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Here's to one more step on the road to a Kardashiev type 1 civilization. If we harness the power of fusion, we basically remove the biggest roadblock to a spac

Here's to one more step on the road to a Kardashiev type 1 civilization. If we harness the power of fusion, we basically remove the biggest roadblock to a space-faring, galaxy-spanning civilization. And we'd solve so many pressing problems right here within a few decades.

fnord77 7y ago
in the book "Flight to the Stars: An Inquiry into the Feasibility of Interstellar Flight" by James Strong, the author theorizes the max-v of a generational ship would be about 15% the speed of light. It would take 450 years to get to the next closest star. Spanning the galaxy would take hundreds of thousands of years, if not longer. There'd be next to no contact between earth and settlements more than a few light years away. Not so sanguine about it solving near-term problems, either. We currently have exponentially more wealth than anytime in history, yet most of it is being hoarded by a small percent of the population. The benefits of cheap power will also be hoarded
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  > Spanning the galaxy would take hundreds of thousands of years, if not longer. There'd be next to no contact between earth and settlements more than a few light years away. Yeah, but they'd exist, which they don't right now. > We currently have exponentially more wealth than anytime in history, yet most of it is being hoarded by a small percent of the population. The "wealth" of today's billionaires exists almost entirely on paper. Even if Michael Dell has a huge house and a private jet and you don't, he doesn't spend most of his billions on himself. He uses it to own shares in his company. And the company uses it to make computers. We have more wealth in the hands of corporations than at any time before in history, and there are some serious issues with that, but it isn't that they're somehow hoarding resources. Apple having a mountain of cash in an offshore subsidiary isn't why you can't afford housing -- that money is just somebody else's debt, not an actual consumption of resources. And if you can make fusion work, it's the opposite. It doesn't matter if some people make a lot of money from it because the only way people will buy it is if it's better than the existing alternatives, which would imply that it's better than the existing alternatives. Which means you get cheaper electricity or less climate change or both. All they get is a pile of green paper they're probably never even going to spend all of.
- de_watcher 7y ago
  When you have something cheap it opens the whole new qualitative level of viable products as a result. Just like it was with aluminum. Fusion opens the access to the orbital ring family of the technologies.
- LessDmesg 7y ago
  An average person today with e.g. a car, a shower and a smartphone with internet access is already richer than any of the kings of the past. Retirement plans also didn't exist or were not widespread. Dentistry and birthcare were either charlatanic or inaccesible etc. So no, wealth isn't "hoarded by a small percent of the population", we really are, the vast majority of us, richer than ever in history of man.
  - dwaltrip 7y ago
    If I'm richer than a king, why do I have to cook my own meals?
    - zeeZ 7y ago
      You can use your smartphone with internet access to have your meals delivered to you.
      - dwaltrip 7y ago
        I personally could afford to do that (not everyone with a car and smartphone can), but it wouldn't be a good use of my limited budget to do that for every meal.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > An average person today with e.g. a car, a shower and a smartphone with internet access is already richer than any of the kings of the past. George VI was a “king of the past”; I don't think there is any reasonable general sense in which the average person today is richer than George VI. If you go to the distant enough past, this becomes arguably (and, farther, clearly) true, but also not at all meaningful. > So no, wealth isn't "hoarded by a small percent of the population Yes, it is; the narrow distribution of wealth is uncontrovertible. > we really are, the vast majority of us, richer than ever in history of man. That doesn't contradict that wealth is narrowly hoarded (that is, both narrowly distributed and that narrow distribution being the active choice of those who are in the narrow group receiving the most), and to the extent that it is true, it doesn't matter because, in fact, wealth is narrowly hoarded and it turns out that, once you get out of the most abject poverty, relative wealth matters more to experienced utility than absolute wealth.
- SubuSS 7y ago
  I like how you included your own speculations right besides a scientific (sounding - haven't read it) example :) Wealth accumulation as many have pointed out is a very short term problem. In a way it is necessary as well if you want alternatives to depending on all powerful governments to move technology forward. In the process of the wealthy trying to multiply their wealth, they will use their current wealth as a giant amplifier. They may or may not succeed, but we can't deny that humanity moves forward as a whole with them. Also to remain wealthy it isn't enough to just rest and vest: it is entirely possible to slip very quickly from the 0.1% to 1% to 10% to regular folk without actual tending. And no, how much ever reddit recommends it, I don't think s&p mutual funds are the answer if you are and want to keep being a part of the 0.1%. This is why I believe greed is a powerful motivator.
- pfdietz 7y ago
  At 15% of the speed of light, one gets to Alpha Centauri in about 30 years. 450 years would be the time it would take at about 1% of the speed of light.
jotm 7y ago
Galaxy spanning? Did we find the ring? :D But yeah, I'd be happy with just a solar system spanning civilization.
- stoicShell 7y ago
  Haha I wish The gist of it, according to experts, is that fusion is so cheap and powerful that it's like sailing on Earth: didn't take "that long" (few thousand years) before we circled all of it. So give us fusion, and given enough time, and few enough aliens (so far so good we've seen none), and they say we'll be all over the Galaxy, eventually even beyond. Cool perspective if you ask me! Wish it were my time. BTW, check out "Isaac Arthur" on YouTube if you like this sorta topic, he's as hard as science-fiction gets. Awesome dude.
  - usrusr 7y ago
    But unlike the multi-generational effort of cathedral-building, sailing always came with the promise that a few lucky survivors might live to see the end of the voyage. Makes me wonder if under current laws conspiring to condemn your unborn children to life in the confines of a spaceship might have legal repercussions while still in earth. (actually I'm not even sure about cathedrals, to the best of my limited knowledge the idea of starting them as multigenerational projects might just as well be a retrospective fiction. Are there sources that show that they were not just started I unrealistic schedule expectations?)
    - stoicShell 7y ago
      You're right about cathedrals, and it applies to several such big architecture projects (temples, etc). It's also how science operates when you think about it — that quest so far has always been far bigger than anyone, you know you'll die trying from the beginning, that you won't see where it all leads eventually. There's a collection of vids by Isaac Arthur that might interest you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2f0Wd3zNj0&list=PLIIOUpOge0LskSp9Jac9nE6xSDfZ83Tgf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2f0Wd3zNj0&list=PLIIOUpOge0... The first one is called "generational ships" and talks exactly about that. A few interesting points: - such ships are likely to be orders of magnitude more 'modern', comfortable, heaven compared to anything we know in terms of habitat even on Earth — a very basic promise of space habitats is that you can make them much, much better than any planet can do 'randomly'; and that would happen far before we even think of physically going to another star. - assuming generations on a ship, it's entirely possible that colonizing a planet feels "ancient", "backwards" to these people now born and raised in space; such "spatians" might just choose to remain so (bummer for the founders of the mission, but a decently good move for evolution too). - there are several ways to "colonize" a distant world. One is to go there and breed on the way. Another is to send a genetic "boot" (think a few million distinct human DNAs that machines would grow in vitro just prior to arrival, AI to teach them whatever it is they need, etc). This is within known science, but maybe cryogenics are also possible (that's a third option then). These questions become incredibly complex (and fascinating) the deeper you dig. I think we can rely on 'truths' that were valid for 'enough' generations as being 'plausibly also true' in the near future (symmetrically in time: so if something's been true for human beings for ~5000 years, then it stands to reason that it won't change before, on average, at least as long). It should thus be observed that culturally, we are currently have an extremely short-term view in the Western world; there's a huge contrast with Asia in that regard — where it's not uncommon for businesses to plan for 2030-2040, and 2050-2060 looking at 2100 in politics. Think about it, that's only 3 generations away at the current rate. It's really not that far. It will be vastly different because tech, but also vastly the same because human beings. Do watch that video, he talks about these things very astutely! :)

fnord77 7y ago

in the book "Flight to the Stars: An Inquiry into the Feasibility of Interstellar Flight" by James Strong, the author theorizes the max-v of a generational ship would be about 15% the speed of light. It would take 450 years to get to the next closest star. Spanning the galaxy would take hundreds of thousands of years, if not longer. There'd be next to no contact between earth and settlements more than a few light years away. Not so sanguine about it solving near-term problems, either. We currently have exponentially more wealth than anytime in history, yet most of it is being hoarded by a small percent of the population. The benefits of cheap power will also be hoarded

AnthonyMouse 7y ago
> Spanning the galaxy would take hundreds of thousands of years, if not longer. There'd be next to no contact between earth and settlements more than a few light years away. Yeah, but they'd exist, which they don't right now. > We currently have exponentially more wealth than anytime in history, yet most of it is being hoarded by a small percent of the population. The "wealth" of today's billionaires exists almost entirely on paper. Even if Michael Dell has a huge house and a private jet and you don't, he doesn't spend most of his billions on himself. He uses it to own shares in his company. And the company uses it to make computers. We have more wealth in the hands of corporations than at any time before in history, and there are some serious issues with that, but it isn't that they're somehow hoarding resources. Apple having a mountain of cash in an offshore subsidiary isn't why you can't afford housing -- that money is just somebody else's debt, not an actual consumption of resources. And if you can make fusion work, it's the opposite. It doesn't matter if some people make a lot of money from it because the only way people will buy it is if it's better than the existing alternatives, which would imply that it's better than the existing alternatives. Which means you get cheaper electricity or less climate change or both. All they get is a pile of green paper they're probably never even going to spend all of.
de_watcher 7y ago
When you have something cheap it opens the whole new qualitative level of viable products as a result. Just like it was with aluminum. Fusion opens the access to the orbital ring family of the technologies.
LessDmesg 7y ago
An average person today with e.g. a car, a shower and a smartphone with internet access is already richer than any of the kings of the past. Retirement plans also didn't exist or were not widespread. Dentistry and birthcare were either charlatanic or inaccesible etc. So no, wealth isn't "hoarded by a small percent of the population", we really are, the vast majority of us, richer than ever in history of man.
- dwaltrip 7y ago
  If I'm richer than a king, why do I have to cook my own meals?
  - zeeZ 7y ago
    You can use your smartphone with internet access to have your meals delivered to you.
    - dwaltrip 7y ago
      I personally could afford to do that (not everyone with a car and smartphone can), but it wouldn't be a good use of my limited budget to do that for every meal.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > An average person today with e.g. a car, a shower and a smartphone with internet access is already richer than any of the kings of the past. George VI was a “king of the past”; I don't think there is any reasonable general sense in which the average person today is richer than George VI. If you go to the distant enough past, this becomes arguably (and, farther, clearly) true, but also not at all meaningful. > So no, wealth isn't "hoarded by a small percent of the population Yes, it is; the narrow distribution of wealth is uncontrovertible. > we really are, the vast majority of us, richer than ever in history of man. That doesn't contradict that wealth is narrowly hoarded (that is, both narrowly distributed and that narrow distribution being the active choice of those who are in the narrow group receiving the most), and to the extent that it is true, it doesn't matter because, in fact, wealth is narrowly hoarded and it turns out that, once you get out of the most abject poverty, relative wealth matters more to experienced utility than absolute wealth.
SubuSS 7y ago
I like how you included your own speculations right besides a scientific (sounding - haven't read it) example :) Wealth accumulation as many have pointed out is a very short term problem. In a way it is necessary as well if you want alternatives to depending on all powerful governments to move technology forward. In the process of the wealthy trying to multiply their wealth, they will use their current wealth as a giant amplifier. They may or may not succeed, but we can't deny that humanity moves forward as a whole with them. Also to remain wealthy it isn't enough to just rest and vest: it is entirely possible to slip very quickly from the 0.1% to 1% to 10% to regular folk without actual tending. And no, how much ever reddit recommends it, I don't think s&p mutual funds are the answer if you are and want to keep being a part of the 0.1%. This is why I believe greed is a powerful motivator.
pfdietz 7y ago
At 15% of the speed of light, one gets to Alpha Centauri in about 30 years. 450 years would be the time it would take at about 1% of the speed of light.

jotm 7y ago

Galaxy spanning? Did we find the ring? :D But yeah, I'd be happy with just a solar system spanning civilization.

stoicShell 7y ago
Haha I wish The gist of it, according to experts, is that fusion is so cheap and powerful that it's like sailing on Earth: didn't take "that long" (few thousand years) before we circled all of it. So give us fusion, and given enough time, and few enough aliens (so far so good we've seen none), and they say we'll be all over the Galaxy, eventually even beyond. Cool perspective if you ask me! Wish it were my time. BTW, check out "Isaac Arthur" on YouTube if you like this sorta topic, he's as hard as science-fiction gets. Awesome dude.
- usrusr 7y ago
  But unlike the multi-generational effort of cathedral-building, sailing always came with the promise that a few lucky survivors might live to see the end of the voyage. Makes me wonder if under current laws conspiring to condemn your unborn children to life in the confines of a spaceship might have legal repercussions while still in earth. (actually I'm not even sure about cathedrals, to the best of my limited knowledge the idea of starting them as multigenerational projects might just as well be a retrospective fiction. Are there sources that show that they were not just started I unrealistic schedule expectations?)
  - stoicShell 7y ago
    You're right about cathedrals, and it applies to several such big architecture projects (temples, etc). It's also how science operates when you think about it — that quest so far has always been far bigger than anyone, you know you'll die trying from the beginning, that you won't see where it all leads eventually. There's a collection of vids by Isaac Arthur that might interest you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2f0Wd3zNj0&list=PLIIOUpOge0LskSp9Jac9nE6xSDfZ83Tgf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2f0Wd3zNj0&list=PLIIOUpOge0... The first one is called "generational ships" and talks exactly about that. A few interesting points: - such ships are likely to be orders of magnitude more 'modern', comfortable, heaven compared to anything we know in terms of habitat even on Earth — a very basic promise of space habitats is that you can make them much, much better than any planet can do 'randomly'; and that would happen far before we even think of physically going to another star. - assuming generations on a ship, it's entirely possible that colonizing a planet feels "ancient", "backwards" to these people now born and raised in space; such "spatians" might just choose to remain so (bummer for the founders of the mission, but a decently good move for evolution too). - there are several ways to "colonize" a distant world. One is to go there and breed on the way. Another is to send a genetic "boot" (think a few million distinct human DNAs that machines would grow in vitro just prior to arrival, AI to teach them whatever it is they need, etc). This is within known science, but maybe cryogenics are also possible (that's a third option then). These questions become incredibly complex (and fascinating) the deeper you dig. I think we can rely on 'truths' that were valid for 'enough' generations as being 'plausibly also true' in the near future (symmetrically in time: so if something's been true for human beings for ~5000 years, then it stands to reason that it won't change before, on average, at least as long). It should thus be observed that culturally, we are currently have an extremely short-term view in the Western world; there's a huge contrast with Asia in that regard — where it's not uncommon for businesses to plan for 2030-2040, and 2050-2060 looking at 2100 in politics. Think about it, that's only 3 generations away at the current rate. It's really not that far. It will be vastly different because tech, but also vastly the same because human beings. Do watch that video, he talks about these things very astutely! :)