5 ms·

Some will say: it’ll be log structures again

by Isamu 3y ago

myth_drannon 3y ago
"I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." - Albert Einstein.
- stareatgoats 3y ago
  I totally agree with the sentiment, but the citation marks might not be wholly appropriate. This is what Snopes said when they dug into it: > "We found several other instances of people making similar statements at around the same time, indicating that this was a popular opinion at that time that was evidently shared by Albert Einstein. However, we have been unable to find a direct quote from the physicist that matches this particular meme." https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/einstein-world-war-iv-sticks-stones/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/einstein-world-war-iv-stic...
  - saalweachter 3y ago
    If I were famous enough for people to attribute quotes to me while I was still alive, I would totally take the good, pithy ones and go, "I've said it before and I'll say it again..." at my next interview.
    - gumby 3y ago
      I know Mike Godwin and can tell you he at least doesn’t have to.
  - neuromanser 3y ago
    Every popular quip ends up being attributed to Mark Twain. -- Voltaire
- baud147258 3y ago
  > sticks and stones. well, the clashes on the India-Chinese border in the Himalayas comes to mind...
ppsreejith 3y ago
I like how this can be read both as a future where we regress technologically, or as a future where all work is in the domain of math.
visarga 3y ago
from logs to logits
dougmwne 3y ago
Paired with the other article on the front page about transparent wood, I’m assuming it will be log structures from genetically modified trees that provide passive heating and cooling, air filtration, adaptive transparency and artificial light, self repairing, anti-fungal, neuronal smarthone brain with a range of stylish finishes that can be regrown based on input from your brain-treecomputer interface.
- tudorw 3y ago
  Smells good too!
  - liotier 3y ago
    Claims to be smelling like the material from spontaneously occurring biological structures of ancient times that, some say, gave this material its name !
    - fuzzfactor 3y ago
      It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas! With the look of real wood!
      - tudorw 3y ago
        BOC sells a couple of Xmas smells, or did at least, from 1995, 'BOC's first big customer is Woolworths, where a whiff of cinnamon and a subtle hint of cloves will be in the air this Christmas' by 1997 it had become 'a heady mix of pumpkin and thyme'!
- r00fus 3y ago
  Reminds me of a scene from Hyperion Cantos with the ousters (imagine all of this but the structure is sentient is also part of a Dyson sphere).
gumby 3y ago
Indeed, but also other advanced mathematical structures too.
- gumby 3y ago
  The big question is if that’s enough time for snakes to evolve to using log structures, so that they can slither beyond simple adders.
chanandler_bong 3y ago
You're assuming there will be any trees left...
AndrewKemendo 3y ago
This is my bet also
happytiger 3y ago
So more Burroughs and less Asimov? Shall we start digging now or shall we start the bunker after lunch? Roddenbury’s vision is quickly coming to life. Ship’s computer AI, pocket communicators, advanced medicine… surely some of this matters (barring the ongoing threat nuclear apocalypse, granted).
- dylan604 3y ago
  I always liked the saying "the meek shall inherit the earth, the rest of us are going to space." While those in space will probably be closer to Total Recall style bases vs Star Trek clean and shiny, I feel like those on earth will be closer to Mad Max. Humans are why we can't have nice things
- spurgu 3y ago
  A problem I see is that we've long since depleted all the easy-to-extract fossil fuel reserves, if there's ever a catastrophe of any sorts there will not be any way to reboot our civilization. Or there possibly could be, but then the path would be so slow and cumbersome that on that kind of timescale we'd likely get obliterated by asteroid impacts long before getting the technology up to par with what we currently have. So we'd better get it right this time because it's our only chance.
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    > A problem I see is that we've long since depleted all the easy-to-extract fossil fuel reserves A sentence I'd never thought I'd ever write, but we can actually look at the Nazis for an answer. They too had the problem that there was barely any oil available, so they turned to a recent-ish French invention - wood gas - instead [1] and scaled the technology up to hundreds of thousands of deployed units, including locomotives. Wood is perfectly fine to kickstart a re-industrialization, it was how the original industrialization went on as well with giant steam power plants in the first place. The largest benefit of oil was that it was waaay cheaper to extract and handle than to deal with wood, and you can make plastics out of it. A future civilization may actually have an easier path, by using either power-to-gas technology to create energy-dense fuel, or by letting plants do the job instead (biofuel). The only thing that will be really short in supply is plastics - for now, we make cheap plastics out of the byproducts of oil refineries, but in a society that doesn't have oil, they will be limited to plastics that do not require oil (e.g. PVC) as part of the supply chain. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas
sophacles 3y ago
I doubt humans ever stopped building log structures. Not all humans or groups of humans of course, plenty live in places without many trees. I'd be less surprised to find out that there have been humans have been using log structures more for the entire ~.5M years than to find out it was lost for some number of years/generations.

Some will say: it’ll be log structures again

by Isamu 3y ago

Some will say: it’ll be log structures again

"I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." - Albert Einstein.

stareatgoats 3y ago
I totally agree with the sentiment, but the citation marks might not be wholly appropriate. This is what Snopes said when they dug into it: > "We found several other instances of people making similar statements at around the same time, indicating that this was a popular opinion at that time that was evidently shared by Albert Einstein. However, we have been unable to find a direct quote from the physicist that matches this particular meme." https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/einstein-world-war-iv-sticks-stones/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/einstein-world-war-iv-stic...
- saalweachter 3y ago
  If I were famous enough for people to attribute quotes to me while I was still alive, I would totally take the good, pithy ones and go, "I've said it before and I'll say it again..." at my next interview.
  - gumby 3y ago
    I know Mike Godwin and can tell you he at least doesn’t have to.
- neuromanser 3y ago
  Every popular quip ends up being attributed to Mark Twain. -- Voltaire
baud147258 3y ago
> sticks and stones. well, the clashes on the India-Chinese border in the Himalayas comes to mind...

ppsreejith 3y ago

I like how this can be read both as a future where we regress technologically, or as a future where all work is in the domain of math.

visarga 3y ago

from logs to logits

dougmwne 3y ago

Paired with the other article on the front page about transparent wood, I’m assuming it will be log structures from genetically modified trees that provide passive heating and cooling, air filtration, adaptive transparency and artificial light, self repairing, anti-fungal, neuronal smarthone brain with a range of stylish finishes that can be regrown based on input from your brain-treecomputer interface.

tudorw 3y ago
Smells good too!
- liotier 3y ago
  Claims to be smelling like the material from spontaneously occurring biological structures of ancient times that, some say, gave this material its name !
  - fuzzfactor 3y ago
    It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas! With the look of real wood!
    - tudorw 3y ago
      BOC sells a couple of Xmas smells, or did at least, from 1995, 'BOC's first big customer is Woolworths, where a whiff of cinnamon and a subtle hint of cloves will be in the air this Christmas' by 1997 it had become 'a heady mix of pumpkin and thyme'!
r00fus 3y ago
Reminds me of a scene from Hyperion Cantos with the ousters (imagine all of this but the structure is sentient is also part of a Dyson sphere).

gumby 3y ago

Indeed, but also other advanced mathematical structures too.

gumby 3y ago
The big question is if that’s enough time for snakes to evolve to using log structures, so that they can slither beyond simple adders.

chanandler_bong 3y ago

You're assuming there will be any trees left...

AndrewKemendo 3y ago

This is my bet also

happytiger 3y ago

So more Burroughs and less Asimov? Shall we start digging now or shall we start the bunker after lunch? Roddenbury’s vision is quickly coming to life. Ship’s computer AI, pocket communicators, advanced medicine… surely some of this matters (barring the ongoing threat nuclear apocalypse, granted).

dylan604 3y ago
I always liked the saying "the meek shall inherit the earth, the rest of us are going to space." While those in space will probably be closer to Total Recall style bases vs Star Trek clean and shiny, I feel like those on earth will be closer to Mad Max. Humans are why we can't have nice things
spurgu 3y ago
A problem I see is that we've long since depleted all the easy-to-extract fossil fuel reserves, if there's ever a catastrophe of any sorts there will not be any way to reboot our civilization. Or there possibly could be, but then the path would be so slow and cumbersome that on that kind of timescale we'd likely get obliterated by asteroid impacts long before getting the technology up to par with what we currently have. So we'd better get it right this time because it's our only chance.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > A problem I see is that we've long since depleted all the easy-to-extract fossil fuel reserves A sentence I'd never thought I'd ever write, but we can actually look at the Nazis for an answer. They too had the problem that there was barely any oil available, so they turned to a recent-ish French invention - wood gas - instead [1] and scaled the technology up to hundreds of thousands of deployed units, including locomotives. Wood is perfectly fine to kickstart a re-industrialization, it was how the original industrialization went on as well with giant steam power plants in the first place. The largest benefit of oil was that it was waaay cheaper to extract and handle than to deal with wood, and you can make plastics out of it. A future civilization may actually have an easier path, by using either power-to-gas technology to create energy-dense fuel, or by letting plants do the job instead (biofuel). The only thing that will be really short in supply is plastics - for now, we make cheap plastics out of the byproducts of oil refineries, but in a society that doesn't have oil, they will be limited to plastics that do not require oil (e.g. PVC) as part of the supply chain. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas

sophacles 3y ago

I doubt humans ever stopped building log structures. Not all humans or groups of humans of course, plenty live in places without many trees. I'd be less surprised to find out that there have been humans have been using log structures more for the entire ~.5M years than to find out it was lost for some number of years/generations.