Future of mankind

What do you think will happen? I think space settlement seems pretty interesting, though I can't really decide on its likelihood. Space settlement, it seems to me, would also cause humanity to branch off into separate species, since the requirements for life in space are different than on Earth.

With growing population and technology, the future's pretty much open for anything, assuming we don't blow ourselves up too soon.

http://future.wikia.org/ is a nice site on this.

Maybe that's expecting too much of those other life forms?

Perhaps we cannot detect them, or at least not distinguish them. I mean, if another planet had life just like we have on Earth, and technology identical to ours, do you think we'd spot them easily if they were even a thousand light years away?

Think about it. We're not that visible. Neither should we assume that any other potential intelligent life in our vicinity is more visible than ourselves.

And also, I think it's perfectly possible (though unlikely) that an alien culture 30,000 light years away is large enough to be spotted by us, but whose light hasn't yet reached us.

I mean, look how far we've gotten in two hundred years. A 30,000-year deadline for space settlement isn't too unlikely for us.