[FRIAM] off-label technologies, exaptatiion and exponential technological growth.
Steve Smith
sasmyth at swcp.com
Sat Aug 7 13:23:36 EDT 2021
NST -
>
> until Musk started being convincing (to me) that he might get a modest
> number of humans TO Mars in his (and my?) lifetime.
>
>
>
> Rocket rich guys to Mars, fight a war against… (North Korea, Iran,
> Russia, even China), ANYTHING to avoid paying a living wage on earth.
>
And what about "paying a living wage" does not simply continue an
oppressive system of "wage slavery"?
There are stories that suggest the people who built the pyramids (the
ones who cut/hauled/placed the stones) were not literally slaves
(chains, whips, severe privation, chattel, threat of death, etc) but
rather a "fully utilized skilled labor class with sufficient resources
provided for a comfortable happy life". But it is not like they had
any upward mobility or alternative livelihood (Exodus notwithstanding).
Anyone who has ever survived a "company town" knows that even if most
have modest houses, new vehicles, large screen TVs, and lots of tasty
food and drink and the hope of a gold watch and an RV to snowbird in at
retirement, that such dreams either are false utopias or at least come
to an end for the next generation or so.
I don't endorse Mars Colonization nor continued/enhanced wage-slavery
at-poverty-level, and as a minimal "good start" I do endorse "living
wage". But I don't believe it does anything more than nudge the
boundaries of poverty far enough to keep those previously below the
poverty line from "eating the rich" (which *most* if not all of us
actually represent here)... some of us are more well marbled than others.
Whether I like it or not, I'm pretty sure that Musk, the royalty of the
Emirates, China and gawdess knows who else will continue to angle to
colonize Mars. For me, it makes for a good enough opportunity for the
thought experiments around what it means to start fresh with a few
lessons learned. Of course, we may soon use up the earthlike planets
in our solar system and have to wait a few generations to start
Amurika-forming similar planets in other systems (assuming we don't
extinguish ourselves/one-another first).
Or alternatively: "It's Complicated..."
SAS
>
>
> N
>
> Nick Thompson
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/>
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Prof David West
> *Sent:* Saturday, August 7, 2021 9:49 AM
> *To:* friam at redfish.com
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] off-label technologies, exaptatiion and
> exponential technological growth.
>
>
>
> Highly recommend John Brunner's /The Sheep Look Up/ for fans of
> ecological disaster.
>
>
>
> davew
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 6, 2021, at 8:28 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
>
> ... unbending the psychonaut thread
>
> And something will have to power the artificial magnetosphere
> after the teraforming..
>
> ... as I understand it, Mars lost it's magnetosphere a (long)
> while back and nobody knows why (with the atmosphere and liquid
> water following, blown off into space by the solar wind).
>
> I think we should just wait another millisecond in our exponential
> technological growth curve and build a Stapledon Sphere
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaf_Stapledon> (more commonly
> referenced as a Dyson Sphere) instead. Stapledon's Golden Age
> era /_First and Last Men_/ presaged both terraforming and genetic
> engineering .
>
> Jack Williamson (whose horn I toot here often), another Golden Age
> author, wrote (in modernish times - 2001) the novel Terraforming
> Earth (he died at 98 in 2006). A good friend of mine (who
> introduced us) met Jack when he (my friend) was a pre-teen and
> kept in touch for the next 50+ years, gave him the title
> "Terraforming Terra" which Jack really liked but they both were
> ultimately overruled by his publisher. /Terraforming Terra /is
> much more poetic than /Terraforming Earth/, no?
>
> (speaking of Terraforming... Mars) I held off reading Kim Stanley
> Robinson's Red/Green/Blue Mars trilogy (ca early 90s) until Musk
> started being convincing (to me) that he might get a modest number
> of humans TO Mars in his (and my?) lifetime. I'm still an
> ffFFFing luddite about these things, but I also see an inevitable
> arc here. Robinson did a good job (I thought) of characterizing
> the sociopoliticalspiritual implications of all this. I forget
> how he solved the magnetosphere problem (or powered it).
>
> For anyone who thinks there are endogenous existential threats
> afoot (e.g. climate change) and also appreciates speculative
> fiction, I highly recommend Robinson's Ministry-for-the-Future
> <https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50998056-the-ministry-for-the-future>
> written/published before COVID but not by much. While it doesn't
> exhaustively discuss every sociopoliticaleconomictechnical
> response to a tumbled gyro of our noo-bio-cryo-sphere of a planet,
> it covers a lot very convincingly. I don't suggest any of his
> maunderings will come true or even have more than passing
> resemblance to the future we are stumbling into in the next few
> decades, but it was satisfying to read someone who has clearly
> researched the hell out of the stuff coming at us like a swarm of
> bugs hitting our windshield (while we proudly outdrive our
> headlights).
>
>
>
> On Aug 6, 2021, at 4:52 PM, Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com>
> <mailto:sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> Marcus Daniels wrote:
>
>
>
> Don't forget about Mars!
>
>
>
> LANL physicist Steve Howe was a proponent of plowsharing
> Rover
> <https://www.lanl.gov/science/NSS/issue1_2011/story4full.shtml>
> into a nuclear rocket for Mars with the argument that the
> radiation exposure to astronauts by the drive was less
> than the extra time spent outside the earth's magnetic
> field (charged-particle shield) in the cosmic/solar
> radiation flux.
>
> He went on to promoting antimatter (anti-protons) instead:
>
>
> https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2020/06/steven-howe-breakthroughs-for-antimatter-production-and-storage.html
> <https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2020/06/steven-howe-breakthroughs-for-antimatter-production-and-storage.html>
>
> Oh yeh, and he's the first person I know to have
> self-published (science) fiction through Amazon (before
> Doug Roberts even).
>
> He used to carry a briefcase full of copies on his
> work-travels to sell on the plane and/or restock the rack
> at the ABQ Sunport. I Just checked his Amazon page and
> it seems he's continued to riff:
>
> Steven-Howe
> <https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/entity/author/B005L9MAL2?_encoding=UTF8&node=283155&offset=0&pageSize=12&searchAlias=stripbooks&sort=author-sidecar-rank&page=1&langFilter=default#formatSelectorHeader>
>
> His first book exposes his techno-libertarian tendencies.
> I just learned of the sequel(s).
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>
>
> Sent: Friday, August 6, 2021 8:24 AM
>
> To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam at redfish.com> <mailto:friam at redfish.com>
>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] for our psychonauts
>
>
>
> Reminds me of that period in which people were desperately looking for something to do with nuclear explosives other than kill one another. Like: "Let's blow a new hole in the Isthmus of Panama!" Project Plowshares, it was called.
>
>
>
> Nick Thompson
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ?>$
>
> Sent: Friday, August 6, 2021 10:57 AM
>
> To: FriAM <friam at redfish.com> <mailto:friam at redfish.com>
>
> Subject: [FRIAM] for our psychonauts
>
>
>
>
>
> What Should We Make Of Sasha Chapin's Claim That Taking LSD Restored His Sense Of Smell After COVID?
>
> https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/what-should-we-make-of-sasha-chapins <https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/what-should-we-make-of-sasha-chapins>
>
>
>
> I haven't read it, yet. I'm hoping posting it here will remind me to actually read it.
>
>
>
> --
>
> ☤>$ uǝlƃ
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