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The official cliche list; What should we try and avoid perhaps?
Topic Started: Jan 21 2011, 12:18 PM (6,359 Views)
T.Neo
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I suppose so.
Brain transplant, do you mean? Or just memory and consciousness area transplant... hmm.


Conciousness and memory area? I really don't think there's such a thing, the brain has a lot of functions spread out and you won't be doing good by cutting some parts of it out and leaving others... each brain develops as a complete system and develops differently... how do you propose developing the brain of the "clone"?

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Keeping people alive doesn't always work.


Yes, but you have to try in every way you can. For example, instead of transplanting the brain into an entirely new body, you can use the old body as a basis for the addition of replacement parts... for example, if someone has a bad accident (caught in a roadside bomb blast), you might still be able to salvage a good part of their body, but they otherwise wouldn't survive without several replacement body parts.

The ultimate goal is to perform this replacement and maintainance on the cellular scale or even smaller... the body already does this, but this would be the more efficient, more advanced method of it. Eventually this could not only help with age related degredation, but damaged caused by chemical or radiation exposure as well.

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Cities need artificial light too, and they're fine. Arctic research stations? SPend six months usign artificial light. UV could be added, to allow vitamin D creation, or perhaps pills...
Nuclear power.
Anyway, the colony doesn't have do be that big, digging isn't exactly beyong our means now, and we can leave support pillars of rock.


Correction: Cities, like everywhere else, need artificial light during the night. This doesn't make them special.

An antarctic research station and a city are two different things.

Nuclear power is not without problems.

Digging out the entire surface of the Earth for subterrenean colonies is pushing it, just a bit... :rolleyes:

And the colonies do have to be big, spacious, with a lot of light... that's the point. People don't do well in closed up spaces.

If a civilisation producing 1e17 watts of power (100 petawatts) was occupying the Earth, and its power production methods had an efficiency of 30%, not accounting for disruption of circulation systems and global balances, atmospheric emissions and alteration to planetary albedo, the temperature could well be pushed up over 300 degrees.

On the other hand, let's try to make a semiplausible world-city example. Singapore is a good example, as most of its area is urban, with high population density- only around 20% of the island is rainforest or nature reserves. Food is presumably almost totally imported from neighboring countries such as Malaysia, but the inhabitants of our city Earth presumably grow food in vertical farms, or something like that. Singapore has the third highest population density on the planet, at 7022 people per square kilometer, yet also a high human development index and high standard of living.

Earth has 148 940 000 square kilometers of land area, presumably including Antarctica that useless frozen wasteland nobody wants or cares about.

Multiplying this by the population density of Singapore, the population would be roughly 1 045 860 000 000 people- that is over a trillion people.

By my rough calculations, the current power production per person on Earth is around 2300 watts. Let's give the citizens of our hypothetical world-city the benefit of the doubt- although a lot of their advanced technology is power-hungry, the power used by each citizen equals out to around 1700 watts per person. This, if my calculations are correct, is a total power production of 1.77 petawatts- far above the current output of humanity, but still far less than the total energy budget of the Earth/the mark of becoming a Class I civilisation.

Assuming the power production methods are again around 30% efficient, this still pushes the overall temperature of the Earth above around 120 centigrade, again, assuming things here are very simplistic. However, almost the entire land area is now covered in artificial structures... ergo, mankind can control Earth's albedo. Providing it can be increased enough, the temperature can potentially be dropped below lethal levels, though some sort of sunshade and/or increased cloud cover (clouds are great at increasing albedo, and work over oceans as well). Earth in this instance becomes more of a sickly space colony than a planet, whatever fragile feedback system that remains, only survives by being put on humanity's petawatt life support machine.

Of course, a civilisation of a trillion people would probably collect all their power from space, via solar energy, and then beam it to the surface of the Earth via microwaves- the microwave recievers could have an efficiency of over 84%. This way, the temperature of the Earth would only be elevated to over 100 celsius without intervention... it now makes the job of the life support machine of the gigantic human sprawl a bit easier.

Keep in mind I haven't made any comments about gas emissions, or feedback loops, or ocean currents, or any sort of anything relating to the climate, but that's partially because there won't be any climate, there won't be any ecology. It'll just be dead. Death and cities, what a boring existence.

Still, you can still have a large but sustainable population, you will only destroy the ecology a little less.

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I'd never have guessed.
Some people want that, though!


I know. They're called "evil mass murderers". :P

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Probably because we want to escape the unfortunate stigma of the last speculative biologist who DID use them (I'm looking at you, Dougal Dixon).


What did Dougal Dixon do with pachycephalosaurs? Do I want to know? :|

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Which brings me to another cliche I hate: assuming that had the dinosaurs not died out they would have evolved more inventive body styles over the course of just 65 million years than they did over the previous 226 million years. Snake-dinosaurs, human-dinosaurs, my foot!


Yeah, there's a difference between diversity and implausibility... dinosaur snakes? <_<
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zande-147
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65 million years is about 15 million years short of the entire cretaceous era. from the beginning of the cretaceous to the end, there were no significant changes in the fauna. several familes such as the carnosaurs and the iguanadons went into decline, and the abeliosaurs, tyrannosaurs, ceratopsians, hadrosaurs, and ankylosaurs came to prominence. But there were no drastic changes in the types of dinosaurs. the main carnivores were still bipedal theropods. there were no snake or mole dinosaurs. So if dinosaurs were to survive until today, they would probably look somewhat like the ones from the end of the cretaceous. no mammal analogues, no snake dinosaurs, and definitely no dinosaur people.
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Zoroaster
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Getting back to the transplanting of a sapient's "mind" into a "machine" - it wouldn't be that actual mind per se, it would be a copy...

I once thought of it as a way to be immortal (well, live beyond the use-by date of the organic shell that carries my mind anyway), but philosophised about it some more, and realised when they download my "soul" into a machine, that soul is no longer "me" - it's a copy, another "me" but not ME. A copy of my consciousness.

When the mind in my organic body, my "soul", is extirpated, that's it - "Game over! Game over man!".

Unless you could have some process whereby, the machine is an extension of the home of the mind, and they co-exist for a time in parallel and linked, then both decide on a process to gradually migrate from the organic mind "case" and shut it down.
-----------------------------------------------
you could even have a virtual simulation of white light ahead, then a virtual St Peter and some CGI of pearly gates... or if you wanted, perhaps flames and heat and screams of agony and misery.... or 70 virgins... ha hah the joke is that all the "virgins" in Paradise are New Zealanders, and there's no virgins there...
Edited by Zoroaster, Feb 20 2011, 07:42 AM.
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Holben
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T.Neo
Feb 20 2011, 05:00 AM
Conciousness and memory area? I really don't think there's such a thing, the brain has a lot of functions spread out and you won't be doing good by cutting some parts of it out and leaving others... each brain develops as a complete system and develops differently... how do you propose developing the brain of the "clone"?
Definitely is a memory area. Consciousness is a sticky subject.
Who said clone? :P
Anyway, you could've been growing the clone while the subject was but a chiuld, ethics though.
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Yes, but you have to try in every way you can. For example, instead of transplanting the brain into an entirely new body, you can use the old body as a basis for the addition of replacement parts... for example, if someone has a bad accident (caught in a roadside bomb blast), you might still be able to salvage a good part of their body, but they otherwise wouldn't survive without several replacement body parts.
What of somethign like full-body burns, or loss of brain material, spinal cord, poisoning...
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The ultimate goal is to perform this replacement and maintainance on the cellular scale or even smaller... the body already does this, but this would be the more efficient, more advanced method of it. Eventually this could not only help with age related degredation, but damaged caused by chemical or radiation exposure as well.
Oh we love our cellular regeneration.
How's about a computer which stores your genome, and sends in little 'bots to correct all your genes and reverse damage?
Why not just prevent the damage in the first place?
Cells in themselves are pretty fragile. But the alternative is icky.
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Correction: Cities, like everywhere else, need artificial light during the night. This doesn't make them special.
How is that a correction? They need artificial light more than half the time, and my point was that the creation of artificial light is not troublesome.
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An antarctic research station and a city are two different things.

Only by a matter of boundary and degree.
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Nuclear power is not without problems.
Ones we can solve.
Say you want fission, the waste can be buried. (If it doesn't cause suffering to yuo or your children, the thinking goes, it doesn't matter) Or reduced is uppose.
If you want fusion, use water as a source, make heavier isotopoes of hydrogen using neutron bombardment, get a better method of harvesting the energy, and make it self-sustaining by using more hydrogen. Initiation by laser?
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Digging out the entire surface of the Earth for subterrenean colonies is pushing it, just a bit... :rolleyes:
Digging out the entire surface is, of course, madness. I never said anything of the kind! :P
i simply said 'colonies'. That could be research station size, no?
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And the colonies do have to be big, spacious, with a lot of light... that's the point. People don't do well in closed up spaces.
Fine. All can be solved. if you have a hundred people in your colony, a kilometre long cube will be fine.
You can go out on the surface if you really must.
VR? Holodecks?

lalalalala... this stuff only applies to world cities...
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I know. They're called "evil mass murderers". :P
:r


Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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T.Neo
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What of somethign like full-body burns, or loss of brain material, spinal cord, poisoning...


Fully body burns are actually a good example... you can at least attempt to replace the damaged tissue.

Spinal cord damage is also a potential example for a use of stem cell treatment, to re-form spinal cord connections.

Loss of brain material... well, you can try to replace or regrow lost brain material, but you would at the very best end up with amnesia.

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Who said clone?
Anyway, you could've been growing the clone while the subject was but a chiuld, ethics though.


I don't think creating whole new people as replacement organ farms is very ethical. :|

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Definitely is a memory area. Consciousness is a sticky subject.


Yeah, I dunno. I would really save whatever is possible... I somehow doubt that there's a "brain hard drive" stuck in there somewhere, the whole brain is fulled with uniquely formed connections.

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Oh we love our cellular regeneration.
How's about a computer which stores your genome, and sends in little 'bots to correct all your genes and reverse damage?
Why not just prevent the damage in the first place?
Cells in themselves are pretty fragile. But the alternative is icky.


Something like that, yes. Imagine the self-repair processes of the body, but rather a similar repair process that does what the body cannot do itself.

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How is that a correction? They need artificial light more than half the time, and my point was that the creation of artificial light is not troublesome.


It does require extra power if you're doing it 24/7 though. Even though cities still need a lot of artificial light even during the day, a subterranean city would require more power than a surface city.

Natural light is psychologically important though. It is also important for Vitamin D, providing you don't have some other way to supplement it/produce it.

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Only by a matter of boundary and degree


Uh... Antarctica has a non-permanent population of roughly 1000 people- that is all the research stations put together. Pretoria, a rather modest city by world standards, has a population of over two million.

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Ones we can solve.
Say you want fission, the waste can be buried. (If it doesn't cause suffering to yuo or your children, the thinking goes, it doesn't matter) Or reduced is uppose.
If you want fusion, use water as a source, make heavier isotopoes of hydrogen using neutron bombardment, get a better method of harvesting the energy, and make it self-sustaining by using more hydrogen. Initiation by laser?


You haven't listed all the problems. Plus, even if you solve a problem, it is still there... coping with a problem is a nonzero effort.

Nuclear waste is still a problem, and Uranium supplies are not infinite... of course, if you use the right kind of reactor, you can make much better use of uranium supplies, but they are still not infinite.

And there is still the risk for accidents... you can have safety measures in place, but the risk will always be non-zero. Then again, the total impact might probably be less than that for a coal fired plant.

Fusion has been 20 years ahead for the last 50 years. Hopefully we will get fusion before 2050, but again: not without problems. Your neutron bombardment scheme also adds another reactor into the equation... these are the reasons why helium 3 or proton-boron fusion would be so attractive, the only problem is that proton-boron fusion is an order of magnitude harder and you have to fly to the Moon to get helium 3.

Space based solar power is the best, IMO... it is relatively low-tech and uses solar energy, if you mine the materials from the Moon and construct them in space the ecological impact is relatively minimal.

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simply said 'colonies'. That could be research station size, no?


I doubt it. A colony would either be around 10 000 people, enough for a viable population, or a million people, enough for a viable self-sustaining infrastructure and industry without outside help.

All the research stations in Antarctica have around a tenth of the first figure...

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Fine. All can be solved. if you have a hundred people in your colony, a kilometre long cube will be fine.
You can go out on the surface if you really must.
VR? Holodecks?


How the hell does a holodeck even work? In reality, I mean, not Star Trek.

VR isn't real.

As I said, 100 people is not a colony... it is more like, a one-horse town. A kilometer long cube would be large, but not large enough for a really big population. And you also have to carve out and support that cube.

If you can go onto the surface if you want, why the hell don't you build your city there?

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lalalalala... this stuff only applies to world cities...


Wrong. It applies to any large population on Earth. Even 20 billion people will have an effect like that, and even 6.7 billion people do- minus our ecological damage and gas emissions.

A sort of "world city" might become feasible, but the whole surface area of the planet would not be city... just large expanses of it.

You could potentially house tens of billions of people this way, but it probably wouldn't be very pleasant and the ecological impact would be ugly
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Holben
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I don't think creating whole new people as replacement organ farms is very ethical. :|
I agree.
How about organ and limb farms?
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Yeah, I dunno. I would really save whatever is possible... I somehow doubt that there's a "brain hard drive" stuck in there somewhere, the whole brain is fulled with uniquely formed connections.
It is formed with unique connections, hurrah! Some people think it's the randomness of the system which enables sapience.
But memory is localised, though in different section. The hypothalamus is needed, for example.
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Something like that, yes. Imagine the self-repair processes of the body, but rather a similar repair process that does what the body cannot do itself.
I feel bad saying nanobots without specifying- too many times "oh, they use nanobots". Carrying materials around, and actually putting them in place. Recapping genes. Etc.
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It does require extra power if you're doing it 24/7 though. Even though cities still need a lot of artificial light even during the day, a subterranean city would require more power than a surface city.
their power source can cope. :P
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Natural light is psychologically important though. It is also important for Vitamin D, providing you don't have some other way to supplement it/produce it.
I mentioned the vitamin D problem earlier.
As for psychologically... variable spectrum lamps which are tailored to the sun's spectrum?
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Uh... Antarctica has a non-permanent population of roughly 1000 people- that is all the research stations put together. Pretoria, a rather modest city by world standards, has a population of over two million.
Pretoria's not modest! Liverpool is modest.
but anyway, a few hundred is fine, if this isn't 'your new home in the stars'. Research station or temporary habitat.
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You haven't listed all the problems.
If i had, i would have been here longer.
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Plus, even if you solve a problem, it is still there... coping with a problem is a nonzero effort.
then don't cope! Inhibit the problem!
I'm not going to suggest anything.
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And there is still the risk for accidents... you can have safety measures in place, but the risk will always be non-zero. Then again, the total impact might probably be less than that for a coal fired plant.
With fusion, containment breach is no problem (unless you've got kilos of fusible material in your torus), so that's sidestepped.
In fission, we secure the area, and put the plant away from the main colony section.
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Space based solar power is the best, IMO... it is relatively low-tech and uses solar energy, if you mine the materials from the Moon and construct them in space the ecological impact is relatively minimal.
Hey, you just said we couldn't do He-3 because we'd have to go to the Moon. :P
And beaming down via microwaves is inefficient... plus, the power isn't as great as fusion or fission.
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I doubt it. A colony would either be around 10 000 people, enough for a viable population, or a million people, enough for a viable self-sustaining infrastructure and industry without outside help.
Humanity didn't start with 10,000 people. Anyway, why not a small community? A small colony will need less maintenance, etc.
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How the hell does a holodeck even work? In reality, I mean, not Star Trek.
I don't think anyone knows.
We have rooms with screens on all walls... however, the need-for-a-forcefield problem... claytronics?
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VR isn't real.
Then... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality is all a lie?
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If you can go onto the surface if you want, why the hell don't you build your city there?
You can only go on the surface in a suit. :ermm:
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Wrong. It applies to any large population on Earth. Even 20 billion people will have an effect like that, and even 6.7 billion people do- minus our ecological damage and gas emissions.
The spread those people out in little colonies!
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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T.Neo
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How about organ and limb farms?


Yes. But they would have to be grown specific to the person, not only to avoid rejection problems (which is part of the whole point), but to be tailored to the individual... the arm of a 110 kilogram male, for example, would not be very fitting on the shoulder of a 50 kilogram female.

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It is formed with unique connections, hurrah! Some people think it's the randomness of the system which enables sapience.
But memory is localised, though in different section. The hypothalamus is needed, for example.


Yeah, but my point is that you want to save everything- especially because putting a lot of the adaptations in the brain (like the connections for language, for example) is difficult to do "manually".

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I feel bad saying nanobots without specifying- too many times "oh, they use nanobots". Carrying materials around, and actually putting them in place. Recapping genes. Etc.


Yeah, something like that.

Nanobots are cliche, big time. Like how everything in the 20s and 30s was radio, everything in the 40s and 50s was atomic, everything in the 60s and 70s was laser driven... now it's nanobots, nanotechnology, nanowhatnot.

Nanobots are very well, but you have to figure out how they work. Building an actual nanoscale machine- out of atoms- would be extremely difficult, if not impossible (unless you had some highly advanced methods available). More feasible for the near term are microscale machines- they will have sizes on the order of microns, but will still have nanoscale components within them, just like living cells.

In fact, the first and potentially a the majority of micro-machines after that will be based on biology. It makes sense, too.

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their power source can cope.


Oh really, we're just going to assume that, are we? :P

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As for psychologically... variable spectrum lamps which are tailored to the sun's spectrum?


It's not about that. It's about psychology. Being in an open space, being in the influence of uncontrollable, natural forces... it's an issue that also affects space colonies, for example.

You can simulate the sun with a lightbulb, but at the end of the day, it'll still be... a lightbulb.

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Pretoria's not modest! Liverpool is modest.


Never been to Liverpool, so I wouldn't know.

I'm comparing with huge cities like London, New York, Beijing, etc...

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but anyway, a few hundred is fine, if this isn't 'your new home in the stars'. Research station or temporary habitat.


It's not a city then, it's a small-ish town.

Why the hell do you want to build a research station or temporary habitat underground? Drills and a few cave explorers are perfectly adequate.

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then don't cope! Inhibit the problem!
I'm not going to suggest anything.


Nothing has zero problems, Holben! Nothing. NOTHING.

Cope with the problems, inhibit them, sure... but you'll still have to cope/inhibit, and that will not be perfectly easy. It will never be perfectly easy.

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With fusion, containment breach is no problem (unless you've got kilos of fusible material in your torus), so that's sidestepped.
In fission, we secure the area, and put the plant away from the main colony section.


With fission, distance and isolation do not mean everything. Even if your reactor has a hgue meltdown (somehow) but contains all the fissionables, your reactor is broken. Which is not a good thing, obviously...

Release of materials during fusion is not much of a problem, even radioactive tritium is a minimal problem as it disperses quickly. Because fusion is a careful balance and just due to the way it works, you can't really have a fusion meltdown... if a problem arises, the reactor would much rather shut down than heat up beyond its operating limits.

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Hey, you just said we couldn't do He-3 because we'd have to go to the Moon.
And beaming down via microwaves is inefficient... plus, the power isn't as great as fusion or fission.


No... the problem with He3 is that you have to ship literally tons of it off the Moon every year. The advantage of a solar power satellite is that you only have to ship the construction materials from the Moon when you are constructing it.

Beaming power with microwaves has demonstrated 84% efficiency. That is pretty darn good, as efficiency goes.

The energy density is not as great as fusion or fission, but you don't have to worry about fuel (as long as the Sun shines), and the equipment required is pretty low tech, especially if you are using a solar thermal system (lower efficiency, but cheaper to produce).

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Humanity didn't start with 10,000 people. Anyway, why not a small community? A small colony will need less maintenance, etc.


But it will not have a viable population, and will thus not be a colony...

Humanity is thought to have been bottlenecked to around 10 000 individuals before.

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We have rooms with screens on all walls... however, the need-for-a-forcefield problem... claytronics?


I don't think it would be particularly convincing in any near-term concievable manner.

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No, you didn't get my point... :P

Virtual reality. It's virtual, not real... :rolleyes:

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You can only go on the surface in a suit.


Why? What the hell happened to Earth that you can only go to the surface in a suit? :|

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The spread those people out in little colonies!


"Spread them out in little colonies"?

It'd be better to have a smaller amount of far larger cities, probably... small colonies everywhere means that humanity's affect on the natural world is never far away.

With the proper techniques, you could house billions of people in geographically limited cities on the surface of the Earth, leaving much of it's surface pristine and natural...
A hard mathematical figure provides a sort of enlightenment to one's understanding of an idea that is never matched by mere guesswork.
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Holben
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T.Neo
Feb 20 2011, 06:05 PM
Yeah, but my point is that you want to save everything- especially because putting a lot of the adaptations in the brain (like the connections for language, for example) is difficult to do "manually".
Sometimes, it's good to be able to forget. :P
But i get your point- the whole 'connectome' is preferable.
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Nanobots are very well, but you have to figure out how they work. Building an actual nanoscale machine- out of atoms- would be extremely difficult, if not impossible (unless you had some highly advanced methods available). More feasible for the near term are microscale machines- they will have sizes on the order of microns, but will still have nanoscale components within them, just like living cells.
We've built nanoscale motors- like corkscrews- and buckyballs etc. containign chemicals. If you could add a little receiver it'd be lovely!
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Oh really, we're just going to assume that, are we? :P
Sure! Can't it?
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It's not about that. It's about psychology. Being in an open space, being in the influence of uncontrollable, natural forces... it's an issue that also affects space colonies, for example.
Some people like safety and control. :P
Open spaces... people can be tricked into thinking the space is bigger, surely?
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You can simulate the sun with a lightbulb, but at the end of the day, it'll still be... a lightbulb.
I would never have guessed! And the sun is still the sun? What revelation!
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Never been to Liverpool, so I wouldn't know.
It's got about half a million people and attitude. (I've never been there either).
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I'm comparing with huge cities like London, New York, Beijing, etc...
Do we want them?
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It's not a city then, it's a small-ish town.
Shall we go with the ambiguous term 'settlement'?
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Why the hell do you want to build a research station or temporary habitat underground? Drills and a few cave explorers are perfectly adequate.
Or robots.
Anyway, a temporary habitat is just that, a habitat. To hold people.
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Nothing has zero problems, Holben! Nothing. NOTHING.
Me? :P
TANSTAAFL, you said before. But we have the ability to advance, despite problems- we got man to the Moon despite whatever and whatnot.
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Beaming power with microwaves has demonstrated 84% efficiency. That is pretty darn good, as efficiency goes.
Compared to the best laser having 60%. But what conditions are those microwaves in? Does it account for atmosphere, and distortion?
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But it will not have a viable population, and will thus not be a colony...
You don't really need 10,000 to be viable.
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Virtual reality. It's virtual, not real... :rolleyes:
it's a deliberate oxymoron- it does not mean what the words mean. :P
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Why? What the hell happened to Earth that you can only go to the surface in a suit? :|
I thought this was not just Earth?
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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T.Neo
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Sometimes, it's good to be able to forget.
But i get your point- the whole 'connectome' is preferable.


It's only good to forget when you're weak willed and you don't want to overcome your problems! ;)

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We've built nanoscale motors- like corkscrews- and buckyballs etc. containign chemicals. If you could add a little receiver it'd be lovely!


It's not about that. It's about creating the whole package, and making it work effectively.

You have too many problems getting atoms stuck to you, for example.

If you can make nanoscale machines, they will also not work like magic, obviously. They will have a huge list of limits and constraints.

How does a reciever on the order of nanometers pick up radio waves which are on the order of more than centimeters?

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Sure! Can't it?


Sure it can, but not without a price.

EVERYTHING comes with a price, Holben. The key is to get the best goods with the lowest price...

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Some people like safety and control.
Open spaces... people can be tricked into thinking the space is bigger, surely?


A little bit, maybe, but not by much. Also, it is not about strict size, but rather "open-ness".

A good amount of safety and control is good, but not too much... otherwise your population becomes solipsist and whatnot.

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I would never have guessed! And the sun is still the sun? What revelation!


Yes. Holben. The Sun is still the Sun.

A lightbulb and the Sun are two different things. :|

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It's got about half a million people and attitude. (I've never been there either).


I would call that a small city... maybe Pretoria is more modest because it's a capital and a lot of industry and stuff goes on there.

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Do we want them?


Why not? Considering that millions of people live in them, they can't be that bad.

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Shall we go with the ambiguous term 'settlement'?


How/what/where do you want to settle?

Shall we call the ISS a "settlement"? Even better, shall we call a Soyuz spacecraft a settlement? People do settle them for some time, y'know... :P

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Or robots.
Anyway, a temporary habitat is just that, a habitat. To hold people.


Why robots? Drills and cave explorers are cheaper (though the latter has higher insurance costs if it dies)...

Why do you want a temporary habitat underground? Why the hell can't you use the surface? :|

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Me?
TANSTAAFL, you said before. But we have the ability to advance, despite problems- we got man to the Moon despite whatever and whatnot.


Yes you. :P

TANSTAAFL, thank you. Sure we have the ability to advance, but the problems still exist... also, who would want to advance into a subterranean Soyuz spacecraft? :P

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Compared to the best laser having 60%. But what conditions are those microwaves in? Does it account for atmosphere, and distortion?


Yes. This was based on experimental evidence of beaming 30 kW over a distance of 1.6 kilometers. This was in the early 70s, btw, might be possible to increase the efficiency even more.

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You don't really need 10,000 to be viable.


Depends on how viable you want the colony to be.

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I thought this was not just Earth?


OH.

Well that changes EVERYTHING, doesn't it, Holben? :P

Starting with the fact that you don't have a habitable surface to inhabit in the first place.

Of course, you still have... problems. It'd be best to build only semi-subterranean, but still use loads of regolith (dirt, rocks, etc) to cover inhabited surface structure (the stuff makes for good radiation shielding).
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Holben
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T.Neo
Feb 21 2011, 01:06 PM
It's only good to forget when you're weak willed and you don't want to overcome your problems! ;)

:whatever:
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You have too many problems getting atoms stuck to you, for example.
make them bounce off. Curvy hull!
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How does a reciever on the order of nanometers pick up radio waves which are on the order of more than centimeters?
Well it's obviously not going to use radio is it.
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EVERYTHING comes with a price, Holben. The key is to get the best goods with the lowest price...
Then let's do that.
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A good amount of safety and control is good, but not too much... otherwise your population becomes solipsist and whatnot.
And again, some people like that. :P
1984-style? :P
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Yes. Holben. The Sun is still the Sun.
Methinks you are being somewhat condescending.
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A lightbulb and the Sun are two different things. :|
I'm really learning a lot today(!).
They both emit light though, and can emit other stuff.
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I would call that a small city... maybe Pretoria is more modest because it's a capital and a lot of industry and stuff goes on there.
If we're saying city, most cities are small. :)
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Why not? Considering that millions of people live in them, they can't be that bad.
Did they choose to? :P
but silliness aside, are they a good model for these purposes?
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Shall we call the ISS a "settlement"? Even better, shall we call a Soyuz spacecraft a settlement? People do settle them for some time, y'know... :P
"A settlement is a general term used in archaeology, geography, landscape history and other subjects for a permanent or temporary community in which people live, without being specific as to size, population or importance." :|
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Why robots? Drills and cave explorers are cheaper (though the latter has higher insurance costs if it dies)...
People need food and money. Robots need less and less often.
plus, they don't need that ridiculous oxygen and heat stuff.
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Why do you want a temporary habitat underground? Why the hell can't you use the surface? :|
Seeeeee beeeloooooowwww...
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TANSTAAFL, thank you. Sure we have the ability to advance, but the problems still exist... also, who would want to advance into a subterranean Soyuz spacecraft? :P
No-one quite right?
then let's advance and deal with those problems!
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Depends on how viable you want the colony to be.
What degrees of viability are you offering? :P
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OH.

Well that changes EVERYTHING, doesn't it, Holben? :P
Yeah, it means like, some of your stuff doesn't apply! :happy:
We can have planets where people can't go on the surface, and that...
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Starting with the fact that you don't have a habitable surface to inhabit in the first place.
What's so good about the surface? :glare:
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Of course, you still have... problems. It'd be best to build only semi-subterranean, but still use loads of regolith (dirt, rocks, etc) to cover inhabited surface structure (the stuff makes for good radiation shielding).
If it's a planet with a CO2 atmosphere, surface temperature of maybe 50 degrees, 0.5 Gs, then what?
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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T.Neo
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Quote:
 
make them bounce off. Curvy hull!


It doesn't work. Atoms are atoms, they'll stick to your curvy 'hull'!

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Well it's obviously not going to use radio is it.


What is it going to use, x-rays?

Not exactly the kind of thing you want to bombard a human body with...

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And again, some people like that.
1984-style?


Which people? The ones with huge underlying psychological problems?

Not 1984 style. Worse...

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I'm really learning a lot today(!).
They both emit light though, and can emit other stuff.


Yes, Holben.

THE SUN IS ABSOLUTELY HUGE AND RUNS ON FUSION AND IS HIGH IN THE SKY.

A lightbulb is small, runs on electricity, and hangs on the ceiling.

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If we're saying city, most cities are small.


Yes. But (probably) still larger than what you're proposing.

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Did they choose to?
but silliness aside, are they a good model for these purposes?


A city of act least 10 000 would be a good model, IMO... that's certainly a better model than the antarctic research station analogy. :rolleyes:

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"A settlement is a general term used in archaeology, geography, landscape history and other subjects for a permanent or temporary community in which people live, without being specific as to size, population or importance."


Aha! Thus I claim the Soyuz spacecraft as a settlement in space!

C'mon, it says "not specific to population". A three person spacecraft thus qualifies!

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People need food and money. Robots need less and less often.
plus, they don't need that ridiculous oxygen and heat stuff.


You don't send people into caves for years, or months, or even weeks. You send them in for a few hours or maybe a day or two at most.

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then let's advance and deal with those problems!


Yeah! Except, the problems will still exist. TANSTAAFL.

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What degrees of viability are you offering?


10 000 individuals viability. :P

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Yeah, it means like, some of your stuff doesn't apply!
We can have planets where people can't go on the surface, and that...


It still applies to Earth.

And if people can't go onto the surface, digging a hole won't help much. If they can't live on the surface unprotected, then they need an artificial habitat- of which an underground or partially underground habitat could be a version of.

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What's so good about the surface?


On Earth? The fact that it's habitable.

On other planets? Ease of getting around, no worries about collapses, you don't need to dig out huge amounts of regolith to go anywhere or create a large space, plus easy availability of energy.

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If it's a planet with a CO2 atmosphere, surface temperature of maybe 50 degrees, 0.5 Gs, then what?


Gravity doesn't matter much, it's less than Earth but still more than Mars.

CO2 atmosphere doesn't matter much either, since the base is going to maintain its own breathable atmospheric mix.

Temperature is indeed a problem, but not as much as one might think... the colony can be refrigerated (since power is "not a problem"), you only need a drop of... 30 degrees for a room temperature habitat, and 20 degrees for a 30 degree habitat (uncomfortable for some, but still bearable).

All in all, that temperature is actually pretty good... a temperature that is far closer to human habitable temperatures than is found on the surfaces of Mars or Venus.

Refrigeration might be tricky, but it should be possible.
Edited by T.Neo, Feb 21 2011, 05:33 PM.
A hard mathematical figure provides a sort of enlightenment to one's understanding of an idea that is never matched by mere guesswork.
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Holben
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T.Neo
Feb 21 2011, 05:32 PM
It doesn't work. Atoms are atoms, they'll stick to your curvy 'hull'!



Atoms also repel each other, and if there are no gaps... :P
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What is it going to use, x-rays?
I was thinking infrared or ultrasonic vibrations.
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Not exactly the kind of thing you want to bombard a human body with...
Then bypass the problem and don't use those things! :P
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Which people? The ones with huge underlying psychological problems?
A significant minority. :OD:
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Yes, Holben.
it's almost as if you just like saying my nickname. :P
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THE SUN IS ABSOLUTELY HUGE AND RUNS ON FUSION AND IS HIGH IN THE SKY.
A lightbulb is small, runs on electricity, and hangs on the ceiling.
And there are also similiarities. Anyway, habitats could use other things than lightbulbs.
fusion lamps!!!1!!!2!!!3!!!
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Yes. But (probably) still larger than what you're proposing.
Small town then.
Viable enough when in the middle ages!
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A city of act least 10 000 would be a good model, IMO... that's certainly a better model than the antarctic research station analogy. :rolleyes:
Why the hate for antarctic research stations? :P
Why not 1000, or 500?
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Aha! Thus I claim the Soyuz spacecraft as a settlement in space!
...fine... why wouldn't it be?
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C'mon, it says "not specific to population". A three person spacecraft thus qualifies!
yes, but i'm not sure who you're arguing against. :P I accept three man settlements.
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You don't send people into caves for years, or months, or even weeks. You send them in for a few hours or maybe a day or two at most.
Adn there's another problem- people get tired and stuff. There's a reason the deepest mines are dug with robotic drills!
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Yeah! Except, the problems will still exist. TANSTAAFL.
You know the thinking.... if it doesn't affect us...
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10 000 individuals viability. :P
:whatever: Can we haggle?
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It still applies to Earth.
Then let's leave Earth alone for this. ^_^
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And if people can't go onto the surface, digging a hole won't help much. If they can't live on the surface unprotected, then they need an artificial habitat- of which an underground or partially underground habitat could be a version of.
Yes, an underground habitat- that doesn't make any difference to the discussion.
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On Earth? The fact that it's habitable.
Is it now. That would explain how i manage to live on it...
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On other planets? Ease of getting around, no worries about collapses, you don't need to dig out huge amounts of regolith to go anywhere or create a large space, plus easy availability of energy.
Hmph.
What if the surface is bombarded with raidation and that? Then where are you going to walk around to?! :happy:
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Gravity doesn't matter much, it's less than Earth but still more than Mars.

CO2 atmosphere doesn't matter much either, since the base is going to maintain its own breathable atmospheric mix.

Temperature is indeed a problem, but not as much as one might think... the colony can be refrigerated (since power is "not a problem"), you only need a drop of... 30 degrees for a room temperature habitat, and 20 degrees for a 30 degree habitat (uncomfortable for some, but still bearable).
I had my reasons in choosing those figures. ;)
So we're just going to assume they have adequate refrigeration, are we? ;)
And that they can create a breathable atmosphere mix? ;)
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Refrigeration might be tricky, but it should be possible.
If you hadn't conceded that i would be happier.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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T.Neo
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:P
Quote:
 
Atoms also repel each other, and if there are no gaps...


I dunno about that. The shell will be sticky.

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I was thinking infrared or ultrasonic vibrations.


Is the infrared going to make it through all that meat?

Are ultrasonic vibrations healthy?

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Then bypass the problem and don't use those things!


Or... make sure they work on their own, or even through some sort of chemical messaging system, rather than bombarding people with radiation...

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it's almost as if you just like saying my nickname.


What makes you think that, Holben? :P

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And there are also similiarities. Anyway, habitats could use other things than lightbulbs.
fusion lamps!!!1!!!2!!!3!!!


Lightbulb != Star

FUSION LAMPS? :|

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Why the hate for antarctic research stations?
Why not 1000, or 500?


I don't think 500 makes a viable population, unless people were leaving and joing regularly from elsewhere.

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...fine... why wouldn't it be?


Because it's small, used for travel instead of permanent or semipermanent settlement, and has a crew of three... I would hardly call that a population.

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Adn there's another problem- people get tired and stuff. There's a reason the deepest mines are dug with robotic drills!


Robotic drills? Where?

South Africa has some of the (if not the) deepest mines in the world, I haven't heard much of robotic drills...

Only drill drills... not sure if they qualify as robots.

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Can we haggle?


Only if you want polydactyl colonists...

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Yes, an underground habitat- that doesn't make any difference to the discussion.


It does. It's still not the only option- if you want you can even have air-filled surface domes, for example.

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Is it now. That would explain how i manage to live on it...


And what do you think is going to happen to it? Is the surface going to be covered in rotten scrambled egg or something? :P

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What if the surface is bombarded with raidation and that? Then where are you going to walk around to?!


Mars is bombarded with radiation. You can walk around there, short amounts of exposure are fine as long as you return to a shielded habitat for most of the time.

Plus, vehicles and even suits can have shielding...

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I had my reasons in choosing those figures.
So we're just going to assume they have adequate refrigeration, are we?
And that they can create a breathable atmosphere mix?


Well... a base on Mars will have to have heating, and it will have to heat the interior of the base more than the refrigeration unit of this base will have to refrigerate. The conductivity and everything of the base, the rock, the materials and such, would be around the same, and the temperature gradient is less, so it is actually easier.

If the planet has an atmospheric typical of a terrestrial planet, they should beable to create a breathable atmosphere.

In fact, you could even say that this planet has a habitable temperature- 50 degrees is hot for humans, but within where liquid water can exist. I'd imagine the only reason there isn't actual liquid water is because this is some sort of "hot Mars", closer in to the star where a slightly thicker CO2 atmosphere pushes up temperatures.

It would be a perfect target for terraformation...
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Holben
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T.Neo
Feb 22 2011, 07:42 AM
Is the infrared going to make it through all that meat?
Sure.
In my imagination.
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Are ultrasonic vibrations healthy?

"Occupational exposure to ultrasound in excess of 120 dB may lead to hearing loss. Exposure in excess of 155 dB may produce heating effects that are harmful to the human body, and it has been calculated that exposures above 180 dB may lead to death" At low levels, which are all we need, yes.
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Or... make sure they work on their own, or even through some sort of chemical messaging system, rather than bombarding people with radiation...
Cehmicals are awfully slow. If you need to change target halfway through, you'll want to have live control.
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What makes you think that, Holben? :P
perhaps it's just paranoia. S)
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Lightbulb != Star
So if you draw an exclamation mark on a lightbulb, it becomes a star? :P
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FUSION LAMPS? :|
The mechanism is implied by the name. :P (Not a serious proposition, BTW)
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I don't think 500 makes a viable population, unless people were leaving and joing regularly from elsewhere.
To use the medieval village example, they can be viable at that level.
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Because it's small, used for travel instead of permanent or semipermanent settlement, and has a crew of three... I would hardly call that a population.
Well let's redefine to permanent setllement then, if you hate Soyuz so much. :P
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Robotic drills? Where?
OIL
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Only drill drills... not sure if they qualify as robots.
Drill drills are not robot drills. :P
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It does. It's still not the only option- if you want you can even have air-filled surface domes, for example.
I once knew why they were silly, but i forget.
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And what do you think is going to happen to it? Is the surface going to be covered in rotten scrambled egg or something? :P
Why not? ;)
Maybe, i dunno, like nuclear holocaust or something. To be a cliche-invoker.
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Mars is bombarded with radiation. You can walk around there, short amounts of exposure are fine as long as you return to a shielded habitat for most of the time.
But you can't stay on the surface permanently- why not use underground settlements?
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Plus, vehicles and even suits can have shielding...
It'd be hard to move around in a lead suit. :|
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It would be a perfect target for terraformation...
Surely that's not what we call it.
Maybe they have surface life.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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Sure.
In my imagination.


Right. :|

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"Occupational exposure to ultrasound in excess of 120 dB may lead to hearing loss. Exposure in excess of 155 dB may produce heating effects that are harmful to the human body, and it has been calculated that exposures above 180 dB may lead to death" At low levels, which are all we need, yes.


Ok... I'm still trying to figure out how and how well these little guys are going to "hear" those vibrations...

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Cehmicals are awfully slow. If you need to change target halfway through, you'll want to have live control.


What? They're not that slow, the body uses chemicals to communicate all the time... it might not be practical for some applications, but it would be useful for most.

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So if you draw an exclamation mark on a lightbulb, it becomes a star?


:|

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The mechanism is implied by the name. (Not a serious proposition, BTW)


Good, because the idea is rubbish. :P

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To use the medieval village example, they can be viable at that level.


If you want syndactyly, sure.

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Well let's redefine to permanent setllement then, if you hate Soyuz so much.


Oh no! I love Soyuz. Not much to look at, but a real workhorse spacecraft...

I just hate your iffy notion of the concept of "settlement". :P

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Drill drills are not robot drills.


Yes. That includes the drills that drill for OIL.

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I once knew why they were silly, but i forget.


Well, they're silly for some reasons, and unsilly for others... for example, by creating a habitable surface environment.

If you have a body with low air pressure or vacuum, the dome will actually support itself via the pressure underneath... in other words, it'd basically be a gigantic balloon, tethered to the surface.

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Maybe, i dunno, like nuclear holocaust or something. To be a cliche-invoker.


But there aren't enough bombs and the fallout decays over time!

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But you can't stay on the surface permanently- why not use underground settlements?


Or surface settlements covered with dirt? Or both?

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It'd be hard to move around in a lead suit.


No!

You don't use lead, that can actually lead to higher radiation doses (particles can spall off the material when radiation hits it, creating more radiation).

What you want to use is something that has a high hydrogen content, such as polyethylene plastic, which makes for better shielding against charged particle radiation (which is mostly what you face on the surface of a planet- solar protons and such).

You aren't shielding against gamma rays. :rolleyes:

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Surely that's not what we call it.
Maybe they have surface life.


Terraformation? Terraforming? Terradoodleklutz?

I'm not sure. :|

What kind of surface life? In a vacuum, you can't have surface life, because you can't have liquid water. And UV radiation and such will sterilise the soil.
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