In my own work I have suggested that technological capacity be defined as the capacity to manipulate matter, energy, and information as measured by the metrics of speed, precision, and scale.
On a historical timescale, our technological capacity has grown exponentially on each of these measures. If these exponential trends of accelerating growth continue into the future (an admittedly big IF), then we can expect to possess the technological capacity to manipulate matter and energy at a planetary scale with molecular precision by the end of this century, and at a speed such that the entire surface of a world such as Mars could be "terraformed" or otherwise transformed within a period of months, days, or even hours. Our current capacities are the video game equivalent of Pong or Asteroids. The amount of growth in these capacities, and the time taken for them to progress to truly fantastic levels relative to today, are likely to be vastly shorter than most observers assume. This is primarily because our intuitions about change are linear and don't map accurately onto accelerating trajectories, and secondarily because most observers are typically not well-enough informed about the potential intervening steps in the progression to accept that the later-stage capacities are plausibly achievable in the relatively near term (in the same way that most observers of Pong or Asteroids in 1979 would struggle to imagine a plausible pathway to today's photorealistic video games running on handheld devices). As a result, observers today consistently commit several basic errors when reasoning about the future, all of which can be found in Fleming's above linked essay. For a more detailed discussion, see my paper "Common errors in reasoning about the future: Three informal fallacies" in *Technological Forecasting & Social Change* here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162516301275 -- Adam Dorr PhD Candidate University of California Los Angeles School of Public Affairs [email protected] [email protected] On Thu, May 25, 2017 at 12:14 PM, Andrew Lockley <[email protected]> wrote: > Terraforming Planets, Geoengineering Earth > James Rodger Fleming > Science, Technology and Society Program > Colby College, Maine 04901 USA > Can humanity survive on Earth into the indefinite future without taking > control of > the climate system and biosphere, or perhaps one day engaging in solar > engineering? If > we seek to colonize other planets, will we need to live sequestered from > harsh > environments in little residential capsules and venture out only in > spacesuits, or should > we practice terraformation to make the environment of other planets more > Earthlike? In > either case, we will need to master bio-geo-chemical engineering to > generate fresh air, > water, and food. Would it be better then to engineer planets for humans or > to engineer > humans and perhaps cyborgs to withstand harsh environments? Since > prediction of new > technological developments or inventions has proven to be notoriously > inaccurate, what > insights can we derive from the history of planetary manipulation > proposals and > fantasies? > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "geoengineering" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
