tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post6299852248379293093..comments2024-03-29T00:39:31.629-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Optimism... even about alien invasion?David Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger68125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-40481343669002754112016-08-02T13:18:26.912-07:002016-08-02T13:18:26.912-07:00RobH... even if the alien colonists confined thems...RobH... even if the alien colonists confined themselves to s single mega city, I bet their accumulated refined metals and isotopes would raise suspicions today, distributed throughout the planet in the KT Iridium layer.<br /><br />Note you imply satiability... ability to limit themselves to an isolated zone. That of course is what we might find in the asteroid belt! Today all we know is that MOST asteroids seem to be untouched. There could be a fair number that later we'll find, further out...<br /><br />... and that happens in a certain novel...<br /><br />onward<br /><br />onwards<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-48846632391166591362016-08-02T12:51:17.686-07:002016-08-02T12:51:17.686-07:00Dr. Brin: Unless of course aliens colonized one re...Dr. Brin: Unless of course aliens colonized one region of the Earth during the Age of the Dinosaurs... and their enemies showed up and did a Colony Drop on them, slamming the Earth with a huge asteroid that wiped out the Alien Megacity along with the dinosaurs. Only small warm-blooded animals brought by the Aliens survived... and evolved eventually into today's mammals. ;)<br /><br />Rob H.Acacia H.https://www.blogger.com/profile/07678539067303911329noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-74977659875313657852016-08-02T12:45:17.057-07:002016-08-02T12:45:17.057-07:00onward
onwardonward<br /><br /><br />onwardDavid Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-90987121496074039382016-08-02T11:57:10.182-07:002016-08-02T11:57:10.182-07:00Fracking for heat:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v...Fracking for heat:<br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6r_3AgI49YJumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-64660273202335951902016-08-02T11:50:41.830-07:002016-08-02T11:50:41.830-07:00Speaking of sideways drilling and fracking, the av...Speaking of sideways drilling and fracking, the average heat increase per depth into the earth is about 6 degrees F. per 100 feet. Which means there is a lot of warmth under large northern cities which isn't being used in place of fossil fuels.Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-58264865355055291722016-08-02T11:48:35.700-07:002016-08-02T11:48:35.700-07:00We aren't lacking for energy, just clean energ...We aren't lacking for energy, just clean energy. Sideways drilling and fracking made that clear. Too bad we shouldn't use it. Any ideas that our economy is endangered is full-bore propaganda. Find the clean energy and spread the gospel of birth control, and things, while going through a cramped and sad period of some species loss and lost opportunities, while bad, will not lead inevitably to the actual doom of humans.<br /><br />And stop spraying Roundup. Damn it. America's #3 crop is suburban lawn. Ugh.Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-43547394321458513912016-08-02T11:46:02.554-07:002016-08-02T11:46:02.554-07:00I rather liked the "Narn" aliens from th...I rather liked the "Narn" aliens from the 1990s "Babylon 5" TV series. Basically only just slightly technology better then Stone age. They get conquered and enslaved by the "Centeuri" a race with interstellar space travel. In only about 3-4 generations the Narn push them from their home world and become the number 5 political and military power in the galaxy. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-45459085310640844542016-08-02T11:36:44.040-07:002016-08-02T11:36:44.040-07:00Well, actually, I took past the concept page and a...Well, actually, I took past the concept page and actually wrote a novel. Needless to say, this is the greatest SF novel ever written, it'll make your head spin, it's gonna be huge.<br />Here's the link to the freebie epub is anyone is interested:<br />http://www.icefallsfnovel.webege.com/Ebooks/Ice%20Fall%20-%20Bryan%20Zepp%20Jamieson.epubZepp Jamiesonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16261339498383415026noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-64750313786602364962016-08-02T11:33:44.903-07:002016-08-02T11:33:44.903-07:00Insanity - Doing the same thing over and over aga...Insanity - Doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.<br />Insane method for breaking a camel’s back – take some straw and put it on the camel’s back, then repeat. <br />occam's comicnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-33565224406039463462016-08-02T11:18:03.125-07:002016-08-02T11:18:03.125-07:00Matthew and Richard H.,
I don't know how long...Matthew and Richard H.,<br /><br />I don't know how long Richard H. has been reading this blog, but I know we have been over this territory before. Much storm and does, and many pixels have been spilt, and more likely than not a majority of readers/contributors here will agree with most of both these comments. Our host has made the point on a number of occasions that we are at a historic crossroads where everything could go south, or we could innovate and invent our way to a much better future than many could even imagine (Dr. Brin likes to use Star Trek as a metaphor for the more hopeful path, though my own suspicion is that Star Trek is tepid compared to the kinds of changes that could be in store for our descendants of the next couple centuries). Every civilization in history went the way of the dodo doing the same thing our more conservative elements recommend - doing the same things we have always done, but doing them harder. Does this make anyone think of Einstein's definition of insanity?<br /><br />While I am definitely not the Designated Optimist here, I would prefer to hold out some hope that we will not topple over the same precipice all our ancestral civilizations have. We have something those past civilizations did not have that gives us an advantage - we have a well-developed scientific community that is (mostly) dedicated to getting at the truth of matters and finding solutions. Our leaders don't often listen - or listen only very selectively - to this most valuable of resources. And while one side has a much, much better track record than the other, they are still pretty selective about it, being much more interested in winning victories in the Great Propaganda War that is democracy.<br /><br />Between Matthew's and Richard's statements, we need to ask an important question - not which one we are more inclined to believe, but is there a truly objective way to measure the health of society and make meaningful predictions about the future that are neither "wishful thinking" nor "dreadful thinking". We could put the gloves on and pit Meadows vs. Pinker, but I suspect the result will be more a matter of each individual interpreting every blow in light of their own expectations. And in either case, neither represents the ultimate champion for either view. It is never safe to rely too heavily on any single work of literature (or anything else, for that matter). Even the most sacred of works is created in the context one one time and one place, so no matter how much we revere a written work, it will lose it's potency the further it is removed from its cultural and chronological point of origin. Better to "triangulate" from multiple sources.Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-51953981720153418082016-08-02T11:07:36.784-07:002016-08-02T11:07:36.784-07:00richard h: Bah… nearly all the problems you descri...richard h: Bah… nearly all the problems you describe are either inflated by cynics and cynical media, or else solvable by decent, pragmatic people of good will, who are willing to learn from science and each other and negotiate practical solutions. <br /> Our one problem… our ONE problem, is that “pragmatic people of good will” defines Americans, and Americans are saddled with ditzo, romantic, wholly impractical and troglodytic cousins called Confederates, who routinely and regularly spin into anti-science and anti-reason and pro-oligarchic tizzies that threaten to destroy the Great Experiment.<br /><br />We have NOT overshot human population. Sure, half as many would be easier, but the technologies coming along will enable every human… even ten billion… to have a Dutch or Japanese-scale middle class life WHILE we reduce the impact and footprint of agriculture and so on. It would be blatant, were we not in a trumped-up civil war.<br /><br />LH: I am amazed that no one who heard DT proclaim a wish to “punch” opponents called out “bring it, Donald!” Name the place.<br /><br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-34474920624182170992016-08-02T11:06:59.598-07:002016-08-02T11:06:59.598-07:00Zepp cool concept. You should read Varley’s Nine ...Zepp cool concept. You should read Varley’s Nine Worlds series.<br /><br />Tim you are thinking well, but still too parochially. I was part of the very first conference, at Los Alamos in 1985, on Interstellar Colonization, when Hart & Finney and Jones presented calculations showing that a species that colonized and reproduced then colonized more at “Polynesian Levels” would fill the galaxy in 60 million years. One successful self-replicating Von Neumann probe might do it in 3 million! (See Existence.)<br /><br />Hence the weird, Great Silence is not just the 60 years we’ve been looking and listening and hearing nothing in our neighborhood. It is the utter absence (so far) of any sign that our asteroid belt has been meddled with by anyone, ever. No herded orbits or refined metals that we’ve seen (again, go to Existence). And zero sign that Earth was colonized during the 3 BILLION years it was Prime Real Estate. <br /><br />You are right that entanglement is no guarantee of FTL communications. The math of entanglement experiments seems - so far - to support the glum conclusion that actual, useful (causal) communication cannot happen, even if paired states are instantly “communicated.”<br /><br />The Prime Directive or Non_Interference Principle (NIP) was a science fictional attempt to move us a step forward, morally, from the earlier spirit of colonialism and patronizing White Man’s Burden. It is simplistic, but a sound basis for discussion. Would aliens follow something like it? Well, the Fermi Paradox certainly includes, among its Hundred Theories, several NIP possibilities, some of them dark! Though a compromise might be for aliens to meddle JUST enough to empower a race to avoid lethal mistakes and keep moving up, on their own.<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-23865049401890280192016-08-02T09:31:10.981-07:002016-08-02T09:31:10.981-07:00richard h - we could just as easily say that we us...richard h - we could just as easily say that we used fossil fuels to bootstrap ourselves to the point where we can switch to less-polluting forms of energy to drive our civilization, at which point we are doing remediation and preservation work as fast as our economies will comfortably allow, all the while making advances in law, morality, and governance that will allow us to live lives full of purpose and joy. <br /><br />I only disagree with one statement you made (human population levels not being supportable long term), yet I think that my statement is far closer to the truth than your paragraphs. Where you see doom and gloom, I see market pressures and improved child-rearing. <br /><br /> matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17757867868731829206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-72082215059281981682016-08-02T05:39:05.200-07:002016-08-02T05:39:05.200-07:00At this point most people appear to know that some...At this point most people appear to know that something is terribly, terribly wrong in the United States of America. But like the proverbial blind man describing the elephant, Americans tend to characterize the problem according to their economic status, their education and interests, and the way that the problem is impacting their peer group. So we hear that the biggest crisis facing America today is:<br />•Corruption<br />•Immigration<br />•Economic inequality<br />•Climate change<br />•Lack of respect for law enforcement<br />•Institutionalized racism<br />•Islamic terrorism<br />•The greed and recklessness of Wall Street banks<br />•Those damned far-right Republicans<br />•Those damned liberal Democrats<br />•Political polarization<br /><br />The list could easily be lengthened, but you get the drift. Pick your devil and prepare to get really, really angry at it.<br /><br />In reality, these are all symptoms of an entirely foreseeable systemic crisis. The basic outlines of that crisis were traced over 40 years ago in a book titled The Limits to Growth. Today we are hitting the limits of net energy, environmental pollution, and debt, and the experience is uncomfortable for just about everyone. The solution that’s being proposed by our political leaders? Find someone to blame.<br /><br />The Republicans really do seem to get the apocalyptic tenor of the moment: their convention was all about dread, doom, and rage. But they don’t have the foggiest understanding of the actual causes and dynamics of what’s making them angry, and just about everything they propose doing will make matters worse. Call them the party of fear and fury.<br /><br />The Democrats are more idealistic: if we just distribute wealth more fairly, rein in the greedy banks, and respect everyone’s differences, we can all return to the 1990s when the economy was humming and there were jobs for everyone. No, we can do even better than that, with universal health care and free college tuition. Call the Democrats the party of hope.<br /><br />But here’s the real deal: a few generations ago we started using fossil fuels for energy; the result was an explosion of production and consumption, which (as a byproduct) enabled enormous and rapid increase in human population. Burning all that coal, oil, and natural gas made a few people very rich and enabled a lot more people to enjoy middle-class lifestyles. But it also polluted air, water, and soil, and released so much carbon dioxide that the planet’s climate is now going haywire. Due to large-scale industrial agriculture, topsoil is disappearing at a rate of 25 billion tons a year; at the same time, expanded population and land use is driving thousands, maybe millions of species of plants and animals to extinction.<br /><br /><br />We extracted non-renewable fossil fuels using the low-hanging fruit principle, so that just about all the affordable petroleum (which is the basis for nearly all transport) has already been found and most of has already been burned. Since we can’t afford most of the oil that’s left (either in terms of the required financial investment or the energy required to extract and refine it), the petroleum industry is in the process of going bankrupt. There are alternative energy sources, but transitioning to them will require not just building an enormous number of wind turbines and solar panels, but replacing most of the world’s energy-using infrastructure.<br /><br />We have overshot human population levels that are supportable long-term. Yet we have come to rely on continual expansion of population and consumption in order to generate economic growth—which we see as the solution to all problems. Our medicine is our poison.<br />richard hnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-78134156743961156522016-08-02T04:42:42.419-07:002016-08-02T04:42:42.419-07:00* "I'll close on a scary thought though: ...<b>*</b> "<i>I'll close on a scary thought though: if you were hyper-advanced, immortal, almost invisible, but for whatever reason DID want to invade a planet like ours... what techniques might you employ? Memetics? Stirring of social division? Development of a distrust of science and rational thought? Promotion of magical thinking, wherein faith trumps fact...? </i>"<br /><br />You know what? Let's have fun and go all the way to the paranoid's cloud-cuckoo land:<br />Ahem... <i>Isn't is suspicious that the people involved in Babylon Five, a tale about </i>hyper-advanced, immortal, almost invisible (when they want to be) beings with glowing manipulatory appendages screwing over younger races with memetics and manufactured conflicts,<i> <b>are all dying young</b>?</i>Laurent Weppenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-34923688836424631832016-08-02T04:17:20.377-07:002016-08-02T04:17:20.377-07:00Dr Brin:
Feh, like Hamilton I would shoot into th...Dr Brin:<br /><i><br />Feh, like Hamilton I would shoot into the air.<br /></i><br /><br />I'm surprised Donald Trump hasn't resorted to challenging his opposition to a duel. Or maybe more likely, being on the receiving end of such a challenge.<br /><br />After listening to that Khan guy "bringing the Thunder" for the past few days, I'm starting to wish <b>he</b> were running for president.LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-70478060210924518512016-08-02T03:48:07.223-07:002016-08-02T03:48:07.223-07:00Hi Alfred
I have been thinking about your premise...Hi Alfred<br /><br />I have been thinking about your premise that a change in the rewards structure was the thing that bootstrapped society back in the 1500,s<br /><br />And I still disagree<br /><br />To me it is much more about the continual increase in human knowledge and technologies reaching a take off point<br /><br />As a mechanical engineer I am very conscious of all of the "things" that somebody needs to know to get things done <br />And of how "obvious" things are once somebody has invented them<br />4,000 years to invent the horse collar?<br />4,000 years to invent the stirrup?<br /><br />The printing press enabled much more knowledge to remain available - it is much more difficult to lose a technique once it is in a printed book<br /><br />The change in rewards structure did help - but the main driver was the synergies among developments in metals agriculture and transportduncan cairncrosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153725128216947145noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-50989407511447568962016-08-02T00:41:21.421-07:002016-08-02T00:41:21.421-07:00@David:
>Except that the comparison to insects ...@David:<br />>Except that the comparison to insects by the road is faulty. (1) we do have humans who study insects very intensely. <br /><br />You are right of course, my apologies - I sacrificed clarity for flippancy. The point I was trying to make was that even entomologists don't stop to study random groups of insects in random locations. They are limited perhaps by assumption ("the ants I study in my lab are similar to any ant colony of that species"), and certainly by time and resources. But that means there could be many examples of entirely strange insects going unnoticed on Earth at the moment (in fact that's a certainty I would suggest).<br /><br />>At absolute max, only one species per year reaches full, tech-capable sapience in a galaxy. Hence, unlike the vast number of ant colonies on Earth, per ant scientist, each and every new sapient race would be of great interest.<br /><br />This is a fascinating thought - I'm intrigued by your assertion though. Presumably this comes from a recent assessment of the variables in the Drake Equation? And has it been corrected for the overwhelming abundance of planets we now know are out there?<br /><br />But even then, I think your scale argument works against you. For a long lived advanced species capable of near light speed travel, colonizing a galaxy is the work of only a few millions of years. However our observers would have had to have been within fifty eight light years of us to be arriving NOW - assuming they detected our very first radio transmission (unlikely), and set off in our direction immediately. So yes - we might be incredibly interesting to some of them (and certainly to their automated sapience warning systems), but they may just not have been close enough to arrive yet - and we probably won't detect them when they do.<br /><br />As for Robert's point about quantum entanglement linking us to our interstellar probes - the real problem with FTL anything (travel or comms) is the causality violation. It would be easy to send a message to yourself in the past in order to prevent you from sending a message to yourself in the past. His subsequent comments about 3D printing / local manufacturing of humans and other things on arrival though - absolutely. I agree 100%<br /><br />But this whole discussion raises a question that I really have no idea how to answer, and would welcome your various considerations. The Prime Directive. To intervene or not to intervene. If alien intelligences are observing us, do they really have a moral obligation to help us, to teach us lenses and germ theory, or social acceptance of innovation? Or would they be bound by a principle of "don't disrupt the experimental subject - and who are we to define how a society should develop?"<br /><br />Star Trek's UFP, and the Time Lords of Gallifrey, both hold non-intervention as their highest law... and yet amusingly in both fictional worlds the protagonists constantly find reasons to break that law. <br /><br />I can see the value of both approaches: intervention implies the destruction of "natural culture", of the uniqueness of this or that society. This is probably a bad thing. <br /><br />But intervention also seems the entirely appropriate response when you know of a less sophisticated society suffering and dying due to easily (by your standards) preventable ills. This is surely a good thing....!Tim Whittennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-2584413239262979802016-08-01T22:20:17.958-07:002016-08-01T22:20:17.958-07:00My own take on humans meeting an advanced alien ra...My own take on humans meeting an advanced alien race took a slightly different tack. The aliens were neither hostile nor aggressive, but vastly powerful and largely indifferent. The humans, beginning colonization of a moon around a Jovian planet with some very odd properties, can't even determine if the aliens are mechanoid, carbon life forms, or what, and don't manage any direct communication. However, it's obvious that they have a method of defeating inertia, and can accelerate from a standing position to near relativistic speeds in moments, defy gravity, and change vectors instantly. They do make one communication with the humans, which amounts to, "This is our project, and we're about to make changes that will be terribly inconvenient to you, so you'll have to clear off now." As a consolation prize, they give the colonists an inertia box, along with schematics to build more, and in return, empty the data library a copy of all known human history.<br />Needless to say, this causes a lot of consternation and confusion amongst the humans...Zepp Jamiesonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16261339498383415026noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-36393346103329596462016-08-01T20:40:16.415-07:002016-08-01T20:40:16.415-07:00Feh, like Hamilton I would shoot into the air. For...Feh, like Hamilton I would shoot into the air. Fortunately, unlike Hamilton, I would only have to worry about my ankle.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-8298855030949576862016-08-01T19:23:53.971-07:002016-08-01T19:23:53.971-07:00@Dr Brin,
As I've said ad nauseum already, my...@Dr Brin,<br /><br />As I've said <i>ad nauseum</i> already, my daughter's "Hamilton" fandom is contagious, and I've been listening to nothing but the soundtrack album for days now. I'll have it memorized soon. That hasn't happened to me since "Jesus Christ, Superstar" 45 (gulp!) years ago.<br /><br />So with that in mind, I hope there's not a duel in anyone's future here.LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-57646476494225747632016-08-01T19:22:23.033-07:002016-08-01T19:22:23.033-07:00@donzelion: If only we had a great line to get the...@donzelion: If only we had a great line to get the other half of the species as involved. It would appear they need a great deal more attention and effort. <br /><br /><br />but it is so worth itAlfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-46673274352192379392016-08-01T19:13:36.889-07:002016-08-01T19:13:36.889-07:00@occm's comic
A bit hard to believe you did an...@occm's comic<br />A bit hard to believe you did any of these things when you can't express yourself clearly, spell words correctly or use grammar correctly. Or have a modicum of politeness.<br /><br />So I believe you are a 12 years old troll who can't even understand what we are discussing here.Cesar A. Santoshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09492051504623231754noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-19829373554884376562016-08-01T19:09:14.405-07:002016-08-01T19:09:14.405-07:00This exchange is a bit like that scene in 'Goo...This exchange is a bit like that scene in 'Good Omens' where two Dukes of Hell greet the minor demon Crowley with the traditional exchange of temptations. The Dukes concentrate on individual achievements. They really don't get Crowley's offering; which is more holistic, and far reaching.Tony Fiskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14578160528746657971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-5895198048955236902016-08-01T19:01:07.881-07:002016-08-01T19:01:07.881-07:00@donzelion: They are still learning neat things ab...@donzelion: They are still learning neat things about the galactic core... like this.<br /><br />http://phys.org/news/2016-08-giant-stellar-void-milky.html<br /><br />No Cepheid variables down there except very close to the black hole. Interesting. That means no new stars in a long time. Radio astronomers noticed a while ago, but supporting evidence trims the possibilities. Neat.<br /><br />David's ET life material is from his academic side. Search the journals for him. It's not hard to find. I think he went by G.D. Brin, though. 8)<br /><br />http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1890Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.com