I’ve always thought the same thing regarding a couple of claims that are well accepted around here, like galactic-scale space travel and never-ending growth. I’m not sure enough of my knowledge of physic to try to write a big post about it, but I’d be interested if someone did it (or I may want to work with someone on it).
[EDITED to replace “time” by “space” in “galactic-scale space travel”. I guess there is a Freudian explanation of this kind of lapses, which is certainly either funny or true.
I don’t see what you mean when you say galactic-scale time travel being a well-accepted claim here. I’ve never heard people talking about that as if it were something that obviously works (since, if I understand what you mean, it doesn’t, unless it’s just referring to simple relativistic effects, in which case it’s trivial).
While something approximating never-ending growth may be a common assumption, I’m not sure what percentage of people here believe in genuinely unlimited growth (that never, at any point stops), and growth that goes on for a very long extent, so long that the world as we know it will be nothing like it currently is before it stops. The first version is a claim that I’m skeptical of (though I can envision some ways it could end up being true), and is somewhat at odds with our current best understanding of physics, while the second claim is straightforward if you examine current solar energy technology, the complete power output of our sun (that is, in all directions, not just towards Earth), and then consider the power output and abundance of all the stars in the reachable universe.
I don’t know why “time” somehow entered my comment, I was thinking about galactic-scale SPACE travel.
The second part of your comment illustrates this corrected point : “consider the power output and abundance of all the stars in the reachable universe”. You assume here that the reachable universe is more than just the Solar system. I think this claim is debatable at best in it’s weakest versions (ie we will establish colonies on some other stellar systems), and very unlikely in the stronger version that you seems to accept (we will establish a lot of colonies in many different systems that will have significant economic interactions in both directions between other stellar systems).
Concerning the second part of your comment, I tend to think our resource and energy consumption has good chances of dooming us before we get a chance to “escape” at the Solar level system. I am also sceptical of anything that sounds like a Dyson sphere…
Concerning the second part of your comment, I tend to think our resource and energy consumption has good chances of dooming us before we get a chance to “escape” at the Solar level system. I am also sceptical of anything that sounds like a Dyson sphere…
The “has good chances of dooming us” unfortunately isn’t a good sign that you have thought a lot about the problem. What resource and energy consumption are you thinking of and why specifically do you believe it means ‘doom’?
Just taking a top level view:
a. Most of the earth’s surface and underwater have not yet been exploited for minerals. (underwater isn’t cost effective, deep enough mines are not cost effective, entire continents are too cold, Siberia has vast wealth but is too cold, and so on). “Not cost effective” doesn’t mean it’s impractical or that mining companies wouldn’t develop the technology to do it once it’s needed—it means that there are easier, competing sources for minerals that have to be exhausted first, however long that takes.
b. Energy is abundant, the squabble right now is that fossil fuels are cheaper if it’s externalities are ignored. If fossil fuels had their externalities priced in, we would already be using solar/wind/nuclear in whatever combination is most efficient.
c. In the timescales that matter, resources are inexhaustible*. There are hundreds of millions of billions of years of sunlight remaining, and every item “consumed” by a human is heaped mainly into landfills, where all of the elements remain, it is simply a matter of energy (and better robotics) to recover them.
d. We do have a major problem with greenhouse gases. But this problem isn’t an “extinction of humanity” level problem, it is a “major real estate markdown and possibly mass destruction and death in equatorial regions”. There are colder areas of the planet that would become inhabitable in the worst warming scenario, or even more extreme measures could be taken to keep first world residents alive. (food grown in algae tanks, etc). It’s an oncoming tragedy but I don’t see the evidence the assume extinction is on the table.
*with the sole exception of helium
I don’t see any reason to look further. Do you have any evidence to disprove a-d or is this something you just read somewhere and you have not examined critically?
Why are you sceptical of “anything that sounds like a Dyson sphere”? It’s not particularly unrealistic given modern technology (i.e. rockets and solar panels) - the only pain points are a) making use of the energy collected, b) getting the materials to make it, and c) getting the panels in place (which will require an upfront investment of energy). Regarding using the energy produced, it would be inefficient to try to transport the energy back to Earth (though if costs went down significantly, it could still be justified), but using solar satelites for either computation or a permanent off-earth colony would be justified- particularly with computation, this could allow us to redirect on-earth sources of energy to other uses of energy, or reduce overall Earthside consumption of energy. Regarding materials, there’s a lot of materials on Earth and in other places in the solar system- at worst we can mine asteroids, but I’m not sure that’d even be neccesary.
A Dyson sphere doesn’t need to be built all at once. Once it becomes feasible to launch solar computers into space, and make a profit selling computing time, the sector will naturally grow exponentially- now, it may or may not be bounded by some ceiling of demand, but even if only 1 / 100th or 1/ 1,000th of the sun’s output gets captured, that would represent a huge change in how things work
A Dyson sphere wouldn’t be much different from a big cloud of modern satellites, perhaps with bigger solar panels, but the materials would be the same.
You don’t need strong materials for a dyson sphere. You basically just put solar panels into low-orbit until you captured all of the outgoing light (or like any appreciable fraction of it, you just do it until you have the energy you need).
You might be confusing “Dyson sphere” with the Dyson shells from science fiction, which is more specific type of Dyson sphere. You don’t need “scrith” or “neutronium” to make a Dyson sphere out of satellites (a Dyson swarm) which is the more realistic type that Dyson originally proposed, or out of statites (a Dyson bubble).
claims that are well accepted around here, like galactic-scale space travel and never-ending growth.
I don’t think anyone is claiming that never-ending growth is possible. Even if measured in Utility rather than Mass/Energy. Well technically you have “never-ending growth” if you asymptotically approach the Limit.
As for galactic-scale space travel that is perfectly possible.
This, I assume, you’d base on a “hasn’t happened before, no other animal or thing similar to us is doing it as far as we know, so it’s improbable we will be able to do it” type assumption? Or something different?
I’ve always thought the same thing regarding a couple of claims that are well accepted around here, like galactic-scale space travel and never-ending growth. I’m not sure enough of my knowledge of physic to try to write a big post about it, but I’d be interested if someone did it (or I may want to work with someone on it).
[EDITED to replace “time” by “space” in “galactic-scale space travel”. I guess there is a Freudian explanation of this kind of lapses, which is certainly either funny or true.
I don’t see what you mean when you say galactic-scale time travel being a well-accepted claim here. I’ve never heard people talking about that as if it were something that obviously works (since, if I understand what you mean, it doesn’t, unless it’s just referring to simple relativistic effects, in which case it’s trivial).
While something approximating never-ending growth may be a common assumption, I’m not sure what percentage of people here believe in genuinely unlimited growth (that never, at any point stops), and growth that goes on for a very long extent, so long that the world as we know it will be nothing like it currently is before it stops. The first version is a claim that I’m skeptical of (though I can envision some ways it could end up being true), and is somewhat at odds with our current best understanding of physics, while the second claim is straightforward if you examine current solar energy technology, the complete power output of our sun (that is, in all directions, not just towards Earth), and then consider the power output and abundance of all the stars in the reachable universe.
I don’t know why “time” somehow entered my comment, I was thinking about galactic-scale SPACE travel.
The second part of your comment illustrates this corrected point : “consider the power output and abundance of all the stars in the reachable universe”. You assume here that the reachable universe is more than just the Solar system. I think this claim is debatable at best in it’s weakest versions (ie we will establish colonies on some other stellar systems), and very unlikely in the stronger version that you seems to accept (we will establish a lot of colonies in many different systems that will have significant economic interactions in both directions between other stellar systems).
Concerning the second part of your comment, I tend to think our resource and energy consumption has good chances of dooming us before we get a chance to “escape” at the Solar level system. I am also sceptical of anything that sounds like a Dyson sphere…
Concerning the second part of your comment, I tend to think our resource and energy consumption has good chances of dooming us before we get a chance to “escape” at the Solar level system. I am also sceptical of anything that sounds like a Dyson sphere…
The “has good chances of dooming us” unfortunately isn’t a good sign that you have thought a lot about the problem. What resource and energy consumption are you thinking of and why specifically do you believe it means ‘doom’?
Just taking a top level view:
a. Most of the earth’s surface and underwater have not yet been exploited for minerals. (underwater isn’t cost effective, deep enough mines are not cost effective, entire continents are too cold, Siberia has vast wealth but is too cold, and so on). “Not cost effective” doesn’t mean it’s impractical or that mining companies wouldn’t develop the technology to do it once it’s needed—it means that there are easier, competing sources for minerals that have to be exhausted first, however long that takes.
b. Energy is abundant, the squabble right now is that fossil fuels are cheaper if it’s externalities are ignored. If fossil fuels had their externalities priced in, we would already be using solar/wind/nuclear in whatever combination is most efficient.
c. In the timescales that matter, resources are inexhaustible*. There are hundreds of millions of billions of years of sunlight remaining, and every item “consumed” by a human is heaped mainly into landfills, where all of the elements remain, it is simply a matter of energy (and better robotics) to recover them.
d. We do have a major problem with greenhouse gases. But this problem isn’t an “extinction of humanity” level problem, it is a “major real estate markdown and possibly mass destruction and death in equatorial regions”. There are colder areas of the planet that would become inhabitable in the worst warming scenario, or even more extreme measures could be taken to keep first world residents alive. (food grown in algae tanks, etc). It’s an oncoming tragedy but I don’t see the evidence the assume extinction is on the table.
*with the sole exception of helium
I don’t see any reason to look further. Do you have any evidence to disprove a-d or is this something you just read somewhere and you have not examined critically?
Why are you sceptical of “anything that sounds like a Dyson sphere”? It’s not particularly unrealistic given modern technology (i.e. rockets and solar panels) - the only pain points are a) making use of the energy collected, b) getting the materials to make it, and c) getting the panels in place (which will require an upfront investment of energy). Regarding using the energy produced, it would be inefficient to try to transport the energy back to Earth (though if costs went down significantly, it could still be justified), but using solar satelites for either computation or a permanent off-earth colony would be justified- particularly with computation, this could allow us to redirect on-earth sources of energy to other uses of energy, or reduce overall Earthside consumption of energy. Regarding materials, there’s a lot of materials on Earth and in other places in the solar system- at worst we can mine asteroids, but I’m not sure that’d even be neccesary.
A Dyson sphere doesn’t need to be built all at once. Once it becomes feasible to launch solar computers into space, and make a profit selling computing time, the sector will naturally grow exponentially- now, it may or may not be bounded by some ceiling of demand, but even if only 1 / 100th or 1/ 1,000th of the sun’s output gets captured, that would represent a huge change in how things work
Do we know of materials that could make a good dyson sphere?
A Dyson sphere wouldn’t be much different from a big cloud of modern satellites, perhaps with bigger solar panels, but the materials would be the same.
You don’t need strong materials for a dyson sphere. You basically just put solar panels into low-orbit until you captured all of the outgoing light (or like any appreciable fraction of it, you just do it until you have the energy you need).
You might be confusing “Dyson sphere” with the Dyson shells from science fiction, which is more specific type of Dyson sphere. You don’t need “scrith” or “neutronium” to make a Dyson sphere out of satellites (a Dyson swarm) which is the more realistic type that Dyson originally proposed, or out of statites (a Dyson bubble).
I don’t think anyone is claiming that never-ending growth is possible. Even if measured in Utility rather than Mass/Energy. Well technically you have “never-ending growth” if you asymptotically approach the Limit.
As for galactic-scale space travel that is perfectly possible.
This, I assume, you’d base on a “hasn’t happened before, no other animal or thing similar to us is doing it as far as we know, so it’s improbable we will be able to do it” type assumption? Or something different?