I always thought that was the point of science. Discovering the unknown.
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by Grotesque Doppelgangers » Tue Mar 27, 2012 9:40 pm
by The Emerald Legion » Tue Mar 27, 2012 9:40 pm
Grotesque Doppelgangers wrote:The Emerald Legion wrote:
Bad for Earth =/= bad for other planets.
For example in order to make Mars more like earth the big plan is (last I checked) to pollute up a storm.
And second of all, We've fucked up the ecosystem. A unique feature of our planet. There isn't anything to fuck up on other planets.
Some might consider the gases on Jupiter to be an ecosystem. We just consider Earth to have a unique ecosystem because it's what we've known. If we were a species that lived on Jupiter and survived in a gas environment, would we consider Jupiter the only unique ecosystem?
by Grotesque Doppelgangers » Tue Mar 27, 2012 9:42 pm
The Emerald Legion wrote:Grotesque Doppelgangers wrote:
Some might consider the gases on Jupiter to be an ecosystem. We just consider Earth to have a unique ecosystem because it's what we've known. If we were a species that lived on Jupiter and survived in a gas environment, would we consider Jupiter the only unique ecosystem?
So far as we know, there is nothing alive on Jupiter. Nor would Jupiter be a good place to settle.
So it's a moot point.
by Zathganastan » Tue Mar 27, 2012 9:48 pm
by The Emerald Legion » Tue Mar 27, 2012 9:49 pm
Grotesque Doppelgangers wrote:The Emerald Legion wrote:
So far as we know, there is nothing alive on Jupiter. Nor would Jupiter be a good place to settle.
So it's a moot point.
I was speaking hypothetically in order to explain what I was trying to say. We live on Earth, and therefore treat it like the only ecosystem because we can't live on it. Why isn't it an ecosystem just because we don't survive on it? My point was that if we lived on any other planet and survived differently that we would be saying the same thing about Earth.
by Grotesque Doppelgangers » Tue Mar 27, 2012 9:52 pm
The Emerald Legion wrote:Grotesque Doppelgangers wrote:
I was speaking hypothetically in order to explain what I was trying to say. We live on Earth, and therefore treat it like the only ecosystem because we can't live on it. Why isn't it an ecosystem just because we don't survive on it? My point was that if we lived on any other planet and survived differently that we would be saying the same thing about Earth.
The problem is Environment =/= ecosystem. And their environment does not support life. Therefore it is barren.
by Great Nepal » Tue Mar 27, 2012 10:11 pm
Salandriagado wrote:So, you're asking for a statement that a probability is very small without using probability?
Salandriagado wrote:Because if we don't, the global temperature anomaly will blast straight up to 4 degrees, and thereby inevitably on to much higher values (see the thread I linked). Essentially, if it hits 4 degrees, global human society is over. If we don't stop in the next few decades, it will hit 4 degrees, and carry right on through.
http://www.forecastingnet.com/Temperature%20increase.png
Nope. At most, it is forecasted to increase by 2.5 degrees by 2100. And, increase of 4 degrees still wont cause extinction.
Salandriagado wrote:Temperatures don't just stop rising instantly as soon as you start making changes. The majority of that next two degrees (which is bad enough as it is) is already locked in. Nothing we can do about it. Right now, we're locking the rest in, and by 2100, we'll be well past 4 degrees.
Salandriagado wrote: And yes, it wouldn't be an extinction event for the human race, just most of the biosphere. Oh, and the collapse of global society. And the deaths of probably 90% of the population.
[/quote]Great Nepal wrote:Not to mention, NASA space shuttle launch produces of carbon dioxide. Even if we multiply that by fifty thousand, we come to grand total of 1,400,000 tons. Since current global carbon dioxide emission stands at 29,888,121,000 tons, that will form about 0.004% of emissions.
Try cutting on something else.
by Independent Light Blue » Tue Mar 27, 2012 10:53 pm
by Sociobiology » Wed Mar 28, 2012 4:45 am
by Sociobiology » Wed Mar 28, 2012 4:51 am
by Sociobiology » Wed Mar 28, 2012 4:52 am
by Grenartia » Wed Mar 28, 2012 4:57 am
Salandriagado wrote:Yup. It's also one of those things that happens every few billion years, as opposed to global warming, which is killing us now. I know which one I prefer to ignore.
Grenartia wrote:Don't you think that if we can learn how to terraform other worlds, that we could use that knowledge to reverse climate change here on earth?
Not anything like quick enough.
Not even mentioning that if you doubt that there will be organized society on earth in 2112 because of climate change, then I think you may have watched the Day After Tomorrow one too many times.
That's taking a fairly conservative estimate. Four degrees of warming has been described as "incompatable with organised global society" (and is probably way past that line), and that isn't going to take that long.
Space colonization and solving problems on earth are NOT incompatible. The same technologies used to solve issues in space can be used to solve problems on earth. All it takes is the will to boldly go where few men have gone before, to borrow and alter a phrase from Star Trek. By solving power generation problems for space stations and other orbital craft, we also give ourselves relatively clean and efficient power sources. Living in space requires, by pure necessity, the ability to recycle as much material as possible. Meaning that by learning how to recycle more efficiently, we have more resources, and less waste.
That will take many, many times more than fixing the problem will. If we want to avoid the aforementioned 4 degrees of warming, we need to hit our carbon peak in the next decade or so, if we want to avoid catastrophically steep declines.
As for the odds, do you know what really scares the shit out of me the most?
Its not the bogeyman. Its not global warming, which scientists claim will drown my adoptive hometown of New Orleans. Its not a super-strength hurricane that makes Hurricane Katrina look like a pop-up thunderstorm. Its not even full-scale global thermonuclear war.
What really scares me shitless is knowing that there is an entire constellation's worth of stars ready to go supernova, that are close enough to our solar system, and oriented in such a way that we're in the fucking crosshairs.
How many do you think there are? Go on, not "an entire constellation's worth", put a number on it. I'm aware of exactly one.
Or that at least 90% of the night sky is unknown in terms of Near Earth Objects of a size capable of causing a major extinction event.
They haven't in the last few billion years, they probably wont in the next few centuries, by which time it will be irrelevant if we don't fix the problems now.
And that there's literally an entire sphere at the edge of our solar system where undiscovered comets capable of hitting the earth lie in wait, with orbits so long that many of them haven't completed a single orbit since the ancestors of the Native Americans crossed the land bridge between Siberia and Alaska.
And very, very few have hit the earth in the last few billion years. And that number will decrease as ever more fall into Jupiter, or the sun, or one of the other planets. The odds of us being hit in any kind of meaningful timescale are so small it's ridiculous.
Knowing those things, and the fact that us as a species is too stupid to put sufficient resources into place to prevent such catastrophes as much as is humanly possible, THAT is what keeps me up at night. THAT is what makes me afraid of the dark. Seriously. There are more people working at your nearest fast food joint, than there are qualified persons around the world working on practical ways to stop an asteroid impact.
So essentially, you can't do statistics, or at least you haven't bothered to. Aone in a billion yearevent that will certainly kill us is less of a worry than something that will probably kill us in the next couple of centuries.
Can you honestly say those things scare you less than a global temperature rise of 1C?
I sure as fucking hell can't.
1 degree isn't a major issue, relatively. Two degrees is the supposed "safe" line (that is looking less and less safe every day). Four degrees is the "we're fucked" line, and it's the latter that we're heading for.
Worrying more about global warming than asteroids, comets, or gamma ray bursts makes about as much sense as standing in the middle of the battle of Gettysburg and worrying more about an annoying itch on your back than the bullets that are literally whizzing right by your head.
No, it makes about as much sense as getting somewhere safe during an earthquake without checking it for a nuclear bomb first.
by Divair » Wed Mar 28, 2012 8:02 am
Independent Light Blue wrote:I am firm believer in the benefits of space colonization. This should not only include Lunar and Martian colonies, but the large O’Neill-type colonies at the L-5 and L-4 points as well. This should also be accompanied by the large-scale industrialization of space (it’s the only way it’s going to make the venture profitable if the private sector comes onboard as a partner) and the construction of solar power satellites that will beam electrical energy back to earth.
(Image)
The space pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky famously wrote “The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever.” For the sake of the maturing of the human race, we must move into space. If we were to remain in the cradle with its illusion of safety, we would let ourselves become open to extinction level events such as asteriodal and cometary impacts that would otherwise spell the end of our civilization.
by Salandriagado » Wed Mar 28, 2012 8:58 am
Great Nepal wrote:Salandriagado wrote:So, you're asking for a statement that a probability is very small without using probability?
Sure, use probability but what you proved last time is that "there is no variable time based effect" not "extinction event happening within any sensible period of time is still vanishingly small".
http://www.forecastingnet.com/Temperature%20increase.png
Nope. At most, it is forecasted to increase by 2.5 degrees by 2100. And, increase of 4 degrees still wont cause extinction.Salandriagado wrote:Temperatures don't just stop rising instantly as soon as you start making changes. The majority of that next two degrees (which is bad enough as it is) is already locked in. Nothing we can do about it. Right now, we're locking the rest in, and by 2100, we'll be well past 4 degrees.
No, that is not what the forecast shows unless you have got a better source to say otherwise.
Salandriagado wrote: And yes, it wouldn't be an extinction event for the human race, just most of the biosphere. Oh, and the collapse of global society. And the deaths of probably 90% of the population.
http://centralcontent.fco.gov.uk/central-content/campaigns/act-on-copenhagen/resources/en/pdf/4-degrees-en
Thats not what report says.
What will happen is:-
- Bit more drought. (If countries are developed, it can simply purify water from the sea.)
- Sea level rises affecting low lying areas.
- Decreased food production. (Can be tackled via advancement in aeroponics and hydroponics)
- Less water supply for many people.
Nope nothing about 90% people dying, collapse of global society, and destruction of biosphere.
You forgot to include this bit which really shows you should be tacking something else than space program for CO2.
[/quote]Great Nepal wrote:Not to mention, NASA space shuttle launch produces of carbon dioxide. Even if we multiply that by fifty thousand, we come to grand total of 1,400,000 tons. Since current global carbon dioxide emission stands at 29,888,121,000 tons, that will form about 0.004% of emissions.
Try cutting on something else.
Kilobugya wrote:Salandriagado wrote:
We do know. It's zero. Precisely zero.
Nothing has zero chance to happen, except if it violates the fundamental laws of physics. That aside, with the world interconnected as it is now, the risk of a pandemic devastating humanity is very high. Natural or artificial (biological warfare) pandemic. You should read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_risk
Salandriagado wrote:
We don't need to tell people to stop having children. We just need to stop telling them to have children. Much of the developed world is below replacement level or would be without immigration as it is.
The developed world is below replacement level only due to insane economy driving people to focus solely on work. As soon as there are enough social policies to ensure people can have children if they want, like in France, you've the replacement level. If you want to keep everyone on Earth, you'll have to tell them to stop having children. You'll have to do China's like "one child" policies, with all the suffering and sickness they generate.
Salandriagado wrote:
Cancer research is not going through anything like that major a breakthrough.
There are massive breakthroughs undergoing recently in several different labs about "therapeutic vaccines", turning the immune system against the cancer cells. In 10-20 years they'll be fully operational.
Salandriagado wrote:We know essentially nothing about old age.
We are starting to unlock it. We managed to increase lifespan of mouses and other animals by very significant factors (+20% or +25% and more is coming).
Salandriagado wrote:Gene therapy is largely stagnating due to politics.
Salandriagado wrote:Nanotechnology is still a pipe dream, in most cases.
We have the first working nanoreplicators. We have single-molecule moving vehicles. Nanotechnology is unlocking fast, this last decade.
Salandriagado wrote:Plus, diminishing returns. Fixing the early problems is easy and gives massive improvements. As you go along, it gets harder and you get less payback. We are approaching an asymptote here. We are not "on the dawn of people living for 150 or 200 years". 90 years, yes. You're still out by a factor of two, and you're well out with your claim of a factor of ten within decades.
There is no diminishing returns in research. History shows the opposite : research speed always goes up, not down. For many reasons : a better understanding of the world leads to much better methods of altering it, higher technology allows to divert more and more people from agriculture/manufacturing to research and therefore increase the number of teams doing research, new tools (like ever more powerful computers) make research more efficient, ...
Salandriagado wrote:So, in essence, you want us to spend a fortune on stuff that doesn't do anything useful, on the off chance that it'll work in a century, rather than fixing our actual problems and leaving that crap for when we can afford it.
I want us to spend a tiny amount of resources (much less than we actually spend on the military or on advertising) to prepare for something which will later on produce massive benefits, and will anyway produce interesting and useful directly usable side-effects in the meanwhile.
Salandriagado wrote:The money isn't there. Orbital flights to maintain satellites, absolutely. But beyond that? There's nothing, and no significant body of people wants there to be anything, with the possible exception of China, who just want to go there so they can say they did and get one over on the rest of the world.
That's a political problem. Not a technical or economical one. And you know what's the solution to political problems ? Convincing people. By speaking your "it's too expensive and will increase global warming and is useless" view, you're making the only problem that exists : the political one. By advocating the opposite thesis (which is backed by facts) : "we can afford it, it doesn't cost much at the scale of world's economies and doesn't have any significant drawbacks, and it'll lead to highly positive consequences in the long term" I'm participating in solving the problem.
Not anything like quick enough.
Granted, but its not like global warming will kill us all. The only earth-based disaster that I can think of that will endanger humanity is a super volcanic eruption.
That's taking a fairly conservative estimate. Four degrees of warming has been described as "incompatable with organised global society" (and is probably way past that line), and that isn't going to take that long.
Again, like I said, solving problems in space solves problems on Earth. Take solar power, for example. Its fairly inefficient. The most you can squeeze out of a panel is about 20% efficiency, if the sun is at a direct angle. Which means that for a solar-powered spacecraft, the challenge is to get more efficient solar panels. Developing those more efficient panels for spacecraft gives you a spinoff with practical terrestrial applications: more efficient solar panels for domestic use.
That will take many, many times more than fixing the problem will. If we want to avoid the aforementioned 4 degrees of warming, we need to hit our carbon peak in the next decade or so, if we want to avoid catastrophically steep declines.
At the same time, we can also launch orbital reflectors, to reflect some of the sun's heat away, thus offsetting some of the temperature rise.
How many do you think there are? Go on, not "an entire constellation's worth", put a number on it. I'm aware of exactly one.
Ok, granted, you are correct that there is only one known potential GRB near Earth (I was mislead, at around maybe 10). BUT, my point still stands, in the fact that it is the only one KNOWN as of this moment.
They haven't in the last few billion years, they probably wont in the next few centuries, by which time it will be irrelevant if we don't fix the problems now.
Last time I checked, 50,000 =/= a few billion years.
And there have been MULTIPLE NEOs approximately the size of the rock that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago (not billion), that have passed uncomfortably close to us in the last few years.
Here's a NASA link that shows recent near misses, and upcoming approaches (keep in mind that these are only the ones we KNOW about). http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/
Using those tables, you can see that there is an asteroid about the size of the one that created Barrigner Crater, that will pass a little more than halfway between the Earth and the Moon on April 1, 2012. Here's a link that describes what effects the Barringer impact had on the area at the time, and using that, we can figure out what effects could occur from an impact from the asteroid that will approach in April (yes, I know its not expected to hit, but the point is to show how close it is to hitting us).
And very, very few have hit the earth in the last few billion years. And that number will decrease as ever more fall into Jupiter, or the sun, or one of the other planets. The odds of us being hit in any kind of meaningful timescale are so small it's ridiculous.
Just as the odds of climate change destroying civilization are ridiculously small.
So essentially, you can't do statistics, or at least you haven't bothered to. Aone in a billion yearevent that will certainly kill us is less of a worry than something that will probably kill us in the next couple of centuries.
For there to be a 1 in a billion year impact means that the impactor would most likely be larger than the Earth itself, as the probability of an impact is inversely related to the sie of the impactor.
1 degree isn't a major issue, relatively. Two degrees is the supposed "safe" line (that is looking less and less safe every day). Four degrees is the "we're fucked" line, and it's the latter that we're heading for.
Do you have any credible evidence for this?
No, it makes about as much sense as getting somewhere safe during an earthquake without checking it for a nuclear bomb first.
If your analogy is meant to say that threats from space are earthquakes and climate change is a nuke, then you've made a shitty analogy.
Nukes are guaranteed to kill you. Climage change isn't necessarily a death sentence for humanity. lrn2compare, bro.
by Yes Im Biop » Wed Mar 28, 2012 9:22 am
[violet] wrote:Urggg... trawling through ads looking for roman orgies...
Idaho Conservatives wrote:FST creates a half-assed thread, goes on his same old feminist rant, and it turns into a thirty page dogpile in under twenty four hours. Just another day on NSG.
Immoren wrote:Saphirasia and his ICBCPs (inter continental ballistic cattle prod)
by Yes Im Biop » Wed Mar 28, 2012 9:24 am
Salandriagado wrote:Senestrum wrote:
how is the chemical reaction used even relevant to whether or not it's released into the atmosphere
fuck, if you capture the co2 you can split that for the oxygen used, although that would be power-inefficient compared to regular lox production methods
or you use the Kværner-process, or just electrolyze water without bothering with natural gas
Stop trolling. The carbon has to go somewhere. Where it goes is straight into the atmosphere.
[violet] wrote:Urggg... trawling through ads looking for roman orgies...
Idaho Conservatives wrote:FST creates a half-assed thread, goes on his same old feminist rant, and it turns into a thirty page dogpile in under twenty four hours. Just another day on NSG.
Immoren wrote:Saphirasia and his ICBCPs (inter continental ballistic cattle prod)
by Person012345 » Wed Mar 28, 2012 9:29 am
Salandriagado wrote:Senestrum wrote:
how is the chemical reaction used even relevant to whether or not it's released into the atmosphere
fuck, if you capture the co2 you can split that for the oxygen used, although that would be power-inefficient compared to regular lox production methods
or you use the Kværner-process, or just electrolyze water without bothering with natural gas
Stop trolling. The carbon has to go somewhere. Where it goes is straight into the atmosphere.
by Salandriagado » Wed Mar 28, 2012 9:31 am
by Salandriagado » Wed Mar 28, 2012 9:32 am
Person012345 wrote:Salandriagado wrote:
Stop trolling. The carbon has to go somewhere. Where it goes is straight into the atmosphere.
Turn it into diamond or something? You realise that all allotropes of carbon are solids under normal conditions, I fail to see why it would simply "go straight into the atmosphere".
by Person012345 » Wed Mar 28, 2012 9:36 am
Salandriagado wrote:Person012345 wrote:Turn it into diamond or something? You realise that all allotropes of carbon are solids under normal conditions, I fail to see why it would simply "go straight into the atmosphere".
That's where most of it goes now. Thus, it's almost certainly where it will continue to go.
by Salandriagado » Wed Mar 28, 2012 9:42 am
Person012345 wrote:Salandriagado wrote:
That's where most of it goes now. Thus, it's almost certainly where it will continue to go.
No it doesn't. When you oxidize it it becomes carbon dioxide, which is what goes into the atmosphere. He's specifically talking about de-oxidizing it. Assuming you have it in a sterile environment, heat it and pressurise it, or whatever they do, and you can get a useful allotrope. Although I imagine this takes a lot of power and is inefficient.
by Divair » Wed Mar 28, 2012 9:44 am
Salandriagado wrote:Person012345 wrote:No it doesn't. When you oxidize it it becomes carbon dioxide, which is what goes into the atmosphere. He's specifically talking about de-oxidizing it. Assuming you have it in a sterile environment, heat it and pressurise it, or whatever they do, and you can get a useful allotrope. Although I imagine this takes a lot of power and is inefficient.
And how are you going to persuade people to do this?
by Salandriagado » Wed Mar 28, 2012 9:48 am
by Keronians » Wed Mar 28, 2012 9:50 am
by Person012345 » Wed Mar 28, 2012 9:54 am
Salandriagado wrote:Person012345 wrote:No it doesn't. When you oxidize it it becomes carbon dioxide, which is what goes into the atmosphere. He's specifically talking about de-oxidizing it. Assuming you have it in a sterile environment, heat it and pressurise it, or whatever they do, and you can get a useful allotrope. Although I imagine this takes a lot of power and is inefficient.
And how are you going to persuade people to do this?
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