Will the quality of life in this century start to get better? I think the biggest stumbling block is our reliance on fossil fuels. Do you think that the overall quality of life will improve once we have kicked the fossil fuel habit? Will there be a break-through in energy research? Fusion maybe? I think that the 21st. century will be humanity's defining moment.

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The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. ~ Ernest Hemingway ...

Start to get better? The quality of life has been consistently getting better each year for around 500 years.

I also think that the 'fossil fuel habit' is about the least of our concerns, quality of life wise. I would be far more concerned about radioactivity from a few nukes than wether the global temp will rise a fraction of a degree. Or that an engineered plague will be released. Or that an asteroid will smack into the planet.

I think the big breakthroughs will be in genetics and nanotech more than fusion research. With our increasing ability to manipulate the microscopic, I see cancer being wiped out, maybe malaria also. Polio could be finally obliterated also.

Quality of life is already pretty astounding in historical terms. Improving it will require eradicating the "cult of life" that dictates quantity of life as paramount.

I'm not taking the bait.

<korjik's post>

Really depends how one defines their quality of life. For most, the utilization of fossil fuels has been a huge catalyst for the improvement of their quality of life rather than a stumbling block. Sure it's got its draw backs, but it also makes many things far easier.

So I guess I would return the question to the OP and ask how BBP would define a good quality of life?

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I suspect you can make arguments for a lot of centuries being "humanity's defining moment". Maybe it was the 15th century, with the Renaissance in Europe and the exploration of the New World. Maybe it was the development of the first City/States in the Middle East. I suspect there actually is no single event or era.

And how are you measuring quality of life, and for whom? It is already very good for many people in the world, particularly in the West. But it is barely unchanged since the development of agriculture for others. Is there some global grand average of "quality of life"?

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Will you do it for a Klondike bar?

If we get it right. Right now, this hydrogen economy push doesn't seem to realize, that, at best, it'll only save 9% of the fossil fuels we're currently using to produce the hydrogen.

Is there a SCIENTIST in the house?

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You'd get my vote, and I've studied a lot of history--which, Mugaliens, I think at least equally relevant to the discussion. Actually, I had a conversation with a friend recently on a similar subject. Is my quality of living better or worse than Queen Elizabeth I's was?

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

If you really think there is bait there, I am sorry for you.

Will the quality of life in this century start to get better?

Better than when? Better compared to what?

Compared to when I was a child, the reduction in pollution from cars and factories is dramatic. I'm 50. In terms of health and quality of life, people my age are living longer today than they did 50 years ago. Diseases that were an automatic death sentence then are often treatable or even curable today. Even (or especially) on sensitive issues like race, things are far better today than they were 50 years ago. By most economic measures, things are better today than they were then. We just don't hear very much about these improvements (especially during an election year) because some people have a vested interest in convincing everyone that everything has gone to hell and will only "change" if they are elected.

Now, 50 years from now, things will probably be better than they are today. It depends in part on how you define "better". People will likely live healthier and longer lives than we do today. Barring disaster, the quality of life will probably be even better than today.

I was thinking the 19th century might be a good choice - when humanity really started to wrap their collective arms around the idea that we are all living on the planet together.

But that's just off the cuff. I have no support for the notion.

I wouldn't want to get sick during the 19th century.

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Ironic, considering that 19th century medical practices are back in vogue (maggots and leeches, though significantly evolved in practice).

Only some of them. For every one you can name that's in vogue, I can name you a dozen more (soothing syrups, anyone?) that aren't.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Me neither, but that's not why I mentioned it. I wouldn't have wanted to get sick during the reign of Charlemagne either, although I think that was a seminal time for humans as well. From that perspective, unless we kill ourselves off or completely trash the planet, the quality of life for individual humans - on average - should continue to improve steadily.

One in which we don't have to worry about the cost of food or whether there will be enough of it. A healthy ecosystem. Clean water. No war.

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The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. ~ Ernest Hemingway ...

I should have said in my OP that right now the quality of life is in decline.

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The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. ~ Ernest Hemingway ...

I respectfully disagree.