A subreddit devoted to the field of Future(s) Studies and evidence-based speculation about the development of humanity, technology, and civilization. -------- You can also find us in the fediverse at - https://futurology.today
R/FUTUROLOGY HAS HIT 20 MILLION SUBSCRIBERS
meta
u/Xenophon1 started this sub 12 years ago, and it was relatively small for the first few years. 9 years ago Reddit gave us the option to be a default subreddit that all new users were automatically subscribed to. These days there are no default subreddits, and our growth comes organically - roughly 5,000 people every day subscribe to r/futurology. Along the way, we've even grown to a fediverse sibling c/futurology.
The decision to expand wasn't universally popular, and the effects of becoming so big still aren't liked by everyone. However, the upside is that this subreddit is probably one of the biggest places on the internet (if not the biggest) for public discussion on issues like the future of AI, robotics, space, biotech, and the transition away from fossil fuels. There are thousands of comments every day in the discussions here, and we get 300,000 daily page views. It's also worth noting the global nature of the posts and discussion here, with approx 50% of subscribers from America, and 50% from the rest of the world.
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Can we just have a constant sticky thread about falling birth rates, and one about UBI?
Merge them into Universal Baby Income
the bigger /futurology gets the more attention from astroturfing campaigns.
I only joined a week or so ago. You guys just kept showing up in my feed with very interesting posts and great discussions in the comments. That’s an irresistible combination! Thanks for the hard work in making this an enjoyable and informative sub to visit!
I wonder if anyone correctly predicted this future.
20 million doomers who at the same time somehow think we are close to immortality and the AI apocalypse, and counting!!!!
Well it seems to be the inevitable coin flip of our fate.
It's almost as if people can have differing opinions on shit.
what a fucking concept!
It's just a joke about the radically differing opinions. Take a chill pill.
Seems to me he was advancing the joke, not objecting. Try to maintain your own chill.
r/Futurology is one of those subs I have that just continually reminds me what a wild and unprecedented time we live in. Space, energy, computing/AI, robotics, genetics all fields unquestionably experiencing the run in to genuine revolutions and thats by no means an exhuastive list. 2010 - 2040 will contain more geniune social and economic revolutions than the last 500 years combined and probably much more. The entire technology stack I'm using to even say this would have been utterly impossible about 40 years ago.
Get past climate change, and it now appears we will short of some sort of abnormal progress halt, and theres stuff like post scarcity energy and labour just sitting on the table. In some cases the research side is bare years from maturity.
Its not just that we are advancing, its that the more stuff we work out, the faster it enables research and development to go. Even modern not all that great AI systems are massively speeding some things up and those are still basically crude prototypes.
This is wildly optimistic. Something I see here every day. UBI is right around the corner because some benevolent government or company will provide all the resources to make all the robots to make everything practically free!
Automation will certainly happen but it's going to be so "slow" we won't know how bad it is for the average person (in 2040) until it's too late and you can't collect taxes from people with no jobs and people with no jobs cannot purchase goods and services. And contrary to popular and wrong economic understanding, billionaire taxes cannot fund it all and taxing corporations and companies actually DOES pass the cost onto the consumer (who knew??). This means the most likely outcome is a bigger gap between haves and have nots as automation grows.
Just for the record, we do not have enough lithium to make enough batteries to power enough robots to do even half the jobs OR all the change to renewable energy storage and the grid certainly cannot handle it. So change and investment needs to happen for this utopia to blossom.
A tunnel from New Jersey to New York over a short span is costing 16 BILLION dollars and won't be done until 2035...
ONE TUNNEL.
Economies of scale apply to everything on a planet with 8 billion people.
Robots and automation will not save us because it's a very... very slow bleed.
The only economic change will be more people having less, period. There is no upheaval in the structure we have today. No one works for free, no one is going to fund people living for free. It's never been a thing and it will never be a thing. Profit, success, greed, whatever, it is always the driving force.
Not everyone can have a billion-dollar yatch or a 200 acre plot.
Post scarcity suggest tinkering with atoms, we are not even remotely close to that.
You can say this about the car to someone who only knew horses, it's a meaningless statement, technology advances, you couldn't make a quantum chip in 1940 because we didn't yet have the tech.
As far as social change, we're already in the midst of it and it has nothing to do with technology (other than social media). Men are told to hate women, women are told to hate men, whites/blacks, blacks/white and every color in between. You should always be angry and always protest and tear things down. There is not a single thing positive about any of our media sources and that for sure is only going to get worse, not better.
Both of these are wrong. Please show your work.
https://i.imgur.com/HbIII13.png
Notice how the lithium reserves are actually constantly increasing?
How can lithium reserves increase?
Because it is known lithium reserves.
Known reserves are the result of exploration, which only happens if its profitable.
If lithium is not in demand there is no need to explore for more known reserves - however if there is demand there is good reason to do the legwork and find more lithium deposits.
Just check out these 2023-2024 stories to show the result of new exploration.
You are completely right. Unfortunately a lot of people don’t like to hear the facts.
this are not facts. this are baseless speculations made out of a pessimist and obtuse mindstate
In what way?
Congrats r/Futurology! The Reddit algorithms have changed over the years but the community still remains a big part of Reddit. r/Futurology has always been one of the biggest underrated forces that's actively cultivating future foresight so here's to 20 million more!
Wait what? Default subreddits? What type of aggressive feature is that lol
Tbf I would rather have that than get shown posts from subs that I don’t subscribe to. You can always leave after all.
"Please summarise the trends of thought on what was originally the Futurology 'subreddit' over the past century and critique contributors' hopes and expectations about Ife in the current day"
I’m sorry Dave, I can’t do that …
In the future, vowels will he optional.
Congratulations!
Tempus does fugit doesn't it? I signed up to reddit 11 years ago and it just doesn't seem to be that long.
Wow, congrats on hitting 20 million subscribers! It's amazing to see how much this sub has grown over the years. I'm glad it's become a hub for discussing important future issues. Here's to the next 20 million!
The mods do a great job and I almost always find something interesting when I log on, here's to 20 million more!!!!
r/singularity is way more focused on the actually relevant future topics imo. I stopped frequenting this community a long time ago but I guess Im happy theres more interest in futurism overall.
Woooah, here is to an amazing and wild future ahead of us!!
Well done! I tell all of my family to subscribe to this feed. Every time they talk about all the doom and gloom, I bring out a factoid from this subreddit. Cheers everybody up.
"I wonder if anyone correctly predicted this future."
Deny science at your peril .
having thousends of people complaining about any new discovery or research and screaming about how earth is doomed and the rich are gonna get all the new tech isn't "public discussion on issues like the future ....".