4 ms·

As a living organism I am most interested in increasing the resources and habitat size for my species and decedents. The amount of resources on Earth (or that

by htag 4y ago

As a living organism I am most interested in increasing the resources and habitat size for my species and decedents. The amount of resources on Earth (or that we could bring to Earth) is a tiny fraction compared to what's available. More resources and more habitats means more people, which means more of everything that makes humanity awesome. The robots are just a forward scouting tool. Human civilization is essentially 10k years old on galactic time scales, with agriculture being ~12k years old.

gumby 4y ago
I am not the MAILMAN, I am also a living organism and I couldn't care less about those goals. I don't deny that you might have them but they are hardly an automatic consequence of being a human, much less some more general "living organism". They sound pretty high level to me, especially the bit about "species" (whatever that might really mean anyway). Speciation is a human construct. For all you know you are just running a program designed to transmit a message encoded in some "junk" DNA inherited from some long lost ancestor who was modified by some alien that crashed on our planet billions of years ago who hopes that some terrestrial decendent will eventually arrive at an inhabited planet where the residents will open up the astronaut, read the message, and come rescue your descendants to travel. Robots will be our real descendants.
- htag 4y ago
  > I don't deny that you might have them but they are hardly an automatic consequence of being a human, much less some more general "living organism". Searching for resources, gathering them, and controlling territory from competitors are basic biological behaviors we see in most (all?) life. On a personal level this behavior might look like visiting a grocery store, storing the food at home, and locking your door. It seems reasonable that as our technology develops and we exhaust resources on Earth that we will need to increase our reach to resources and territories beyond Earth.
  - gumby 4y ago
    > Searching for resources, gathering them, and controlling territory from competitors are basic biological behaviors we see in most (all?) life. The vast majority of the mass of life on this planet does not participate in all (and probably in most cases any) of the behavior you describe. Stromatolites, various parasites and symbiotes, most bacteria, etc do little to none of that. Importing resources from other planets or other extraterrestrial bodies can and would better be done by robots than humans.
    - htag 4y ago
      Organelles such as flagellum are used for moving to find more resources. A large benefit of cell membranes is to provide a safe place for resources. I'd argue the entire lifecycle of parasites is to find (scout) suitable resource rich environments and to consume them all (gather), often in a way that wrestles territory control from it's host. Here are some articles describing bacteria doing the exact behaviors (search for resource, gather them, and territory control). * A good summary of group compeitive behavior of bacteria, including several territory control strategies. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2879262/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2879262/ * "Distinct foraging strategies generated by single-action behavioural flexibility" https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.09.434602v2.full.pdf https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.09.434602v2.... * Marine bacteria changing behavior around resource rich locations to improve resource gathering. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200925113346.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200925113346.h... * Description of bacteria predators, and complex hunting behavior (scout and gather) https://www.llnl.gov/news/predatory-bacteria-bite-their-own https://www.llnl.gov/news/predatory-bacteria-bite-their-own * Description of properties of bacteria colonies and territory expansion https://nbi.ku.dk/english/news/news20/bacteria-colonies-of-billions-invade-new-territories-without-traffic-jams--we-now-know-how/ https://nbi.ku.dk/english/news/news20/bacteria-colonies-of-b... EDIT: I wanted to respond to the point "Importing resources from other planets or other extraterrestrial bodies can and would better be done by robots than humans." I'm sure robotic mining will occur first. However, we have a limit on the amount of resources we can bring to Earth. An estimated 10% of the mass of the astroid belt is water (on Ceres). Saturn's rings contains about half of Earth's glacier's mass as water. There's likely a dozen more large water deposits in our solar system, although we know less about their total mass. Titan, Ganymede, Callisto, twenty more likely candidates. Imagine tripling the amount of water on Earth. Where would sea level be? This is just gathering all "nearby" water, our most basic resource. We also have to consider the demand for metals like gold, platinum and lithium. Our demand for nitrogen to fertilize soil. Our demand for fuel sources such as hydrogen/oxygen, helium-3, or uranium. There's simply more stuff in our solar system than we can possibly fit on Earth or LEO.

by htag 4y ago

gumby 4y ago

I am not the MAILMAN, I am also a living organism and I couldn't care less about those goals. I don't deny that you might have them but they are hardly an automatic consequence of being a human, much less some more general "living organism". They sound pretty high level to me, especially the bit about "species" (whatever that might really mean anyway). Speciation is a human construct. For all you know you are just running a program designed to transmit a message encoded in some "junk" DNA inherited from some long lost ancestor who was modified by some alien that crashed on our planet billions of years ago who hopes that some terrestrial decendent will eventually arrive at an inhabited planet where the residents will open up the astronaut, read the message, and come rescue your descendants to travel. Robots will be our real descendants.

htag 4y ago
> I don't deny that you might have them but they are hardly an automatic consequence of being a human, much less some more general "living organism". Searching for resources, gathering them, and controlling territory from competitors are basic biological behaviors we see in most (all?) life. On a personal level this behavior might look like visiting a grocery store, storing the food at home, and locking your door. It seems reasonable that as our technology develops and we exhaust resources on Earth that we will need to increase our reach to resources and territories beyond Earth.
- gumby 4y ago
  > Searching for resources, gathering them, and controlling territory from competitors are basic biological behaviors we see in most (all?) life. The vast majority of the mass of life on this planet does not participate in all (and probably in most cases any) of the behavior you describe. Stromatolites, various parasites and symbiotes, most bacteria, etc do little to none of that. Importing resources from other planets or other extraterrestrial bodies can and would better be done by robots than humans.
  - htag 4y ago
    Organelles such as flagellum are used for moving to find more resources. A large benefit of cell membranes is to provide a safe place for resources. I'd argue the entire lifecycle of parasites is to find (scout) suitable resource rich environments and to consume them all (gather), often in a way that wrestles territory control from it's host. Here are some articles describing bacteria doing the exact behaviors (search for resource, gather them, and territory control). * A good summary of group compeitive behavior of bacteria, including several territory control strategies. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2879262/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2879262/ * "Distinct foraging strategies generated by single-action behavioural flexibility" https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.09.434602v2.full.pdf https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.09.434602v2.... * Marine bacteria changing behavior around resource rich locations to improve resource gathering. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200925113346.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200925113346.h... * Description of bacteria predators, and complex hunting behavior (scout and gather) https://www.llnl.gov/news/predatory-bacteria-bite-their-own https://www.llnl.gov/news/predatory-bacteria-bite-their-own * Description of properties of bacteria colonies and territory expansion https://nbi.ku.dk/english/news/news20/bacteria-colonies-of-billions-invade-new-territories-without-traffic-jams--we-now-know-how/ https://nbi.ku.dk/english/news/news20/bacteria-colonies-of-b... EDIT: I wanted to respond to the point "Importing resources from other planets or other extraterrestrial bodies can and would better be done by robots than humans." I'm sure robotic mining will occur first. However, we have a limit on the amount of resources we can bring to Earth. An estimated 10% of the mass of the astroid belt is water (on Ceres). Saturn's rings contains about half of Earth's glacier's mass as water. There's likely a dozen more large water deposits in our solar system, although we know less about their total mass. Titan, Ganymede, Callisto, twenty more likely candidates. Imagine tripling the amount of water on Earth. Where would sea level be? This is just gathering all "nearby" water, our most basic resource. We also have to consider the demand for metals like gold, platinum and lithium. Our demand for nitrogen to fertilize soil. Our demand for fuel sources such as hydrogen/oxygen, helium-3, or uranium. There's simply more stuff in our solar system than we can possibly fit on Earth or LEO.