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Really want to save the planet? GET OFF IT!


Mallette

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>This was the assumption. One wonders whether the natural world - or even our arguably unnatural one would allow for such expansion. So many factors...etc.
I covered the possibility that natural law might well prevent that by thinning or killing us off in an earlier response. I consider that part of what we are trying to avoid.

>To re-iterate - the reason I would call this assumptive is that you are talking about approaching limits behaviour and this is something we are yet to have truely experienced. There may indeed be some leming in us afterall....
Patience, please. The structure of your sentence suggests you are calling what I percieve to be "facts" to be "assumptions" because they evoke a vision not to humankinds liking. If that is not the case I am NOT trying to put words in your mouth. Please explain.

>Is it such a stretch to imagine that a given family in the far flung future would have to prove that a relative has died in orde to gain a "breeding licence". This might being us out in hives today - but in a world of, say 14 billion people it might be a wholy acceptable proposition.
Not without a fight. Further, simply holding at 14 billion only delays the inevitable. Non-renewable resources are, well, non-renewable. Granted, at that point my view might be more popular as folks grow a bit weary of watching re-runs over a dinner of soylent green in a featureless cube. Nice spacious dome on the moon might start to look pretty good.

A note on non-renewable resources: Being employed by a drilling company that builds and operates the most advanced oil/gas drilling rigs on the planet, I am acutely aware of this fact. We are making more and more money as the stuff is harder and harder to get. My son wants to work here...it's a great company. But we are not diversified so I've told him the company won't be here. 50 years, at best. Enjoy cheap, abundant petroleum and gas while you can. And by "cheap," I mean 100.00 a barrel. It won't be that cheap for long. We've already reached the point where we are drilling more wells than ever before, but world production is not increasing, nor will it. It will simply hold steady, then start to decline.

>Right now interstellar travel (not intergalactic - a whole new realm) is entirely science fantasy - not science fiction. We aint even close. We aint even on the starting line - we are further away from this than we are from stone-age man. How do I put this? Lets talk again in a thousand years.
Since most of the material between the sentence quoted above and this one can be dealt with from here, no comment on those parts. The first few statements lack scientific support and are opinion. I am not saying they are wrong, mind you, just that you cannot prove the negative. However, the last line I can offer some thoughts on. Quite a few respected researchers suggest that old age will be dealt with in the next fifty years. The mechanism is well understood. It's simple, effective programming designed to create us by ensuring rapid (by geologic time standards) evolution. This is done by programming cells to divide a certain number of times and then stop doing so. Now that we are here, we don't need it anymore and are approaching the ability to improve ourselves at will rather than through random selection. So we will turn it off. Off course, we will still have accidents and disease to deal with, but we will do that as well...and long before a thousand years. In fact, my belief (no support for this except the mind-boggling acceleration of discovery) would be that humankind will have long since become non-corporal before a thousand years have passed, and this discussion moot.

Now, if the above either offends you or strikes you as insane babbling, ignore it and concentrate on this. Simply consider the acceleration we have seen in knowledge during our lives. As a child, I lay in bed and dreamed of some little device that could project a movie on the cieling...in color, no less. Heck, might as well dream big. I'd never even seen a color television at that time. Now, I can buy an LED projector exactly that size that will do exactly that. Not even the most advanced scientist at that time would have suggested I would ever live to see that. Just a small thing, but so indicative of the utter futility of saying what can or cannot be done or how long it will take.

>If you play every week you will win one day - but when that day is .....
But if you don't play, you are GUARANTEED not to win!

Thanks again for forcing my brain off its duff...

Dave

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Mark: Thanks for that. I've long since given up any attempt to guess much past next year. The breakthroughs happen with breathtaking speed. I do not expect to see earthly physical immorality (from ageing), but I fully expect it for my children.

Every hear of quantum computers? Not even the greatest of the golden age scifi writers ever concieved of it. Even just the wiki article on it sound like something from the galactic enyclopaedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computer

At the speeds of quantum computers, ONE of them could handle every computation and internet activity on the planet and still not even be taxed. Did I say it boggles the MIND????

Perhaps not so stunning but at least something those Trekkies among us can relate to: When Star Trek, the Next Generation debuted people were awed with Data, the humanoid robot because the writers endowed him with a brain capacity of 9 terabytes. Certainly seemed like a suitably unreachable capacity for 400 years or so at the time. My new HDD was 80 meg, and you couldn't buy any bigger nor imagine what you would do with all that space. Now, I have three TB in just my home servers. Each of them is about the size of Lt. Data's head.

Yep, we be movin' right along. Star Trek Enterprise places the development of the first warp drive by a mad scientist around 2020. I hope they are as far wrong as the STNG guys were with Data!

Dave

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Hi guys! May I start with complimenting ourselves with the fact that even in discussing a tender subject we managed to keep everything nice and within the rules. A great thread!

Leaving this planet is maybe possible, but IMO not relevant. Every week more people are born than we can possibly ship outta here. The simple fact is that we, physical weaklings as we are have finally won Darwin's World Series. Thanks to acquiring our intelligence we were able to construct so many devices of defense that all our natural enemies are either extinct or tied up and caged. Health science to keep us from the germs and most viruses. Concrete buildings to keep out the rest. In fact we've become so good at defending ourselves we are destroying everything around us. The problem of the latter is that we have multiplied so drastically and still do, pretty soon everything worth living for is soon gone with our enemies. As in The Matrix... We do act like stupid viruses, killing our host without checking first where to migrate first (except for Dave). But as I said, migration is not viable now and when it will be it will only be a desperate attempt for a few to escape Earth.

IMO the only solution is indeed cuttin down on breeding. In former ages it was very important to breed, so that the kids could look out for you or to outnumber a competitive tribe or religion or whatever. Then there is also the subconscious urge to breed, which every creature has. That's Darwin's fault: Only the species that really like to reproduce (or the act that precurs it) will survive. Looking at the porn industry or how any kind of product is marketed no wonder we reign... [;)]

It will be a big step, but together with cutting down on consumption (maybe the high price of gas will be a blessing, forcing us to be creative), exploring 'green' ways to get energy, recycle, birth control (one per family world wide?) is our only way out... or back in...

BTW, earth and life will always survive, just a shame that this bald creature wipes out the things and beasts, he/she thinks are beautiful, but in the big scheme of things, nature doesn't care. There is even enough time to start up a complete new evolution if we or something beyond our control really pulls the plug. Comforting thought in a way.

Thanks, Tim.

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Sorry. My edit ability is gone again. Site is acting strange.

>Every week more people are born than we can possibly ship outta here.

In the words of Ronald Reagan as he debated Jimmy Carter, "Well, there you go again...!"

Just with all available conventional aircraft the entire US could probably be evacuated in six months. But we are not talking about immediate, complete evacuation. Just a small community of even 50 humans in a self-sustaining environment is step one. This is entirely attainable on the moon or Mars or Europa with existing technology.

Dave

PS-Thanks for the compliment. We've been mindful of the close scrutiny of Sheriff Amy, and it is also true that most folks on the Forum are real ladies and gents.

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One wonders - considering the onward march of technology - if there might not be another way of stepping off the planet. Something akin to the Matrix springs to mind- we are probably far closer to this as a possible future than we are to colonizing space. It will be much cheaper too.

Of course - if as Mark states the technological mind will surpass the biological within a mere 30 years then the ability to download a human being into a system is but a hop skip and a jump away. On the other hand I know some that express doubts about this - and not people not in the know. One of my friends is a professor at the Athens university with a similar concurrent position in a US university (Wisconsin I think). He is quite the rage at the moment having won just last year the professor of the year award for Greece.

Anyway - according to him we are still a long way from being able to reproduce any thing much more sophisticated than a cockroach. He sees further development obviously - but how far we can go is something of an unknown.

Let us assume for the time being that we could find a way to leave out biological suits behind and live as mere projections in a virtual universe. Kinda solves the food and water issue - not to mention the space. Baring mishap to a none backed up hard drive you get your immortality too. Viruses would still be a worry of course- but of a different kind.

So - no need to leave the planet after all - at least for the time being - bury the computers in the deepest bunkers we can make - at distant points around the earth and let the telecoms networks keep us all in touch.

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Also, one more quick thought that perhaps Bruce might enjoy. Although I am not a believer in the Christian faith per se, I am an ardant admirer of Jesus the Teacher, and I think his message is among the best the world has ever heard. Anyway, this is what he said: "Consider the lillies of the field. They neither toil, nor do they spin, and yet even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." I should think in today's state of world crisis (as inferred by Dave), this teaching would have enormous power. I wonder what people think he meant by this?

some monk probably butchered his actual words while copy them down in latin during the dark ages.

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Backing up civilization's collective hard driveits recorded archiveon the Moon and creating a self-sufficient colony there precisely so it can act as a lifeboat in case a calamity strikes Earth: that's the rationale for a new book from Forge Books, The Survival Imperative: Using Space to Protect Earth, according to author William E. Burrows.
"That should be the overarching reason for moving there, not to mine resources or for the sake of a grand adventure. And the move outward must start with the Moon, not Mars. The Moon is three or four days away, not a year, so it makes logistical sense and is cheaper. And if there's an accident on the Moon, help or a safe haven are likewise four days away. Finally, the lunar colony ought to be NASA's overriding (but not only) mission, especially since it walked off a cliff after Apollo. That's what the book is about. It's my gift to the home planet."

OK, Mark, I paid a quick visit to kurzweilAI.net and there is certainly a WEALTH of brain expansion there. The quote above is from one of the more, uhhhh, manageable discussions, but certainly well-phrases one of the solutions we've discussed.

No time to get into his download concept...but I have no problem with the concept. "If it quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, and tastes like a duck" I am good with it. When I am in them, my dreams have all the qualities of reality. If I could leave this body and live in a VR world indefinitely, I'd be good with that...as long as the family was willing to join me. How is it that I can be SURE this is not a dream? The interesting thing is this: Let's say me, my family, and a few million others decided to hop in a computer to live. The scientists would have unlimited time to chew on a problem. What if Einstein had a few hundred years? Hawking?. Then, they could take our box, stick it in a little ship and point it to a star. So it takes a thousand years to get there...what do we care?

Yeah, I know all that sounds pretty nutzo to many of you, but these are NOT my ideas. They are things that are being chewed on even as we discuss.

Dave

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Howdy, Sheriff! We really do try...
Just occured to me after reading your post and the one that brought it on: One of these days I might create a little BBS space called outside.com for folks here to take our religious and political brawls to. I'd not moderate, just approve entry to those wishing to square off once you've given them a warning to "take it outside.".
I like a good theological discussion...political as well, though I've seen what happens here when those things get loose and certainly understand why you pull the plug sooner rather than later.

Regards,
Dave

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Yeah, I know all that sounds pretty nutzo to many of you, but these are
NOT my ideas. They are things that are being chewed on even as we
discuss.
Dave

============

I'm right there with ya Dave!

It will probably surprise many people to know that teleportation is already proven. (Of course, not yet of a useful object!) Or, that the speed of light is indeed not a limiting factor in some of the unified theories. And as for life spans, while it's true that yours and mine has reasonably well established limits, your children might have another 25 years and their children?---who knows? The knee of the curve is upon us!

Teleportation is already proven? I'm definitely out of the scientific loop ... I wonder should that come to pass who would be the 1st human guinae pigs? I'd like to think it's not too late for the earth, but we've not been good stewards and I can agree that we are way too slow in trying to clean up our act. Hopefully it's not too late... Is our current society just an expanded version of the empires of history that were brought down by over indulgance?

Let's hope not.

Just my 0.02 cents...

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Ok!... i did some preliminary digging before asking for your source. Unfortunately my only research tool is the internet, unlike Dave and maybe yourself i am not privy to classified information. I have read and re-read your comments carefully should i take the word "theory" as meant in a scientific context or in the more general way?.

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The CONCEPT of teleportation has been proven...and, yes, look it up. Then you'll say "That's a long way from Star Trek" to which I reply "Your I-Phone is a long way from Bell and Dr' Watson" etc, etc. No point in going there.

I am glad I started this. I think I have enough for my op ed. The funny thing is, a couple of things happened along the way to jerk me away from the "This is how things are" of an almost non-existent space program that reading the papers and talking to Joe (and Jill) Average most of the time lulls one into.

Fact ios, my proposal is totally obsolete before it's begun. I think I'll write it anyway just for grins, but between the offline stuff I rec'd, Mark's stear to the KurzweilAI site, and the like, I realize that the speed of scientific advance is accelerating so fast neither global warming, resource depletion, pollution, global warming, or any of the other creeping disasters in progress are likely to overtake us before we are the Singularity, have an FTL drive, master worm hole direct translations, achieve physical immortality, become non-corporal beings, or any combination of the list. BTW, I took to the approaching singularity immediately because part of my theology rests on the original singularity (Let there be LIGHT!)...but I won't go into that 'cuz of the rules.

I think "That is not possible" is about the silliest phrase in the English language. I much prefer "I can't do it," which is about all a person can say that has scientific validity.

About all I really doubt is whether science can ever crack one problem PWK posed to me years ago when I asked him if he thought it possible to build a smaller K'horn with the same specs. He responded "Sure...as soon as someone figures out how to make a 32hz waveform smaller."

Anyone working on THAT one? Hey,..I have a thought for a new thread a bit more on topic. Coming to the 2 Channel Audio Forum SOON!

Regards,

Dave

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Mallette....No No you dont want to just pount it at a star....That would be the same as shooting it into our own sun...You Must have a better destination...A safe destination,, a safe harbor, Planets have been found...One interesting one this year... The so calld perfect distence from its own sun,, Plus not a gassious planet...But one with a viable atmosphere.. Plus the most important a good plot map that our great great great grand children can read on getting there.

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In spite of Maron's confession I want everyone here to know we do NOT have a son...[6]

Ok, if the first one doesn't work out, we'll just keep on wandering...all the time in the world(s). Sheesh, I really DO hope the singularity doesn't run on a Microsoft OS. It would probably stop working if we got too far away for Bill to validate it...

Dave

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