What I learnt from The Three Body Problem — Part II: Technology in 200 years
Arguably, what VCs spend or rather should spend a lot of time thinking about is the future — what is it going to look like, what do we want it to look like, and what are the steps required to get to our desired future? These are all impactful questions and as part of a VCs job, we hear pitches from founders who have a vision for their idealistic future, and we as VCs, need to consider whether these ideas are worth getting behind. In the Three Body Problem, Cixin paints an exceptionally vivid picture of his envisioned future, and I caveat that in order for his future to come into fruition, many technological advancements need to happen — but interestingly and (perhaps!) excitingly, many of these technologies seem to be developing faster than ever before.
I will briefly outline some new technologies that could drive the next wave of human evolution:
Energy –
As mentioned in the Part I section, our earth’s resources are finite or in fact shrinking. There are many countries that still rely heavily on using or exporting fossil fuels, something that should be seen as a serious problem for their respective nation.
Fantastically, we are already seeing a revolution of renewable energy technologies being established and the newest trend cropping up is green fossil fuels. However, all algorithms are unanimous — the current sustainable-energy derived production levels we have now will not be enough to produce energy required to sustain our future population.
What will the most common energy source in 200 years look like? In Cixin’s novel, we achieve the ability to harness microwaves to distribute constantly energy to all systems — chargers and adapters are a thing of the past — hallelujah!
I am keen to meet founders that have plan on designing technologies that have the potential to produce an unlimited, sustainable energy source that is fit to power our future.
Building for the future –
Even if you look back on the last 100 years, the transformation of our buildings and vehicles have been astounding, our ancestors I am sure would look up at our skyscrapers with awe. In The Three Body Problem series, humans exist on earth deep underground in domes that have images projecting the sky, on the earth’s surface living in tree-like structures where individuals live in hanging leaves, as well as inhabitants living on Mars. And of course, flying cars are the norm — how else are you supposed to pick up your friend from a 300ft synthetic plant!?
It seems incredulous that humans will be living on Mars in 200 years but there are some reputable organisations that are exploring just that, for example, NASA recently released Moon to Mars Architecture Concept Review which is a ‘study of the hardware and operations needed for human missions to the Moon and Mars’, leading to long-term scientific discovery and human habitation in deep space. NASA awarded ICON a contract to help build infrastructures such as landing pads, habitats, capsules and roads on both planets.
Therefore, I am curious to discuss with any forward-thinking founder about what the future of buildings, community spaces and mobility will look like in 200 years, taking into account such things as the growth of our population, what our future energy sources could be and how our culture might evolve overtime.
Longevity –
In the book, “hibernation” technology exists. This meaning that an individual can be “frozen” in the current state and “unfrozen” many years into the future.
There is clearly one huge advantage to this technology, if someone is suffering an incurable illness, they can undergo hibernation until a cure is found. As the final book’s title suggests (Death’s End), with this technology, humans will, in theory, beat death — in short,
You can forget the saying ‘Time waits for no man’.
As you can imagine, this would be the kind of technology that VC firms will get behind!
However, this technology’s dark side of the moon is treacherous in many ways. The first risk is around who does and doesn’t get access to this technology? Is it fair that some people would get the optionality for this treatment over others? Some would argue that this concept still applies to us now with some being able to afford the latest treatments over others, but in this case, I would argue that the social inequality could be even more punctuated as ‘hibernation’ facilities are likely to use a lot of energy to maintain their clients frozen state — energy is something that I predict that nations to individuals will battle over in the future.
Another scenario that could happen is that global warming gets to a point where life for the masses becomes exceptionally poor, which could be sooner rather than later; Australian think tank IEP predicts that at least 1.2 billion people could be displaced by such climate-related events by 2050. There could be a situation whereby governments and other institutions promise that in 50 years’ time, global warming will be reversed, and life will be better again. Hibernation facilities sell the idea of the “future will be better” and provide the option to escape from this miserable quality of life to be “reborn” into a renewed Garden of Eden. Again, the question stands, who gets to hibernate and who doesn’t? I would recommend that these policies be considered and develped already, as I have conviction that it is only a matter of time before humans start unravelling the clues behind delaying genetic ageing.
For founders exploring longevity technology as well as the ethics behind the future of health — I would very much like to have a chat!
Space agriculture –
In 2022, the FAO predicts that 90% of Earth’s topsoil is at risk by 2050, in short, we are ruining our food source. Cixin transports you to a stunning paradise in the future, describing a world that is mostly left to mother nature to nurture back to health.
Instead of land and sea being used as our feeding grounds, food production facilities have been built in space. Space agriculture solves so many problems and excitingly, there are already a few start ups experimenting with space agriculture such as Mycorena who was recently awarded $750k by NASA after winning the “Deep Space Food Challenge”. However, the question still remains around the amount of energy required to achieve the same or more amount of food we are producing now in space and of course, the current limitations of growing food in a closed environment, but we have made many leaps and bounds in the food industry in recent years - think lab-grown meat and precision fermentation, so perhaps solutions will be found sooner rather than later.
I will be spending a lot of time thinking about what our food culture and systems could potentially look like in 200 years’ time, as I think it is a fascinating focus area that I have already seen evolved significantly within my lifetime. My prediction is that we will become increasingly picky (health wave) and then increasingly not (as food becomes limited).
If any founder has a vision of how we are going to feed the masses in 200 years’ time, and importantly how we are going to evolve from a cultural and energy consumption perspective to enable mass production to happen, let me know.
Star/Space ownership –
In the third book Death’s End, one character is gifted a star from a distant admirer. Perhaps a move perceived as a cliché today could turn into the next real estate of tomorrow. If we continue on our current destructive path, achieve unlimited energy production as well as speed of light travel (conscious these are big ifs!), then there is a possibility that ownership of star systems could mean that at some point humankind will voyage to a new planet and if human phycology stands the test of time, the person or organisation who owns this new planet will be very wealthy. Perhaps one rung below this concept, is if you were to own an area of space and a number of meteorites containing precious metals enters your three-dimensional figurative picket fence and is collected and brought down to earth for use, it is very like that another billionaire (trillionaire?! #inflation) is born.
To date, humans have been deftly skilled at valuing and allocating ownership to things (and arguing over it), this societal trait can enable order to be maintained or conversely, start wars. Although these are far-fetched ideas, it is still interesting to consider what real estate will look like in 200 years’ time - will ownership include space, (Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are certainly helping to turn investors heads into the abyss), planets, sky, sun rays, oxygen, water? Or perhaps, in 200 years, those who possess this current cultural norm of desiring ownership will wake up from hibernation and be given a diagnosis and suggested to seek treatment (see Part I - priorities and trends section)!
Another question, and it is one that I don’t think we are not good at thinking about at all, given that historically the destruction we have inflicted on the flora and fauna on earth, is the idea that the chances that we are alone in this universe is very slim. Currently, we only really think about ownership of things within the bubble of human race perhaps all living beings at a stretch, but I think we should think about ownership from a universal sense, it is likely that we are sharing the universe with others that we have yet to meet. If they are anything like humans, they might not want to share nicely…
As a short summary, The Three Body Problem Series has led me to these three conclusions:
· Firstly, live life to the fullest (without purposely depriving future generations!), you never know what is right around the corner — meteorite or advanced alien race that arrives for a hostile take-over. Enjoy this “pre-crisis” era whilst it lasts
· We should embrace a more sharing culture between humans and with every other living thing that we share the earth with. As the most advanced (that we know of!) species on this planet, we hold a responsibility to appreciate it, recycle our resources and share it
· Develop technologies and businesses and think about how they could evolve to still exist in 200 years’ time. Timing is of course important with any successful business and what makes an exceptional founder (in my humble opinion) is one who has a vision of the future and has the ability to take into account cultural changes, resource availability (both material and personnel), technological advancements and dimensional perspective that is required to get there — oh and let investors think it was their idea ;)
I hope you enjoy and if any of the above resonates with you, please reach out!
