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I'm actually excited about... fake meat. I think this has huge potential to reduce the amount of land and resources we need to use for agriculture. Of course, w

by cletus 14y ago

I'm actually excited about... fake meat. I think this has huge potential to reduce the amount of land and resources we need to use for agriculture. Of course, with that, will probably come an explosion in population... Any of the genetic/medical things will (IMHO) have annoyingly slow progress. The body is an incredibly complex system (duh), one I think that will defy efforts to "reverse engineer" is (so to speak). Put it this way: we need massive amounts of computing power just to figure out the shape of proteins, which is important to figure out what they react to and how. Extending that to figuring out the interactions and it gets even more complicated. I also believe that nothing will replace the convenience of (largely) non-volatile fuels to the point where considerable effort will be spent to make artificial fuels viable. Giant tubs of algae making them, fuel trees (Anathem), that sort of thing. As much as I like the idea of a space elevator, I'm not sure how viable it is. Firstly, just to create a material strong enough to withstand the forces involved is still something largely theorized about (buckeyballs notwithstanding). It will also be incredibly costly to produce. Imagine what acts of terror could do to that. I see the future of mass long-distance travel being underground vacuum trains. It's a huge engineering effort but would solve so many problems (eg air congestion, travel times). And as much as it depresses me I don't see a big future in space. The economics are terrible (particularly for interstellar travel). IIRC I read that getting one ton of spacecraft to the nearest star system accelerating to 10% of the speed of light would require roughly 10^18 joules of energy or roughly 1kg (being 0.1% of the total mass) of matter being converted to energy perfectly. And this assumes you've solved the reaction mass problem.

ippisl 14y ago
Another way of replacing meat(and maybe reducing the price of food 10x and land and water use) , is using synthetic biology to manufacture the basic components of food and combine those to create tasty food[1]. The effect of this technology seem both really exciting,and really frightening(millions of the poorest losing their job). [1]http://www.wesolveforx.com/#t=t&n=ee7350c5 http://www.wesolveforx.com/#t=t&n=ee7350c5
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
joe_the_user 14y ago
You know, the ability to raise animals on marginal land, land that cannot be used directly for agriculture, has historically been something that allowed herding to be a moderately ecologically friendly activity. Some folks blame not meat but factory farmed meat for the modern epidemic in heart disease (Eskimos had a mostly meat diet with no heart disease - at least at one time). It's hard to imagine vat-meat as healthier than factory farmed meat.
drhayes9 14y ago
Just to throw this out there: imagine the forces a space elevator would have to bear to be viable. Don't just imagine what acts of terror could do to it, imagine the amount of force they'd have to play with just to do anything directly to it! "Great, now we have a space-borne cable slicing through the Earth's crust. Oops."
- AkThhhpppt 14y ago
  There's an amazing sequence in Kim Stanley Robinson's "Red Mars" describing the destruction of a space elevator in a terrorist attack: the cable digs a trench marking the equator of Mars as it wraps around the planet multiple times.
HamSession 14y ago
"I see the future of mass long-distance travel being underground vacuum trains. It's a huge engineering effort but would solve so many problems (eg air congestion, travel times)." I don't think this will happen if the universe has taught me one thing its that things tend to take the least path of resistance. If anything I think the future will be a realized matrix, in that increasing the fidelity of the current internet.

by cletus 14y ago

ippisl 14y ago

Another way of replacing meat(and maybe reducing the price of food 10x and land and water use) , is using synthetic biology to manufacture the basic components of food and combine those to create tasty food[1]. The effect of this technology seem both really exciting,and really frightening(millions of the poorest losing their job). [1]http://www.wesolveforx.com/#t=t&n=ee7350c5 http://www.wesolveforx.com/#t=t&n=ee7350c5

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

joe_the_user 14y ago

You know, the ability to raise animals on marginal land, land that cannot be used directly for agriculture, has historically been something that allowed herding to be a moderately ecologically friendly activity. Some folks blame not meat but factory farmed meat for the modern epidemic in heart disease (Eskimos had a mostly meat diet with no heart disease - at least at one time). It's hard to imagine vat-meat as healthier than factory farmed meat.

drhayes9 14y ago

Just to throw this out there: imagine the forces a space elevator would have to bear to be viable. Don't just imagine what acts of terror could do to it, imagine the amount of force they'd have to play with just to do anything directly to it! "Great, now we have a space-borne cable slicing through the Earth's crust. Oops."

AkThhhpppt 14y ago
There's an amazing sequence in Kim Stanley Robinson's "Red Mars" describing the destruction of a space elevator in a terrorist attack: the cable digs a trench marking the equator of Mars as it wraps around the planet multiple times.

HamSession 14y ago

"I see the future of mass long-distance travel being underground vacuum trains. It's a huge engineering effort but would solve so many problems (eg air congestion, travel times)." I don't think this will happen if the universe has taught me one thing its that things tend to take the least path of resistance. If anything I think the future will be a realized matrix, in that increasing the fidelity of the current internet.