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I'm not convinced that "sufficiently advanced" technology as the grandparent comment posits requires the kind of industrial manufacturing base we (or our forese
by AlotOfReading 3y ago
I'm not convinced that "sufficiently advanced" technology as the grandparent comment posits requires the kind of industrial manufacturing base we (or our foreseeable descendants) will need.
Think about how that other programmable matter, biology works. Organisms don't need big factories to turn basic environmental resources into sophisticated structures, only chemistry, cells, and "programming". There's nothing in principle stopping us from building similar systems for space exploration besides our own ignorance and primitive technology.
- PaulHoule 3y agoThere was a paper that came out recently that said that at an oxygen level a little lower than the Earth you can still respire but you can’t start a fire, which blocks technology. One could posit some kind of “biotechnology” for instance which could be based on life as we know it or with something like the DNA-RNA-Amino Acid complex with different molecules (it is already possible to change the amino acids repitoire.). How you get there without fire is unclear but it looks like something we can do.
- api 3y agoThis assumes that fire is the only path to technology in our type of environment, but it is hard to imagine others since you need heat to refine materials to do anything else. Heat can be obtained from solar concentrators but what do you make those out of?