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Yeah not to mention the construction of the plant itself! I wouldn’t want to be operating the drill that punctures the magma chambers! I’m optimistic. If we sp

Yeah not to mention the construction of the plant itself! I wouldn’t want to be operating the drill that punctures the magma chambers! I’m optimistic. If we spent less time engineering society and more time engineering the earth, I think we’d all be a lot happier.

bcrosby95 3y ago
The JPL plan doesn't actually puncture the magma chambers.
- erulabs 3y ago
  I felt the ignorance in my fingers even as I typed it. That's awesome!
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
hellcow 3y ago
> I wouldn’t want to be operating the drill that punctures the magma chambers! Years of Dwarf Fortress have prepared me for this moment.
theandrewbailey 3y ago
> I wouldn’t want to be operating the drill that punctures the magma chambers! Even if that happens, I wonder if the hole would be so deep, that the magma cools and solidifies in the borehole before it reaches the surface. Similar to how pristine sub-glacial Antarctic lakes are sampled by drilling straight into them (!) and letting the water flow up into the hole, where it freezes. https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-have-just-drilled-into-an-antarctic-lost-lake-for-the-second-time-in-history https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-have-just-drilled-in...
dylan604 3y ago
>I wouldn’t want to be operating the drill This is where AI applications could actually be of benefit. Also, instead of sending Harry Stamper and a bunch of misfit roughnecks to some asteroid of doom, we could just train AI on Harry's knowledge of deep well drilling. It'll be fine.
- dexwiz 3y ago
  Why do we need AI for this when remote controlled operations would work just fine, especially terrestrially?
  - dylan604 3y ago
    Because you can't get VC funding for your new venture if you don't have AI some where in your slide deck
- lelanthran 3y ago
  It doesn't matter whether a human or a robot drills into Yellowstone, the resulting eruption will kill off all humans on earth anyway.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    which is exactly what the AI is attempting to achieve
keneda7 3y ago
The article mentions one proposal that specifically says they would drill holes around the magma chamber as drilling into the chamber itself could possibly cause an eruption.
pl90087 3y ago
Or exactly the other way around. Without "engineering society" we'd still live in tribes killing each other at first sight. We have reduced that substantially. Some societies are a bit behind (like allowing lethal military-grade weapons at home), some are further advanced. Overall, it seems a good idea to use our intellect to advance societies and we've come a long way from the dark ages. Our earth engineering has come so far that with the exception of a few national parks and reserves, we've used every little corner to cut off and kill everything that existed on it and turned it into less-and-less usable farmland. A few areas are cities or golf courses or transportation highways, the rest are terrible monocultures or their next stage: deserts. We've extinguished more species than we know and of those that we have not, we have brought lots to close to it. 95% of all fish are dead. Sea levels are rising rapidly. Large areas have water shortages. We need less "earth engineering", not more of it.
- erulabs 3y ago
  All of the problems you listed sound to me like earth-engineering problems, except for the "problem" of private property. I strongly disagree with the premise that social engineering raised us from tribal groups. It was agriculture and domestication and fire. The data suggests global farmland is reducing [1] and becoming more and more productive [2]. It is funny that we see things exactly opposite! 1. https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/article/2021/02/01/land-use-farmland-loss-threatens#:~:text=The%20world%20will%20lose%20about,Organization%20of%20the%20United%20Nations https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/article/2021/0.... 2. https://ourworldindata.org/crop-yields https://ourworldindata.org/crop-yields

bcrosby95 3y ago

The JPL plan doesn't actually puncture the magma chambers.

erulabs 3y ago
I felt the ignorance in my fingers even as I typed it. That's awesome!

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

hellcow 3y ago

> I wouldn’t want to be operating the drill that punctures the magma chambers! Years of Dwarf Fortress have prepared me for this moment.

theandrewbailey 3y ago

> I wouldn’t want to be operating the drill that punctures the magma chambers! Even if that happens, I wonder if the hole would be so deep, that the magma cools and solidifies in the borehole before it reaches the surface. Similar to how pristine sub-glacial Antarctic lakes are sampled by drilling straight into them (!) and letting the water flow up into the hole, where it freezes. https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-have-just-drilled-into-an-antarctic-lost-lake-for-the-second-time-in-history https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-have-just-drilled-in...

dylan604 3y ago

>I wouldn’t want to be operating the drill This is where AI applications could actually be of benefit. Also, instead of sending Harry Stamper and a bunch of misfit roughnecks to some asteroid of doom, we could just train AI on Harry's knowledge of deep well drilling. It'll be fine.

dexwiz 3y ago
Why do we need AI for this when remote controlled operations would work just fine, especially terrestrially?
- dylan604 3y ago
  Because you can't get VC funding for your new venture if you don't have AI some where in your slide deck
lelanthran 3y ago
It doesn't matter whether a human or a robot drills into Yellowstone, the resulting eruption will kill off all humans on earth anyway.
- dylan604 3y ago
  which is exactly what the AI is attempting to achieve

keneda7 3y ago

The article mentions one proposal that specifically says they would drill holes around the magma chamber as drilling into the chamber itself could possibly cause an eruption.

pl90087 3y ago

Or exactly the other way around. Without "engineering society" we'd still live in tribes killing each other at first sight. We have reduced that substantially. Some societies are a bit behind (like allowing lethal military-grade weapons at home), some are further advanced. Overall, it seems a good idea to use our intellect to advance societies and we've come a long way from the dark ages. Our earth engineering has come so far that with the exception of a few national parks and reserves, we've used every little corner to cut off and kill everything that existed on it and turned it into less-and-less usable farmland. A few areas are cities or golf courses or transportation highways, the rest are terrible monocultures or their next stage: deserts. We've extinguished more species than we know and of those that we have not, we have brought lots to close to it. 95% of all fish are dead. Sea levels are rising rapidly. Large areas have water shortages. We need less "earth engineering", not more of it.

erulabs 3y ago
All of the problems you listed sound to me like earth-engineering problems, except for the "problem" of private property. I strongly disagree with the premise that social engineering raised us from tribal groups. It was agriculture and domestication and fire. The data suggests global farmland is reducing [1] and becoming more and more productive [2]. It is funny that we see things exactly opposite! 1. https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/article/2021/02/01/land-use-farmland-loss-threatens#:~:text=The%20world%20will%20lose%20about,Organization%20of%20the%20United%20Nations https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/article/2021/0.... 2. https://ourworldindata.org/crop-yields https://ourworldindata.org/crop-yields