Arthur,
At 08:45 01/03/2010 -0500, you wrote:
Keith
KH
Back to the galactic observer. What would he say about us at the present
time -- after the experience of seeing other planetary civilizations going
into collapse mode, but maybe others, including his own perhaps, who've
managed to scrape by and come to their senses?
AC
Hard to know. But maybe he/she would say Looks like this experiment is
about to fail. Why?And perhaps he/she might add How are our other lab
tests going on planet A, planet B and the others in galaxy I, and galaxy
II. Perhaps they have developed better adaptive and learning
mechanisms. If so we should understand what worked for them. And where
there are failures, we must understand why they failed.
Well, I'll tell you what the galactic observer would tell you why systems
fail -- whether they are planets or individual species. They fail when
there isn't enough additional energy to overcome entropy (that is, the
normal dispersal of energy that takes place whenever atoms are close enough
together to be banging into one another).
The additional energy we have is from the sun. This means that organized
systems of atoms (molecules, proteins, DNA, etc) can be built up against
the tide of increasing entropy which is tending to break things up. The
whole of life that is possible on the earth can only be a limited fraction
of the free energy we receive from the sun.
We were able to crop a fraction of this free energy when we were
hunter-gatherers. We were able to crop a higher fraction of this free
energy when we deprived many other species of their access to free energy
in order to concentrate it on growing carbohydrate foods.
In the industrial era we were able to crop an additional supply of
fossilized free energy that happened to be accidentally lying around in
underground oil shales and gas pockets. But this is only a temporary boost
to the daily inputs of free energy. When this runs out then we shall be
back again to relying only on free daily energy.
If we don't adjust to that, then we will fail -- that's what the galactic
observer would tell us.
On the other hand, if we can adjust our populations and our incessant
demands for pretty status goods in every home, and live by once again using
a fraction of the daily free energy from the sun then we will have
succeeded, according to the galactic observer.
The galactic observer would also tell us: "Don't be persuaded by those who
want to pressurize you into nuclear fission or nuclear fusion. Nuclear
fission is -- like fossil fuels -- only a temporary boost to energy supply,
and with a far shorter future than fossil fuels ever have been. Uranium 235
is in very short supply and always will be. As for the insanity of nuclear
fusion, why on earth should we want to try and do that? Even if it ever
comes off it can never be as efficiently achieved as is already going on in
the sun and, once again, given to you freely every day.
Keith
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