Re: If DA is correct then Bostrom's super humans are NOT
On 12/27/2011 9:04 AM, John Clark wrote: On Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 1:20 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: I'm an environmentalist and my solution is (a) efficiency I'm all for efficiency, only a fool would not be, but it's not a solution to global warming or the energy shortage; its simple Economics 101, if things become more efficient, if energy becomes cheaper to use then people will use more of it. Read McKay. If you improve the efficiency of space heating by a factor of five, I don't think people will turn their thermostats up to 110F. Jevon's law doesn't apply to everything. (b) liquid thorium reactors Excellent, I wish all environmentalist were like you. (c) renewable energy Most renewable energy turns out to be moonshine and only exist because of big government subsidies. And when you actually try to build something you soon discover that environmentalist don't like them; wind farms are ugly and noisy and kill little birdies, solar farms take so much land that they endanger rare desert species, geothermal smells bad and causes earthquakes, Of course there are downsides to everything and the benefits and disadvantages don't accrue to the same people. However coal mines are dirty and ugly and release radium into the air. Oil production is subsidized by invading whoever threatens not to sell it. That wind and solar and tidal energy generation require government subsidy to compete with fossil fuel doesn't make them moonshine if there are offsetting benefits. ethanol production hampers food production (they're right about that one), and hydroelectric and nuclear fission most will refuse even to consider. As I said the preferred solution of most environmentalist is to freeze in the dark. I don't think you speak for most environmentalist. In fact you don't speak for any that I know and I know quite a few. Do you have a poll or survey to support your assertion, or is it a mere invention to discredit those who would disagree with you? and (d) lower population. Easier said than done; that decision is not made by government think tanks but by sleepy people in the middle of the night. Do you see any non-environmentalist doing anything except mining coal and digging tar sand? Yes Nathan Myhrvold, he's a billionaire and the former chief technical officer at Microsoft, he wants to build an artificial volcano. An interesting proposal and one we may need. Mt Pinatubo in 1991 became the best studied large volcanic eruption in history, it put more sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere than any volcano since Krakatoa in 1883. There is no longer any dispute that stratospheric sulfur dioxide leads to more diffuse sunlight, a decrease in the ozone layer, and a general cooling of the planet. What was astonishing was how little stratospheric sulfur dioxide was needed. If you injected it in the arctic where it would be about 4 times more effective, about 100,000 tons a year would reverse global warming in the northern hemisphere. That works out to 34 gallons per minute, a bit more than what a standard garden hose could deliver but much less than a fire hose. We already spew out over 200,000,000 tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere each year, but all of that is in the lower troposphere where it has little or no cooling effect, the additional 100,000 tons is a drop in the bucket if you're looking at the tonnage, but it's in the stratosphere where its vastly more effective. Myhrvold wasn't suggesting anything as ambitious as a space elevator, just a light hose about 2 inches in diameter going up about 18 miles. In one design he burns sulfur to make sulfur dioxide, he then liquefies it and injects it into the stratosphere with a hose supported every 500 to 1000 feet with helium balloons. Myhrvold thinks this design would cost about 150 million dollars to build and about 100 million a year to operate. In another design that would probably be even cheaper he just slips a sleeve over the smokestack of any existing small to midsize coal power plant in the higher latitudes and uses the hot exhaust to fill hot air balloons to support the hose. If Myhrvold's cost estimate is correct that means it would take 50 million dollars less to cure global warming than it cost Al Gore to just advertise the evils of climate change. But even if Myhrvold's estimate is ten times or a hundred times too low it hardly matters, it's still chump change. In a report to the British government economist Nicholas Stern said that to reduce carbon emissions enough to stabilize global warming by the end of this century we would need to spend 1.5% of global GDP each year, that works out to 1.2 trillion (trillion with a t) dollars EACH YEAR. One great thing about Myhrvold's idea is that you're not doing anything irreparable, Of course what you're doing is to continue adding CO2 to the atmosphere.
Re: If DA is correct then Bostrom's super humans are NOT
On Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 3:02 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: If you improve the efficiency of space heating by a factor of five, I don't think people will turn their thermostats up to 110F. We don't need to worry about space heating, global warming remember? But if you suddenly had a simple and cheap invention that doubled the efficiency of jets airlines would not use half as much fuel, people would fly more and they'd have more leg room because there would be fewer people per airplane. coal mines are dirty and ugly Alas such is life, not everything can be pretty. and release radium into the air. No they do not. Coal mines release radon into the air but given that radon is MUCH heavier than air and is in fact one of the heaviest gasses known it won't go very high or move very fast, and as radon gas has a half life of only 3.8 days its just a local problem and a minor one at that. That wind and solar and tidal energy generation require government subsidy to compete with fossil fuel doesn't make them moonshine if there are offsetting benefits. True, some people benefit, some people get rich off those subsidies, the trouble is they're getting rich off my tax money, just look at the ridiculous ethanol situation. I don't think you speak for most environmentalist. In fact you don't speak for any that I know and I know quite a few. Do you have a poll or survey to support your assertion, or is it a mere invention to discredit those who would disagree with you? No environmentalist would dream of saying he wants people to freeze in the dark, but I'm much more interested in what they do than what they say. Energy shortage is a very real problem and the solutions they offer (wind farms, ocean waves) are wildly impractical; and as if that weren't bad enough when somebody actually tries to implement one of their looney schemes they change their mind and decide it would be a bad idea to even try it out. We can't go back to the old days even if we wanted to, the 7 billion people on this planet can not continue to live without lots of energy and the power generated from moonbeams is just not sufficient, and that's why I say their solution is that we freeze in the dark. And I don't need to discredit environmentalist, they're very good at that themselves. Do you equally credit the government disincentives for having more than one child? An instance where China did take the advice of environmentalists. Calling the one child law in China a disincentive is a little like the NASA hack who called the explosion of the Space Shuttle a energetic disassembly, unless that is you have powerful friends in the Chinese government. Do environmentalists really want to take credit for that? John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: If DA is correct then Bostrom's super humans are NOT
On 12/27/2011 2:58 AM, meekerdb wrote: On 12/26/2011 11:04 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: On 12/27/2011 1:20 AM, meekerdb wrote: On 12/26/2011 9:42 PM, John Clark wrote: On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 4:56 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: What law of physics do they [ Dyson spheres] violate? Stability. Professor Dyson certainly didn't think his spheres were unstable and he was pretty smart, exactly where do you think he went wrong? We have the technology right now to build Thorium fission reactors that could give us far more energy than oil ever could. But do we have the will? Not if environmentalists have their way, there solution is we all freeze in the dark. I'm an environmentalist and my solution is (a) efficiency (b) liquid thorium reactors (c) renewable energy and (d) lower population. Do you see any non-environmentalist doing anything except mining coal and digging tar sand? Why is your thinking splitting the world into those two camps? John's the one who split off environmentalist and slandered them. It is not slander if it is true. I , for one, agree with John and think that our government should be funding full bore research into thorium reactors and other viable technologies, but instead is funding provably failed wind and solar tech. What's failed about them. Read Donald McKay's withouthotair.org. It's free online. OK. I start with a quote from that website: I recently read two books, one by a physicist, and one by an economist. In /Out of Gas/, Caltech physicist David Goodstein describes an impending energy crisis brought on by The End of the Age of Oil. This crisis is coming soon, he predicts: the crisis will bite, not when the last drop of oil is extracted, but when oil extraction can't meet demand -- perhaps as soon as 2015 or 2025. Moreover, even if we magically switched all our energy- guzzling to nuclear power right away, Goodstein says, the oil crisis would simply be replaced by a /nuclear/ crisis in just twenty years or so, as uranium reserves also became depleted. This is false on its face. Consider the current known energy reserve numbers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf75.html http://nuclearstreet.com/nuclear_power_industry_news/b/nuclear_power_news/archive/2009/03/17/increase-in-thorium-reserves-alternative-to-uranium-for-nuclear-power-generation.aspx This is considering only the known energy reserves given current technology. Is the possibility of future discoveries considered at all? A reasonable society would not do such things. It should be interested in facts, all facts, not just some small subset of them that only benefits a select few http://www.solarcompanies.com/. But there's good reason to think that 3degC hotter would be a very bad thing There would certainly be big changes, but overall would it be a bad thing? I'm not so sure, far more people freeze to death than die of heat stroke, and anyway it will be a very long time before we see a massive 3 degree C increase. Sure, 1degC would probably be a net improvement. The problem is that we're on a course for 3degC or more and accelerating. And what exactly is the evidence for this claim? There are far to many counter-factuals to it. Plug the facts into a Bayes' equation and see what you get. Why don't you show me how? I need to reason for you? Really? and I don't think a Venusian runaway can be ruled out. I think it can be ruled out. During the late Ordovician period, 450 million years ago, there was a HUGE amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, about 4400 ppm verses 380 today, and yet the world was in the grip of a severe ice age. During the last 600 million years the atmosphere has almost always had far more CO2 than now, abut 3000 ppm on average. The only exception was a period that lasted from 315 million years ago to 270 where there was about the same amount of CO2 as we have now. The temperature was about the same then as it is now too. During the late Ordovician that I mentioned it was much colder, but other than a few very brief ice ages during the last few million years the temperature has always been warmer than now and occasionally MUCH warmer; at least that's the way things have been during the last 600 million years. Jim Hanson points out there is uncertainty on the order of 1000ppm regarding the ancient atmosphere. This, combined with other positive feedback factors like methane from bogs and hydrates doesn't allow much confidence in ruling out a runaway. http://brightstarswildomar.blogspot.com/2010/01/on-reading-hansons-storms-of-my.html Jim http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hansen is making way to much money and fame from his doom-mongering to be considered to be objective. He is therefore not a reliable source. A cheap argument from someone who thinks they should do
Re: If DA is correct then Bostrom's super humans are NOT
On Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 03:29:00AM -0500, Stephen P. King wrote: On 12/27/2011 2:58 AM, meekerdb wrote: On 12/26/2011 11:04 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: On 12/27/2011 1:20 AM, meekerdb wrote: On 12/26/2011 9:42 PM, John Clark wrote: On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 4:56 PM, meekerdb ... snip... -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. I think we've wandered off topic here... -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: If DA is correct then Bostrom's super humans are NOT
On Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 1:20 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: I'm an environmentalist and my solution is (a) efficiency I'm all for efficiency, only a fool would not be, but it's not a solution to global warming or the energy shortage; its simple Economics 101, if things become more efficient, if energy becomes cheaper to use then people will use more of it. (b) liquid thorium reactors Excellent, I wish all environmentalist were like you. (c) renewable energy Most renewable energy turns out to be moonshine and only exist because of big government subsidies. And when you actually try to build something you soon discover that environmentalist don't like them; wind farms are ugly and noisy and kill little birdies, solar farms take so much land that they endanger rare desert species, geothermal smells bad and causes earthquakes, ethanol production hampers food production (they're right about that one), and hydroelectric and nuclear fission most will refuse even to consider. As I said the preferred solution of most environmentalist is to freeze in the dark. and (d) lower population. Easier said than done; that decision is not made by government think tanks but by sleepy people in the middle of the night. Do you see any non-environmentalist doing anything except mining coal and digging tar sand? Yes Nathan Myhrvold, he's a billionaire and the former chief technical officer at Microsoft, he wants to build an artificial volcano. Mt Pinatubo in 1991 became the best studied large volcanic eruption in history, it put more sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere than any volcano since Krakatoa in 1883. There is no longer any dispute that stratospheric sulfur dioxide leads to more diffuse sunlight, a decrease in the ozone layer, and a general cooling of the planet. What was astonishing was how little stratospheric sulfur dioxide was needed. If you injected it in the arctic where it would be about 4 times more effective, about 100,000 tons a year would reverse global warming in the northern hemisphere. That works out to 34 gallons per minute, a bit more than what a standard garden hose could deliver but much less than a fire hose. We already spew out over 200,000,000 tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere each year, but all of that is in the lower troposphere where it has little or no cooling effect, the additional 100,000 tons is a drop in the bucket if you're looking at the tonnage, but it's in the stratosphere where its vastly more effective. Myhrvold wasn't suggesting anything as ambitious as a space elevator, just a light hose about 2 inches in diameter going up about 18 miles. In one design he burns sulfur to make sulfur dioxide, he then liquefies it and injects it into the stratosphere with a hose supported every 500 to 1000 feet with helium balloons. Myhrvold thinks this design would cost about 150 million dollars to build and about 100 million a year to operate. In another design that would probably be even cheaper he just slips a sleeve over the smokestack of any existing small to midsize coal power plant in the higher latitudes and uses the hot exhaust to fill hot air balloons to support the hose. If Myhrvold's cost estimate is correct that means it would take 50 million dollars less to cure global warming than it cost Al Gore to just advertise the evils of climate change. But even if Myhrvold's estimate is ten times or a hundred times too low it hardly matters, it's still chump change. In a report to the British government economist Nicholas Stern said that to reduce carbon emissions enough to stabilize global warming by the end of this century we would need to spend 1.5% of global GDP each year, that works out to 1.2 trillion (trillion with a t) dollars EACH YEAR. One great thing about Myhrvold's idea is that you're not doing anything irreparable, if for whatever reason you want to stop you just turn a valve on a hose and in about a year all the sulfur dioxide you injected will settle out of the atmosphere. And Myhrvold isn't the only fan of this idea, Paul Crutzen won a Nobel prize for his work on ozone depletion, in 2006 he said efforts to solve the problem by reducing greenhouse gases were doomed to be “grossly unsuccessful” and that an injection of sulfur in the stratosphere “is the only option available to rapidly reduce temperature rises and counteract other climatic effects”. Crutzen acknowledged that it would reduce the ozone layer but the change would be small and the the benefit would be much greater than the harm. And by the way, diffuse sunlight, another of the allegedly dreadful things associated with sulfur dioxide high up in the atmosphere, well..., plant photosynthesis is more efficient under diffuse light. Plants grow better in air with lots of CO2 in it too, but that's another story. Jim Hanson points out there is uncertainty on the order of 1000ppm regarding the ancient atmosphere. Even if that is true, and remember the uncertainty can go
Re: If DA is correct then Bostrom's super humans are NOT
On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: If you were observing the Earth by radio telescope from a nearby star you would be noticing that it has been getting quieter and quieter. I have to admit that is true and a big jump in that direction was made on June 12 2009. On that date all TV transmitters in the USA switched over from analog to digital. This will make things more difficult for a hypothetical ET to detect us for two reasons: 1) Digital transmitters use far less power than the analog variety. 2) A analog TV signal obviously came from a technological civilization, but if you don't know the particular compression codec used by digital broadcasters in the USA the signal would almost look like white noise. The compression is not perfect that's why I said almost. But in the overall scheme of things I think this entire point is small potatoes. It's wasteful to radiate signals out into space is all directions. But there are far far more wasteful things than that! If energy is so valuable why does ET let the energy from billions of suns in our galaxy radiate uselessly into empty space? If ET existed the night shy should look very different, there should be a Dyson Sphere around every star; no sun should emit visible light, or ultraviolet, or X ray or gamma rays; suns should only emit microwaves and maybe a little far infrared. But that's not what we see. So why doesn't the universe, or at least the galaxy, look like its been engineered? Either ET does not exist or he does but he's a lotus eater. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: If DA is correct then Bostrom's super humans are NOT
On 12/26/2011 7:15 AM, John Clark wrote: On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: If you were observing the Earth by radio telescope from a nearby star you would be noticing that it has been getting quieter and quieter. I have to admit that is true and a big jump in that direction was made on June 12 2009. On that date all TV transmitters in the USA switched over from analog to digital. This will make things more difficult for a hypothetical ET to detect us for two reasons: 1) Digital transmitters use far less power than the analog variety. 2) A analog TV signal obviously came from a technological civilization, but if you don't know the particular compression codec used by digital broadcasters in the USA the signal would almost look like white noise. The compression is not perfect that's why I said almost. But in the overall scheme of things I think this entire point is small potatoes. It's wasteful to radiate signals out into space is all directions. But there are far far more wasteful things than that! If energy is so valuable why does ET let the energy from billions of suns in our galaxy radiate uselessly into empty space? If ET existed the night shy should look very different, there should be a Dyson Sphere around every star I don't think Dyson spheres are possible. You seem to be hypothesizing an ET who is superhuman. ; no sun should emit visible light, or ultraviolet, or X ray or gamma rays; suns should only emit microwaves and maybe a little far infrared. But that's not what we see. So why doesn't the universe, or at least the galaxy, look like its been engineered? Either ET does not exist or he does but he's a lotus eater. Or more likely he is just too far away and his species didn't last long enough. It seems doubtful whether our civilization will be able to get past oil depletion and global warming. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: If DA is correct then Bostrom's super humans are NOT
Or more likely he is just too far away and his species didn't last long enough. It seems doubtful whether our civilization will be able to get past oil depletion and global warming. Oil depletion, DA, and the simulation argument with the first of its hypothesis being taken as true makes it likely we're one of the most advanced civilizations out there. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: If DA is correct then Bostrom's super humans are NOT
On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 1:09 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote I don't think Dyson spheres are possible. What law of physics do they violate? You seem to be hypothesizing an ET who is superhuman. Good heavens, well of course I'm hypothesizing an ET who is superhuman! Technology has only been on this planet for a few thousand years, imagine is if had been a few billion. What with genetic engineering and smart computers in just a century (probably much less) the most intelligent species on Earth will be superhuman, or there won't be a intelligent species at all. Or more likely he is just too far away Interstellar distances are only a problem on a human timescale, and I'm not talking about humans. his species didn't last long enough. Maybe, but what killed them off? It seems doubtful whether our civilization will be able to get past oil depletion We have the technology right now to build Thorium fission reactors that could give us far more energy than oil ever could. And even if our civilization dies a new one would spring up almost immediately, a few thousand years at most. and global warming. I'm far from convinced that global warming is even a bad thing, the climate on Earth is always changing. I have no reason to think the exact temperature the Earth is at now is the perfect temperature for human beings. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: If DA is correct then Bostrom's super humans are NOT
On 12/26/2011 1:37 PM, John Clark wrote: On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 1:09 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote I don't think Dyson spheres are possible. What law of physics do they violate? Stability. You seem to be hypothesizing an ET who is superhuman. Good heavens, well of course I'm hypothesizing an ET who is superhuman! Technology has only been on this planet for a few thousand years, imagine is if had been a few billion. What with genetic engineering and smart computers in just a century (probably much less) the most intelligent species on Earth will be superhuman, or there won't be a intelligent species at all. Or more likely he is just too far away Interstellar distances are only a problem on a human timescale, and I'm not talking about humans. his species didn't last long enough. Maybe, but what killed them off? Pollution, war, depletion of resources, climate change, gamma ray bursts, meteorite impact,... The same things that killed off almost all large species on Earth. It seems doubtful whether our civilization will be able to get past oil depletion We have the technology right now to build Thorium fission reactors that could give us far more energy than oil ever could. But do we have the will? And even if our civilization dies a new one would spring up almost immediately, a few thousand years at most. It would have a hard time industrializing without coal and oil - which aren't going to be renewed in a few thousand years. and global warming. I'm far from convinced that global warming is even a bad thing, the climate on Earth is always changing. I have no reason to think the exact temperature the Earth is at now is the perfect temperature for human beings. But there's good reason to think that 3degC hotter would be a very bad thing and I don't think a Venusian runaway can be ruled out. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: If DA is correct then Bostrom's super humans are NOT
On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 4:56 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: What law of physics do they [ Dyson spheres] violate? Stability. Professor Dyson certainly didn't think his spheres were unstable and he was pretty smart, exactly where do you think he went wrong? We have the technology right now to build Thorium fission reactors that could give us far more energy than oil ever could. But do we have the will? Not if environmentalists have their way, there solution is we all freeze in the dark. But there's good reason to think that 3degC hotter would be a very bad thing There would certainly be big changes, but overall would it be a bad thing? I'm not so sure, far more people freeze to death than die of heat stroke, and anyway it will be a very long time before we see a massive 3 degree C increase. and I don't think a Venusian runaway can be ruled out. I think it can be ruled out. During the late Ordovician period, 450 million years ago, there was a HUGE amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, about 4400 ppm verses 380 today, and yet the world was in the grip of a severe ice age. During the last 600 million years the atmosphere has almost always had far more CO2 than now, abut 3000 ppm on average. The only exception was a period that lasted from 315 million years ago to 270 where there was about the same amount of CO2 as we have now. The temperature was about the same then as it is now too. During the late Ordovician that I mentioned it was much colder, but other than a few very brief ice ages during the last few million years the temperature has always been warmer than now and occasionally MUCH warmer; at least that's the way things have been during the last 600 million years. It's not surprising that environmentalists make exaggerated claims, it's the way they stay employed. and without scare tactics many environmental groups would be out of business. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: If DA is correct then Bostrom's super humans are NOT
On 12/26/2011 9:42 PM, John Clark wrote: On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 4:56 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: What law of physics do they [ Dyson spheres] violate? Stability. Professor Dyson certainly didn't think his spheres were unstable and he was pretty smart, exactly where do you think he went wrong? We have the technology right now to build Thorium fission reactors that could give us far more energy than oil ever could. But do we have the will? Not if environmentalists have their way, there solution is we all freeze in the dark. I'm an environmentalist and my solution is (a) efficiency (b) liquid thorium reactors (c) renewable energy and (d) lower population. Do you see any non-environmentalist doing anything except mining coal and digging tar sand? But there's good reason to think that 3degC hotter would be a very bad thing There would certainly be big changes, but overall would it be a bad thing? I'm not so sure, far more people freeze to death than die of heat stroke, and anyway it will be a very long time before we see a massive 3 degree C increase. Sure, 1degC would probably be a net improvement. The problem is that we're on a course for 3degC or more and accelerating. and I don't think a Venusian runaway can be ruled out. I think it can be ruled out. During the late Ordovician period, 450 million years ago, there was a HUGE amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, about 4400 ppm verses 380 today, and yet the world was in the grip of a severe ice age. During the last 600 million years the atmosphere has almost always had far more CO2 than now, abut 3000 ppm on average. The only exception was a period that lasted from 315 million years ago to 270 where there was about the same amount of CO2 as we have now. The temperature was about the same then as it is now too. During the late Ordovician that I mentioned it was much colder, but other than a few very brief ice ages during the last few million years the temperature has always been warmer than now and occasionally MUCH warmer; at least that's the way things have been during the last 600 million years. Jim Hanson points out there is uncertainty on the order of 1000ppm regarding the ancient atmosphere. This, combined with other positive feedback factors like methane from bogs and hydrates doesn't allow much confidence in ruling out a runaway. http://brightstarswildomar.blogspot.com/2010/01/on-reading-hansons-storms-of-my.html It's not surprising that environmentalists make exaggerated claims, it's the way they stay employed. and without scare tactics many environmental groups would be out of business. And it's not surprising that nobody who's comfortable wants to take seriously a problem that might upset their world. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: If DA is correct then Bostrom's super humans are NOT
On 12/27/2011 1:20 AM, meekerdb wrote: On 12/26/2011 9:42 PM, John Clark wrote: On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 4:56 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: What law of physics do they [ Dyson spheres] violate? Stability. Professor Dyson certainly didn't think his spheres were unstable and he was pretty smart, exactly where do you think he went wrong? We have the technology right now to build Thorium fission reactors that could give us far more energy than oil ever could. But do we have the will? Not if environmentalists have their way, there solution is we all freeze in the dark. I'm an environmentalist and my solution is (a) efficiency (b) liquid thorium reactors (c) renewable energy and (d) lower population. Do you see any non-environmentalist doing anything except mining coal and digging tar sand? Why is your thinking splitting the world into those two camps? I , for one, agree with John and think that our government should be funding full bore research into thorium reactors and other viable technologies, but instead is funding provably failed wind and solar tech. A reasonable society would not do such things. It should be interested in facts, all facts, not just some small subset of them that only benefits a select few http://www.solarcompanies.com/. But there's good reason to think that 3degC hotter would be a very bad thing There would certainly be big changes, but overall would it be a bad thing? I'm not so sure, far more people freeze to death than die of heat stroke, and anyway it will be a very long time before we see a massive 3 degree C increase. Sure, 1degC would probably be a net improvement. The problem is that we're on a course for 3degC or more and accelerating. And what exactly is the evidence for this claim? There are far to many counter-factuals to it. Plug the facts into a Bayes' equation and see what you get. and I don't think a Venusian runaway can be ruled out. I think it can be ruled out. During the late Ordovician period, 450 million years ago, there was a HUGE amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, about 4400 ppm verses 380 today, and yet the world was in the grip of a severe ice age. During the last 600 million years the atmosphere has almost always had far more CO2 than now, abut 3000 ppm on average. The only exception was a period that lasted from 315 million years ago to 270 where there was about the same amount of CO2 as we have now. The temperature was about the same then as it is now too. During the late Ordovician that I mentioned it was much colder, but other than a few very brief ice ages during the last few million years the temperature has always been warmer than now and occasionally MUCH warmer; at least that's the way things have been during the last 600 million years. Jim Hanson points out there is uncertainty on the order of 1000ppm regarding the ancient atmosphere. This, combined with other positive feedback factors like methane from bogs and hydrates doesn't allow much confidence in ruling out a runaway. http://brightstarswildomar.blogspot.com/2010/01/on-reading-hansons-storms-of-my.html Jim http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hansen is making way to much money and fame from his doom-mongering to be considered to be objective. He is therefore not a reliable source. You should do your own analysis of the data http://members.wolfram.com/jeffb/Fossils/drift.shtml. Consider also who exactly is trying to profit from the cap-and -trade http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cap-and-trade policies. It's not surprising that environmentalists make exaggerated claims, it's the way they stay employed. and without scare tactics many environmental groups would be out of business. And it's not surprising that nobody who's comfortable wants to take seriously a problem that might upset their world. Brent Do you have any children what would be impacted by such a situation? I do, and so am motivated to know the facts. Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: If DA is correct then Bostrom's super humans are NOT
On 12/26/2011 11:04 PM, Stephen P. King wrote: On 12/27/2011 1:20 AM, meekerdb wrote: On 12/26/2011 9:42 PM, John Clark wrote: On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 4:56 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: What law of physics do they [ Dyson spheres] violate? Stability. Professor Dyson certainly didn't think his spheres were unstable and he was pretty smart, exactly where do you think he went wrong? We have the technology right now to build Thorium fission reactors that could give us far more energy than oil ever could. But do we have the will? Not if environmentalists have their way, there solution is we all freeze in the dark. I'm an environmentalist and my solution is (a) efficiency (b) liquid thorium reactors (c) renewable energy and (d) lower population. Do you see any non-environmentalist doing anything except mining coal and digging tar sand? Why is your thinking splitting the world into those two camps? John's the one who split off environmentalist and slandered them. I , for one, agree with John and think that our government should be funding full bore research into thorium reactors and other viable technologies, but instead is funding provably failed wind and solar tech. What's failed about them. Read Donald McKay's withouthotair.org. It's free online. A reasonable society would not do such things. It should be interested in facts, all facts, not just some small subset of them that only benefits a select few http://www.solarcompanies.com/. But there's good reason to think that 3degC hotter would be a very bad thing There would certainly be big changes, but overall would it be a bad thing? I'm not so sure, far more people freeze to death than die of heat stroke, and anyway it will be a very long time before we see a massive 3 degree C increase. Sure, 1degC would probably be a net improvement. The problem is that we're on a course for 3degC or more and accelerating. And what exactly is the evidence for this claim? There are far to many counter-factuals to it. Plug the facts into a Bayes' equation and see what you get. Why don't you show me how? and I don't think a Venusian runaway can be ruled out. I think it can be ruled out. During the late Ordovician period, 450 million years ago, there was a HUGE amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, about 4400 ppm verses 380 today, and yet the world was in the grip of a severe ice age. During the last 600 million years the atmosphere has almost always had far more CO2 than now, abut 3000 ppm on average. The only exception was a period that lasted from 315 million years ago to 270 where there was about the same amount of CO2 as we have now. The temperature was about the same then as it is now too. During the late Ordovician that I mentioned it was much colder, but other than a few very brief ice ages during the last few million years the temperature has always been warmer than now and occasionally MUCH warmer; at least that's the way things have been during the last 600 million years. Jim Hanson points out there is uncertainty on the order of 1000ppm regarding the ancient atmosphere. This, combined with other positive feedback factors like methane from bogs and hydrates doesn't allow much confidence in ruling out a runaway. http://brightstarswildomar.blogspot.com/2010/01/on-reading-hansons-storms-of-my.html Jim http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hansen is making way to much money and fame from his doom-mongering to be considered to be objective. He is therefore not a reliable source. A cheap argument from someone who thinks they should do their own analysis. You should do your own analysis of the data http://members.wolfram.com/jeffb/Fossils/drift.shtml. Is that your idea of data?? Try Vol 440|20 April 2006|doi:10.1038/nature04679 Climate sensitivity constrained by temperature reconstructions over the past seven centuries Gabriele C. Hegerl1, Thomas J. Crowley1, William T. Hyde1 David J. Frame or Extracting a Climate Signal from 169 Glacier Records Science 308, 675 (2005); J. Oerlemans, et al. I don't do my own projections because I don't have a good climate+economics model on this computer. Maybe you could show us your analysis. Consider also who exactly is trying to profit from the cap-and -trade http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cap-and-trade policies. Consider who is profiting from coal mining, the development of tar sands, and mideast oil. Why is it technophiles are so quick to make political arguments based on innuendo? You'd think they would just argue about models and data and atmospheric physics. It's not surprising that environmentalists make exaggerated claims, it's the way they stay employed. and without scare tactics many environmental groups would be out of business. And it's not surprising that nobody who's comfortable wants to take seriously a problem that might upset their
Re: If DA is correct then Bostrom's super humans are NOT
Even without interstellar travel or Von Newman Probes our largest radio telescopes could communicate with a similar instrument almost anywhere in the Galaxy. So why don't we hear ET? That's an even more good question than Why isn't ET here?! Of course, just as we observe light that was seeded 15 billion yrs from the dawn of time shouldn't we also observe the sky to be teaming with intelligent radio waves, be those waves as rare as one can imagine considering the harsh conditions for intelligent life to evolve? SETI people might have an answer for this but i doubt it's unbiased. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: If DA is correct then Bostrom's super humans are NOT
I found this link today. It is relevant to the topic at hand: http://www.faughnan.com/setifail.html On Sun, Dec 25, 2011 at 7:44 PM, alexalex alexmka...@yahoo.com wrote: Even without interstellar travel or Von Newman Probes our largest radio telescopes could communicate with a similar instrument almost anywhere in the Galaxy. So why don't we hear ET? That's an even more good question than Why isn't ET here?! Of course, just as we observe light that was seeded 15 billion yrs from the dawn of time shouldn't we also observe the sky to be teaming with intelligent radio waves, be those waves as rare as one can imagine considering the harsh conditions for intelligent life to evolve? SETI people might have an answer for this but i doubt it's unbiased. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: If DA is correct then Bostrom's super humans are NOT
On 12/25/2011 4:44 PM, alexalex wrote: Even without interstellar travel or Von Newman Probes our largest radio telescopes could communicate with a similar instrument almost anywhere in the Galaxy. So why don't we hear ET? That's an even more good question than Why isn't ET here?! Of course, just as we observe light that was seeded 15 billion yrs from the dawn of time shouldn't we also observe the sky to be teaming with intelligent radio waves, be those waves as rare as one can imagine considering the harsh conditions for intelligent life to evolve? If you were observing the Earth by radio telescope from a nearby star you would be noticing that it has been getting quieter and quieter. It's wasteful to radiate signals out into space is all directions. As technology advances we communicate more efficiently using satellite repeaters with directional antennae. At the same time we make communications more secure against noise, interference, and eavesdropping by using spreadspectra so that the signal looks like noise if you don't know the code. We might well suppose that more advanced civilizations will be more advanced in these aspects also. Brent SETI people might have an answer for this but i doubt it's unbiased. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: If DA is correct then Bostrom's super humans are NOT
Alex, Interesting video. My comments are below. On Sat, Dec 24, 2011 at 5:42 AM, alexalex alexmka...@yahoo.com wrote: I watched this video on youtube where Nick Bostrom was talking about the Fermi paradox : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GnkAcdRgcI 1. If the great filter is between having a planet and a civilization like ours then it's very unlikely for us to develop into a super- civilization. The great filter might simply be a belief in non-interference. Many people think this is unlikely because they believe there is no reason a bunch of random alien civilizations would agree on this, but I think nearly all alien civilizations will reach a state of super-intelligence before it achieves interstellar travel. It's been said that when intelligent people disagree it is due to a difference in data. If we assume these civilizations are super-intelligent, then all or most of them reaching a common consensus becomes much less likely. 2. If the great filter is between ourselves and a hypothetical mega- rare-super-civilization then doesn't that imply the following? a) If DA is true then every observer should reason as if they were a radom sample drawn from theset of all observers b) If we a priori consider that a highly more advanced civilization than us is highly more numerous in conscious beings than we are today at our peak, considering DA must be true, then : c) Shouldn't that random observer consider itself in the most numerous civilization and, very likely, on the most advanced of them ? Perhaps. But it is impossible to rule out the possibility that we are already members of such a civilization, who choose to momentarily forget our true identity. So ours is one of the most advanced civilizations. AlexAlex. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: If DA is correct then Bostrom's super humans are NOT
On Sat, Dec 24, 2011 at 11:13 AM, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: The great filter might simply be a belief in non-interference. A universe wide conspiracy of silence seems like a pretty weak idea to explain the profound fact that the universe does not appear to have been engineered. Just one Von Newman Probe sent to just one other sun would cost pocket change for an advanced civilization, to suggest that not one individual in one of those civilizations bothered to do so even on a whim is simply not credible. Even if the probe moved no faster than the rockets of today (a ridiculously conservative idea) it could engineer the entire Galaxy in less than 50 million years, the blink of an eye in other words. Then we would see an engineered Galaxy, and if that had happened you wouldn't need sophisticated experiments to detect ET, a blind man in a fog bank would know. So either we are the first or mind always runs into some sort of impenetrable wall if it tries to advance beyond a certain point. What could be the nature of that wall? I can think of 2 possibilities, the second much more likely than the first: 1) This idea is almost certainly bullshit, but suppose, just suppose nature is unkind. Suppose that in the technological history of any civilization there will come a time when it will find hints of a new force in nature,and suppose there is a very obvious experiment to investigate that possibility, and suppose because it is so new there is not one scrap of information to think it is in any way dangerous so the experiment is performed. And then BOOM, more energy is released in 10 seconds than the sun has generated in its entire 5 billion year history. It is of course difficult to predict how a newly discovered force in Physics will behave, that's why it's new. Madam Curie was certainly not stupid, and when she first discovered Radium she had not one scrap of information to think that the strange rays given off by that element were in any way dangerous, but it ended up killing her. Well OK, Gamma Ray Bursters are almost certainly not industrial accidents, but the idea might make a good science fiction story. 2) This possibility I think is much more likely. Once we completely understand how mind works it will be possible to change your emotions to anything you wanted, alter modes of thought, radically change your personality, swap your goals as well as your philosophy of life as easily as you change your shirt today, and that would be very dangerous. Ever want to accomplish something but been unable to do so because it's difficult? Well just change your goal in life to something simple and do that; better yet, just flood your mind with a feeling of pride for a job well done and don't bother accomplishing anything at all. Think all this is a terrible idea and stupid as well, no problem, just change your mind (and I do mean CHANGE YOUR MIND) now you think it's a wonderful idea. Complex mechanisms don't do well in positive feedback loops, not electronics, not animals, not people, not ET's and not even Jupiter brains. I mean who wouldn't want to be a little happier; if all you had to do is move a knob a little what could it hurt, oh that's much better maybe a little bit more, just a bit more, a little more... So the world could end not in a bang or a whimper but in an eternal mindless orgasm. I'm not saying this is definitely going to happen but I do think about it a little. I think nearly all alien civilizations will reach a state of super-intelligence before it achieves interstellar travel. Even without interstellar travel or Von Newman Probes our largest radio telescopes could communicate with a similar instrument almost anywhere in the Galaxy. So why don't we hear ET? John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
