Worlds For Man - Part 3 - Earth
Earth, as our homeworld, is already habitable. The problem is that our polluting activities are “de-terraforming” her, rendering her less habitable and destroying the biological riches that are our world’s evolutionary heritage. Our immediate task in managing the Earth’s future is to slow, stop, and eventually reverse this process of
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Short-term:I like the way you handle energy, but there are several problems with it. First, the necessary economic upheaval that would happen if short-term. Crazed Muslims are bad enough, but antagonizing a region of terrorism is kind of dangerous ( ... )
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At this proper time since the Big Bang. Let me borrow a heuristic analysis from Francis Crick's refutation of panspermia (Charles Pelligrino, Ghosts of Vesuvius).
Tacitly assuming that an AI-search abiogenesis process does emerge from the laws of physics: the solar system has about 50% more astronomical metals (elements heavier than lithium) than is typical for a star its age.
(~4.7 billion years since last supernova, per absence of natural isotopes not generated locally with a half-life of 470 million years or less.)
So it seems plausible that Earth is among the first worlds with iron sulfide based metabolism. But, it is unclear how long a "snowball earth" period is actually needed.
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By "short term" I mean over the next several decades, rather than years. The Arabs will sell their oil to progressively poorer regions of the world, or to the last holdouts against nuclear power, before nuclear power becomes so widespread that oil is useful mainly as feedstock.
By the end of the current crisis (the Terror Wars) (*) the principle will be firmly established (probably on the smoking, neutron-emitting ruins of Iran and Pakistan) that backing terrorists is equivalent to an act of war. As a result, terrorism will be subject to the same dynamics of deterrence as any other military strategy.
Buying something one doesn't need from a weaker Power or group of Powers to placate them is a very foolish form of appeasement. I see very little political support for doing this in the Developed World ( ... )
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Good point, I personally would love to see the First World just smashing those arrogant fools with our imperial might by 2017-2020! Huzzah!
The tonnage of fissionables needed to be mined is not great, and the system can thus be segregated from the general environment without unacceptable costs. The big advantage of nuclear over chemical power systems is that the fuel lasts a lot longer.
Which is why the First World should decommission its older nukes for energy purposes, which would help alleviate this problem.
Unless the disaster is truly immense, it only strikes at most one milespire at a time.
I'm not necessarily talking about external disasters here. Internal disasters, caused by either spies from other Milespires (I tend to see them as countries) or social discontent from putting so many people relatively close together.
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I don't see the point of this unless you mean to replace them with newer nuclear reactors ... there are plenty of unmined fissionables in the existing mines, let alone in potential new ones. The goal is to increase the percentage of national power derived from nuclear reactors. And in the long run, we will also have access to extraterrestrial fissionables if we want them, and be able to use deuterium and tritium or tri-helium as fusion fuels.
I'm not necessarily talking about external disasters here. Internal disasters, caused by either spies from other Milespires (I tend to see them as countries) or social discontent from putting so many people relatively close together.If society has fissioned into thousands and thousands of warring small city-states, that would be a very bad thing regardless of the form of architecture employed by these states! Crowding is in relation to available land area: the ( ... )
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I'd call the experiments with the other great apes, which have included the mirror test and extensive sign-language conversations, pretty conclusive. Even if you want to argue that wild apes aren't sapient, it's fairly obvious that Washoe, Koko, Kanzi et al are. Pepperberg's experiments with Alex and other African Gray parrots have been dramatically successful: Alex frequently initiates conversations and makes intellectual leaps, learning principles in advance of his training.
Beyond the great apes and African Gray parrots, we are finding signs of higher-than-expected intelligence throughout birds and mammals. Not (with the possible exception of the orcas) equal to our own, but approaching it in many cases. Even the stupider birds and mammals (passerines, ungulates etc.) are turning out to be smarter than we thought (though not sapient).
... and slavery would be the most likely result.
Sadly, yes ... unless we manage to overcome our darker tendencies in some Awakening.
Social Darwinism would have a ( ... )
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I think you are confusing terms here. Sentience is intelligence, while sapience is the ability to make decisions based on intelligent thought. Both would be necessary.
On Earth, the challenge is to prevent de-terraforming due to accumulated pollution and other environmental damage.
Or thermonuclear war with the Middle East. Y'know, just in case.
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