4 ms·

Videogames And The Impossibility Of Escape From Planet Earth

15 points by mcav 17y ago

DanielBMarkham 17y ago
The author says that exploring inner worlds instead of the real universe "...It could be incredible, or unfathomably horrible..." I think its much more likely over hundreds of years it will just slowly degrade into complete inaction and senility -- a species reaching its old age.
- stcredzero 17y ago
  Perhaps we are already sliding into senility: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=654578 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=654578 Maybe capitalism and digital networks are a dead-end? Perhaps we will just be pulled into ever-faster cycles of incomprehensible introspection and cultural remixing? Perhaps only a few species ever escape this trap, which is why we've never seen any.
  - DanielBMarkham 17y ago
    Yes a species has to be dynamic and chaotic enough to explore, yet docile enough to somehow live with itself. Too chaotic and you have lawlessness and lack of trust in contracts -- the basis of economic performance. You can't trust the future. Too docile and nobody truly takes risks which carry great rewards, such as ocean travel. You stagnate. It is completely possible that most species are unable to keep the right mix long enough to conquer deep space exploration. Instead they just turn into themselves and wilt, doing less and less and consuming more and more until the species itself is homogeneous and unable to survive natural challenges like plagues. I think we can see the beginnings of this already.
ryanwaggoner 17y ago
Perhaps it simply is the case that we’re trapped on this planet, or in this solar system. When I read articles that discuss the vastness of the cosmos and the trillions upon trillions of stars that inhabit our universe, and the likelihood that there are perhaps billions of inhabitable planets out there teeming with life, the emotion I feel most is not awe, but a deep sadness for all that we'll never know or understand about the universe. Many of these galaxies are tens of billions of light years away, so unless there's some pretty impressive loopholes in the laws of physics as we understand them today, we as a species will never know what lies beyond the tiniest fraction of our little corner of the universe. And that's depressing.
- chops 17y ago
  As an individual who will likely not be around in 100 years or so, it's mildly depressing to know that I won't see the next 500+ years of advancement. As a species, I'm not worried. Who knows what discoveries will be made, and what kind of subsequent technological achievements will be made in the future? If the history of science has taught us anything, it's to not underestimate the power of the undiscovered. If you figure, there are a handful of things that we know we don't yet know (grand unified theory). Just think of the things we don't know that we don't know.
  - smhinsey 17y ago
    > If the history of science has taught us anything, it's to not underestimate the power of the undiscovered. well said
    - biff-wellington 17y ago
      "well said" if you don't understand anything about modern physics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light even if you figure someway of travelling simply very fast, humans could not survive in space for extended periods. and even if you could physically survive and extend your lifespan over the tens of thousands of years necessary to get anywhere interesting, you would go insane and kill yourself. and if you did end up somewhere, the first plants or living foodsource would likely kill you. if you can't survive the water in mexico or food in india, how do you plan to cope with bok choi from a planet near proxima centauri? "advanced medicine"??? that only works by trial and error r2d2 and c3p0 might be able to do interstellar travel, humans won't.
dreish 17y ago
Of course, the opposite of the "aliens just stayed home" hypothesis is the hypothesis that we're the first species in the universe to acquire technology, and that we'll spread throughout it within a few more decades, eliminating any possibility for any other species to do the same. Personally I doubt it's possible to exceed the speed of light. I think it's more likely that we'll slowly spread throughout the Milky Way, and that while simple life and complex-but-unintelligent life are likely to be pretty common, the average distribution of technological species is probably something on the order of one per galaxy. Just a hunch.
- biff-wellington 17y ago
  and that we'll spread throughout it within a few more decades more like giga-decades
bitwize 17y ago
It doesn’t have to mean “exploring a jungle in the Congo”, or “exploring that nice little village in Tuscany”, it could just as easily mean “exploring the physics of this peculiar puzzle game”, or “exploring the inside of a psychotic milkman’s imagination“. This reminds me of the sort of artist whom we're implicitly supposed to regard as brilliant simply by virtue of being audacious. They're always exploring stuff and it's usually stuff you can explore from your own comfy chair without much physical or even terribly much mental effort. Like, "A poet, sculptor, and political activist from Portland, Oregon, H. Remington Jackass explores the connections between race, gender, and the challenges to the nature of self imposed by modern capitalistic society."

15 points by mcav 17y ago

The author says that exploring inner worlds instead of the real universe "...It could be incredible, or unfathomably horrible..." I think its much more likely over hundreds of years it will just slowly degrade into complete inaction and senility -- a species reaching its old age.

stcredzero 17y ago
Perhaps we are already sliding into senility: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=654578 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=654578 Maybe capitalism and digital networks are a dead-end? Perhaps we will just be pulled into ever-faster cycles of incomprehensible introspection and cultural remixing? Perhaps only a few species ever escape this trap, which is why we've never seen any.
- DanielBMarkham 17y ago
  Yes a species has to be dynamic and chaotic enough to explore, yet docile enough to somehow live with itself. Too chaotic and you have lawlessness and lack of trust in contracts -- the basis of economic performance. You can't trust the future. Too docile and nobody truly takes risks which carry great rewards, such as ocean travel. You stagnate. It is completely possible that most species are unable to keep the right mix long enough to conquer deep space exploration. Instead they just turn into themselves and wilt, doing less and less and consuming more and more until the species itself is homogeneous and unable to survive natural challenges like plagues. I think we can see the beginnings of this already.

ryanwaggoner 17y ago

Perhaps it simply is the case that we’re trapped on this planet, or in this solar system. When I read articles that discuss the vastness of the cosmos and the trillions upon trillions of stars that inhabit our universe, and the likelihood that there are perhaps billions of inhabitable planets out there teeming with life, the emotion I feel most is not awe, but a deep sadness for all that we'll never know or understand about the universe. Many of these galaxies are tens of billions of light years away, so unless there's some pretty impressive loopholes in the laws of physics as we understand them today, we as a species will never know what lies beyond the tiniest fraction of our little corner of the universe. And that's depressing.

chops 17y ago
As an individual who will likely not be around in 100 years or so, it's mildly depressing to know that I won't see the next 500+ years of advancement. As a species, I'm not worried. Who knows what discoveries will be made, and what kind of subsequent technological achievements will be made in the future? If the history of science has taught us anything, it's to not underestimate the power of the undiscovered. If you figure, there are a handful of things that we know we don't yet know (grand unified theory). Just think of the things we don't know that we don't know.
- smhinsey 17y ago
  > If the history of science has taught us anything, it's to not underestimate the power of the undiscovered. well said
  - biff-wellington 17y ago
    "well said" if you don't understand anything about modern physics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light even if you figure someway of travelling simply very fast, humans could not survive in space for extended periods. and even if you could physically survive and extend your lifespan over the tens of thousands of years necessary to get anywhere interesting, you would go insane and kill yourself. and if you did end up somewhere, the first plants or living foodsource would likely kill you. if you can't survive the water in mexico or food in india, how do you plan to cope with bok choi from a planet near proxima centauri? "advanced medicine"??? that only works by trial and error r2d2 and c3p0 might be able to do interstellar travel, humans won't.

dreish 17y ago

Of course, the opposite of the "aliens just stayed home" hypothesis is the hypothesis that we're the first species in the universe to acquire technology, and that we'll spread throughout it within a few more decades, eliminating any possibility for any other species to do the same. Personally I doubt it's possible to exceed the speed of light. I think it's more likely that we'll slowly spread throughout the Milky Way, and that while simple life and complex-but-unintelligent life are likely to be pretty common, the average distribution of technological species is probably something on the order of one per galaxy. Just a hunch.

biff-wellington 17y ago
and that we'll spread throughout it within a few more decades more like giga-decades

bitwize 17y ago

It doesn’t have to mean “exploring a jungle in the Congo”, or “exploring that nice little village in Tuscany”, it could just as easily mean “exploring the physics of this peculiar puzzle game”, or “exploring the inside of a psychotic milkman’s imagination“. This reminds me of the sort of artist whom we're implicitly supposed to regard as brilliant simply by virtue of being audacious. They're always exploring stuff and it's usually stuff you can explore from your own comfy chair without much physical or even terribly much mental effort. Like, "A poet, sculptor, and political activist from Portland, Oregon, H. Remington Jackass explores the connections between race, gender, and the challenges to the nature of self imposed by modern capitalistic society."