Of the simulated worlds I've explored in my research and fiction, the most fantastical is the subject of my novels which I hope one day to compile into a trilogy if the real world and I survive long enough to complete it (a condition that appears less probable every day). Nicknamed Futuria for a fictional community that plays a prominent role in the novel Biome, this simulation explores a potential escape from human extinction through bioengineering.
In the post Earl's Myth, I discussed an inspiration for doing this as an interpretation of economies as artificial biomes (types of ecosystems) inhabited by people and organizations functioning as species of organisms that feed on each other and biological ecosystems of which they are ultimately a part. A consequence of this is destruction of life both directly (by overconsumption) and indirectly (by the production of waste that reduces quantity and quality of needed resources). Because generation of waste is essential to the existence and functioning of economies, a choice must ultimately be made between the survival of artificial life (economies) and human life (along with other biological life). Fictional Earl Oldfield realizes that he has accidentally been provided an alternative to that choice: alter some of life, especially humans, so that it can consume waste and ultimately become it.
Here on Earth, some worshippers of technology as the ultimate savior of humanity have apparently embraced variations of that alternative and are crafting different ways to apply it. One way is the physical merging of humans with machines beginning with the use of neural implants to enhance the functioning of our brains. Pharmaceuticals have long been used to supplement or offset our natural abilities and characteristics, typically on an ad hoc basis. As other species struggle using behavior change and natural evolution to adapt to the damage we are inflicting, it is perceived as a logical next step for us to augment our own changes in behavior (including alteration of environments) with changes to our biology and controlled evolution, the latter two having already been experimented with on other species throughout our history up to and including the use of invasive bioengineering.
Another alternative, the one I favor because I value life, is to reduce the waste and help other species to repair the damage and grow healthy ecosystems that primarily support biological life. The denizens of simulated world Hikeyay (also named for a fictional community and featured in my Simulated News blog) effectively embrace this approach and the ultimate consequence of having a smaller population consuming much less than when they started their "global strategy" to fight the extinction threat. Much of my recent thinking of how to implement this alternative was developed during the writing of that blog, which I am continuing even as the probability of its implementation in real life drops closer to zero. While improbable, partially implementing this alternative is theoretically possible (as I indicated in the post Best Future) but it soon won't be without significant loss of life if we are already on the cusp or in the beginning stage of collapse.
Total elimination of humanity, what the alternatives are trying to avoid, is manifested in simulated world Green (the name of a mountain and a fictional research station), which is my best approximation of our own past and future. Over the next 15 years, that world's production of waste will rapidly increase, destroying the natural habitat that supplies what's needed for basic survival, and killing off the human population as a result. Waste will become irrelevant after that, unless part of it has been replaced with actually artificial life (particularly artificial human life). Because my simulations are based on historical trends of biological life, they offer no guidance about whether techno-saviors would be successful or not.
The people in simulated world Futuria, however, will see gradual growth in waste and a corresponding decrease in habitat, with population peaking about now and then dropping gradually. Rising global temperature is a serious problem for them as well as us and the worlds that choose to increase habitat; this is because there is a lower limit to how much people can consume, and temperature is dependent on the cumulative amount of waste as heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere. The fate of Earl's plan is to be determined, though it will play a major role in this year's events, not the least being those featured in my novel Lights Out.
