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There is a point still, because a star is massively more efficient at fusion by way of "production at scale" effects. The additional benefit is the amount of p
by zaarn 5y ago
There is a point still, because a star is massively more efficient at fusion by way of "production at scale" effects.
The additional benefit is the amount of power. With the power of a star at your disposal, beaming your energy using lasers and microwaves, even if only 1% efficient, would instantly solve the energy needs of any planet in a solar system. If we did it, we could instantly colonize all planets in our solar system because things like "running an AC on Mercury" or "Hovercraft in Jupiter Atmosphere" becomes trivial when you have limitless power.
Heck, you could start projects like moving planets in orbits or collecting astroids to built a planet if you wanted.
Black holes are the stage after that since you can use a spinning black hole to convert a given mass into energy at >10% efficiency (given E=MC^2). That would allow a civilization to power multiple solar systems at the cost of a few planets per year.
Granted, the sphere is difficult to build, but that is what you have dyson swarms for.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y agoThe sphere isn't difficult to build. It's impossible to build. It's unstable without active stabilisation. The stabilisation has to be perfect because otherwise you get massive distorting spherequakes propagating through it, which will make it a very uncomfortable ride for a short time and will soon tear it apart. A perfect spherical stabilising solution with components and sensors that are light minutes - or possibly light hours - from each other is impossible because of the signalling delays. Ringworlds have the same problem. Even if the ring is made of infinitely strong unobtanium, it won't stay in a useful orbit for long enough to be built, never mind inhabited. Swarms have more potential, because you can build them with sparse shells and move things around to handle instabilities. But you still need massive computational effort to keep swarm units from colliding with each other, possibly at very high speed. None of this matters, because the limiting factor for civs is collective intelligence, not energy. We already have access to far more energy than we could possibly use on earth for any technology that's actually buildable. But we're not using it because we don't have the species IQ to make the right choices.
- wruza 5y agocollective intelligence, not energy This. The entire “moving planets” and “powering asteroids” theme is just a projection of our historical aggressive reproduction, which is not even a requirement for an advanced civilization. Earth alone could serve us a few billions of happy years, if we didn’t have the happy urge to multiply until critical shortage. That’s far from intelligent, imo.
- nine_k 5y agoDidn't you notice that multiplying and expanding is the quality of all life, as a phenomenon? With that, being happy does not seem to be a universal quality of life; some would even posit that the opposite is true (ask Gautama B.) I don't see humans completely overcome their biological nature any time soon, if ever.
- h0l0cube 5y ago> Didn't you notice that multiplying and expanding is the quality of all life Humans are exceptional in this regard as that can expand beyond the limits, and at the expense of, all other known species. Humans are also exceptional in that they could extinguish themselves, either by choice on their own folly.
- marcellus23 5y agoNone of those are exceptional. Have you heard of invasive species?
- h0l0cube 5y ago> Have you heard of invasive species? Of course. But they reach a limit. Only one species is able to exploit resources, and the biosphere, to its own ends. Agriculture, mining, and technological advancement are peculiar to humans. All of these permit us to live longer, with fewer setbacks, and in environments no other animals can survive (space, and soon other planets). Are these not exceptional traits? We can also engineer a virus, or deploy strategic weapons that could wipe out our entire species (and a bunch of others). Is that not exceptional?