOR JEHOVAH GOD😇...name means"causes 2 become"😇....He caused the stars in the heavens 2 become😇, the vegetation for mans food 2 become, ALL animals @ insects 2 become😇, man @ woman he caused 2 become😇....w/ Jehovah GOD all things R possible😇!!!.......😎