I'm something as odd as a hardcore libertarian Swede. I moved to Silicon Valley in 1995, in small part because of that.
Like most other developed nations, Sweden has a system much like Japan's, that keeps track of who people are where they live. This results in vastly superior service to the citizens. You don't have to register to vote, you can get a passport in under an hour, and in general you only have to tell one governmental agency something once, and the others will also get the information on a need-to-know basis.
And here is my point:
The US government already knows everything about you. They even read your email and tap your phone at will. But since they have to pretend not to, we have to keep sending in the same information again and again, things take forever and are often done wrong. We have the worst of both worlds, with little privacy and little functioning services.
Americans fight this kind of system thinking they're protecting privacy. They're not. Their privacy is long gone, and they're just wasting their effort. If you have the energy to fight for freedom, use it where it counts. This, unfortunately, is not such a place.
1 or 100 robots can travel across the same plains with the same tools. They can't determine what is interesting, but can send data to people who can, and get instructions on what to do in 10-30 minutes.
My point is that it's not "the same money". If it was, by all means send some adventurers. But it is actually several orders of magnitudes difference.
I don't know about light/heavy rocket stuff. I'd go for whatever works best for least money and effort.
Yeah, 10,000 is a number out of thin air. Let's see... The internet says that the twin rovers cost $880M. I didn't quickly find a quote for a Mars expedition, and it would just be a wild guess now anyway, but the International Space Station is supposedly $130B. If going to Mars is an order of magnitude more, that's a factor of 3000.
I wouldn't send 10,000 identical rovers to Mars. But you could do thousands of similarly complex robotic missions for the price of one human. Yes, humans are better in many ways. But not that much better.
That's a bit like saying I should buy a castle rather than live in my apartment, since it's a much nicer place to live. While true, that completely ignores price.
Similarly, a human can do much more than Spirit, but you can probably send 10000 rovers like that for the same amount it costs to send one human.
How would a non evil way to decide where to put a data center be different from what Google is doing?
Unless you keep it secret that you're looking for a place to build it, governments in the area will offer incentives, whether Google asks for them or not.
For most practical purposes Mars also has no atmosphere. It's just 0.6% of our, or in other words 99.4% not there. Yes, it does change the conditions a bit, but Mars is much more like the moon than earth..
With the moon as near to the sun as earth, but lacking clouds and atmosphere, it receives much more sunlight than corresponding spots on earth, and is therefore that much more suitable for solar energy. The 330 hour lunar night can be handled just like the 12 hour martian night, using battery technology.
The Moon actually has more sunlight than anywhere on earth, especially any tundras. You can use that both for energy and farming. Greenhouses could be pretty simple to get operating there. What plants can handle month long days I don't know, but there's got to be some.
There is also no real weather problems in terms of wind, rain, snow etc. Yeah, it's a harsh environment, but it holds no surprises, other than the occasional solar outburst (serious enough though).
And the killer feature is that it's so close. You can get there in a few days, as opposed to years for any asteroid missions.
That also brings in the revenue source you didn't mention. Even if there is nothing useful a moon base could manufacture, I think it could sustain itself very well just as tourist spot for the megarich.
The parent didn't say the white "race" will go extinct, only that it will be mixed. So instead of France being populated by (made up numbers) 80% white people and 20% black people, it will over time converge to every person having 80% white ancestry and 20% black ancestry. Not through anyone being killed, just through friendly fraternization between the "races".
Cheer up, it's a nice future!
No beliefs would have to disappear along the way. Beliefs are not encoded in genes.
I refer to the opening up in the 90s, after the Soviet Union fell.
There was pretty serious and real political freedom, but much less economical freedom. A decade later, as you point out, very little political freedom remains.
China went the opposite way, and again it seems the level of political freedom follows the economical.
It's going slow, but China is clearly getting more civilized in terms of human rights and rule of law etc.
I think it's not so much because the rulers are becoming better people, but a result of the enormous economic development and cultural exchange with the outside world. In other words due to trade. Money is power, and as regular Chinese start getting money they start getting power. It's an unstoppable process.
Two thoughts.
1. The Russian path of freeing up political life but not economical life has failed, while the opposite Chinese path seems incredibly productive.
2. The strategy to NOT trade with Cuba is an incredible mistake. With the opposite US policy, Cuba would probably be another Poland today.
2. You just burn the rocket for an hour a day or so, when it's facing th Sun. That part is not the weakness of this proposal.
I'm sure this would work without an atmosphere. But inside one I'm not sure about the physics. Will the opposite force 'get stuck' and disperse in the air rather than result in a net transfer of momentum?
Frankly Gates doesn't have to do anything in the renewable energy market, what he is doing through his foundation is saving more lives than can be counted
Perhaps they can't be counted under Windows, but under MacOS and Linux, you can routinely count up to billions and beyond with no loss of precision.
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It doesn't say how much "super pressure" is.
If a power cable at the bottom of the ocean is under enough pressure, it could be very useful.
I was just trying to make a joke. Judging by the moderation and your comment, it didn't work. Can't strike gold every time.
Here they go again. More surveillance in the name of "security".
WAKE UP AMERICA!!
Assuming his story is true, it was likely just a throwaway account he created for this purpose only.
Google could probably check when he read the mail last, if they really want to verify the story.
I'm something as odd as a hardcore libertarian Swede. I moved to Silicon Valley in 1995, in small part because of that.
Like most other developed nations, Sweden has a system much like Japan's, that keeps track of who people are where they live. This results in vastly superior service to the citizens. You don't have to register to vote, you can get a passport in under an hour, and in general you only have to tell one governmental agency something once, and the others will also get the information on a need-to-know basis.
And here is my point:
The US government already knows everything about you. They even read your email and tap your phone at will. But since they have to pretend not to, we have to keep sending in the same information again and again, things take forever and are often done wrong. We have the worst of both worlds, with little privacy and little functioning services.
Americans fight this kind of system thinking they're protecting privacy. They're not. Their privacy is long gone, and they're just wasting their effort. If you have the energy to fight for freedom, use it where it counts. This, unfortunately, is not such a place.
Being beaten up is normal for any nerd, but by a Psychologist - that's gotta hurt...
That's good to hear. I know the Google guys have talked about doing it. Either one could afford $4-10B.
Sending rovers and other robots will no doubt also get much cheaper over time.
If your home address is off in Google Maps, you can now move it yourself. Try it, it works!
You can of course use the same feature to hide it, if you are so inclined.
1 or 100 robots can travel across the same plains with the same tools. They can't determine what is interesting, but can send data to people who can, and get instructions on what to do in 10-30 minutes.
My point is that it's not "the same money". If it was, by all means send some adventurers. But it is actually several orders of magnitudes difference.
I don't know about light/heavy rocket stuff. I'd go for whatever works best for least money and effort.
Yeah, 10,000 is a number out of thin air. Let's see... The internet says that the twin rovers cost $880M. I didn't quickly find a quote for a Mars expedition, and it would just be a wild guess now anyway, but the International Space Station is supposedly $130B. If going to Mars is an order of magnitude more, that's a factor of 3000.
I wouldn't send 10,000 identical rovers to Mars. But you could do thousands of similarly complex robotic missions for the price of one human. Yes, humans are better in many ways. But not that much better.
That's a bit like saying I should buy a castle rather than live in my apartment, since it's a much nicer place to live. While true, that completely ignores price.
Similarly, a human can do much more than Spirit, but you can probably send 10000 rovers like that for the same amount it costs to send one human.
I can also think of very few companies I would trust with all of my medical information other than Google.
Ahhh! 18 years younger!!
It's true that Mars can't hold an atmosphere forever, but it'll do fine for several million years. Humanity would just need to refill it occasionally.
You're not thinking long term.
Those 1 million will over time have many billion descendants.
How would a non evil way to decide where to put a data center be different from what Google is doing?
Unless you keep it secret that you're looking for a place to build it, governments in the area will offer incentives, whether Google asks for them or not.
For most practical purposes Mars also has no atmosphere. It's just 0.6% of our, or in other words 99.4% not there. Yes, it does change the conditions a bit, but Mars is much more like the moon than earth..
With the moon as near to the sun as earth, but lacking clouds and atmosphere, it receives much more sunlight than corresponding spots on earth, and is therefore that much more suitable for solar energy. The 330 hour lunar night can be handled just like the 12 hour martian night, using battery technology.
The Moon actually has more sunlight than anywhere on earth, especially any tundras. You can use that both for energy and farming. Greenhouses could be pretty simple to get operating there. What plants can handle month long days I don't know, but there's got to be some.
There is also no real weather problems in terms of wind, rain, snow etc. Yeah, it's a harsh environment, but it holds no surprises, other than the occasional solar outburst (serious enough though).
And the killer feature is that it's so close. You can get there in a few days, as opposed to years for any asteroid missions.
That also brings in the revenue source you didn't mention. Even if there is nothing useful a moon base could manufacture, I think it could sustain itself very well just as tourist spot for the megarich.
The parent didn't say the white "race" will go extinct, only that it will be mixed. So instead of France being populated by (made up numbers) 80% white people and 20% black people, it will over time converge to every person having 80% white ancestry and 20% black ancestry. Not through anyone being killed, just through friendly fraternization between the "races".
Cheer up, it's a nice future!
No beliefs would have to disappear along the way. Beliefs are not encoded in genes.
Perhaps removing a lot of those wasted 5 minute chores was the result of such a re-think?
You could have written a very similar note about heavier than air flight in 1899, and many people did.
Just because something hasn't been solved yet, doesn't mean it won't be solved in the future.
Perhaps there is some fundamental reason that this simply can't be done. But we have yet to discover that as well.
I refer to the opening up in the 90s, after the Soviet Union fell.
There was pretty serious and real political freedom, but much less economical freedom. A decade later, as you point out, very little political freedom remains.
China went the opposite way, and again it seems the level of political freedom follows the economical.
It's going slow, but China is clearly getting more civilized in terms of human rights and rule of law etc.
I think it's not so much because the rulers are becoming better people, but a result of the enormous economic development and cultural exchange with the outside world. In other words due to trade. Money is power, and as regular Chinese start getting money they start getting power. It's an unstoppable process.
Two thoughts.
1. The Russian path of freeing up political life but not economical life has failed, while the opposite Chinese path seems incredibly productive.
2. The strategy to NOT trade with Cuba is an incredible mistake. With the opposite US policy, Cuba would probably be another Poland today.
2. You just burn the rocket for an hour a day or so, when it's facing th Sun. That part is not the weakness of this proposal.
I'm sure this would work without an atmosphere. But inside one I'm not sure about the physics. Will the opposite force 'get stuck' and disperse in the air rather than result in a net transfer of momentum?
It's well known outside the scientific community that all men are dogs, and all women are bitches, so the similarities are to be expected.
Yet another example of taxpayer money wasted on rediscovering the obvious.
Frankly Gates doesn't have to do anything in the renewable energy market, what he is doing through his foundation is saving more lives than can be counted
Perhaps they can't be counted under Windows, but under MacOS and Linux, you can routinely count up to billions and beyond with no loss of precision.