I might have to read the book. I’m not sure I want to, if it’s going to be 60% nostalgia for a future that didn’t happen, and 40% blaming “fundamentalist” environmentalists for everything.
For 1000 mph are we talking SSTs or vactrains? Vactrains—depending on pumping losses—might be quite (whisper it, so Josh can’t hear) ergophobe. Quiet, too. For SSTs, do we just displace all electric load to nukes, so the cost of kerosene is unimportant, and fly larger Concordes? (Anyone who doesn’t like sudden loud noises is an environmentalist!) Do we fly SSTs higher, maybe fueled with cryogenic hydrogen, made from water and low-demand-period electricity?
Undersea cities… don’t sound *very* energy-intensive. How do the citizens of Atlantis earn their living?
What would the lunar base be for? Exploration? An observatory? Helium-3? Near-future projections often involved mining the moon then rail-launching ore into orbit—probably solar-powered. Is this ergophobic? It’s much more efficient than a chemical rocket...
Josh gave a version of this book as a talk at a LW Europe Community Camp. The thing that stayed in my memory wash how important energy costs are. The chart that showed how we got the low-energy invention that were predicted but didn’t get the high-energy invention was impactful.
Helicopters are like flying taxis but their usage was reduced after the oil crisis in the 1970′s with rising energy prices. If we would have cheap energy we would have a lot of them and then likely also something that’s more car-like.
Undersea cities could engage in activities like mining and fish farming.
The book is maybe 25% nostalgia, 30% blame. It seems pretty relevant to how we make long-term forecasts.
He’s talking SSTs. I’m unsure what propulsion methods he prefers for those. He claims sonic booms could have been cut in half compared to the Concorde. A good government would have set a fee for sonic booms that bore some resemblance to how much people disvalued loud noise. But the US government seems unwilling to say what conditions an SST would need to meet.
I’m unclear why I’d want undersea cities when there’s room for seasteads.
Lunar colonies would hedge against some catastrophic risks. They might be created for reasons similar to why Europeans settled the New World.
I might have to read the book. I’m not sure I want to, if it’s going to be 60% nostalgia for a future that didn’t happen, and 40% blaming “fundamentalist” environmentalists for everything.
For 1000 mph are we talking SSTs or vactrains? Vactrains—depending on pumping losses—might be quite (whisper it, so Josh can’t hear) ergophobe. Quiet, too. For SSTs, do we just displace all electric load to nukes, so the cost of kerosene is unimportant, and fly larger Concordes? (Anyone who doesn’t like sudden loud noises is an environmentalist!) Do we fly SSTs higher, maybe fueled with cryogenic hydrogen, made from water and low-demand-period electricity?
Undersea cities… don’t sound *very* energy-intensive. How do the citizens of Atlantis earn their living?
What would the lunar base be for? Exploration? An observatory? Helium-3? Near-future projections often involved mining the moon then rail-launching ore into orbit—probably solar-powered. Is this ergophobic? It’s much more efficient than a chemical rocket...
Josh gave a version of this book as a talk at a LW Europe Community Camp. The thing that stayed in my memory wash how important energy costs are. The chart that showed how we got the low-energy invention that were predicted but didn’t get the high-energy invention was impactful.
Helicopters are like flying taxis but their usage was reduced after the oil crisis in the 1970′s with rising energy prices. If we would have cheap energy we would have a lot of them and then likely also something that’s more car-like.
Undersea cities could engage in activities like mining and fish farming.
The book is maybe 25% nostalgia, 30% blame. It seems pretty relevant to how we make long-term forecasts.
He’s talking SSTs. I’m unsure what propulsion methods he prefers for those. He claims sonic booms could have been cut in half compared to the Concorde. A good government would have set a fee for sonic booms that bore some resemblance to how much people disvalued loud noise. But the US government seems unwilling to say what conditions an SST would need to meet.
I’m unclear why I’d want undersea cities when there’s room for seasteads.
Lunar colonies would hedge against some catastrophic risks. They might be created for reasons similar to why Europeans settled the New World.