4 ms·

"Air is for birds and gods. Ground is for people." -- unknown person, AD 1000 Why are we so shortsighted? The future is an incredibly long time. If self-suffic

by senko 5y ago

"Air is for birds and gods. Ground is for people." -- unknown person, AD 1000 Why are we so shortsighted? The future is an incredibly long time. If self-sufficient human settlements on, say Mars, are out of the question with our current level of technology and are unlikely in the next few centuries, does that imply they'll be just as unlikely in 10,000 years? Will our descendants be so stupid they won't be able to solve new technology challenges? Today is not the end of history.

blooalien 5y ago
Bad impression of announcer voice: Will humanity survive long enough to find out the answers to these questions and more? Tune in next time to find out! Same Bat-Time, Same Bat-Channel!
- chii 5y ago
  given that humans took less than 100 years to get powered flight, less than 50 yrs to get rocketry, i expect interplanetary colonization to not be in the too distant future...
  - arminiusreturns 5y ago
    I mean isnt the main question if we destroy ourselves before that time?
  - blooalien 5y ago
    I'ma have to see a viable colony on Earth's moon before I'ma able to even consider the possibility we have a snowball's chance in Hell of surviving someplace like Mars. Problem is… Can humanity survive itself long enough to even get a colony on the Moon?
javajosh 5y ago
Yes, well, that's the trouble with analogies - they are misleading. "After all, we broke the sound barrier, so breaking the light barrier is only a few years away!" I'm sure people made that argument. Just as they made the same false-generalizing in the early days of X-rays - imagining Vita-rays and superpower rays and so on. You can do the same thing with digging. Well, we can dig 10m down, why not 100m? Why not 10000m? Why not all the way through? I mean it's easy physics to show you can move between any two points on a planet through an evacuated tunnel with no energy price, so why don't we do it? Is it because the downers like me don't think we have the materials to actually build the tunnels, and that we'd have to spend a great deal of energy to cool them because the Earth's core is really hot, and if only we'd shut our cynical traps the dreamers would get 'er done? I blame science-fiction for really and truly warping our intuition of what is physically possible. A small moon base is certainly possible, but does that mean a sun base is possible? No. Cars revolutionized transportation, and phones communication. Does that mean teleportation is possible? No. Do insights about spacetime make time-travel possible? Except in the Ted Chaing sense (where time-travel has a lovely, inevitable symmetry to it), no. Chemistry - so we can create matter from nothing? No. Theoretical physicists play games with math - so free energy from vacuum? No. But nanotechnology? Yes. AI? Yes. Full control over the genome? Yes. It's not that I think history is over, it's just that our stories are misleading about which branches of history we can travel. No ancient thinking person really ever doubted the earth was round (because there are easy experiments anyone can do), and they didn't think that heavier-than-air flight was impossible (because birds). It's true a few believed faster-than-sound travel was impossible, but I don't think that was ever a majority view (could be wrong on that, though). Back to space. Space sucks. I don't want to live there. The Expanse was/is a great show, and it's certainly more realistic than most space-faring SF -- but it is still deep fantasy. The impact of living outside of gravity and outside of the magnetosphere is enormous and even with perfect medicine it would be uncomfortable because of the atmospheric constraints. The Epstein drive is fantasy. It is admittedly more plausible than most SF drives, but still non-physical. Of course, the alien stuff is pure fantasy. Places like Mars suck even more than space, IMHO. Mars is a lifeless, cold rock without atmosphere or light, or proper gravity. I mean, Mars right now is still infinitely worse off for supporting life than Earth in the worst case, struck by a 20km asteroid. Or post-Yellowstone caldera. Another way to put it, Mars could take 100 meteor strikes like that and be no worse off. That's how bad it is. (There wouldn't even be much of a nuclear winter since there's no atmosphere to keep ejecta suspended. Although maybe if you strike it just right and with the right rocks you could give it an atmosphere of sorts?) So, there is hope for exotic effects! Quantum phenomena at scale is basically magic. Black holes are quite mysterious! So is the origin of the universe - and I believe, contrary to most, that cosmological questions could very well have practical applications. "Metamaterials" (a kind of cousin to nanotech) can open up a lot of cool options for building things. And so on. But yeah I wish people would give up the childish Star Trek/Star Wars fantasies about the possibilities of technology and embrace the reality of what we know. I too want FTL, teleportation and sexy humanoid aliens to seduce as much as the next guy, but despite the aesthetics its fantasy. And while shows like The Expanse seem more real, they still sneak in enough fantasy to invalidate it. (I do appreciate them not abandoning kinetic energy weapons for the massless junk in other SF, though!)
- Valgrim 5y ago
  Here's a reason I think humans will embrace space habitats and colonizing other planets: we can't let go of the idea of infinite growth, and we want to preserve life and nature(and biodiversity). Those two facts are incompatible with each other if we remain only on earth. So we'll build carbon-neutral space launch platforms. We'll figure out asteroid mining and space manufacturing. We'll grow beyond Earth because we will never, as a whole, accept death.
- senko 5y ago
  Thanks for taking the time to elaborate. I mostly agree with both this and your GP comment, and that's just it: I don't think we can at this point imagine how the future (tech) will look or what will be possible. Any attempt is at best speculation and at worst a fantasy. As you said, extrapolation from current trends quickly gets us into unbelievable territory. I'm definitely not a religious person, but I do have faith they (future humans) will figure something out, if there's any incentive (survival, profit, ... fun?) to do so - unless our species goes extint first. That's also why I do believe things SpaceX and others are doing are important. Not because we'll have a colony on Mars in a few decades (I don't think we will). But if we don't even start trying, it'll be awfully long before we get anywhere.
  - javajosh 5y ago
    I like politely disagreeing conversations - they are more productive! So, thanks. I get your gist, but I don't agree. The analogy I think of in this case is ancient Greece - let's say Athens. Imagine a precocious boy who discovers he can walk on the ocean floor by fitting an inverted bowl over his head and breathing the trapped air there for a time. He continues to innovate, and attaches a hose. He makes discoveries! Thrilled by his success, he pitches the idea of making an underwater map of the entire Mediterranean! The benefits would be vast, to all the sciences, and would make the sea safer to travel. All the problems can be solved: too deep? Longer hose! With enough ships, enough diving bells, and divers, there is nothing physically impossible about doing this. But of course, it's not worth doing. Such a project could have consumed an entire economy indefinitely. To attempt it prematurely would have been folly - a folly we call pride. The Mediterranean Sea is not that big compared to other bodies of water on Earth, but it is still truly vast, effectively infinite, on a human scale. Even with modern equipment a full mapping of the Med is a truly daunting task. SpaceX is doing excellent work changing the economics of delivering goods to orbit by a factor of 10x or 100x. But even so, we are still at the diving bell level - or even worse - when it comes to space exploration and colonization. I DO NOT believe it makes sense for us, the modern Athenians, to even start spending enormous sums mapping the Med with sailboats and diving bells.

by senko 5y ago

blooalien 5y ago

Bad impression of announcer voice: Will humanity survive long enough to find out the answers to these questions and more? Tune in next time to find out! Same Bat-Time, Same Bat-Channel!

chii 5y ago
given that humans took less than 100 years to get powered flight, less than 50 yrs to get rocketry, i expect interplanetary colonization to not be in the too distant future...
- arminiusreturns 5y ago
  I mean isnt the main question if we destroy ourselves before that time?
- blooalien 5y ago
  I'ma have to see a viable colony on Earth's moon before I'ma able to even consider the possibility we have a snowball's chance in Hell of surviving someplace like Mars. Problem is… Can humanity survive itself long enough to even get a colony on the Moon?

javajosh 5y ago

Yes, well, that's the trouble with analogies - they are misleading. "After all, we broke the sound barrier, so breaking the light barrier is only a few years away!" I'm sure people made that argument. Just as they made the same false-generalizing in the early days of X-rays - imagining Vita-rays and superpower rays and so on. You can do the same thing with digging. Well, we can dig 10m down, why not 100m? Why not 10000m? Why not all the way through? I mean it's easy physics to show you can move between any two points on a planet through an evacuated tunnel with no energy price, so why don't we do it? Is it because the downers like me don't think we have the materials to actually build the tunnels, and that we'd have to spend a great deal of energy to cool them because the Earth's core is really hot, and if only we'd shut our cynical traps the dreamers would get 'er done? I blame science-fiction for really and truly warping our intuition of what is physically possible. A small moon base is certainly possible, but does that mean a sun base is possible? No. Cars revolutionized transportation, and phones communication. Does that mean teleportation is possible? No. Do insights about spacetime make time-travel possible? Except in the Ted Chaing sense (where time-travel has a lovely, inevitable symmetry to it), no. Chemistry - so we can create matter from nothing? No. Theoretical physicists play games with math - so free energy from vacuum? No. But nanotechnology? Yes. AI? Yes. Full control over the genome? Yes. It's not that I think history is over, it's just that our stories are misleading about which branches of history we can travel. No ancient thinking person really ever doubted the earth was round (because there are easy experiments anyone can do), and they didn't think that heavier-than-air flight was impossible (because birds). It's true a few believed faster-than-sound travel was impossible, but I don't think that was ever a majority view (could be wrong on that, though). Back to space. Space sucks. I don't want to live there. The Expanse was/is a great show, and it's certainly more realistic than most space-faring SF -- but it is still deep fantasy. The impact of living outside of gravity and outside of the magnetosphere is enormous and even with perfect medicine it would be uncomfortable because of the atmospheric constraints. The Epstein drive is fantasy. It is admittedly more plausible than most SF drives, but still non-physical. Of course, the alien stuff is pure fantasy. Places like Mars suck even more than space, IMHO. Mars is a lifeless, cold rock without atmosphere or light, or proper gravity. I mean, Mars right now is still infinitely worse off for supporting life than Earth in the worst case, struck by a 20km asteroid. Or post-Yellowstone caldera. Another way to put it, Mars could take 100 meteor strikes like that and be no worse off. That's how bad it is. (There wouldn't even be much of a nuclear winter since there's no atmosphere to keep ejecta suspended. Although maybe if you strike it just right and with the right rocks you could give it an atmosphere of sorts?) So, there is hope for exotic effects! Quantum phenomena at scale is basically magic. Black holes are quite mysterious! So is the origin of the universe - and I believe, contrary to most, that cosmological questions could very well have practical applications. "Metamaterials" (a kind of cousin to nanotech) can open up a lot of cool options for building things. And so on. But yeah I wish people would give up the childish Star Trek/Star Wars fantasies about the possibilities of technology and embrace the reality of what we know. I too want FTL, teleportation and sexy humanoid aliens to seduce as much as the next guy, but despite the aesthetics its fantasy. And while shows like The Expanse seem more real, they still sneak in enough fantasy to invalidate it. (I do appreciate them not abandoning kinetic energy weapons for the massless junk in other SF, though!)

Valgrim 5y ago
Here's a reason I think humans will embrace space habitats and colonizing other planets: we can't let go of the idea of infinite growth, and we want to preserve life and nature(and biodiversity). Those two facts are incompatible with each other if we remain only on earth. So we'll build carbon-neutral space launch platforms. We'll figure out asteroid mining and space manufacturing. We'll grow beyond Earth because we will never, as a whole, accept death.
senko 5y ago
Thanks for taking the time to elaborate. I mostly agree with both this and your GP comment, and that's just it: I don't think we can at this point imagine how the future (tech) will look or what will be possible. Any attempt is at best speculation and at worst a fantasy. As you said, extrapolation from current trends quickly gets us into unbelievable territory. I'm definitely not a religious person, but I do have faith they (future humans) will figure something out, if there's any incentive (survival, profit, ... fun?) to do so - unless our species goes extint first. That's also why I do believe things SpaceX and others are doing are important. Not because we'll have a colony on Mars in a few decades (I don't think we will). But if we don't even start trying, it'll be awfully long before we get anywhere.
- javajosh 5y ago
  I like politely disagreeing conversations - they are more productive! So, thanks. I get your gist, but I don't agree. The analogy I think of in this case is ancient Greece - let's say Athens. Imagine a precocious boy who discovers he can walk on the ocean floor by fitting an inverted bowl over his head and breathing the trapped air there for a time. He continues to innovate, and attaches a hose. He makes discoveries! Thrilled by his success, he pitches the idea of making an underwater map of the entire Mediterranean! The benefits would be vast, to all the sciences, and would make the sea safer to travel. All the problems can be solved: too deep? Longer hose! With enough ships, enough diving bells, and divers, there is nothing physically impossible about doing this. But of course, it's not worth doing. Such a project could have consumed an entire economy indefinitely. To attempt it prematurely would have been folly - a folly we call pride. The Mediterranean Sea is not that big compared to other bodies of water on Earth, but it is still truly vast, effectively infinite, on a human scale. Even with modern equipment a full mapping of the Med is a truly daunting task. SpaceX is doing excellent work changing the economics of delivering goods to orbit by a factor of 10x or 100x. But even so, we are still at the diving bell level - or even worse - when it comes to space exploration and colonization. I DO NOT believe it makes sense for us, the modern Athenians, to even start spending enormous sums mapping the Med with sailboats and diving bells.