tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post8122421403050200892..comments2024-03-18T17:28:44.693-07:00Comments on Rondam Ramblings: Colonizing space won't save usRonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11752242624438232184noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-66716465517112522742015-10-25T23:32:28.360-07:002015-10-25T23:32:28.360-07:00> Do we have any duty to people who aren't ...> Do we have any duty to people who aren't even born yet?<br /><br />Duty? I don't know. But...<br /><br />> You're worrying about the lives of people who don't exist.<br /><br />Yes, that's a common feature of being a living thing. Genes that make creatures that worry about the survival of future generations tend to reproduce better than those that produce creatures Ronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11752242624438232184noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-77379147531770241792015-10-25T23:01:54.526-07:002015-10-25T23:01:54.526-07:00Besides the lithosphere problem...
> Venus is ...<b>Besides the lithosphere problem...</b><br /><br />> Venus is a much better prospect<br /><br /><i>Not really. It's way too hot. The temperature at the surface is hot enough to melt lead, and even "floating cities" (which have been seriously proposed) will have ambient temperatures above the boiling point of water. No one AFAICT has a good story to tell about how to get around Publiushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00647613579979908182noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-18981593798584738082015-10-25T18:26:20.063-07:002015-10-25T18:26:20.063-07:00Ron: Agreed! (With all of it.) Still, I'm ex...Ron: Agreed! (With all of it.) Still, I'm excited about a couple more centuries of 2% (or higher!) annual economic growth. That future world should be really interesting. Wish I could stay around to see it.Don Geddishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04214642122689048677noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-56199131407660061262015-10-25T17:38:13.958-07:002015-10-25T17:38:13.958-07:00> That is a fascinating different claim
That&#...> That is a fascinating different claim<br /><br />That's true. (Well, the "different" part anyway. I'm not sure about the fascinating part. :-)<br /><br />But whether I'm right about that or not is irrelevant. 2% growth cannot continue indefinitely, a few thousand years at most (that's when you run into the limit imposed by the number of sub-atomic particles in Ronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11752242624438232184noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-46238538744204015882015-10-25T16:42:42.195-07:002015-10-25T16:42:42.195-07:00Ron: "a century of 2% productivity growth ......Ron: "<i>a century of 2% productivity growth ... is largely due to picking a lot of low-lying fruit in the form of cheap fossil fuels, easily-obtainable scientific breakthroughs, easily-obtainable efficiency gains, and ignoring externalities</i>"<br /><br />Wow! That is a fascinating different claim, essentially independent from your concerns about unsustainable population growth. I Don Geddishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04214642122689048677noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-90020762558522391512015-10-25T15:51:16.937-07:002015-10-25T15:51:16.937-07:00@Don:
> you carefully distinguished the two ca...@Don:<br /><br />> you carefully distinguished the two cases<br /><br />Yes, but I still feel a sense of urgency because the system has an awful lot of inertia. By the time it becomes apparent what the hard limit to growth actually is, it will be much too late to do anything about it.<br /><br />> The US has demonstrated roughly a century of 2% productivity growth<br /><br />Sure, but thatRonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11752242624438232184noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-18514414276194621422015-10-25T15:02:30.264-07:002015-10-25T15:02:30.264-07:00Ron: I generally agree with the bulk of your respo...Ron: I generally agree with the bulk of your response to me here, so I'll just focus on a few minor remaining disagreements.<br /><br />First, many people use "exponential growth overcomes any finite limit!" as a shorthand for "there are already too many humans; current population is already above the planet's sustainable limit." (And thus immediate action is requiredDon Geddishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04214642122689048677noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-32469610846569826012015-10-25T12:03:24.697-07:002015-10-25T12:03:24.697-07:00@Don
> his estimate was 15 billion humans, at ...@Don<br /><br />> his estimate was 15 billion humans, at "American standards of living".<br /><br />Sure, but so what? I'm not arguing for any *particular* limit, only that a limit exists, so sooner or later, anti-Malthusian induction will fail no matter how optimistic you are with respect to technological advancement. It's a non-constructive proof. However, we can computeRonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11752242624438232184noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-38118648369664195482015-10-24T22:51:41.235-07:002015-10-24T22:51:41.235-07:00Stars My Destination
Colonizing Mars is a ridicul...<b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stars_My_Destination" rel="nofollow">Stars My Destination</a></b><br /><br />Colonizing Mars is a ridiculous idea, only useful for science fiction. Mars can never be suitable for human life. One of the principle reasons for this is that the atmospheric surface pressure is only 0.006 atm, versus 1 atm for Earth. The mass of Mars is insufficient to holdPubliushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00647613579979908182noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-76383288005568638102015-10-24T18:46:13.188-07:002015-10-24T18:46:13.188-07:00Ron: But you've skipped a step. The fact that...Ron: But you've skipped a step. The fact that, mathematically, any exponential process must eventually exceed any finite limit, doesn't at all tell you that humanity on earth is currently in a situation that requires "<i>we have to start thinking about steady-state as the goal</i>", right now. John McCarthy (Stanford AI) spent a lot of time trying to estimate mathematical and Don Geddishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04214642122689048677noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-79441384232252753532015-10-24T04:00:59.200-07:002015-10-24T04:00:59.200-07:00Long before we even consider going to the stars we...Long before we even consider going to the stars we'll have figured out how to transfer our consciousness to and from some digital state. I suspect that will be the ultimate savior of mankind ... for a very loose definition of mankind.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11407881604456752536noreply@blogger.com