[extropy-chat] 10th Planet Discovered

Brent Neal brentn at freeshell.org
Mon Mar 15 18:12:14 UTC 2004


 (3/15/04 17:55) Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:

>On Mon, Mar 15, 2004 at 10:47:56AM -0500, Brent Neal wrote:
>> 
>> Your argument is almost circular. You assume colonization as a fait 
>
>Self-replication/bootstrap *is* a feedback circle, so it's unsurprising if
>its discussion appears superficially tautological. It ain't, this circle is
>more like an upwards spiral. It's going somewhere, despite appearances of
>being trapped on a circular track.

Except that you also assume that we've already colonized in your argument about further colonization. That -is- a tautology. And assuming that you are going to get a specific technological breakthrough that will make it all magically happen is not terribly convincing in an argument.  If anything, history should tell you that we're more likely to have a breakthrough that -isn't- expected that will make it possible.

>
>Your projected timeline of centuries appears highly unlikely. At current
>level of technology human existance is not sustainable even on planetary
>surfaces given the timeline you mentioned. We're currently having a race 
>between the advent of AI and nanotechnology, which are both less than half 
>a century away, and will completely rewrite the rules. I.e. they rule out
>sustained existance of people of conventional bauplan.

Read the Smalley-Drexler debate.  As I said before, I'd rather do it now than wait for "something new and better" to come along. All the usual aphorisms about those who dare, etc. etc.  

After spending 6 years in nanotechnology research, the most important things I learned were that (a) the nanotech advocates are overly optimistic and (b) there is a gaping chasm between what is thought to be possible and our current engineering prowess. Of course, I'm an engineer that became a theorist in grad school, so I'm likely to have very cynical views of both groups. :) 



>
>> We have the technology -right now- to colonize the inner system, 
>
>We don't have the technology. We don't have stable closed-loop ecosystems,
>nor automatic means of fabrication -- not even teleoperated means of
>fabrication on a rock a lightsecond away. Is that pathetic, or what?

Neither of which is necessary to begin the process of bootstrapping industry in the inner system.  You start with LEO and GEO first, which we most certainly have the technology to industrialize. And for fsck's sake, you don't put humans up there at first! There is no reason to do so.  If there is anything the Information Revolution has taught us, its that humans are expensive to maintain and so you save them for tasks for which they are needed. That's where your bootstrap starts. Making visionary statements about how much easier it will be to do this once we have this or that McGuffin  is fun, but it butters no parsnips.

The economics of a moon base are pretty marginal, from what I understand. Mars seems to be a much better choice, but until we do a better job industrializing Earth's orbit, even a moon base will remain out of reach.

B

-- 
Brent Neal
Geek of all Trades
http://brentn.freeshell.org

"Specialization is for insects" -- Robert A. Heinlein



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