We may not have a few centuries. If we continue our current 2.3% energy growth per year, then in a bit above 400 years the earth's surface temperature will reach the boiling point. Something has to give long before that, and that may put a wrench in our space dreams.
Yes, but the link makes a lot of assumptions I would question, first of which is dismissing space out of hand. The biggest energy consumers are not domestic but industrial. By moving industrial manufacturing into space, you short circuit his growth graph, and short circuit it even further by taking into account the marvellous efficiencies we can achieve using advancing technology.
Ebooks for example use almost no energy, and supplant almost all need for paper books, newspapers, that entire energy intensive industry. And thats a technology, just one, in its infancy. We should soon even be able to grow meat without the cattle, by all accounts. If agriculture and industry move to space, where then the extrapolation? It doesn't just cut down on the amount of energy needed on earth, it cuts down on the rate of growth in energy demand. It might even reverse it or stabilise it entirely.
Note that even having a StarTram on one side won't help for the return trip.
It doesn't need to, there are easily accessable asteroids creaking with all the volatiles we need hanging right up there. The hardest step by far is getting up there. After that everything is much more economical.
To quote myself, "Am I really suggesting that we run wires to every country on earth from the Sahara, or is that an example to illustrate the point that we are swimming in hugely more energy than our civilisation needs, and this can be arbitrarily scaled up?" And that's before you get into the discussion about renewables becoming ever more attractive as fossil fuels become scarcer. There's no reason to suggest fossil fuels will vanish overnight. But that's not the point.
Your UCSD link, which you've refused to engage on, probably because it bizarrely dismisses out of hand the main thrust of my argument (space development), is a good example of that obligatory XKCD... http://xkcd.com/605/ Or to put it another way, past performance is no indication of future performance. To give everyone on earth a European upper middle class lifestyle you'd need to expand energy production by what, 20 to 50 times? That's still a tiny fraction of the amount of useable solar energy alone falling on the earth. And that's without even thinking about the solar power satellites JAXA is constructing right now.
The link also runs straight past the biggest energy consumers, which are not domestic but industrial. I suppose its easier to come to broad conclusions that fit presumption if you ignore the details. By moving industrial manufacturing into space, you short circuit his growth graph, and short circuit it even further by taking into account the marvellous efficiencies we can achieve using advancing technology. Ebooks for example use almost no energy, and supplant almost all need for paper books, newspapers, that entire energy intensive industry. And thats a technology, just one, in its infancy.
Its already free in many places. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing All post scarcity means is the quality of the free stuff gets a lot better. It doesn't mean everyone gets to live on a thousand acre wooded ranch.
Really, so solar power satellites are physcially impossible to you? Even without that, we could supply all of the world's energy with inefficient PV covering a single digit percentage of the Sahara desert.
Now before you reply, stop. Think. Am I really suggesting that we run wires to every country on earth from the Sahara, or is that an example to illustrate the point that we are swimming in hugely more energy than our civilisation needs, and this can be arbitrarily scaled up?
I'm also not talking about next year. Which is a good thing, since fossil fuels won't run out next year either. I did mention the next couple of centuries. I think it could be done a lot sooner with the effort going into say military endeavours being directed more productively, but its coming one way or the other.
Its not a communist or socialist vision. Its a logistical and realistic one.
The loss of jobs need not be a bad thing in what is quickly approaching a post scarcity society. Ultimately, perhaps even within the next few centuries, we're going to see a situation where the abundant resources in our solar system are harvested and processed by mostly automated engines, providing an excellent (upper middle class) quality of life for everyone on earth. There is no physical reason why this should not be the case.
Pollution and environmental concerns would be very minimal with adequate management, energy is abundant, and if anything providing a good standard of living reverses population growth.
The main difference between that and today, other than a general longer, healthier, better life, would be the types of toys you get to play with if you excel. Obviously not everyone can have their own private ocean liner, there's only so much ocean, so artificial scarcity will need to be introduced by either fiat or economic acrobatics. Overall though we are I believe on the cusp of a golden age.
What are you asking me to deal with? I'm a business owner myself. That doesn't mean I can't recognise widespread abuse in an industry when I see it, an abuse targeted at younger and less experienced workers. This magical nirvana where you imagine good programmers go to work doesn't exist 90% of the time.
That's my point though - managers don't care about programmers, they care about managers. They prefer younger programmers because they are easy to manipulate for lower pay into wasting their lives for someone else's profit. And this is the thing - if you're a diligent lawyer and work hard, you can reasonably expect to be pulling in a very healthy wage some day. If you let yourself be abused by managers as a programmer, you may get a line on your CV if they are feeling charitable. And that's not per-project either.
I'm not saying its everywhere but it is a chronic problem in the industry. Ask yourself - whose profit am I wiping out years worth of nights and weekends for? Mine or someone else's? An experienced programmer already knows the answer to this question and will quite rightly refuse pressure beyond a certain point. An inexperienced one on the other hand is easy pickings, and management know this.
Who cares about management. The idea of burning the midnight oil for no compensation is something that exists mostly in IT, and is heartily encouraged by "management". The sooner people wake up and stand up for themselves the better, more experienced developers have more sense than to allow themselves to be abused like that. And it most certainly is abuse.
Much of the battery advantage comes from the fact that e-ink doesn't draw power unless its changing the picture. I guess if its showing video, that advantage will disappear.
I'm not going to deal with the technical or financial issues here, and there are many. Attempts to set up a self sustaining biosphere even here on nice, comfortable earth have failed, for one. There's a big difference between jumping on a grenade to save your buddies and deliberately planning, preparing and setting off on a very elaborate journey knowing you are going to die miserably at the end of it. If they thought they were going to be able to live out their lives in full, it wouldn't be a suicide mission. The difference between risk and certainty is what I'm referring to here.
KNOWING for a fact you're not going to make it as a result of your decision is not the same as a high risk mission.
The international space treaties are already in tatters. We can safely say that the remaining shreds will be cast to the wind when space travel becomes more common.
Slashdot Mirror
A vote for the economic acrobatics camp, then.
We may not have a few centuries. If we continue our current 2.3% energy growth per year, then in a bit above 400 years the earth's surface temperature will reach the boiling point. Something has to give long before that, and that may put a wrench in our space dreams.
Yes, but the link makes a lot of assumptions I would question, first of which is dismissing space out of hand. The biggest energy consumers are not domestic but industrial. By moving industrial manufacturing into space, you short circuit his growth graph, and short circuit it even further by taking into account the marvellous efficiencies we can achieve using advancing technology.
Ebooks for example use almost no energy, and supplant almost all need for paper books, newspapers, that entire energy intensive industry. And thats a technology, just one, in its infancy. We should soon even be able to grow meat without the cattle, by all accounts. If agriculture and industry move to space, where then the extrapolation? It doesn't just cut down on the amount of energy needed on earth, it cuts down on the rate of growth in energy demand. It might even reverse it or stabilise it entirely.
Note that even having a StarTram on one side won't help for the return trip.
It doesn't need to, there are easily accessable asteroids creaking with all the volatiles we need hanging right up there. The hardest step by far is getting up there. After that everything is much more economical.
Oh yes, and meat: http://www.economist.com/node/21548147
To quote myself, "Am I really suggesting that we run wires to every country on earth from the Sahara, or is that an example to illustrate the point that we are swimming in hugely more energy than our civilisation needs, and this can be arbitrarily scaled up?" And that's before you get into the discussion about renewables becoming ever more attractive as fossil fuels become scarcer. There's no reason to suggest fossil fuels will vanish overnight. But that's not the point.
Your UCSD link, which you've refused to engage on, probably because it bizarrely dismisses out of hand the main thrust of my argument (space development), is a good example of that obligatory XKCD... http://xkcd.com/605/ Or to put it another way, past performance is no indication of future performance. To give everyone on earth a European upper middle class lifestyle you'd need to expand energy production by what, 20 to 50 times? That's still a tiny fraction of the amount of useable solar energy alone falling on the earth. And that's without even thinking about the solar power satellites JAXA is constructing right now.
The link also runs straight past the biggest energy consumers, which are not domestic but industrial. I suppose its easier to come to broad conclusions that fit presumption if you ignore the details. By moving industrial manufacturing into space, you short circuit his growth graph, and short circuit it even further by taking into account the marvellous efficiencies we can achieve using advancing technology. Ebooks for example use almost no energy, and supplant almost all need for paper books, newspapers, that entire energy intensive industry. And thats a technology, just one, in its infancy.
How's that bubble doing?
Doesn't look like its my bubble that's in trouble to be honest. So please, begin. Educate me, and these guys while you're about it.
Its already free in many places. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing All post scarcity means is the quality of the free stuff gets a lot better. It doesn't mean everyone gets to live on a thousand acre wooded ranch.
Those are political problems, not physical.
Really, so solar power satellites are physcially impossible to you? Even without that, we could supply all of the world's energy with inefficient PV covering a single digit percentage of the Sahara desert.
Now before you reply, stop. Think. Am I really suggesting that we run wires to every country on earth from the Sahara, or is that an example to illustrate the point that we are swimming in hugely more energy than our civilisation needs, and this can be arbitrarily scaled up?
I'm also not talking about next year. Which is a good thing, since fossil fuels won't run out next year either. I did mention the next couple of centuries. I think it could be done a lot sooner with the effort going into say military endeavours being directed more productively, but its coming one way or the other.
Its not a communist or socialist vision. Its a logistical and realistic one.
The loss of jobs need not be a bad thing in what is quickly approaching a post scarcity society. Ultimately, perhaps even within the next few centuries, we're going to see a situation where the abundant resources in our solar system are harvested and processed by mostly automated engines, providing an excellent (upper middle class) quality of life for everyone on earth. There is no physical reason why this should not be the case.
Pollution and environmental concerns would be very minimal with adequate management, energy is abundant, and if anything providing a good standard of living reverses population growth.
The main difference between that and today, other than a general longer, healthier, better life, would be the types of toys you get to play with if you excel. Obviously not everyone can have their own private ocean liner, there's only so much ocean, so artificial scarcity will need to be introduced by either fiat or economic acrobatics. Overall though we are I believe on the cusp of a golden age.
What are you asking me to deal with? I'm a business owner myself. That doesn't mean I can't recognise widespread abuse in an industry when I see it, an abuse targeted at younger and less experienced workers. This magical nirvana where you imagine good programmers go to work doesn't exist 90% of the time.
That's my point though - managers don't care about programmers, they care about managers. They prefer younger programmers because they are easy to manipulate for lower pay into wasting their lives for someone else's profit. And this is the thing - if you're a diligent lawyer and work hard, you can reasonably expect to be pulling in a very healthy wage some day. If you let yourself be abused by managers as a programmer, you may get a line on your CV if they are feeling charitable. And that's not per-project either.
I'm not saying its everywhere but it is a chronic problem in the industry. Ask yourself - whose profit am I wiping out years worth of nights and weekends for? Mine or someone else's? An experienced programmer already knows the answer to this question and will quite rightly refuse pressure beyond a certain point. An inexperienced one on the other hand is easy pickings, and management know this.
Who cares about management. The idea of burning the midnight oil for no compensation is something that exists mostly in IT, and is heartily encouraged by "management". The sooner people wake up and stand up for themselves the better, more experienced developers have more sense than to allow themselves to be abused like that. And it most certainly is abuse.
IT tends to import the young because they can be bullied into doing crazy hours for no extra money.
Its definetely moving into a cyberpunk future. /slap on mirrorshades
Much of the battery advantage comes from the fact that e-ink doesn't draw power unless its changing the picture. I guess if its showing video, that advantage will disappear.
I'd be happier if they improved the contrast on existing pearl technology. In anything but bright sunlight, paper is still easier to read.
I'm not going to deal with the technical or financial issues here, and there are many. Attempts to set up a self sustaining biosphere even here on nice, comfortable earth have failed, for one. There's a big difference between jumping on a grenade to save your buddies and deliberately planning, preparing and setting off on a very elaborate journey knowing you are going to die miserably at the end of it. If they thought they were going to be able to live out their lives in full, it wouldn't be a suicide mission. The difference between risk and certainty is what I'm referring to here.
KNOWING for a fact you're not going to make it as a result of your decision is not the same as a high risk mission.
Happens to the best of us, not a bother!
Internet sarcasm, that really ruins my week. When you've managed to resume normal breathing, look again. I was supporting your point.
You may be arguing that many of these explorers intended to come home, but that really doesn't change much.
It does, in fact. It makes your comment wrong. Nobody sets out knowing they were going to die in the process except suicide bombers.
Many of these early ventures were known to be one-way trips, but a tiny percentage of people will do it willingly in the name of exploration.
No, they weren't.
It comes to several million per day, which is north of what Friends was making at its peak.
The international space treaties are already in tatters. We can safely say that the remaining shreds will be cast to the wind when space travel becomes more common.
Why would he feel guilty about that and not say FTL travel?
Is it a helicopter or just using ground effect? I mean could it fly higher?