Nano technolgy both scares me and excites me in equal measure.
On May 19, 6:41 am, Chuck Bowling <[email protected]> wrote: > I think that with nanotechnology we will be able to synthesize pretty much > anything we want from raw materials in the future. Assuming that any alien > race capable of traveling the trillions of miles to get here would have at > least the same level of technology my guess is that they wouldn't need > anything we'd have to offer. > > > > On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 8:48 PM, Ash <[email protected]> wrote: > > There is another good reason to develop our technologies as a species, > > think how we are looking at the planets and celestial bodies as vast > > resources. Imagine if something else came through and strip mined the > > resources we would need to develop into a spacefaring species, that would > > suck big time. Like a tribe of humans moving through and picking all the > > nuts we squirrels need, or worse, deciding we were in the way of those > > resources, think what we have done in those situations.. I know it's > > unlikely considering the vast resources out there, but something might have > > it's eye on our pale blue dot too, working faster than us at making the > > leap. > > > On 5/18/2011 8:37 PM, Chuck Bowling wrote: > > > I think right now the technology will only allow us to tell if a planet is > > rocky or a gas giant. And even then only if it is a relatively massive > > planet. The last time I read anything on the subject the smallest planet > > found was something like 3 times the size of the Earth. > > > IMO, the analogy with Columbus doesn't hold. 17th century technology > > allowed humans to travel anywhere on the Earth - albeit slow and wrought > > with hazard. If the analogy is that a neighboring star is like a new > > continent then we are more like cavemen discovering that a log can float. At > > the rate we're going it might be a thousand years before we can actually > > mount an expedition to another star. > > > I think the primary reason we are so far from actually exploring other > > stars is mainly political rather than technological. But, I think you are > > right. It is a project worth attaching too. Now if we could just make the > > damn politicians see it that way... ;) > > > On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 4:58 PM, archytas <[email protected]> wrote: > > >> I'm not sure how accurate they can be in revealing planets enough like > >> ours to offer possibilities of a new promised land. They claim there > >> is one 20 light years away, or 300,000 years at current space travel > >> speeds. One can feel that this at least puts us somewhere near the > >> position of 'Columbus'. Our current 'tin-foil' technology won't do, > >> but at this kind of distance we are talking about something other than > >> worm-holes, 'relativity flight' or the kind of physics in which > >> distance is an illusion. > > >> For someone like me who can't take god-stories seriously and quite > >> likes the idea of a human future (or at least the idea of evolution > >> not just ending through catastrophe), there is an opportunity to > >> believe in something distant in time and a need for us to direct > >> ourselves towards it. A time, perhaps in which a form of conscious > >> life can live very differently from now, and a project worth attaching > >> to - perhaps a reason for spirituality. Comments on this or the > >> technology welcome.- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text -
