Climate Change: Post up your Phd. dissertation, coward

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Fried Watermelon: Dec 29, 2008

In an infinite universe it's possible

# ? Jun 30, 2017 17:26

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# ? May 15, 2024 12:38

TildeATH: Oct 21, 2010; by Lowtax

Fried Watermelon posted:

In an infinite universe it's possible

This is the best thread title. This is the lovely thread title you deserve.

# ? Jun 30, 2017 17:31

TROIKA CURES GREEK: Jun 30, 2015; by R. Guyovich

Salt Fish posted:

He's right though. The space colonization myth is rooted in ignorance. The distances involved, the basic limitations of physics, the frailty of the human body, our inability to plan scientifically, and our rejection or any kind of social organization not based on individualistic consumerism ; these will all prevent us from leaving earth in any meaningful way, and in tandem make it an impossible fiction.

We take the earth for granted ; because of our evolutionary history it's the perfect place for us to live, and there is nothing better than it within any humans lifespan at any fraction of the speed of light.

And clueless people said this about the oceans too lol

Or is not knowing what the gently caress you are talking about just the threads gimmick? It's funny, for a thread obsessed with expert consensus -- where does all this doom predictions cone from? Not backed up by evidence or expert opinion in the slightest.

Honestly these past couple pages have basically just been get_therapy.txt , it's sad to read : [

Oxxidation posted:

It is not possible. You're an imbecile for even bringing it up.

Haha yes, despite people saying this and being wrong again and again and again and again, this time is different, end of history mother fuckers!!!!

You probably haven't when opened a science book in the last 10 years lol but go ahead and lecture us on poo poo you don't understand in the slightest.

# ? Jun 30, 2017 17:35

Mozi: Apr 4, 2004; Forms change so fast
Time is moving past
Memory is smoke
Gonna get wider when I die; Nap Ghost

You don't think there's been any objective advance in the understanding of the natural world over the past, say, 100 years?

Also please enlighten us on all the "science books" you've been perusing.

# ? Jun 30, 2017 17:36

Car Hater: May 7, 2007; wolf. bike.
Wolf. Bike.
Wolf! Bike!
WolfBike!
WolfBike!
ARROOOOOO!

It is definitely maybe possible to colonize the solar system (and no more than that), but the only ends to which that points is imperial Earth gobbling down more resources.

# ? Jun 30, 2017 17:44

Conspiratiorist: Nov 12, 2015; 17th Separate Kryvyi Rih Tank Brigade named after Konstantin Pestushko
Look to my coming on the first light of the ~~fifth~~ ~~sixth~~ some day

TildeATH posted:

This is the best thread title. This is the lovely thread title you deserve.

# ? Jun 30, 2017 17:45

TildeATH: Oct 21, 2010; by Lowtax

TROIKA CURES GREEK posted:

And clueless people said this about the oceans too lol

Human beings have been conquering the ocean with stone age technology for millennia. Your dumb analogy is so off that it shows a basic misunderstanding of, well, everything ever.

# ? Jun 30, 2017 17:46

Conspiratiorist: Nov 12, 2015; 17th Separate Kryvyi Rih Tank Brigade named after Konstantin Pestushko
Look to my coming on the first light of the ~~fifth~~ ~~sixth~~ some day

TROIKA CURES GREEK posted:

Haha yes, despite people saying this and being wrong again and again and again and again, this time is different, end of history mother fuckers!!!!

You probably haven't when opened a science book in the last 10 years lol but go ahead and lecture us on poo poo you don't understand in the slightest.

Let's fight fire with fire and quote a sci-fi author.

Isaac Asimov posted:

The Relativity of Wrong

I RECEIVED a letter the other day. It was handwritten in crabbed penmanship so that it was very difficult to read. Nevertheless, I tried to make it out just in case it might prove to be important. In the first sentence, the writer told me he was majoring in English literature, but felt he needed to teach me science. (I sighed a bit, for I knew very few English Lit majors who are equipped to teach me science, but I am very aware of the vast state of my ignorance and I am prepared to learn as much as I can from anyone, so I read on.)

It seemed that in one of my innumerable essays, I had expressed a certain gladness at living in a century in which we finally got the basis of the universe straight.

I didn't go into detail in the matter, but what I meant was that we now know the basic rules governing the universe, together with the gravitational interrelationships of its gross components, as shown in the theory of relativity worked out between 1905 and 1916. We also know the basic rules governing the subatomic particles and their interrelationships, since these are very neatly described by the quantum theory worked out between 1900 and 1930. What's more, we have found that the galaxies and clusters of galaxies are the basic units of the physical universe, as discovered between 1920 and 1930.

These are all twentieth-century discoveries, you see.

The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, went on to lecture me severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they understood the universe at last, and in every century they were proved to be wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern "knowledge" is that it is wrong. The young man then quoted with approval what Socrates had said on learning that the Delphic oracle had proclaimed him the wisest man in Greece. "If I am the wisest man," said Socrates, "it is because I alone know that I know nothing." the implication was that I was very foolish because I was under the impression I knew a great deal.

My answer to him was, "John, when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."

The basic trouble, you see, is that people think that "right" and "wrong" are absolute; that everything that isn't perfectly and completely right is totally and equally wrong.

However, I don't think that's so. It seems to me that right and wrong are fuzzy concepts, and I will devote this essay to an explanation of why I think so.

When my friend the English literature expert tells me that in every century scientists think they have worked out the universe and are always wrong, what I want to know is how wrong are they? Are they always wrong to the same degree? Let's take an example.

In the early days of civilization, the general feeling was that the earth was flat. This was not because people were stupid, or because they were intent on believing silly things. They felt it was flat on the basis of sound evidence. It was not just a matter of "That's how it looks," because the earth does not look flat. It looks chaotically bumpy, with hills, valleys, ravines, cliffs, and so on.

Of course there are plains where, over limited areas, the earth's surface does look fairly flat. One of those plains is in the Tigris-Euphrates area, where the first historical civilization (one with writing) developed, that of the Sumerians.

Perhaps it was the appearance of the plain that persuaded the clever Sumerians to accept the generalization that the earth was flat; that if you somehow evened out all the elevations and depressions, you would be left with flatness. Contributing to the notion may have been the fact that stretches of water (ponds and lakes) looked pretty flat on quiet days.

Another way of looking at it is to ask what is the "curvature" of the earth's surface Over a considerable length, how much does the surface deviate (on the average) from perfect flatness. The flat-earth theory would make it seem that the surface doesn't deviate from flatness at all, that its curvature is 0 to the mile.

Nowadays, of course, we are taught that the flat-earth theory is wrong; that it is all wrong, terribly wrong, absolutely. But it isn't. The curvature of the earth is nearly 0 per mile, so that although the flat-earth theory is wrong, it happens to be nearly right. That's why the theory lasted so long.

There were reasons, to be sure, to find the flat-earth theory unsatisfactory and, about 350 B.C., the Greek philosopher Aristotle summarized them. First, certain stars disappeared beyond the Southern Hemisphere as one traveled north, and beyond the Northern Hemisphere as one traveled south. Second, the earth's shadow on the moon during a lunar eclipse was always the arc of a circle. Third, here on the earth itself, ships disappeared beyond the horizon hull-first in whatever direction they were traveling.

All three observations could not be reasonably explained if the earth's surface were flat, but could be explained by assuming the earth to be a sphere.

What's more, Aristotle believed that all solid matter tended to move toward a common center, and if solid matter did this, it would end up as a sphere. A given volume of matter is, on the average, closer to a common center if it is a sphere than if it is any other shape whatever.

About a century after Aristotle, the Greek philosopher Eratosthenes noted that the sun cast a shadow of different lengths at different latitudes (all the shadows would be the same length if the earth's surface were flat). From the difference in shadow length, he calculated the size of the earthly sphere and it turned out to be 25,000 miles in circumference.

The curvature of such a sphere is about 0.000126 per mile, a quantity very close to 0 per mile, as you can see, and one not easily measured by the techniques at the disposal of the ancients. The tiny difference between 0 and 0.000126 accounts for the fact that it took so long to pass from the flat earth to the spherical earth.

Mind you, even a tiny difference, such as that between 0 and 0.000126, can be extremely important. That difference mounts up. The earth cannot be mapped over large areas with any accuracy at all if the difference isn't taken into account and if the earth isn't considered a sphere rather than a flat surface. Long ocean voyages can't be undertaken with any reasonable way of locating one's own position in the ocean unless the earth is considered spherical rather than flat.

Furthermore, the flat earth presupposes the possibility of an infinite earth, or of the existence of an "end" to the surface. The spherical earth, however, postulates an earth that is both endless and yet finite, and it is the latter postulate that is consistent with all later findings.

So, although the flat-earth theory is only slightly wrong and is a credit to its inventors, all things considered, it is wrong enough to be discarded in favor of the spherical-earth theory.

And yet is the earth a sphere?

No, it is not a sphere; not in the strict mathematical sense. A sphere has certain mathematical properties - for instance, all diameters (that is, all straight lines that pass from one point on its surface, through the center, to another point on its surface) have the same length.

That, however, is not true of the earth. Various diameters of the earth differ in length.

What gave people the notion the earth wasn't a true sphere? To begin with, the sun and the moon have outlines that are perfect circles within the limits of measurement in the early days of the telescope. This is consistent with the supposition that the sun and the moon are perfectly spherical in shape.

However, when Jupiter and Saturn were observed by the first telescopic observers, it became quickly apparent that the outlines of those planets were not circles, but distinct ellipses. That meant that Jupiter and Saturn were not true spheres.

Isaac Newton, toward the end of the seventeenth century, showed that a massive body would form a sphere under the pull of gravitational forces (exactly as Aristotle had argued), but only if it were not rotating. If it were rotating, a centrifugal effect would be set up that would lift the body's substance against gravity, and this effect would be greater the closer to the equator you progressed. The effect would also be greater the more rapidly a spherical object rotated, and Jupiter and Saturn rotated very rapidly indeed.

The earth rotated much more slowly than Jupiter or Saturn so the effect should be smaller, but it should still be there. Actual measurements of the curvature of the earth were carried out in the eighteenth century and Newton was proved correct.

The earth has an equatorial bulge, in other words. It is flattened at the poles. It is an "oblate spheroid" rather than a sphere. This means that the various diameters of the earth differ in length. The longest diameters are any of those that stretch from one point on the equator to an opposite point on the equator. This "equatorial diameter" is 12,755 kilometers (7,927 miles). The shortest diameter is from the North Pole to the South Pole and this "polar diameter" is 12,711 kilometers (7,900 miles).

The difference between the longest and shortest diameters is 44 kilometers (27 miles), and that means that the "oblateness" of the earth (its departure from true sphericity) is 44/12755, or 0.0034. This amounts to l/3 of 1 percent.

To put it another way, on a flat surface, curvature is 0 per mile everywhere. On the earth's spherical surface, curvature is 0.000126 per mile everywhere (or 8 inches per mile). On the earth's oblate spheroidal surface, the curvature varies from 7.973 inches to the mile to 8.027 inches to the mile.

The correction in going from spherical to oblate spheroidal is much smaller than going from flat to spherical. Therefore, although the notion of the earth as a sphere is wrong, strictly speaking, it is not as wrong as the notion of the earth as flat.

Even the oblate-spheroidal notion of the earth is wrong, strictly speaking. In 1958, when the satellite Vanguard I was put into orbit about the earth, it was able to measure the local gravitational pull of the earth--and therefore its shape--with unprecedented precision. It turned out that the equatorial bulge south of the equator was slightly bulgier than the bulge north of the equator, and that the South Pole sea level was slightly nearer the center of the earth than the North Pole sea level was.

There seemed no other way of describing this than by saying the earth was pear-shaped, and at once many people decided that the earth was nothing like a sphere but was shaped like a Bartlett pear dangling in space. Actually, the pear-like deviation from oblate-spheroid perfect was a matter of yards rather than miles, and the adjustment of curvature was in the millionths of an inch per mile.

In short, my English Lit friend, living in a mental world of absolute rights and wrongs, may be imagining that because all theories are wrong, the earth may be thought spherical now, but cubical next century, and a hollow icosahedron the next, and a doughnut shape the one after.

What actually happens is that once scientists get hold of a good concept they gradually refine and extend it with greater and greater subtlety as their instruments of measurement improve. Theories are not so much wrong as incomplete.

This can be pointed out in many cases other than just the shape of the earth. Even when a new theory seems to represent a revolution, it usually arises out of small refinements. If something more than a small refinement were needed, then the old theory would never have endured.

Copernicus switched from an earth-centered planetary system to a sun-centered one. In doing so, he switched from something that was obvious to something that was apparently ridiculous. However, it was a matter of finding better ways of calculating the motion of the planets in the sky, and eventually the geocentric theory was just left behind. It was precisely because the old theory gave results that were fairly good by the measurement standards of the time that kept it in being so long.

Again, it is because the geological formations of the earth change so slowly and the living things upon it evolve so slowly that it seemed reasonable at first to suppose that there was no change and that the earth and life always existed as they do today. If that were so, it would make no difference whether the earth and life were billions of years old or thousands. Thousands were easier to grasp.

But when careful observation showed that the earth and life were changing at a rate that was very tiny but not zero, then it became clear that the earth and life had to be very old. Modern geology came into being, and so did the notion of biological evolution.

If the rate of change were more rapid, geology and evolution would have reached their modern state in ancient times. It is only because the difference between the rate of change in a static universe and the rate of change in an evolutionary one is that between zero and very nearly zero that the creationists can continue propagating their folly.

Since the refinements in theory grow smaller and smaller, even quite ancient theories must have been sufficiently right to allow advances to be made; advances that were not wiped out by subsequent refinements.

The Greeks introduced the notion of latitude and longitude, for instance, and made reasonable maps of the Mediterranean basin even without taking sphericity into account, and we still use latitude and longitude today.

The Sumerians were probably the first to establish the principle that planetary movements in the sky exhibit regularity and can be predicted, and they proceeded to work out ways of doing so even though they assumed the earth to be the center of the universe. Their measurements have been enormously refined but the principle remains.

Naturally, the theories we now have might be considered wrong in the simplistic sense of my English Lit correspondent, but in a much truer and subtler sense, they need only be considered incomplete.

# ? Jun 30, 2017 17:48

Pembroke Fuse: Dec 29, 2008

Oxxidation posted:

It is not possible. You're an imbecile for even bringing it up.

For humans it is not possible. For transhumans and infolife navigating the great Interplanetary Transport Network over thousands or millions of years, I don't see why not.

# ? Jun 30, 2017 17:50

RobotDogPolice: Dec 1, 2016

TROIKA CURES GREEK posted:

And clueless people said this about the oceans too lol

Sailing doesn't require nearly as many engineering and social/economic challenges as space exploration, I don't think they're comparable. Relatively primitive societies were able to sail, colonizing a planet as comfortable as earth would require massive amounts of energy, money, labor, and technology. The ocean can be hostile to human life in many ways, but it still supports life. Space is antagonistic to pretty much ALL life.

The ocean is also something that's easy to conceptualize on a human scale. You can get get from one piece of land to another in days, weeks, months, etc. Outside of our solar system, you're talking about years and years of travel. And despite all of our technology, sailing is still expensive as gently caress. Ships cost a ton of money to build and maintain.

RobotDogPolice fucked around with this message at 18:12 on Jun 30, 2017

# ? Jun 30, 2017 18:04

Burt Buckle: Sep 1, 2011

Even if we could travel into space, won't the cold, cruel hand of entropy pull all atoms into an evenly distributed empty space over billions and billions of years?

poo poo, we are hosed guys.

# ? Jun 30, 2017 18:14

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

The Groper posted:

It is definitely maybe possible to colonize the solar system (and no more than that), but the only ends to which that points is imperial Earth gobbling down more resources.

It's actually possible to colonize the entire galaxy, "all" you need is self-replicating machines capable of interstellar travel. Exponential growth will also make it a surprisingly fast process. Probably not a big help for people though.

# ? Jun 30, 2017 18:18

Conspiratiorist: Nov 12, 2015; 17th Separate Kryvyi Rih Tank Brigade named after Konstantin Pestushko
Look to my coming on the first light of the ~~fifth~~ ~~sixth~~ some day

A Buttery Pastry posted:

It's actually possible to colonize the entire galaxy, "all" you need is self-replicating machines capable of interstellar travel. Exponential growth will also make it a surprisingly fast process. Probably not a big help for people though.

Fermi's paradox.

I mean unless you want to believe there's a berserker VN in the solar system just waiting for humanity to achieve the capability so it can wipe us out.

# ? Jun 30, 2017 18:29

Car Hater: May 7, 2007; wolf. bike.
Wolf. Bike.
Wolf! Bike!
WolfBike!
WolfBike!
ARROOOOOO!

A Buttery Pastry posted:

It's actually possible to colonize the entire galaxy, "all" you need is self-replicating machines capable of interstellar travel. Exponential growth will also make it a surprisingly fast process. Probably not a big help for people though.

I'm going to go with that not counting on the basis of robots aren't people. Clearly nobody else in the observable universe is doing it though, so the ROI is probably nil.

# ? Jun 30, 2017 18:31

call to action: Jun 10, 2016; by FactsAreUseless

Conspiratiorist posted:

Really, you need to recognize what you're saying for what it is: that you are being aggressively dismissive of any culture that is not your own or your sci-fi envisioning of its evolution.

You couldn't be further off base. How much happiness, and art, and creation do you see coming from displaced Syrian refugees? Some, certainly, but nowhere near as much as you'd see if they were still living their semi-prosperous lives from the 2000 or so era. That's my point, that we're not going to soft-land into a place where we just live in log cabins again.

# ? Jun 30, 2017 18:43

SSJ_naruto_2003: Oct 12, 2012

I thought it was going to be climate change related... The Sci fi and fantasy thread is located in TBB

# ? Jun 30, 2017 18:45

Oxxidation: Jul 22, 2007

call to action posted:

You couldn't be further off base. How much happiness, and art, and creation do you see coming from displaced Syrian refugees? Some, certainly, but nowhere near as much as you'd see if they were still living their semi-prosperous lives from the 2000 or so era. That's my point, that we're not going to soft-land into a place where we just live in log cabins again.

"You must be THIS CULTURED to persist as a species"

# ? Jun 30, 2017 18:46

MiddleOne: Feb 17, 2011

Much like silicon valley billionaires the average sadbrain will when confronted with real-world problems which feel insurmountable invent fictional problems to solve instead. Finding solutions for curbing rising internet-fueled fascism and rapid climate change? Overrated. No what we need to do is to solve how to colonize Mars and how to fight super-AI's, obviously those are the real problems!

This thread has had a lot of stupid derails but this is certainly one of the more out there ones.

# ? Jun 30, 2017 18:49

Shady Amish Terror: Oct 11, 2007; I'm not Amish by choice. 8(

I get the impression it's just sort of the natural evolution of the feeling of hopelessness that lays over the thread like a funerary veil. Good news isn't in abundant supply.

Not that this is an endorsement of all just laying in a depressed pile and flailing at each other impotently, mind you. First order of business is probably either changing the weird, widespread public perception that events that will directly affect them don't affect them, and getting the shitstack science-denying wannabe fascists out of political institutions. That's uh, going a bit slowly right now, admittedly.

# ? Jun 30, 2017 18:54

call to action: Jun 10, 2016; by FactsAreUseless

Oxxidation posted:

"You must be THIS CULTURED to persist as a species"

Turns out culture is a pretty important part of being a human, who knew

MiddleOne posted:

Much like silicon valley billionaires the average sadbrain will when confronted with real-world problems which feel insurmountable invent fictional problems to solve instead. Finding solutions for curbing rising internet-fueled fascism and rapid climate change? Overrated. No what we need to do is to solve how to colonize Mars and how to fight super-AI's, obviously those are the real problems!

This thread has had a lot of stupid derails but this is certainly one of the more out there ones.

I discussed a few things that would bend the curve of warming out years if not decades, feel free to engage with them if you want

# ? Jun 30, 2017 18:57

Conspiratiorist: Nov 12, 2015; 17th Separate Kryvyi Rih Tank Brigade named after Konstantin Pestushko
Look to my coming on the first light of the ~~fifth~~ ~~sixth~~ some day

call to action posted:

You couldn't be further off base. How much happiness, and art, and creation do you see coming from displaced Syrian refugees? Some, certainly, but nowhere near as much as you'd see if they were still living their semi-prosperous lives from the 2000 or so era. That's my point, that we're not going to soft-land into a place where we just live in log cabins again.

"If you're not contributing this much to the glory of mankind, you might as well be dead."

The Groper posted:

I'm going to go with that not counting on the basis of robots aren't people. Clearly nobody else in the observable universe is doing it though, so the ROI is probably nil.

Getting technical, you require:

- Highly adaptive AI
- Self-replicating machines able to process a wide variety of natural resources in unknown environments
- The ability to accelerate through interstellar distances and more important deccelerate as they approach their target star system
- Impulse/maneuvering capability to approach asteroids et al in order to harvest them

Each of these is really hard, but possible. Combining them all in the same extremely complex and fiddly package, and then adding the resilience to survive centuries or millenia of deep-space cosmic radiation and microimpacts, is what might actually push it beyond what's physically achievable.

# ? Jun 30, 2017 18:58

call to action: Jun 10, 2016; by FactsAreUseless

Conspiratiorist posted:

"If you're not contributing this much to the glory of mankind, you might as well be dead."

I get that you're OK with the insane squandering of human talent and ability that we are OK with in the world today, I'm not

# ? Jun 30, 2017 19:00

Salt Fish: Sep 11, 2003; Cybernetic Crumb

TROIKA CURES GREEK posted:

And clueless people said this about the oceans too lol

Or is not knowing what the gently caress you are talking about just the threads gimmick? It's funny, for a thread obsessed with expert consensus -- where does all this doom predictions cone from? Not backed up by evidence or expert opinion in the slightest.

Honestly these past couple pages have basically just been get_therapy.txt , it's sad to read : [

There is no ocean colonization either, so I don't fully understand your comparison. I will say though, that ocean colonization is infinitely more likely and feasible. As far as living on earth; I don't view life on earth as a doom prediction or as depressing, so I don't understand your recommendation for therapy. I would argue that being able to accept that earth is the habitat of man is a sign that I'm well adjusted and content.

It's important to understand that space colonization is not a solution to global warming and we don't just get to pack up and leave because we destroyed the environment.

# ? Jun 30, 2017 19:13

Shady Amish Terror: Oct 11, 2007; I'm not Amish by choice. 8(

Salt Fish posted:

It's important to understand that space colonization is not a solution to global warming and we don't just get to pack up and leave because we destroyed the environment.

I feel like it would be nice to live long enough as a species to at least experiment with the idea of space colonization, but uh, yeah, that does require not choking to death in the cosmic cradle first.

# ? Jun 30, 2017 19:16

TildeATH: Oct 21, 2010; by Lowtax

call to action posted:

I get that you're OK with the insane squandering of human talent and ability that we are OK with in the world today, I'm not

We're not an anthill, bro, there's no such thing as progress, we were all better off when we were having orgies on the seaside eating abalone 15,000 years ago.

# ? Jun 30, 2017 19:28

large oblate cat: Jul 7, 2009

Peter Frase's book Four Futures had a pretty nice look at using the excess labor over the next century to combat climate change. After reading the past few pages I'm all for exterminism. Let the tech bros liquidate our asses, you guys are insufferable. :emo:

# ? Jun 30, 2017 21:21

AceOfFlames: Oct 9, 2012

Conspiratiorist posted:

Also, what the hell kind of future are you imagining where advancement just stops happening? Wait, no, I'm wrong here. You're not talking about advancement in general, you're only talking about the poo poo that feeds your sci-fi dreams. The poo poo that makes you, you specifically, go 'wow, this is like sooo cool'. Humanity can keep developing its culture, its legal and ethical systems, its medical technology, information technology - but no, it has to happen at the exponential rate that is the right and proper way of things, the way you were raised on, yes?

Do you honestly believe that ethics and social progress will ''keep going'' as everything progresses? Think of the progress we've been having in the past few decades regarding things like women's and minorities rights. One of the biggest enhancers of that is communication technology that allows those groups to organize. If that goes away, we're back to square one. Husbands will start beating their wives since there's less police to stop them, they have no where to go and no where to stop them. Parents and other children will try to fix and exclude gay people. You can rightly point out that all that stuff is happening now but at least it gives them a chance to escape. Not to mention how once medical knowledge is lost, we'll be back to the local healer who knows these roots or whatever.

I'm not arrogant enough to say technological progress is the end all be all of progress period but if that falls, everything else falls with it. That to me is the tragedy. Everyone's lives will be hell. I don't understand how having a life comprised of 99.999% suffering is preferrable to non existence.

# ? Jun 30, 2017 21:58

PIGS BREXIT: Mar 29, 2017

If a civilisation arises from the wreckage of this one it could have totally different social norms to ours

Maybe start burning bibles now to give them a better chance

# ? Jun 30, 2017 22:05

El Laucha: Oct 9, 2012

Record heat high at Ahvaz, Iran, 53,7C� with peak humidity in the 70's.

quote:

The heat index � a measure of how hot it feels factoring in the humidity � exceeded 140F. This combination of heat and humidity was so extreme that it was beyond levels the heat index was designed to compute.

lol nice

# ? Jun 30, 2017 22:09

Burt Buckle: Sep 1, 2011

El Laucha posted:

Record heat high at Ahvaz, Iran, 53,7C� with peak humidity in the 70's.

lol nice

How do you even live in temperatures this high?

# ? Jun 30, 2017 22:14

Conspiratiorist: Nov 12, 2015; 17th Separate Kryvyi Rih Tank Brigade named after Konstantin Pestushko
Look to my coming on the first light of the ~~fifth~~ ~~sixth~~ some day

AceOfFlames posted:

Do you honestly believe that ethics and social progress will ''keep going'' as everything progresses? Think of the progress we've been having in the past few decades regarding things like women's and minorities rights. One of the biggest enhancers of that is communication technology that allows those groups to organize. If that goes away, we're back to square one. Husbands will start beating their wives since there's less police to stop them, they have no where to go and no where to stop them. Parents and other children will try to fix and exclude gay people. You can rightly point out that all that stuff is happening now but at least it gives them a chance to escape. Not to mention how once medical knowledge is lost, we'll be back to the local healer who knows these roots or whatever.

I'm not arrogant enough to say technological progress is the end all be all of progress period but if that falls, everything else falls with it. That to me is the tragedy. Everyone's lives will be hell. I don't understand how having a life comprised of 99.999% suffering is preferrable to non existence.

The problem here is that GLORY OR EXTINCTION types are only seeing a full Mad Max future.

There is no Mad Max future, not in the long term anyway, as exciting as that sounds to the fantasy-prone mind. We're heading towards a mix between a more agrarian society (something akin to a much less extreme version of Interstellar) and hypercapitalist Mordor.

I know it sucks and even worse, it's boring, but that's just how it is. It's exceptionally childish to believe that because upheaval would cause our current global civilization to collapse, that humanity will suddenly regress to some kind of pre-industrial anarchist dystopia - there's just poo poo that's too valuable to go away, so stuff like global communications is here to stay even if it gets temporarily disrupted by wars or whatnot.

# ? Jun 30, 2017 22:26

MiddleOne: Feb 17, 2011

Burt Buckle posted:

How do you even live in temperatures this high?

You hide in a building built out of materials with bad heat transference and colors that reflect sunlight. If that's not enough you dig yourself underground. Then you wait for it to go away.

EDIT: When this doesn't work out the traditional outcome before the age of AC's was death.

MiddleOne fucked around with this message at 22:34 on Jun 30, 2017

# ? Jun 30, 2017 22:30

AceOfFlames: Oct 9, 2012

Conspiratiorist posted:

The problem here is that GLORY OR EXTINCTION types are only seeing a full Mad Max future.

There is no Mad Max future, not in the long term anyway, as exciting as that sounds to the fantasy-prone mind. We're heading towards a mix between a more agrarian society (something akin to a much less extreme version of Interstellar) and hypercapitalist Mordor.

I know it sucks and even worse, it's boring, but that's just how it is. It's exceptionally childish to believe that because upheaval would cause our current global civilization to collapse, that humanity will suddenly regress to some kind of pre-industrial anarchist dystopia - there's just poo poo that's too valuable to go away, so stuff like global communications is here to stay even if it gets temporarily disrupted by wars or whatnot.

I don't want anarchist dystopia but even what you describe I believe will cause major regression in the mean time. I'm picturing the current situation of the Middle East spread out throughout the world, religious fanatics included, only suited to the region in question.

Also, should we just accept the coming technological regression? I have the chance to pursue a Machine Learning degree, which is a field I find fascinating. Should I ditch that and learn how to woodwork or something?

AceOfFlames fucked around with this message at 22:34 on Jun 30, 2017

# ? Jun 30, 2017 22:31

Conspiratiorist: Nov 12, 2015; 17th Separate Kryvyi Rih Tank Brigade named after Konstantin Pestushko
Look to my coming on the first light of the ~~fifth~~ ~~sixth~~ some day

In the long term, information technology is not going away, so it helps you get or keep a decent job that prevents you from dying from starvation or exposure in the streets of a country that doesn't give a flying gently caress about its lower class.

RE: your edit

AceOfFlames posted:

I don't want anarchist dystopia but even what you describe I believe will cause major regression in the mean time. I'm picturing the current situation of the Middle East spread out throughout the world, religious fanatics included, only suited to the region in question.

Also, should we just accept the coming technological regression? I have the chance to pursue a Machine Learning degree, which is a field I find fascinating. Should I ditch that and learn how to woodwork or something?

What current situation in the Middle East? What is it that you're picturing?

Because last I checked, people still worked for a living even in loving Syria - and Yemen excluded, the rest of the Middle East is not doing like Syria.

Conspiratiorist fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Jun 30, 2017

# ? Jun 30, 2017 22:34

FourLeaf: Dec 2, 2011

It's gonna suck when the whole Middle East becomes like the Rub al-Khali.

AceOfFlames posted:

Also, should we just accept the coming technological regression? I have the chance to pursue a Machine Learning degree, which is a field I find fascinating. Should I ditch that and learn how to woodwork or something?

It's not like all modern technological advances are going to be forgotten or something. What will happen is the number of people able to buy, use, repair, or learn to build the latest technology will gradually become restricted to a smaller and smaller elite. Essentially the same situation as now, but exaggerated. Becoming educated in a technological field now could actually be a great idea since that knowledge may become an even rarer commodity later on.

Burt Buckle posted:

How do you even live in temperatures this high?

You don't. You flee to a colder area.

# ? Jul 1, 2017 02:54

StabbinHobo: Oct 18, 2002; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

The toba bottleneck was supposedly around 10,000 people. I think if it came on "fast" but like, 100 - 200 years fast, we could build out enough mega-bunkers to keep 10k rich people alive in a relatively indefinite/sustainable way. Even if the surface went full-venus.

In a way, maybe thats what it'll take. Only that level of hyper focus on working out the exact mix of sustainable consumption and resource sharing will ever get humanity to figure out communism.

# ? Jul 1, 2017 15:00

Rime: Nov 2, 2011; by Games Forum

I thought this was a good post.

quote:

Of note, the temperature difference you're talking about is an average for the WORLD. Local temperatures may vary wildly from this, which is part of the problem, as waters around corals heat up drastically on some days. It's not the 1-2C that's the problem, it's that couple of days at +10C (or more!) above normal temps that really cause the problems we're looking at. The "higher on average" is a way to show not just that it can/will have those unusual (and often unexpected, which can kill) temperature spikes, but also that there's some underlying issue raising temperatures steadily, as opposed to just spikes and things remaining relatively constant otherwise (denialists must find something that is also contributing to this process if they want to discount human-released carbon). Most people haven't spent much time digging into what "global warming" even means, but the above is just a taste - if temperatures are higher on average, that means there have been some much higher than normal spikes of high temps and a lack of low temps, which can kill anything. The speed of the change is a big factor, happening in decades rather than millenia or longer.

I see a lot of people shrugging at 2* of warming, not realizing the math behind it.

# ? Jul 1, 2017 15:44

Blockade: Oct 22, 2008

Of course its not possible for humans as they are now to colonize the stars. As a physics person I don't see any hard limits to making self-replicating robots that explore the universe though.

# ? Jul 1, 2017 16:01

MiddleOne: Feb 17, 2011

Debate & Discussion > Climate Change: Not actually the Climate Change Thread

# ? Jul 1, 2017 16:12

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# ? May 15, 2024 12:38

Conspiratiorist: Nov 12, 2015; 17th Separate Kryvyi Rih Tank Brigade named after Konstantin Pestushko
Look to my coming on the first light of the ~~fifth~~ ~~sixth~~ some day

Blockade posted:

Of course its not possible for humans as they are now to colonize the stars. As a physics person I don't see any hard limits to making self-replicating robots that explore the universe though.

What is your VNM's energy source? Propulsion system (both interstellar and maneuvering)? What is your propellant? Are you confident you can procure and refine more at the destination? How do you deal with the hundreds or thousands of years that you spend traveling between stars, constantly bombarded by cosmic rays and impacting interstellar dust at relativistic speeds?

How do you keep a machine that does all of this, that is resilient enough to do all of this, small enough to be functional?

Once you have to push material sciences two steps beyond currently foreseeable technology, beyond what we think can be done but cannot or is impractical to do yet, that's fantasy.

# ? Jul 1, 2017 16:40

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Climate Change: Post up your Phd. dissertation, coward

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