Engineers look ahead to future problems given trends and either build in solutions or change the trend.Betruger wrote:Gonna have to qualify that better, cause there's no guarantees in anything. Technology already allows us to shit where we eat to a pretty large extent. What animal or previous (pre-tech) human civilization can say as much?
We aren't outrunning our problems but solving them. Even if only gradually, piece-wise. That is what sci/tech are about. It's not about sweeping problems under the carpet.
Any engineer reading this will rejoice. More problems to fix.or indeed the unforeseen complex problems that result from technological fixes for simple problems.
You really have no choice but satisfying work as an engineer. If your solution produces more problems, you get to improve what was already an improvement on previous state of things. If your solution solves the problem, you get to move on to the next problem; IE you just made things better by solving that problem, and now get to tackle how to make things... even better still.
"Problems", unforeseen or not, are the spice of life. Peril sets the stage for genuine accomplishment and satisfaction - coming out stronger from some adversity. It's "not really" adversity if you know the outcome, if there is no fog of war, no risk, if you are going by the fully detailed answers at the back of the book without spending one iota of time problem-solving yourself.
This maxim (Einstein paraphrased) is almost not an analogy: "Time is so everything doesn't happen at once" -- without problems and the work that must occur to realize their corresponding solutions, life is a void. "Work" is activity.. Without activity, without content to fill passing time, it makes no difference whether one or many units (any unit) of time has passed. You are compressing a null set of data. Everything can happen at once because nothing is happening.
Unforeseen problems as we have and will have are not valid reason to stop and sit on our asses this far into technological path to post-scarcity and to the stars, and to whatever might be beyond. Either we go back to caves and "symbiosis" with Gaia, or we go all the way. Either we are to Earth as bacteria to petri dish, or we make our environment a product of us.
"Sint ut sunt, aut non sint"
Of course developing the tech to efficiently exploit the environment and become self-sufficient, to get past scarcity and get off this rock into astronomically larger petri dish, that doesn't happen overnight. Of course there'll be "problems" on the way.
Wind Farms cause global warming
Yes. Was letting self give opinion in full color in response to what seemed like an unrealistically pessimistic POV. It's not only about the engineers actually pushing this rock forward, but also human nature in general - the rest of the planet needing the solutions.tomclarke wrote:Engineers look ahead to future problems given trends and either build in solutions or change the trend.Betruger wrote:Gonna have to qualify that better, cause there's no guarantees in anything. Technology already allows us to shit where we eat to a pretty large extent. What animal or previous (pre-tech) human civilization can say as much?
We aren't outrunning our problems but solving them. Even if only gradually, piece-wise. That is what sci/tech are about. It's not about sweeping problems under the carpet.
Any engineer reading this will rejoice. More problems to fix.or indeed the unforeseen complex problems that result from technological fixes for simple problems.
You really have no choice but satisfying work as an engineer. If your solution produces more problems, you get to improve what was already an improvement on previous state of things. If your solution solves the problem, you get to move on to the next problem; IE you just made things better by solving that problem, and now get to tackle how to make things... even better still.
"Problems", unforeseen or not, are the spice of life. Peril sets the stage for genuine accomplishment and satisfaction - coming out stronger from some adversity. It's "not really" adversity if you know the outcome, if there is no fog of war, no risk, if you are going by the fully detailed answers at the back of the book without spending one iota of time problem-solving yourself.
This maxim (Einstein paraphrased) is almost not an analogy: "Time is so everything doesn't happen at once" -- without problems and the work that must occur to realize their corresponding solutions, life is a void. "Work" is activity.. Without activity, without content to fill passing time, it makes no difference whether one or many units (any unit) of time has passed. You are compressing a null set of data. Everything can happen at once because nothing is happening.
Unforeseen problems as we have and will have are not valid reason to stop and sit on our asses this far into technological path to post-scarcity and to the stars, and to whatever might be beyond. Either we go back to caves and "symbiosis" with Gaia, or we go all the way. Either we are to Earth as bacteria to petri dish, or we make our environment a product of us.
"Sint ut sunt, aut non sint"
Of course developing the tech to efficiently exploit the environment and become self-sufficient, to get past scarcity and get off this rock into astronomically larger petri dish, that doesn't happen overnight. Of course there'll be "problems" on the way.
Problems are inevitable. They're also solvable. As Deutsch put it. Even if the solution is a fork in the road.
I do think it's as I describe, though: the environment will get dirty, whatever we do on the way to getting off of it. Obviously that's not to say we ought to neglect greener choices either. But the few hundred million world pop. scenarios are just fantasy from A to Z: they're unfeasible and don't solve the problem as well as the alternatives.
You can do anything you want with laws except make Americans obey them. | What I want to do is to look up S. . . . I call him the Schadenfreudean Man.
Funny thing is, I was alive back in the '70's, and it definitely sounded like a consensus to the general population. Likewise, fear mongering '60's preteens airpollution would kill us all before we reached middle age, very easy to rewrite history, especially when it interferes with the new myth. Like trying to edit out every reference to the Medieval warming period.tomclarke wrote:What you are told is journalists writing good copy.choff wrote:I'm 53 now, when I was very young, I was told that if air pollution continued at the then current level, all life on earth would die within 20 years. Later on, I was told air pollution would lead to a new ice age, there were sf books written and sold on that theme for the longest time. Now the scientists have reversed 180 degrees and say global warming is the threat.
Serious scientists can demonstrate the effects of warming over the last decade or two, but they never put it into the context of the Medeival warming period or mini ice age over the last millenium.
As taught to me in elementary school, the vikings called Greenland by its name because it was in fact green, they could keep flocks of grazing animals on it. The change it climate was sudden, barely one ship got out to Iceland. Iceland itself lost half its population because of the climate shift. The Danes couldn't even get ships past the ice to Greenland for the longest time to find out what happened to the people there.
As to the greens wanting population control, who in hell died and made them god!
For example, the scientific consensus was never for an ice age. there was one paper, critiques by otehrs, that got blown up by journalists, and then propagated as an internet myth.
CHoff
To have prosperity you need rule of law, property rights, and legal enforcement of contracts. All anathema to the Left.choff wrote:There are two ways to raise the standard of living in the third world, one is a compact, inexpensive fusion reactor. The other is to reform the global financial system, that's what I like about Bill Still's greenbacker policies.
Yes I can also remember the "energy crises" of the '70's. Nowdays repackaged as "peak oil". Guess the suckers never learn. Or Dr paul Ehrlich book the population bomb where he virtually wrote off China to the dustpin and pretty much the rest of the world too. And yet I understand he is still well thought of in some circles as "prophetic". Believe he had a series of bets with the late Julian Simon where Ehrlich incorrectly predicted that the price of just about everything would go up over time. Think he lost every bet with Simon, who thought the price of things would stay the same or go down.choff wrote:Funny thing is, I was alive back in the '70's, and it definitely sounded like a consensus to the general population. Likewise, fear mongering '60's preteens airpollution would kill us all before we reached middle age, very easy to rewrite history, especially when it interferes with the new myth. Like trying to edit out every reference to the Medieval warming period.tomclarke wrote:What you are told is journalists writing good copy.choff wrote:I'm 53 now, when I was very young, I was told that if air pollution continued at the then current level, all life on earth would die within 20 years. Later on, I was told air pollution would lead to a new ice age, there were sf books written and sold on that theme for the longest time. Now the scientists have reversed 180 degrees and say global warming is the threat.
Serious scientists can demonstrate the effects of warming over the last decade or two, but they never put it into the context of the Medeival warming period or mini ice age over the last millenium.
As taught to me in elementary school, the vikings called Greenland by its name because it was in fact green, they could keep flocks of grazing animals on it. The change it climate was sudden, barely one ship got out to Iceland. Iceland itself lost half its population because of the climate shift. The Danes couldn't even get ships past the ice to Greenland for the longest time to find out what happened to the people there.
As to the greens wanting population control, who in hell died and made them god!
For example, the scientific consensus was never for an ice age. there was one paper, critiques by otehrs, that got blown up by journalists, and then propagated as an internet myth.
Sorry, no prizes for pointing out the bleeding obvious.choff wrote:There were no internet myths in the '70's.
"and then" as in afterwards, subsequently, some time in the future, not necessarily in the 1970s.there was one paper, critiques by otehrs, that got blown up by journalists, and then propagated as an internet myth
Right. It is when population at large does not understand/like the science, and prefers bite-sized simplifications, or just downright lies.williatw wrote:Yes I can also remember the "energy crises" of the '70's. Nowdays repackaged as "peak oil". Guess the suckers never learn. Or Dr paul Ehrlich book the population bomb where he virtually wrote off China to the dustpin and pretty much the rest of the world too. And yet I understand he is still well thought of in some circles as "prophetic". Believe he had a series of bets with the late Julian Simon where Ehrlich incorrectly predicted that the price of just about everything would go up over time. Think he lost every bet with Simon, who thought the price of things would stay the same or go down.choff wrote:Funny thing is, I was alive back in the '70's, and it definitely sounded like a consensus to the general population. Likewise, fear mongering '60's preteens airpollution would kill us all before we reached middle age, very easy to rewrite history, especially when it interferes with the new myth. Like trying to edit out every reference to the Medieval warming period.tomclarke wrote: What you are told is journalists writing good copy.
For example, the scientific consensus was never for an ice age. there was one paper, critiques by otehrs, that got blown up by journalists, and then propagated as an internet myth.
In the media and popular press "we are all doomed to another ice-age" is good press. No-one bothers to see whether the science says that or not. And all you need is one maverick (possibly working outside their normal field) to say something that makes a good story: it becomes: "scientists say..."
Look at the US "population at large" 45% of which believe in creationism.
Tom
I'm really skeptical about it as well. But look at the numbers Kurzweil's put together. Unless we get a very sharp asymptote in the curve soon, we'll have the means to get past scarcity sooner than later. That said, it'll still be easy (easier than ever?) to screw it all up with the usual human errors.
IMO the best bet is space colonization so that a maximum number of people get away from this hive planet before the near-inevitable happens.
IMO the best bet is space colonization so that a maximum number of people get away from this hive planet before the near-inevitable happens.
You can do anything you want with laws except make Americans obey them. | What I want to do is to look up S. . . . I call him the Schadenfreudean Man.
Betruger wrote:I'm really skeptical about it as well.
I'm pessimistic optimist.
But look at the numbers Kurzweil's put together.
I really hope he's right, but I rather get the feeling that he's allowing his emotional investment in the notion that "The Singularity Is Near" to over ride any objectivity.