[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'T')echnological advancement is exponential, with the pace of change getting faster every decade. When you combine those two factors -- the very long timescale of geologic time with the ultra fast pace of tech advancement -- then I'd say it's more likely than not that we will in fact end up colonizing the solar system.

[TonyPrep]

I agree. It's difficult to think of any fundamentally new technology, over the last decade or so, that has made a difference to our lives. They seem to be just small improvements (at best) on what we already had or a repackaging of existing technology (including smaller devices and combining technologies).

Exponential technology improvements seemed to have died out a long time ago.

[SeaGypsy]

In comparison to oil and coal/ fossil fuel; renewable tech is tiny and non exponential in technical development, but looked at in it's own frame and timeline it's probably doing pretty well.
We tend to see everything through the lense of the oil age, which distorts, amongst many things; time.
Perhaps unlimited can put this mathematicly?
The massive energy injection during the oil age has led to a mass novelty event, more under the rules of chaos theory than pure physics.
I honestly don't give a monkey's uncle whether or not humans ever live on other planets. It really means bugger all to me. I can't understand for the life of me why the idea appeals to and satisfies so many imaginations, beyond the realm of entertainment. So what if a few dozen genius IQ girls get to travel with a sperm bank for a few million generations? Then collapse into their own jellyfish like footprint.
Who cares? It won't be anyone I know or am related to other than by genus. Caring about this crap is impossible to me, my brain just won't do it.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'I') honestly don't give a monkey's uncle whether or not humans ever live on other planets. It really means bugger all to me. I can't understand for the life of me why the idea appeals to and satisfies so many imaginations, beyond the realm of entertainment.

[SeaGypsy]

Sorry sixy but horse shite.
We are not talking about canoe journeys here.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', 'O')bserved exponential curves related to any sort of progress are usually initial sections of bell curves.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'S')orry sixy but horse shite.
We are not talking about canoe journeys here.

[Aging gypsy]

Before we look to escape the only known inhabitable planet in the universe we would be foolish to not begin to live more planet friendly lifestyles and support the one we evolved on.
Folk are talking of technological advances on this thread but they are ignoring what nature might throw at us as this planets ecosystem becomes more compromised through mankinds ignorance and greed.
By the way folks, anyone developed artificial gravity yet, or can shield any vessel outside of this planets magnetic fields from radiation?
I could post information pertaining to the detrimental effects on many of the human bodies processes while `off world` and in zero gravity but will just say that it goes far beyond muscle wastage, into the way blood behaves and even into neurological functions and mental illness.
Oh, then there`s micrometeorites that can be travelling at thousands of miles per hour to dodge too.
The bottom line folks:

We evolved on Earth and our species will come to end it`s days on Earth too.

That goes for Stephen `Davros` Hawking too!

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'U')hm, what about quantum physics? That not new enough? This is an ongoing meme around here lately, that nothing new has come out since 1980. Which seems ludicrous to me, we're all communicating with each other via a medium that didn't exist in 1980. Somehow, everyone dismisses the Internet as "nothing new" when in fact it's changing everything.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', 'Q')uantum physics is more 100 years old by now (fundamental claims were made by Max Planck in December 1900) and remaining major claims were made more than 50 years ago.

[efarmer]

EnergyUnlimited wrote:
Running exponential estimations for too long lead to absurd results which never come true.
Observed exponential curves related to any sort of progress are usually initial sections of bell curves.
<end of quote>

+1, now that is one fine piece of observation there!

How many times have humans mistaken the steep upward slope of a bell curve for a ride to the stars only to be disillusioned that like an artillery shell, they were on the thrilling boost side of the ballistic arc of an exploit process and are thrilled and delighted until apogee is reached?

Could we shoot the next round, somewhere over the rainbow, way up high?
I think the Wizard might give us some insight on this matter.

[SeaGypsy]

One of the 'basics' is there is a lot of very serious radiation in space.
Another is that no person can survive this radiation for longer than a few months to a year, without lifelong debilitating disease, as others have pointed out.
Another is that lead is an effective radiation barrier at appropriate thickness.
Another is that lead is damn heavy.

The thinking sixstrings is getting at is obvious in it's appeal to fantasy. That due to exponential growth of human technology, eventually ALL limitations to human habitation ANYWHERE will be overcome. This is really juvenile thinking.

The psychology is really very base and goes along primitive lines:

"We have big rocket"

"We can go into anything anywhere with our big white shiny rocket"

"We can choose to use our rocket to kill and destroy or to love and create"

The "Bom the Bastards" mentality is at the opposite extreme of exactly the same, fallic based adolescent thinking, to the "We will conquer space and time then take over the Universe".

In both cases the adolescent boy uses his fallus totem to take over reality and force it to conform to his wishes. In both cases the youth is deluded and thinking with the wrong head.

[hillsidedigger]

Isn't it odd that Star Trek and the other space movies and TV shows always focus on the conflict, agression and violence out there?

We can have that right here at least until only one person remains.

Then, it will be once again what it was and that is the lesser animals entertaining 'da debil' with their conflict, aggression and violence.

Poor debil. It really enjoyed watching humans doing it.

[SeaGypsy]

More likely scenario:

Technology initially developed for potential settlment of other planets becomes necessary or deemed necessary to live on this one.

The old idea of domed super cities surrounded by 'toxic' wilderness.

Satellites monitoring every inch of the earth for escapees.

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'I')t has to happen at some point after all -- it's not like mysteries are infinite, eventually humanity must discover pretty much everything.

Have you ever considered that possibility, that most of the ground breaking "brand new" discoveries have been made? I think that's pretty safe to say as far as most of the fundamental laws of nature. Although on the quantum side there's certainly a lot yet to be discovered (the whole reason for the LHC).

[americandream]

Although I would agree that latter day thoughts on the approaching confluence of the capitalist economy and its resourcing base perhaps misunderstand the nature of the challenge, there is a distinction between what we would like happen and what will happen given the objective forces at play, forces such as the survival instinct and the contextual role played by culture.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'I')t has to happen at some point after all -- it's not like mysteries are infinite, eventually humanity must discover pretty much everything.

Have you ever considered that possibility, that most of the ground breaking "brand new" discoveries have been made? I think that's pretty safe to say as far as most of the fundamental laws of nature. Although on the quantum side there's certainly a lot yet to be discovered (the whole reason for the LHC).

[Aging gypsy]

The LHC won`t stop us wrecking the only known inhabitable planet in the universe, in fact with the energy it uses all derived from natural resources, it just hastens the pace towards mankinds extinction!
Dreaming belongs in the head, a neurological function , one planet one life folks, ignore what nature`s signalling to us at your peril.
FFS who would want to leave this amazing planet and the protection it gives us?
Getting irradiated and developing life threatening conditions from the effects of weightlessness is not my idea of a new life?

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Aging gypsy', 'T')he LHC won`t stop us wrecking the only known inhabitable planet in the universe, in fact with the energy it uses all derived from natural resources, it just hastens the pace towards mankinds extinction!

[Newfie]

Just a thought here.

Global Warming is pretty widely accepted by scientist.

Yet we, the common folk, can not find our way to react to, to "use", that science.

IMHO humanity is very limited in its planning timeline. As in "If it isn't gonna effect me pretty soon I don't care!"

So it seems that humanity is unable to use the science we have to good effect.

I wouldn't worry about the science we don't yet have.

[SeaGypsy]

Along the lines of why I think we are getting to the point where engineering population bottleneck is the most likely option. The momentum has to be broken for a change of direction and utterly stopped before a reversal can occur (or be made to occur).

The speakerage of Hawking in the context of this thread has to be seen in the light of Goebellspeak.
Cutting to the quick; the substext for the byline:

Arrgh! It's too late, we have farked the planet!
We are all gonna die!
(escape motive kicking in)
(Goebells, Hawking et al): "Now is the right time to believe, humanity has a future, in the Stars!"

Between the lines: "Shut up, consume, breed and die because it's all farked anyway and in a few generations the only humans left will be on other planets, far away in the galaxy. Feel good knowing the sacrifice of your only planet was to contribute to the fantastical universal Man; striving out into the unkown, to conquer all."

The intelligencia cannot benefit from a sudden catastrophic collapse. The machine needs to keep it's momentum long enough that plan B can be fully set up and prepared for.

Plan B:

Stage 1: resource locating, control and constraint.

Stage 2: political masquerades encouraging permissive population.

Stage 3: encouraging social breakdown in resource poor regions and in regions deemed too difficult. Ensure resources do not get developed by 'the enemy'.

Stage 5: set up lifeboats; mega security zones. These might be the size of small countries.

Final stage: as the world goes to shit by social disintegration, the elite are found to be congregating in a few areas around the globe. They are leaving the cities where they generated their wealth, or where it was generated for them. Their investments have all been shifted into resources. Here they will wait out the bottleneck, with the blessed serfs lucky enough to be inside the gates. The vast majority of everyone outside is dead within a decade. Recolonisation of earth begins.

The philosophy under which the recolonisation occurs could be vastly different to any previous society.
The survivors will forgive themselves within a generation (the way the Nazi's did) and get on with building the new world (again).

This is my manifesto on the likely course of events over the next few decades. I know this thinking feeds into a lot of conspiracy nut job ideas; which I am not supporting. I see the above course as obvious and rational; more likely than not. In comparison I see the fantasy of Hawking and friends being irrational, illogical and extremely unlikely. It can pay to consider in any belief system: "What will I get out of taking on this belief?"
then: "What does the person who wants me to take on said belief, get out of it?"

Perhaps a (non breeding) seat as the freak of the party on Sheik Megatootsie's megayacht parked up at the head of the valley where Lord of the Rings was filmed?