Dave,
I'm one of the old farts here so maybe I have more of an historical perspective than you. You DO have to define what you mean by "technology." There was no household electricity when my parents were kids in a large city. There was no radio. They had ice boxes not refigerators. No one had cars. There were no computers, etc. I have farming friends in Delaware whose families didn't get electricty until the '50s and who still farmed with horses at that time (They were just plain farmers not Amish.). Clearly, the technology at that time was at a far lower level than today. But, inspite of this low level, we are here to discuss these issues.

Perhaps, what you asking is what level of technology is required to maintain the present day consumer society.

Todd

Todd's question is very relevant and you're ignoring the very profound effect technology, from the stone axe to the microcip, has had on human evolution. You still need to clarify what you mean with your use of the overly broad term "technology."

Example: we have evolved to require vitamin B12 in our diet. This can only come from an animal source. Considering the health risks involved in eating animal dung (one source of B12) we need technology to safely extract this vitamin from its animal source whether it's processing pills out of animal dung or chucking a spear at an antelope. Due to our lack of large claws or 35mph+ sprinting ability without technology we die out from B12 deficiency.

"given the current state of the world's population"

Surely that is the whole point. Talk about the elephant in the living room. No amount of alternative fuel and techno-gimcrackery will support this level of population, much less the 9-12 billion that is forecast before some levelling off. We are clearly overshot.

Therefore, the question is not about "humanity" surviving, it's about how many humans, and at what "standard of living".

Humankind isn't a lost cause. The lives of many individual humans are though.

If human sustaining life exists on Earth (where we can access it) then humans will survive. We are the most adaptable species ever.

Worrying about the fate of 6.5 billion people is an exercise in futility. I've found that if I cared enough about the situation in Africa I would be faced with suicide, there's nothing that I can do to help and the situation is quite depressing.

I would suggest that the fashion industry's main problem is to animate consumers to throwing slightly used (not old or worn out) clothes away to buy new ones. Our production capacity for practical garments probably outstrips our needs by at least an order of magnitude, if not more. Most of the "demand" is created by advertising.

But a doomer on a roll will probably grasp for any straws to "prove" that mankind is lost. I am not surprised by the animal skins idea.

:-)

I am inclined to argue that some technology and information will be helpful, other technology and information will be forgotten.

For example, some things such as modern medicine are highly technology-dependent. However our understanding of things like bacteria and viruses would still be of use - our strategies for minimizing the spread of disease will change over time, but I doubt that we would ever regress to the point where knowledge of these things is forgotten.

I don't think this is the correct forum for this discussion.

However, briefly, my best guess is that

1. Industrial society largely collapses.
2. Climate change et. al. causes large scale reduction in human population.
Large areas become effectively uninhabitable.
Genetic diversity of life on earth is seriously depleted.
Climate change shifts habitable zones towards the poles rapidly.
3. With the collapse of modern mass society, the smaller remaining
populations revert to diverse social models that work on a small scale
in the local environments they find themselves in. Traditional cultures
like those found in India will survive, as will stone age tribes in PNG
(if climate change is not too extreme).
4. All the easy oil and most of the easy coal will have been burnt, so it will
not be possible for a global technology based society to re-establish itself
until a more sustainable infrastructure has been developed. This may take
hundreds or thousands of years, or we may become extinct first. I do not see
modern technology has significantly increased average human happiness or understanding, I do not think it will be greatly missed.

Human society is highly adaptable, and cultural memory is quite short. I
do not think humanity will learn from its mistakes.

I may be wrong and climate change will be so extreme as to make human life
impossible. I don't think there is much point in worrying about that, except
to discourage the more CO2 polluting blind alleys that the current society will
undoubtedly follow before collapse.

One thing I am certain of, neither of us will be there in 3007 to say 'I told
you so!'.

I have no genetic interest in the distant future. My children are adopted. I
hope they find happiness in their life.

How will humans live in the year 3007 A.D.?

Answer: very differently than today. But the question is just how hostile will the climate be in 1000 years, after the booty of fossil fuels, after the rapacious destruction of the environment, after a probable (or at least possible) nuclear exchange.

That being said, I would put my bet on humans still being around, but reduced to a more animal-like existence. Rudimentary tools are not going to go away as long as humans are around, but I have a hard time believing the complexity and unsustainable nature of human civilization will be overcome.

Or, other the other hand, maybe humans will graduate to adulthood and learn to TRULY live within the earth's ecosystem. Ha! From here it sounds like a bad joke though, and I wouldn't bet on it. I guess I don't think we're smarter than yeast, when it comes to sucking up resources with no eye on the future. I have a hard time seeing how humans could have a large population in 1000 years, but hell by then all our societies may have collapsed, and totally new (smarter and much smaller) civilizations that we cannot even imagine will exist (but they certainly won't be flying around in planes or jerking off to internet porn... how sad, j/k).

By the way, I don't get why you seem enamored of religious superstition (the Flying Spaghetti Monster is as valid as any cult, er, I mean relgion - just look at what L. Ron Hubbard has done - he said to himself - I can make more money creating my own religion, fleecing these fucking rubes - and he was right!). Is it what allows you not to jump in front of a bus or what? I'm just saying you seem smarter than that, though sometimes it's hard to see it through your arrogance. ;)

To dmathew1:

You have way too much time on your hands. I say this as someone who gains nothing from your comments. I don't think everything you say is wrong per se, but you're perhaps addicted to that checking for comments, the glow of the screen, replying to get one up on someone or be the 'teacher'; while the gaze of your narcicistic nihilism doesn't move past your own navel.

Do you really care how humans are gonna live in 3007? Or is that a set-up to tell me how we won't be? Civilization is headed over the cliff. The earth is in extreme peril. There are people profiting from industries that destroy the earth (even as billions of humans are currently sustained by those same industries). If we'd all have just stayed hunters and gatherers then we wouldn't be in this mess (say while wagging your finger and scrunching your eyebrows). As these are basically truisms, I don't think anybody here is gonna completely disagree with you on a lot of that. But what's with the defeatist attitude and the anarcho-primitivist posturing BS? If you're up for walking your talk, then get off the internet. And if not then shut up.

Indeed..."What then?" Is that not a question so much as a statement? Oh, well, then I'd rather you spared me the effort of having to scroll past every one of your incitements to stale discourse that always come to the same circular point so that I can read the posts of people interested in discussions about reality.

Watch Little House on the Prarie. That's what I think 3007 will be like.

Except we will benefit from better horse drawn carriage designs.

'How will humans live in the year 3007 A.D.?'

Interesting question - do you have any personal idea of how humans were living on all major landmasses on the Earth except Antartica in the year 1007 A.D.? or 7 A.D.? Or 1007 B.C.? or 10,007 B.C.? or 47,000 B.C.?

Do you think humans live in a single manner today? If so, you are even more limited in thought than even the carefully constructed questions, answers to which you dismiss so handily, would suggest.

But I have a fair idea that humans living in 3007 A.D. will not live like Americans or Europeans or Japanese or Koreans do today. So what?

On the other hand, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if the absolute bottom strata of the peasants in India, or Nepal, or Peru will be living pretty much the same way in 3007 A.D. as they have for the last couple of thousand years - no water, no literacy, no doctors, no political voice, and absolutely no interest in dying because someone thinks they have to in order to fit his view of humanity's future. I am also fairly certain their population will be pretty much at whatever limit of whatever environment they inhabit, whether in thousands, millions, or billions - so what?

Do you remain so completely ignorant of how so many humans live today, without any of the things you seem to feel will disappear in the future? In fairness, they are about as ignorant of how you live, too - but they have a better excuse.

In the end it is all about how much you know about your environment, isn't it? Native people manage to survive in environments which can kill the unsuspecting traveller in a matter of days, if not hours. But then, the native people teach their children what the dangers are and which options they have, what is smart and what isn't in most situations. I bet that most tribes of the region could have camped out there quite happily and would have had a party after the other using just the resources they could find.

In a sense, it is not very different with us, either. We have enormous resources in terms of energy and building materials. And we have a few dangers that are real which we need to deal with. We theoretically know how to use the resources and we know how to avoid the dangers. What separates us from well organized tribes is that we have much more children than adults. We have many Mr. Kims and worse, Joe Icouldntcarelesses. This is the only thing to be concerned about. How do we teach our children before they burn the tents down and let the horses get away?