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Why do you find that convincing? He pretty much handwaves away one of the biggest problems: material. Saying "we'll harvest Mercury" is such a "world hunger so

by bena 8y ago

Why do you find that convincing? He pretty much handwaves away one of the biggest problems: material. Saying "we'll harvest Mercury" is such a "world hunger solution"* that I can't take anything further seriously. *World hunger solution: A solution presented in such a way to seem simple but instead hides many more problems just under the surface. e.g. The best solution to world hunger is to simply give everyone enough food. True, that would solve the problem, but we don't know how to do that. And saying that "advanced civilizations" will be able to do it is pretty much going into the Giorgio Tsoukalos camp. "Aliens" is not an answer. It still ignores the how. What are the costs of harvesting an entire planet? What are the energy requirements to send mining equipment there, mine the planet, and ship the materials back here to be processed into something useful? Why do you assume that that level of technology will be cheap and readily available in the future?

jhallenworld 8y ago
It's convincing in that it seems physically possible. Even better, it's falsifiable: look for infrared point sources. Also, what options do you have if you're out of real estate? There is no faster than light travel. Slower than light interstellar travel is certainly not going to be cheap or easy. Of course the other option is for your civilization to stop growing, but who knows if all aliens would go for that.
- bena 8y ago
  No infrared point sources just means it's not likely there are any Dyson spheres. It doesn't tell us why there are no Dyson spheres. > Of course the other option is for your civilization to stop growing, but who knows if all aliens would go for that. You act like this is a choice. What if it's not a choice? What if the initial cost to build a Dyson sphere is too great to overcome? Whether in time, material, energy, or another thing. What if it's just not feasible? Where does that leave you? You've basically reframed your statement. You find it convincing because you think it seems physically possible. But how? We're just getting to Mars and you think a significant mining operation on an alien planet to be something we're technologically capable of. We've skipped straight to 3) Profit and forgot to flesh out step 2).
  - eloff 8y ago
    It's not profitable yet, or someone would already be doing it. It's something that can be done on small, incremental scales. You don't need to mine a whole planet, that's a strawman. You don't need to build the entire thing, just some solar panels floating in space an attached to something useful (e.g. our communications satellites) fit the bill. It gets more effective the more industry you have in space - we have none so far. There's no reason to think we won't reach that level of technology - assuming we have a demand for space industry for some reason, like running low of key materials on Earth, or a population that keeps growing. You're basically just doing that same thing as the OP, claiming "nuh uh" without backing that up either. To which I say "uh uh".
    - bena 8y ago
      It's an assertion without evidence. You claim there's no reason to think we won't reach that level of technology. What's the basis for that claim? > just some solar panels floating in space an attached to something useful (e.g. our communications satellites) You realize that a lot of our communications satellites already have solar panels attached to them, right? And you do realize that a Dyson anything is an engineering project that far exceeds anything we have yet attempted. If your plan begins with strip mining a planet 48 million miles away with an army of self-replicating robots, you've obviously skipped a few steps of the process. Using "science-y" words to describe your pipe dream doesn't make it any less of a fantasy. I mean, we're still wondering if we can make a car drive itself reliably. That we may not be able to overcome some very basic limitations. And all of a sudden we get to assume we can build a probe that can travel to Mercury, mine it, process the raw material into something useful, assemble those materials into more probes, panels and habitats, then place those bits into orbit around the Sun in a way that it won't get smashed by other satellites, fly off, or get pulled in. Reducing those concerns to "nuh uh" isn't doing you any favors. You're simply refusing to engage. You're asking skeptics to prove that we will never reach that level of technology rather than answer the question of why do you think we will. You're the one with the actual claim here, back it up.
      - eloff 8y ago
platz 8y ago
We know how to give everyone food. We just don't have the political desire to do so.

by bena 8y ago

jhallenworld 8y ago

It's convincing in that it seems physically possible. Even better, it's falsifiable: look for infrared point sources. Also, what options do you have if you're out of real estate? There is no faster than light travel. Slower than light interstellar travel is certainly not going to be cheap or easy. Of course the other option is for your civilization to stop growing, but who knows if all aliens would go for that.

bena 8y ago
No infrared point sources just means it's not likely there are any Dyson spheres. It doesn't tell us why there are no Dyson spheres. > Of course the other option is for your civilization to stop growing, but who knows if all aliens would go for that. You act like this is a choice. What if it's not a choice? What if the initial cost to build a Dyson sphere is too great to overcome? Whether in time, material, energy, or another thing. What if it's just not feasible? Where does that leave you? You've basically reframed your statement. You find it convincing because you think it seems physically possible. But how? We're just getting to Mars and you think a significant mining operation on an alien planet to be something we're technologically capable of. We've skipped straight to 3) Profit and forgot to flesh out step 2).
- eloff 8y ago
  It's not profitable yet, or someone would already be doing it. It's something that can be done on small, incremental scales. You don't need to mine a whole planet, that's a strawman. You don't need to build the entire thing, just some solar panels floating in space an attached to something useful (e.g. our communications satellites) fit the bill. It gets more effective the more industry you have in space - we have none so far. There's no reason to think we won't reach that level of technology - assuming we have a demand for space industry for some reason, like running low of key materials on Earth, or a population that keeps growing. You're basically just doing that same thing as the OP, claiming "nuh uh" without backing that up either. To which I say "uh uh".
  - bena 8y ago
    It's an assertion without evidence. You claim there's no reason to think we won't reach that level of technology. What's the basis for that claim? > just some solar panels floating in space an attached to something useful (e.g. our communications satellites) You realize that a lot of our communications satellites already have solar panels attached to them, right? And you do realize that a Dyson anything is an engineering project that far exceeds anything we have yet attempted. If your plan begins with strip mining a planet 48 million miles away with an army of self-replicating robots, you've obviously skipped a few steps of the process. Using "science-y" words to describe your pipe dream doesn't make it any less of a fantasy. I mean, we're still wondering if we can make a car drive itself reliably. That we may not be able to overcome some very basic limitations. And all of a sudden we get to assume we can build a probe that can travel to Mercury, mine it, process the raw material into something useful, assemble those materials into more probes, panels and habitats, then place those bits into orbit around the Sun in a way that it won't get smashed by other satellites, fly off, or get pulled in. Reducing those concerns to "nuh uh" isn't doing you any favors. You're simply refusing to engage. You're asking skeptics to prove that we will never reach that level of technology rather than answer the question of why do you think we will. You're the one with the actual claim here, back it up.
    - eloff 8y ago

platz 8y ago

We know how to give everyone food. We just don't have the political desire to do so.