The Future of Human Evolution?

Humanity will change. Or be replaced. Or go extinct. An exploration of the many potential posthuman offspring of humankind, from the biological to the artificial.
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What do you imagine when I say the future of human evolution?

A superbeing with powers beyond comprehension? A mutated oddity far removed from our idea of humanity? Or perhaps nothing but decaying remains left in the wake of our extinction?

Scientists and sci-fi authors have long speculated on what our future selves will look like — and as technology advances, our species might evolve much faster than natural selection would typically allow. So, for this entry into the archive, we’ll explore posthuman scenarios from the absurd to the frighteningly plausible — and meet the many possible successors to humankind…

0:00 Future of Human Evolution
0:43 Man After Graham
4:23 The Atomic Mutant
7:41 The Extinction Alternative
10:23 A Planet of Apes
13:38 Rise of the Superhuman
16:18 Technological Ascension
19:02 Who We Choose to Be

Copyright Disclaimer: Under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education, and research. All video/image content is edited under fair use rights for reasons of commentary.

I do not own the images, music, or footage used in this video. All rights and credit goes to the original owners.

Media Shown: Project Graham, All Tomorrows, Man After Man, Last and First Men, Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey, Planet of the Apes, Chernobyl, The Time Traveler, Fallout, World Without End, Beyond the Time Barrier, Day the World Ended, Peace on Earth, Metropolis, Cyberpunk 2077, Signalis, Altered Carbon, Akira, Scanners, The Sender, Firestarter, Lucy, Watchmen, Man of Steel, X-Men

Sources:

♫ Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio:
Mysterious Green Fluid, Sanity Unravels, Haddonfield Horror, Alone in the Dark, Dusk, The Witch, The Vanishing, Tenebrae, The Guardian

Beauty Flow
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

#CuriousArchive #Worldbuilding #SpeculativeBiology

[artiomvv]

All tomorrow's is one of the scariest post human speculative evolution stories ever written, but also one of the best

[michaeldoerr]

I think that All Tomorrows is an optimistic post-human vision. Sure there were the Gravitals, but I think the author clarifies that the change occurred BILLIONS of years.

[rven]

The extinction part reminded me of a really cool and deep poem that I read in school. It's called "there will come soft rains" and is about how an automated society still functions after humans have been wiped out without even realizing we're gone.

[williek]

Been loving the more essay-styled videos on speculative evolution. It really helps get my imagination going as an amateur writer/worldbuilder.

[gloomyallo]

The Morlock and Eloi aren't the only example of the intellectual regression of mankind, and in a way, a form of the altered self. There was a portion in the book where the Time Traveler arrives in a distant future era where he lays eyes upon unrecognizable kangaroo-like creatures, and it's only after close analysis that he comes to the realization that these simple looking dimwitted creatures are descended from mankind. Something about the descendants of the most intelligent and environmentally powerful animal species the world has ever known evolving back into simple little animals, lacking sapience, and only concerned with the most basic animalistic needs, entirely unknowing of their origin.

[angelmatesmolan]

One of my favorite examples of human evolution is the self-domestication syndrome that us humans have. In the brain there's a gland responsable of aggresive reactions and self-preservation. In band societies from the Paleolithic aggresive individuals were either exiled or even killed in order to preserve peace inside the group (band societies were very peaceful societies, even with other groups). As consequence, aggresive individuals didn't reproduce and, overtime, our gland is much smaller compared with prehistoric hominins.
Also our brain size and memory capabilities are a bit reduced compared with some of our antecesors, as we face tasks that don't require high levels of memory.

[aeneas]

another good example of an optimistic post human vision I thought might be worth mentioning is Arthur C Clarkes 'the city and the stars'- which depicts humans inhabiting a completely peaceful but stagnant utopian technological city, and then finding their roots as explorers of nature in a really sweet and wholesome way- definitely ahead of it's time as it was written in the 50's

[shogun]

My favourite 'Human Evolution' worldbuilding exercise is Fallout: New Vegas. It has a distinct tonal dissonance between the goofy revenge plot of the main storyline, and the sheer horror that lies beneath. The story of the Sino-American war, the truly horrific war crimes committed, the immorality of nuclear bombs, a plethora of different radiation based creatures. Yes it's an almost lighthearted look at nuclear war on the surface, but dig deeper and it gets every bit as tragic and bleak as Chernobyl and Fukushima.

[gendygoblin]

I would say the original Ghost in the Shell portrays an interesting yet kind of positive display of human evolution. Rather than the destruction of humanity at the hand of AI, it displays a union of the two that forms a new kind of human that is neither man nor machine. A peaceful resolution to a fear held by many. And while the concept of losing one’s self is discussed it is resolved in the long term acknowledgment that people change constantly over their lives. To quote undertale, “despite everything, it’s still you.”

[jacobkohr]

"If mutations worked like te X-men it would be impossible to go outside. As nature would be filled with mice with lazer eyes and fire breathing tigers"

That's pokemon. You literally just described the evolutionary mechanics of pokemon. Pokemon is literally just what if everything else in nature evolved like the mutants in X-men except for humans and my mind is blown.

[dUFGoLZ]

16:34 "Casting off the weakness of the flesh for the purity of metal."
*Adeptus Mechanicus has entered the chat*

[epg-]

It seems like a lot of fictional explorations of our future are either not very serious, or borderline misanthropic. I'd like to see a sci-fi story with a positive, or at least neutral take on our future evolution.

[robbie_the_mastermind]

I like the idea of Abhumans from Warhammer 40k, An Abhuman is a descendant of baseline Human settlers whose ancestors mutated and physically adapted to various extreme environmental conditions after being isolated for thousands of standard years on colony worlds across the galaxy. Some Abhumans may also be intentionally genetically engineered mutants created for a specific purpose.

[purplehaze]

"What do you imagine when I say 'The future of human evolution'?"
I couldn't help but think back to Eduardo Hevia's crab human when he asked that question.

[christiancline]

Nice video! I really liked how you didn't just talk about the spec bio element of posthumans but also delved into pop culture and sci fi in general, which has a lot of intersection and interesting comparisons to make!

[agcat]

Yo, didn't expect a Signalis mention outside of horror-focus channels! Interesting thing to note is in the game each line of android is based of an original human (I think the Nation pick a person with useful skill, copy their brain pattern into a mechanical brain then mass produce them). Each model has "fetish items" that they're attached to, like guns for the tall police android or music for the model that was based of a ballet dancer. The officer in charge is also supossed to avoid exposing them to certain things or activities that could cause a resurfacing of their original human memory. The MC we're playing as is a copy of a copy, that could contributes to her unstable perception of reality!

[coltonm.strawn]

One of my favorite books, Evolution by Stephen Baxter, dabbles in this. It’s a hard science fiction novel that follows the evolution of humanity (and life on Earth in general). It even includes a few fictional species of extinct animals that may have plausibly existed which we don’t know about since the fossil record is still incomplete. But the last 2 chapters in particular describe a disturbing but fascinating take on how humans might evolve in the distant future.

One chapter takes place 30 million years from now after humans lose their sapience and regress back to mere animals after a super-volcano triggers a mass extinction and causes global civilization to collapse. Humanity splits into several new species such as a vaguely australopithecine species that builds treetop nests crudely resembling human buildings, a species of quadruped humanoid farmed for meat by huge predatory rats, and a species of tiny “mole men” that forms underground colonies and harvests the nuts of a new species of tree.

The other chapter is set 500 million years from now on a new supercontinent as Earth and the Sun are dying. The only descendant of humanity left is an all-female species of ape-like creature with human facial features. They have a symbiotic relationship with a tree that does everything for them, from providing them food and shelter to healing their injuries and illnesses to exchanging genetic material so the post-humans can reproduce. In exchange, the tree sends chemical signals to the post-humans, compelling them to find and deliver resources that the tree needs to survive. The symbiotic relationship between tree and post-human is so intertwined that neither can live without the other.

Oh, and another chapter references both The Time Machine and Planet of the Apes.

[fruithat]

The future of all life is to eventually become crab

[cjj-jllc]

just seeing the variation of your videos over time amazing.

[liliththesolarexalted]

I hope we go for a mix of Superhuman and Technological ascension in the far future. Best of both worlds.