Re: Replicators
- From: Willie.Mookie@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2008 04:55:44 -0700 (PDT)
On Jul 4, 1:30 am, BradGuth <bradg...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Artificially extended range or scope is technically doable for
accommodating our frail DNA.
That's why the golden age of interplanetary exploration for humans
will await the development of space colony sized vehicles, capable of
withstanding the radiation.
What upper/lower limits are you suggesting possible?
That depends on many details we do not know at present. Consider
locusts, or field mice, or an ant colony, or an algae mat. Under
typical conditions they grow into a stable sized aggregate of
individuals - with their reproductive and maintenance activities in
balance with their available resources. Yet, on occassion - under
the right conditions, any of these creatures can come to dominate the
landscape and spread far and wide - then there is the inevitable
collapse - with a lot of widely spread individuals - getting by in
widely spread colonies.
At the limit, with what we know about physics and technology, we'll
reach a technological singularity in about 32 years - if our technical
culture survives that long. Somewhere around that time - EVERYTHING
that can be done, WILL be done - technologically.
If we manage our affairs rightly - we could have humans with their
machines, spread throughout the larger cosmos - that encompasses all
the time lines that are accessible by human technology with the first
portal being constructed before 2035 and Earth denuded of nearly all
humans by 2050. This will be the best case scenario. In this case,
no more than 20 billion humans, with about 40 billion ETIs that we
sweep up along the way - will be spread among 10,000 billion billion
stars in this universe - with some exchange between other universes -
before they all settle down in 'hot spots' throughout the cosmos.
Worst case scenario?
Two dozen Russian loose nukes are set off by terrorists throughout the
Western World, China immediately pulls the plug on the US economy, and
demands all raw materials suppliers supply their industrial
infrastructure first until the emergency passes. The Western
economies go into a free fall. Asian opinion is that the dominance
of the West is over. Pakistan suffering a retaliatory strike from
Israel (See below) uses this opportunity to attack India with nuclear
weapons, and India retaliates. Meanwhile, North Korea uses its cache
of nuclear weapons to decimate South Korea. China invades the
pennensula to restore order. Militarized gangs in the USA and Europe
- using Chinese firearms have defacto control of all major cities in
the West. At the outbreak of terror attacks, Israel launched a series
of pre-emptive strikes against all muslim centers, and covertly waged
advanced biological warfare against its own muslim population with
genetically engineered viruses. China covertly releases similar
viruses over US and European cities, viruses that are far more deadly
to Caucasian populations than Occidental.
Japan protests China's hi jacking of the world's commodity markets,
and China invades Japan until the crisis passes. In response,
America attacks China, and China retaliates in kind.
Of the 6.6 billion humans alive before the first attacks, 5.2 bilion
have died by the following afternoon. A week later, another 1.0
billion will have died in the affected regions.
This will have been the worst week in human history.
By mid afternoon the week following the terror attacks - Australia,
South Africa, Brazil and Chile are now the centers of human
populations. South Africa with its coal to liquid technology, and
Brazil with its Ethanol technology, will be the new energy centers of
the world. Australia with its coal and iron will be expanding its
capacity.
South Africa announces that it has a handful of nuclear weapons and
imposes a global ban on further hostilities. The surviving 500
million humans will at best have been put back to 1950s level of
technology and income - and it will be in decline as the biosphere
absorbs the massive shock of nuclear warfare. As radiation levels
rise in the Southern Hemisphere, and farm productivity falls, and
birth defects rise - living standards gradually erode over the next
600 years - until post-technical human tribes roam the most hospitable
regions of the Southern Hemisphere.
Highly modified post-technical humans will rise to the 19th century
level of technology in the following 5,000 years - as the ecology
recovers and adapts - and a variety of post-human technical species
spread again but the easily accessible resources that our 19th
century forebears found so abundantly on Earth - will have been long
gone - and the technical know-how available to these post-human
descendants - will be insufficient to make use of the resource
remnants 20th and early 21st century humans left.
Along this path, the path toward technological singularity is broken -
and humans are irradiated out of existence, while their post-
technological off-spring, struggle along with draft animals and wood
and rope - bows and arrows - and so forth.
Total number of post-human technological primates - will likely
stabilize at 50 million - depending on details - among a handful of
distinct species - non of them quite human at a level of 18th and
19th century humans - building at most an ancient Roman or Greek
infrastructure - with rare flashes of 20th century details -
technological fetishes some will call it - all on the back of slave
labor.
In this world, there may exist some true wizards - who exercise the
power of ancient lost technology - but mostly for the amusement of
Kings, and to awe the faithful..
.
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