Advanced Civilizations Could Be Indistinguishable from Nature(universetoday.com)
universetoday.com
Advanced Civilizations Could Be Indistinguishable from Nature
https://www.universetoday.com/169993/advanced-civilizations-could-be-indistinguishable-from-nature/
145 comments
> Organized human civilizations go back 2000-3000 years
More like 10,000 at least [0]
Australian Aborigines are at 50,000 or so, depending on your definition of "organised".
And, inferring from the article, I kinda like the idea that advanced civilisation fade back into nature. Modern humanity is about 100,000 years old. Is that long enough for a civilisation to rise, peak, and fade back into nature? It's a fantasy trope, obviously, but it's cool to think about again with this angle.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_continuously_in... shows a city from 6000BC, so 8000 years ago. I'm not sure that a city is required for an organised civilisation, but an organised civilisation is definitely required for a city.
More like 10,000 at least [0]
Australian Aborigines are at 50,000 or so, depending on your definition of "organised".
And, inferring from the article, I kinda like the idea that advanced civilisation fade back into nature. Modern humanity is about 100,000 years old. Is that long enough for a civilisation to rise, peak, and fade back into nature? It's a fantasy trope, obviously, but it's cool to think about again with this angle.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_continuously_in... shows a city from 6000BC, so 8000 years ago. I'm not sure that a city is required for an organised civilisation, but an organised civilisation is definitely required for a city.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe is almost 4000 years older. Not sure if it meets your definition of city, but it was some sort of human settlement
To the topic of the article, it makes little difference whether 2,000 or 50,000...
The Oxford University timeframe comparison hits hard. It's a sobering way to visualize just how brief our industrial window might be. But I think we're missing some fascinating possibilities here.
You're absolutely right about the recycling entropy battle - those diminishing returns are brutal. But I'm curious about where biological innovation might shift this equation. We're already seeing organisms that can work well beyond the traditional C/H/O/N sandbox - bacteria that reduce metals, engineered microbes that synthesize quantum dots. This hints at possibilities that blur your distinction between biological and industrial approaches.
The interstellar travel conclusion particularly caught my attention. While current biological systems are indeed low-power, that very efficiency might be what makes them perfect for long-haul space missions. Imagine hybrid systems where bio-engineered organisms maintain spacecraft over generations, working alongside traditional tech. Maybe slow and steady wins the interstellar race.
I'd argue we're on the cusp of even more radical transformations in materials science. What if atomic-scale manufacturing fundamentally changes our relationship with scarce resources? The jump from 65% to 15% iron ore might look tiny compared to what's coming. Maybe we're not facing a binary choice between current industrial systems and purely biological ones. The sweet spot might be in hybrid approaches that combine biological resilience with industrial capability.
Curious to hear your thoughts on this - particularly around how engineered biological systems might reshape our assumptions about resource constraints. There's something compelling about the idea of building civilization's next chapter on that 300-million-year track record of biological innovation.
You're absolutely right about the recycling entropy battle - those diminishing returns are brutal. But I'm curious about where biological innovation might shift this equation. We're already seeing organisms that can work well beyond the traditional C/H/O/N sandbox - bacteria that reduce metals, engineered microbes that synthesize quantum dots. This hints at possibilities that blur your distinction between biological and industrial approaches.
The interstellar travel conclusion particularly caught my attention. While current biological systems are indeed low-power, that very efficiency might be what makes them perfect for long-haul space missions. Imagine hybrid systems where bio-engineered organisms maintain spacecraft over generations, working alongside traditional tech. Maybe slow and steady wins the interstellar race.
I'd argue we're on the cusp of even more radical transformations in materials science. What if atomic-scale manufacturing fundamentally changes our relationship with scarce resources? The jump from 65% to 15% iron ore might look tiny compared to what's coming. Maybe we're not facing a binary choice between current industrial systems and purely biological ones. The sweet spot might be in hybrid approaches that combine biological resilience with industrial capability.
Curious to hear your thoughts on this - particularly around how engineered biological systems might reshape our assumptions about resource constraints. There's something compelling about the idea of building civilization's next chapter on that 300-million-year track record of biological innovation.
> bacteria that reduce metals
Separate metals from organics, yes.[1] Reduce metals, probably not. Reduce means to pull a metal out of its oxide. This is way uphill energetically. It is usually done by heating the oxide to a high temperature in an oxygen-poor environment. The other direction, oxidation, produces energy, and there are some biological processes that use that.
Still, there are some bacteria which manipulate manganese.[2]
> What if atomic-scale manufacturing fundamentally changes our relationship with scarce resources?
I used to know Drexler, the early nanotechnology guy, back when nanotechnology meant pushing atoms around by mechanical means, rather than surface chemistry. Not much came of that. It's hard to apply enough force to break strong molecular bonds apart. IBM did manage to spell out "IBM" with xenon atoms, but xenon is inert and doesn't bond strongly to anything. No strong bonds to break.
Asteroid mining is potentially possible. Somebody will probably try it for gold and platinum within fifty years. It's unlikely to become cost-effective for cheaper metals.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00489...
[2] https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/16/world/metal-eating-bacteria-i...
Separate metals from organics, yes.[1] Reduce metals, probably not. Reduce means to pull a metal out of its oxide. This is way uphill energetically. It is usually done by heating the oxide to a high temperature in an oxygen-poor environment. The other direction, oxidation, produces energy, and there are some biological processes that use that.
Still, there are some bacteria which manipulate manganese.[2]
> What if atomic-scale manufacturing fundamentally changes our relationship with scarce resources?
I used to know Drexler, the early nanotechnology guy, back when nanotechnology meant pushing atoms around by mechanical means, rather than surface chemistry. Not much came of that. It's hard to apply enough force to break strong molecular bonds apart. IBM did manage to spell out "IBM" with xenon atoms, but xenon is inert and doesn't bond strongly to anything. No strong bonds to break.
Asteroid mining is potentially possible. Somebody will probably try it for gold and platinum within fifty years. It's unlikely to become cost-effective for cheaper metals.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00489...
[2] https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/16/world/metal-eating-bacteria-i...
> Drexler, the early nanotechnology guy, back when nanotechnology meant pushing atoms around by mechanical means, rather than surface chemistry.
I bought his book Engines of Creation when it came out and his thesis had the air of inevitability - how could it not materialize some day ? It seemed so self-evident.
I bought his book Engines of Creation when it came out and his thesis had the air of inevitability - how could it not materialize some day ? It seemed so self-evident.
Pushing atoms around by mechanical means only seems plausible if you've never really studied molecular chemistry - see the Drexler/Smalley debate - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drexler%E2%80%93Smalley_debate...
It’s a good debate. I tend to agree with Ray K’s commentary.
I remember reading engines of creation in my second year of uni and then asking Andre Geim for a summer placement - he said no, he was busy, and then a few months after he got the Nobel prize. Instead I went to the material science school and got a summer project playing with the old tunneling electron microscope in the basement. it felt like flying a 747, given how many buttons, levers and knobs you had to tune to get a good picture of nanotubes. They also showed me their state of the art AFM but I wasn't allowed to breathe near it.
> Reduce means to pull a metal out of its oxide. This is way uphill energetically.
For iron (Fe2+) is about the same order of magnitude than getting organic matter out of CO2, which is what photosynthesis does, so it doesn't really sounds impossible. The main problem is that in an oxygen rich atmosphere, any metallic iron atom it would spontaneously get back to its oxide form pretty much instantly…
For iron (Fe2+) is about the same order of magnitude than getting organic matter out of CO2, which is what photosynthesis does, so it doesn't really sounds impossible. The main problem is that in an oxygen rich atmosphere, any metallic iron atom it would spontaneously get back to its oxide form pretty much instantly…
> While current biological systems are indeed low-power, that very efficiency might be what makes them perfect for long-haul space missions. Imagine hybrid systems where bio-engineered organisms maintain spacecraft over generations, working alongside traditional tech. Maybe slow and steady wins the interstellar race.
Perhaps, but unlikely.
As far as we know (but we could be wrong), interstellar civilization is the business of a Type II civilization on the Kardashev scale. They can extract fusion energy, raw materials, and information from multiple solar systems.
Perhaps, but unlikely.
As far as we know (but we could be wrong), interstellar civilization is the business of a Type II civilization on the Kardashev scale. They can extract fusion energy, raw materials, and information from multiple solar systems.
>As far as we know (but we could be wrong), interstellar civilization is the business of a Type II civilization on the Kardashev scale.
As far as we know? We know nothing and the Kardashev scale is just a toy hypothesis come on.
As far as we know? We know nothing and the Kardashev scale is just a toy hypothesis come on.
> The Oxford University timeframe comparison hits hard. It's a sobering way to visualize just how brief our industrial window might be.
For context, it was founded over 800 years ago.
For context, it was founded over 800 years ago.
I largely agree, but a few quibbles:
- the Great Pyramid is closer to 4600 years old
- we will always have common crust elements, eg 27.7% silicon, 8.1% aluminum, 5% iron, 3.6% calcium, 2.8% sodium, 2.6% potassium, and 2.1% magnesium; so the question is those and biological elements (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen)
- you can probably do space travel from that list, which gets you easier to consume versions of those elements as well, eg asteroids
- and from there interstellar travel is possible.
- the Great Pyramid is closer to 4600 years old
- we will always have common crust elements, eg 27.7% silicon, 8.1% aluminum, 5% iron, 3.6% calcium, 2.8% sodium, 2.6% potassium, and 2.1% magnesium; so the question is those and biological elements (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen)
- you can probably do space travel from that list, which gets you easier to consume versions of those elements as well, eg asteroids
- and from there interstellar travel is possible.
We don't have a reliable age for the Great Pyramid. Since we can't do radiocarbon dating on rocks, all of the estimates are based on somewhat circumstantial evidence. It could be much older, possibly with some more recent maintenance. I'm not claiming any particular age, just that we don't really know.
While we can't radiocarbon date rocks, we can do that with other building material. From Wikipedia:
Mortar was used generously in the Great Pyramid's construction. In the mixing process ashes from fires were added to the mortar, organic material that could be extracted and radiocarbon dated. A total of 46 samples of the mortar were taken in 1984 and 1995, making sure they were clearly inherent to the original structure and could not have been incorporated at a later date. The results were calibrated to 2871–2604 BC.
Mortar was used generously in the Great Pyramid's construction. In the mixing process ashes from fires were added to the mortar, organic material that could be extracted and radiocarbon dated. A total of 46 samples of the mortar were taken in 1984 and 1995, making sure they were clearly inherent to the original structure and could not have been incorporated at a later date. The results were calibrated to 2871–2604 BC.
Compelling evidence, but if the aliens who built the pyramids brought in mortar from another planet, the isotopic ratios could be totally different. So the date of the pyramids could be anything really if we throw out Occam’s razor and rationality in general.
could you please highlight where you think the poster threw out Occam's razor? Probing the mortar seems to be to be a reasonable proxy for the age of the construction?
There's plenty of evidence that it was built for the Pharoah Khufu about 4,500 years ago.
To suggest otherwise is just insane aliens conspiracy theory nonsense. Is this post a satire of that BS? I really find it hard to tell.
To suggest otherwise is just insane aliens conspiracy theory nonsense. Is this post a satire of that BS? I really find it hard to tell.
See "The Age of Substitutability (What do we do when the mercury runs out?)"
https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/5045860
The conclusion: most material demand is for elements so common on Earth that supplies will never run out. Only more energy is required to deal with super-low-grade ores (like 10% Fe basalt instead of 15% Fe taconite). The rare elements can largely be substituted so that the residuum of non-substitutable demand can stretch supplies to millions of years.
As you'd expect of a paper coauthored by Alvin Weinberg in 1975, the energy solution proposed is "fission breeder reactors" but there's a nod toward the long term potential of solar power and fusion.
https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/5045860
The conclusion: most material demand is for elements so common on Earth that supplies will never run out. Only more energy is required to deal with super-low-grade ores (like 10% Fe basalt instead of 15% Fe taconite). The rare elements can largely be substituted so that the residuum of non-substitutable demand can stretch supplies to millions of years.
As you'd expect of a paper coauthored by Alvin Weinberg in 1975, the energy solution proposed is "fission breeder reactors" but there's a nod toward the long term potential of solar power and fusion.
Yes, a lot of people on this post have mentioned that with proper planning, a more long-term perspective and consideration for human well-being, growth doesn't have the same limits.
Sure, but if you had a consideration for human well-being, if you had a society where people thought about "what should things look like in a hundred or a thousand years" you wouldn't have any impetus for exponential growth.
Sure, but if you had a consideration for human well-being, if you had a society where people thought about "what should things look like in a hundred or a thousand years" you wouldn't have any impetus for exponential growth.
Exponential growth in material resource consumption is necessarily a short term phenomenon on the scale of known history. The UCSD Do The Math guy has shown why exponential supply growth is not possible in the long run. The more binding constraint is the lack of demand growth. Even if the world had the capacity to supply every person with an extra 100 tons per year of steel or an extra 10 tons of pork, why would everyone buy that much? There's no point. It would be like hoarding drums full of seawater. Whether we plan for the end or not, the exponential growth era is transitory.
I appreciate your overall framing one thing worth pointing out, though is we really won’t ever be mineral limited as long as our sun is alive. I think in a 50 to 100 years asteroid mining and/or non-terrestrial habitats will become normal
Everyone said that in the 70s, then we expected flying cars, and android servants…. Look at us today, instead of the flying cars we have war drones, war robots and the only territorial expansion is into other countries. I wish I can have the same positivity as you but I fear human won’t be around in the next 50 years if wars continue as today
We also have electric cars and reusable rockets. We can do either; it's just up to us to decide what's most important.
Electric cars aren’t impressive. If you want to actually point to the surprising innovation over that period, it’s computers and the internet.
We had mass market computers 30 years before mass market electric cars, so I think they are quite impressive.
Meanwhile GM built a few https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1 from 1996 to 1999, which all got recalled until 2003 because of corporate politics / 'for business reasons'.
Which is the topic of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car? from 2006.
So 'mass market' could very well have been possible about 30 years ago, without Grumpy Management … … …
Which is the topic of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car? from 2006.
So 'mass market' could very well have been possible about 30 years ago, without Grumpy Management … … …
Even then, having the vision to roll out superchargers, and cannibalise a very successful business, and invest a fortune in a brand new from-scratch platform, is just supremely unlikely in practice. Why jeopardise your bonus?
The first cars were also electric, it’s not groundbreaking technology. Remember the bar here is on the order of flying cars. Only computers come close to clearing that for me.
The Difference Engine design was around even before that, but it would also be bad faith to argue that computers aren't a modern miracle.
We didn’t have diesel computers able to be used by the average person and capable of roughly the same range and volume of arithmetic operations as modern computers. We did have gasoline powered cars that served precisely the same function. Electric cars are an improvement in energy efficiency, climate impact, and user experience, but really just an iterative improvement on existing vehicles.
Maybe we deserve that honestly.
Also there would be the use of new materials, such as diamond films.
> But you don't get interstellar travel out of biology. Too low-powered.
The thing is interstellar travel makes no sense except in science fiction books: there's literally nothing of interest to be worth trading in other planetary systems, and trade has always been the motive for maritime exploration, because it's what get you the massive funding such endeavor requires.
And btw even close space colonization doesn't make any sense either: we may end up with a vanity base on Mars before realizing that it costs a lot, for living conditions that are more harsh than at the top of mount Everest. Even if world population wasn't plateauing and headed to a decline, colonization of Siberia or even Antarctica would make much more sense.
The thing is interstellar travel makes no sense except in science fiction books: there's literally nothing of interest to be worth trading in other planetary systems, and trade has always been the motive for maritime exploration, because it's what get you the massive funding such endeavor requires.
And btw even close space colonization doesn't make any sense either: we may end up with a vanity base on Mars before realizing that it costs a lot, for living conditions that are more harsh than at the top of mount Everest. Even if world population wasn't plateauing and headed to a decline, colonization of Siberia or even Antarctica would make much more sense.
Colonization would, I think, not require economic justification. Using transportation and communication barriers to facilitate isolation or at least localization may be important to some people.
With vast discretionary spending, people would be able to sacrifice some pleasures for pleasures related to achieving a long-term impractical goal. Space travel does not have to be the most efficient means of enjoying life to be a human choice.
A colony in Antarctica would be much more practical than one on the Moon, but a Lunar colony is more romantic.
If material trade is not worthwhile, conquest may be somewhat discouraged. (Some people might wish to rule all of humanity or convert/exterminate all heretics, so no distance would be perfectly safe, but a perceived threat in Antarctica would be easier to eliminate than a perceived threat on the Moon or in the Large Magellanic Cloud.)
With vast discretionary spending, people would be able to sacrifice some pleasures for pleasures related to achieving a long-term impractical goal. Space travel does not have to be the most efficient means of enjoying life to be a human choice.
A colony in Antarctica would be much more practical than one on the Moon, but a Lunar colony is more romantic.
If material trade is not worthwhile, conquest may be somewhat discouraged. (Some people might wish to rule all of humanity or convert/exterminate all heretics, so no distance would be perfectly safe, but a perceived threat in Antarctica would be easier to eliminate than a perceived threat on the Moon or in the Large Magellanic Cloud.)
> Colonization would, I think, not require economic justification. Using transportation and communication barriers to facilitate isolation or at least localization may be important to some people. […]
> A colony in Antarctica would be much more practical than one on the Moon, but a Lunar colony is more romantic.
This really highlights the problem with the belief of “space colonization”: people have a romanticized fantasy of what it would be like: because it's so remote, and dangerous (and expensive), a lunar base would be the exact opposite of isolation: people would live packed in really tight space with little opportunity for isolation or intimacy except in the bathroom. It would be the modern version of being a sailor in a 17th century merchant ship, hopefully without the scurvy.
> but a perceived threat in Antarctica would be easier to eliminate than a perceived threat on the Moon or in the Large Magellanic Cloud.)
What makes you think that? If we have transportation mediums able to build a colony on the moon (that is, able to send tons of material out there) we have the means of transportation needed for carpet bombing it! But you wouldn't even need that, as a moon base would be as dependent from earth as an antarctic base is from mainland (you're not going to put a TSMC chip fab on the moon anytime soon…)
> A colony in Antarctica would be much more practical than one on the Moon, but a Lunar colony is more romantic.
This really highlights the problem with the belief of “space colonization”: people have a romanticized fantasy of what it would be like: because it's so remote, and dangerous (and expensive), a lunar base would be the exact opposite of isolation: people would live packed in really tight space with little opportunity for isolation or intimacy except in the bathroom. It would be the modern version of being a sailor in a 17th century merchant ship, hopefully without the scurvy.
> but a perceived threat in Antarctica would be easier to eliminate than a perceived threat on the Moon or in the Large Magellanic Cloud.)
What makes you think that? If we have transportation mediums able to build a colony on the moon (that is, able to send tons of material out there) we have the means of transportation needed for carpet bombing it! But you wouldn't even need that, as a moon base would be as dependent from earth as an antarctic base is from mainland (you're not going to put a TSMC chip fab on the moon anytime soon…)
I think the security is actually pretty good on the other space bodies, provided the colony is self-sufficient and does not depend on supplies from Earth. Mars is better then Moon though.
The modern space rockets are slow and easily detectable, and I am sure that if one could get to the moon, and then wanted to build a system that shoots them down, they'd be able to. Especially given that moon-based interceptors will have much smaller gravity well to worry about.
Another argument is that very technically complex products, like space rockets, require a complex society. So if Earth falls into anarchy, there is a good chance the supply chains would be disturbed enough that no one could build multiple space rockets full of bombs even if they wanted to.
The modern space rockets are slow and easily detectable, and I am sure that if one could get to the moon, and then wanted to build a system that shoots them down, they'd be able to. Especially given that moon-based interceptors will have much smaller gravity well to worry about.
Another argument is that very technically complex products, like space rockets, require a complex society. So if Earth falls into anarchy, there is a good chance the supply chains would be disturbed enough that no one could build multiple space rockets full of bombs even if they wanted to.
> I think the security is actually pretty good on the other space bodies,
You realize that any failure of a life-support device (air containment and renewal, water storage and renewal, heating) means you're dead before anyone can send help? It's like being stranded on an inflatable boat in the middle of the ocean: one tiny hole you can't fix and you're dead.
> provided the colony is self-sufficient and does not depend on supplies from Earth. Mars is better then Moon though.
Please tell me how your colony is going to manufacture the semiconductors it relies on in a self-sufficient way…
> So if Earth falls into anarchy,
That's the opposite argument from the one you made above (“Some people might wish to rule all of humanity or convert/exterminate all heretics” is the opposite of anarchy!) and in that case you're as safe on Antarctica from a military perspective.
> there is a good chance the supply chains would be disturbed
Which means death in medium terms, because as I said above as no space base can be self-sufficient (heck no country on earth can be self sufficient in the modern world already, how do you expect a small spacial colony to be better at self-sufficiency than China?!)
You realize that any failure of a life-support device (air containment and renewal, water storage and renewal, heating) means you're dead before anyone can send help? It's like being stranded on an inflatable boat in the middle of the ocean: one tiny hole you can't fix and you're dead.
> provided the colony is self-sufficient and does not depend on supplies from Earth. Mars is better then Moon though.
Please tell me how your colony is going to manufacture the semiconductors it relies on in a self-sufficient way…
> So if Earth falls into anarchy,
That's the opposite argument from the one you made above (“Some people might wish to rule all of humanity or convert/exterminate all heretics” is the opposite of anarchy!) and in that case you're as safe on Antarctica from a military perspective.
> there is a good chance the supply chains would be disturbed
Which means death in medium terms, because as I said above as no space base can be self-sufficient (heck no country on earth can be self sufficient in the modern world already, how do you expect a small spacial colony to be better at self-sufficiency than China?!)
Mars colonization doesn't make much sense, but building O'Neill Cylinders when humanity runs out of space or energy on Earth might.
>interstellar travel makes no sense
For vacation or finding new spices to sell, no, but if you've exhausted all the matter in the solar system or humanity outlives useful solar output from the sun and fusion energy is still +20 years away, there isn't really a choice.
The time it takes for interstellar travel doesn't make sense on human time scales, but people still plant trees knowing they will not live to sit under their shade.
>interstellar travel makes no sense
For vacation or finding new spices to sell, no, but if you've exhausted all the matter in the solar system or humanity outlives useful solar output from the sun and fusion energy is still +20 years away, there isn't really a choice.
The time it takes for interstellar travel doesn't make sense on human time scales, but people still plant trees knowing they will not live to sit under their shade.
> people still plant trees knowing they will not live to sit under their shade
Stuff like this really gives me faith in humanity amidst the insanity I see in the news.
I've been watching a "volunteer" oak sapling grow for the last few years and I'm trying to work around it so I don't have to cut it down. I may very well be dead before it provides appreciable shade, but it's nice knowing that it's there.
On the other hand, when my now 14-year-old was three, he stuck a cast-off bit of a branch (I think it's a basswood?) into the ground outside the house and declared it as his tree and watered it faithfully for a few days before losing interest. That "branch" now towers over the house and shades a room that used to get pretty hot in the afternoon. If I had any idea that it would actually take root and grow, I'd have moved it farther away from the house.
I like trees. I've planted a few using the County's native sapling program and it's been nice watching them grow over the last 15 years.
Stuff like this really gives me faith in humanity amidst the insanity I see in the news.
I've been watching a "volunteer" oak sapling grow for the last few years and I'm trying to work around it so I don't have to cut it down. I may very well be dead before it provides appreciable shade, but it's nice knowing that it's there.
On the other hand, when my now 14-year-old was three, he stuck a cast-off bit of a branch (I think it's a basswood?) into the ground outside the house and declared it as his tree and watered it faithfully for a few days before losing interest. That "branch" now towers over the house and shades a room that used to get pretty hot in the afternoon. If I had any idea that it would actually take root and grow, I'd have moved it farther away from the house.
I like trees. I've planted a few using the County's native sapling program and it's been nice watching them grow over the last 15 years.
> Mars colonization doesn't make much sense, but building O'Neill Cylinders when humanity runs out of space or energy on Earth might.
Space on earth isn't going to run out anytime soon (as I said colonizing Siberia and Antarctica is much more approachable, and there's the oceans too!) especially since the world population is plateauing!
> but if you've exhausted all the matter in the solar system or humanity outlives useful solar output from the sun and fusion energy is still +20 years away
That “if” really feels like “I'll need a second hat if I grow a second head in the night”.
> The time it takes for interstellar travel doesn't make sense on human time scales, but people still plant trees knowing they will not live to sit under their shade.
That's a good analogy, because individuals do, but for-profits mostly plant trees with short lifetime and quick return on investment. And you're not going to fund space travel with individuals' money…
Space on earth isn't going to run out anytime soon (as I said colonizing Siberia and Antarctica is much more approachable, and there's the oceans too!) especially since the world population is plateauing!
> but if you've exhausted all the matter in the solar system or humanity outlives useful solar output from the sun and fusion energy is still +20 years away
That “if” really feels like “I'll need a second hat if I grow a second head in the night”.
> The time it takes for interstellar travel doesn't make sense on human time scales, but people still plant trees knowing they will not live to sit under their shade.
That's a good analogy, because individuals do, but for-profits mostly plant trees with short lifetime and quick return on investment. And you're not going to fund space travel with individuals' money…
I'm inclined to disagree, because 8 days ago I found https://ors.daeken.dev from this hn-comment:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42388557
It's about multiple orbital rings around earth, and what that would enable.
Just needs some more https://daniel-suarez.com/Delta-v_synopsis.html and 'Critical Mass' ( sequel https://daniel-suarez.com/index.html ) to get into early The Expanse stage :)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42388557
It's about multiple orbital rings around earth, and what that would enable.
Just needs some more https://daniel-suarez.com/Delta-v_synopsis.html and 'Critical Mass' ( sequel https://daniel-suarez.com/index.html ) to get into early The Expanse stage :)
I read tons of space opera when I was a teenager and I loved it, but the truth is that none of this makes sense: it's all about entertainment and that's it. It's not a practical description of what could be than Pirate of the Caribbeans is a description of the lives of 17th century's pirates.
I still disagree :)
Have you read Delta-V or a summary of it at least?
The 'opera' part is just about common human/political stupidity, the space and technology parts don't seem to be.
Which ors.deaken.dev conveniently leaves out, at the moment, like empty geopolitics :)
Have you read Delta-V or a summary of it at least?
The 'opera' part is just about common human/political stupidity, the space and technology parts don't seem to be.
Which ors.deaken.dev conveniently leaves out, at the moment, like empty geopolitics :)
Interstellar travel solves the "finite resources" problem. Granted, intrastellar travel can do that as well: Earth's moon first for its H3, then use that as a launchpad to go other places for resources that are limited or running out on Earth (iron, silicon, gold, etc.).
People vastly underestimate how big space is: by the time you do a round trip to your next-solar-system-resource-storage then the shortage it was supposed to address is no more (because society has adapted) and all the people who planned the expedition in the first place are long dead.
Space is big, inhospitable and mostly empty, its size doesn't work with the time frame the human species is working on.
Space is big, inhospitable and mostly empty, its size doesn't work with the time frame the human species is working on.
In that lens, there seems to be two obvious paths: expand to new planets or climb the Kardashev scale and use your limitless energy to recycle every atom.
As long as you can get to one of those stages before you run out of the required industrial capacity you should be fine.
If we absolutely had to, I think the human species could moonshot our way to either fusion or asteroid mining inside a couple decades. At least with our present resources, maybe not in a century from now.
As long as you can get to one of those stages before you run out of the required industrial capacity you should be fine.
If we absolutely had to, I think the human species could moonshot our way to either fusion or asteroid mining inside a couple decades. At least with our present resources, maybe not in a century from now.
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What if we mined deeper? Earth has relatively small surface but vast volume.
You do know that earth is a Roman pizza, not a Neopolitan pizza. It has a thin crust.
I meant deeper than crust.
> What if we mined deeper?
Below the crust is the mantle, which is ~2,900km thick. Like the crust, is also mostly solid rocks and minerals, but punctuated by malleable areas of semi-solid magma. Composition primarily silicon, magnesium, and oxygen.
Below the mantle is the outer core, a liquid layer mostly made up of iron and nickel. The outer core is ~2,200km thick. It is primarily responsible for generating the magnetic field of earth.
Below the outer core is the solid inner core, with diameter of about 2,400km. It is solid and primarily made up of iron and nickel.
Below the crust is the mantle, which is ~2,900km thick. Like the crust, is also mostly solid rocks and minerals, but punctuated by malleable areas of semi-solid magma. Composition primarily silicon, magnesium, and oxygen.
Below the mantle is the outer core, a liquid layer mostly made up of iron and nickel. The outer core is ~2,200km thick. It is primarily responsible for generating the magnetic field of earth.
Below the outer core is the solid inner core, with diameter of about 2,400km. It is solid and primarily made up of iron and nickel.
We never reached the mantle, I think, there might be plenty of good stuff there. After all crust is primarily composed of Oxygen, silicon and aluminum which sounds equally boring.
> 300 million years
3 thousand million?
3 thousand million?
I'm really surprised at how little concern there is for conserving metals and findings ways to recover them from landfills. Any amount of plastic, even a single straw, makes people angry, but you can waste a pretty large amount of metal or clay or any other natural material and it seems almost nobody cares.
The growth is unsustainable argument is very strange to me. We absolutely have the technology to make growth sustainable, but societies choose to go for other things because overall growth and advancement of humanity is not generally a goal at mass individual level.
For example, currently society is busy transitioning to electrified transport. Los Angeles had a vast network of that 80+ years ago (red car light rail system). We also have had nuclear power as an option for a very long time. And yet, red cars were scrapped, rail removed, freeways built, we still burn gas and what not for power, and California has a ban on new nuclear… It’s not that we can’t do all this, it’s that for various reasons we choose not to.
It’s quite human-centric to assume that all other possible civilizations will make the same choices. It seems more likely that there will be as many choices and value systems as there are possible life sustaining planets out there. This doesn’t answer the paradox of course.
For example, currently society is busy transitioning to electrified transport. Los Angeles had a vast network of that 80+ years ago (red car light rail system). We also have had nuclear power as an option for a very long time. And yet, red cars were scrapped, rail removed, freeways built, we still burn gas and what not for power, and California has a ban on new nuclear… It’s not that we can’t do all this, it’s that for various reasons we choose not to.
It’s quite human-centric to assume that all other possible civilizations will make the same choices. It seems more likely that there will be as many choices and value systems as there are possible life sustaining planets out there. This doesn’t answer the paradox of course.
> We absolutely have the technology to make growth sustainable
No, respectfully, we don't.
Every organism that succeeds in doing what you advocate for (growing "sustainably") is swept from the record. If life doesn't cycle (grow/shrink) or otherwise live in equilibria, life exhausts its niche on any meaningful timescale, and the universe sends it into oblivion.
Perhaps interestingly, even records of "successfully" growing are purged, because the most effective thing that persists records of life on long timescales is the descendant path of the life itself (whether that's specific DNA sequences maintained as mutational clocks by cellular machinery, or libraries of books and concepts maintained by specific civilisations), and uncapped growth collapses the informational diversity required for life to thrive and persist -- by which I mean that we, as continuously persisting living biological and cultural structures, are the best evidence of living things like us existing a million or a thousand years ago.
When the lineage dies, evidence of the experiment rapidly decays, compared to actually successful experiments that refrain from growth and collapse of their ecology. Only DNA/culture that doesn't "succeed" in growing beyond its resources survives on a significant timescale. When an overly zealous strain of life grows too much and fails, evidence of that life is swiftly and rapidly purged as well, for any later life that cares to try to look.
No, respectfully, we don't.
Every organism that succeeds in doing what you advocate for (growing "sustainably") is swept from the record. If life doesn't cycle (grow/shrink) or otherwise live in equilibria, life exhausts its niche on any meaningful timescale, and the universe sends it into oblivion.
Perhaps interestingly, even records of "successfully" growing are purged, because the most effective thing that persists records of life on long timescales is the descendant path of the life itself (whether that's specific DNA sequences maintained as mutational clocks by cellular machinery, or libraries of books and concepts maintained by specific civilisations), and uncapped growth collapses the informational diversity required for life to thrive and persist -- by which I mean that we, as continuously persisting living biological and cultural structures, are the best evidence of living things like us existing a million or a thousand years ago.
When the lineage dies, evidence of the experiment rapidly decays, compared to actually successful experiments that refrain from growth and collapse of their ecology. Only DNA/culture that doesn't "succeed" in growing beyond its resources survives on a significant timescale. When an overly zealous strain of life grows too much and fails, evidence of that life is swiftly and rapidly purged as well, for any later life that cares to try to look.
I don't why biological limitations restrict humanity's long-term future.
We are already ignoring them - right now it's freezing outside, and no human could not survive in such weather using biology alone. I am also living in a city which is way too dense to sustain natural human society.
There is always a risk of entire species dying out, for example via global war, or everyone suddenly deciding they don't want technology and then freezing to death in the winter; but there are no universal long-term limitations. At some moment there will be independent colonies at other worlds, and then humanity will be eternal.
We are already ignoring them - right now it's freezing outside, and no human could not survive in such weather using biology alone. I am also living in a city which is way too dense to sustain natural human society.
There is always a risk of entire species dying out, for example via global war, or everyone suddenly deciding they don't want technology and then freezing to death in the winter; but there are no universal long-term limitations. At some moment there will be independent colonies at other worlds, and then humanity will be eternal.
The idea that we should use finite natural resources more slowly or not at all to be sustainable doesn't make sense. What are we saving them for? Future people who would also uses them unsustainably? If we're sustainable forever, then future people won't need them. If future people do need them, they won't be sustainable and won't last. So why don't we just use them up as fast as we like?
Perhaps future people will have some important but finite need for them. So we save them for that one big moment when they're used for the really important purpose that will never be important anymore in the future of the human race? Seems unlikely such a use will appear, at least not one more important than what we've already done in building our industrialized society.
Perhaps future people will have some important but finite need for them. So we save them for that one big moment when they're used for the really important purpose that will never be important anymore in the future of the human race? Seems unlikely such a use will appear, at least not one more important than what we've already done in building our industrialized society.
If the finite resources here are fossil fuels then the idea is to never use them again. It was a bad idea to continue using these a long time ago and it will still be a bad idea in the future. Sustainable energy production is not about deferring something, it’s about not poisoning where you live. That does not mean giving up on useful technologies. For example, synthetic hydrocarbon fuels can be made in a carbon neutral way, it’s just very expensive today. These would solve for some applications where EVs are not yet practical, etc.
Yes but that's a separate issue from conserving non-renewable resources.
Using finite resources more slowly gives you more time to invent alternatives. Imagine what would've happened if we used up all fossil fuels we had alternatives.
Peak oil is a good example of scarcity theories diverging from our observations. What happened when the known, easily exploitable oil fields were exploited? Additional exploration was incentivized. New techniques were developed for accessing petroleum resources which were previously unknown or unprofitable.
"But scarcity", as an argument should not be deployed where it will hamper further innovation and value creation. Consuming petroleum fuels increases our standard of living and productivity. It is from this comfortable perch of increased productivity that we are able to apply our resources towards finding additional energy sources.
Thus far there have not been "Limits to Growth" along this path of natural market incentives. Yet, it is easy to see how fears of scarcity could hamstring the process. The actions driven by these fears could potentially limit growth and manifest the fears into a reality.
Scarcity arguments typically have powerful political incentives. Central planners are tasked with determining which uses of energy are 'righteous' or acceptable. Some have even suggested that carbon credits be issued as a new form of currency. Move over petro-dollar, there's a new sheriff in town. Permission slips to consume energy, gatekept by our betters, the benevolent central planners.
https://www.wired.com/1997/02/the-doomslayer-2/
"But scarcity", as an argument should not be deployed where it will hamper further innovation and value creation. Consuming petroleum fuels increases our standard of living and productivity. It is from this comfortable perch of increased productivity that we are able to apply our resources towards finding additional energy sources.
Thus far there have not been "Limits to Growth" along this path of natural market incentives. Yet, it is easy to see how fears of scarcity could hamstring the process. The actions driven by these fears could potentially limit growth and manifest the fears into a reality.
Scarcity arguments typically have powerful political incentives. Central planners are tasked with determining which uses of energy are 'righteous' or acceptable. Some have even suggested that carbon credits be issued as a new form of currency. Move over petro-dollar, there's a new sheriff in town. Permission slips to consume energy, gatekept by our betters, the benevolent central planners.
https://www.wired.com/1997/02/the-doomslayer-2/
The motivation against freely consuming fossil fuels is climate change. These central planners are usually cynical actors, but they respond to and take advantage of the work of quite intelligent scientists who point out that if we continue to do this much longer, we will likely destabilize global agriculture, especially in less developed areas. This will cause our economy to collapse and global tensions to escalate dramatically alongside the deaths of many millions if not billions of people. Artificially introduced incentives may be a decent way for us to use the market to evolve ways out of this problem, since without those incentives the market appears to be a relatively short-term thinker.
If there had been a few thousand times less coal on the world but all of it readily accessible the Industrial Revolution had been over before we had time to move on from steam engines. We probably would have used all of it for heating in antiquity.
Petroleum fuel oils eclipsed coal for transportation purposes, due to the ease of operation. Initially, readily accessible surface petroleum was viewed as a nuisance which devalued land. Oil exploration only became profitable because these readily accessible resources were exploited and monetized.
Similarly, tin mining developed during antiquity. As easily accessible surface deposits were exploited, new sources were tapped from Cornwall to Bactria.
Scarcity theorists overlook the human element. Humanity itself is our greatest resource. Increases to our standard of living drive productivity gains. Leisure time offers opportunities for our ingenuity to solve additional problems. When measured by the decentralized markets, these endeavors further increase human productivity. The cycle continues and we all benefit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_sources_and_trade_during_a...
Similarly, tin mining developed during antiquity. As easily accessible surface deposits were exploited, new sources were tapped from Cornwall to Bactria.
Scarcity theorists overlook the human element. Humanity itself is our greatest resource. Increases to our standard of living drive productivity gains. Leisure time offers opportunities for our ingenuity to solve additional problems. When measured by the decentralized markets, these endeavors further increase human productivity. The cycle continues and we all benefit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_sources_and_trade_during_a...
Kind of like what we did with megafauna, big slow growing trees, forests, and I imagine a lot of dinosaur fossils. But if you're imagining such an impoverished world, what if there had been no fossil fuels at all? Or no humans or no Earth. It starts to get a bit silly going down that track.
But where are we at now? Have we already invented the alternatives so it doesn't matter how we use what's left? Or are we waiting for future people to consume those resources to invent some as-yet-not-invented alternatives? How will they even know they're on the path to inventing those alternatives and decide to consume the remaining resources for that goal instead of uselessly saving them forever like a hoarder?
Turns out we didn't use up fossil fuels before we invented at least some alternatives, so lucky us. But that's not because previous generations restricted their economic development to altruistically save some for us, which is what modern save-the-resources people want.
Turns out we didn't use up fossil fuels before we invented at least some alternatives, so lucky us. But that's not because previous generations restricted their economic development to altruistically save some for us, which is what modern save-the-resources people want.
Economic growth, in our current paradigm, requires the production of ever more goods, which in turn requires ever more energy and natural resources. That is unsustainable, because nature is finite.
My personal theory is that any advanced civilization that is capable of interstellar travel must have conquered their animal instincts and realized that growth for the sake of growth is pointless.
My personal theory is that any advanced civilization that is capable of interstellar travel must have conquered their animal instincts and realized that growth for the sake of growth is pointless.
An important point to think about, but ultimately wrong I think.
The reason that the software industry is so valuable today is not just that it's innovative, it's also that it can grow in a way that isn't strongly constrained by material.
The material required to provide one dollar of value in digital goods or services is very little.
This leads to a virtuous circle, since business unconstrained by material attracts more capital.
Basically, we can shift the physical economy to a circular cradle-to-cradle economy, and then continue getting growth from digital goods and services.
Note that this does not simply mean we'll all be living in VR - digital goods and services are growing across all industries.
For example, back in the day, drugs were discovered by massive wet lab experimentation programs. Today, increasingly components of a drug discovery program can be done in silico.
The reason that the software industry is so valuable today is not just that it's innovative, it's also that it can grow in a way that isn't strongly constrained by material.
The material required to provide one dollar of value in digital goods or services is very little.
This leads to a virtuous circle, since business unconstrained by material attracts more capital.
Basically, we can shift the physical economy to a circular cradle-to-cradle economy, and then continue getting growth from digital goods and services.
Note that this does not simply mean we'll all be living in VR - digital goods and services are growing across all industries.
For example, back in the day, drugs were discovered by massive wet lab experimentation programs. Today, increasingly components of a drug discovery program can be done in silico.
>growth for the sake of growth is pointless
Is "sustainability" for the sake of "sustainability" pointful? For all we know, everything may just be reduced back to energy in a Big Crunch in the future, so the outcome is the same regardless. Is a civilization that languished in stagnancy for millions of years have any more paticular meaning than one that burned brightly but briefly?
Is "sustainability" for the sake of "sustainability" pointful? For all we know, everything may just be reduced back to energy in a Big Crunch in the future, so the outcome is the same regardless. Is a civilization that languished in stagnancy for millions of years have any more paticular meaning than one that burned brightly but briefly?
As long as Jensen can polish up some sand and sell it for 5 morbillion dollars, nature and economic growth is not finite.
Or escaped into a nested zeno's paradox of temporally-halved simulated existences to provide the internal illusion of continued growth while externally emitting signatures of decline.
These are only finite within Earth. Add even modest solar system travel capabilities and a lot more resources open up. Mining asteroids is just one idea there.
Space is huge, but space is also empty. Mining asteroids is really energetically expensive if you want to get the material back to Earth. It’s a very reasonable thing to do if you want to build stuff in space, though.
> a lot more resources open up. Mining asteroids is just one idea there
We should certainly explore and hope to discover rich deposits of varied resources that are worth expending the time and energy to find, extract, and use. However, to our knowledge, asteroids probably consist of clay and silicate rocks, some containing nickel-iron[1]
[1] https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/asteroids/facts/
We should certainly explore and hope to discover rich deposits of varied resources that are worth expending the time and energy to find, extract, and use. However, to our knowledge, asteroids probably consist of clay and silicate rocks, some containing nickel-iron[1]
[1] https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/asteroids/facts/
Hopefully we know more about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16_Psyche by 2029.
But not infinite resources. ..
If we accept the hypotheses of an expanding universe then we find ourselves in a pickle as our potentially infinite resources race out of our light cone faster than we can chase them.
If we accept the hypotheses of an expanding universe then we find ourselves in a pickle as our potentially infinite resources race out of our light cone faster than we can chase them.
Perhaps what you view as unique, quirky human behavior is just one manifestation of a common pattern in advanced intelligence. In the long run, most J curves are S curves.
"The growth is unsustainable argument is very strange to me. We absolutely have the technology to make growth sustainable, but societies choose to go for other things because overall growth and advancement of humanity is not generally a goal at mass individual level."
Well, it is seventh grade mathematics. https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/
https://expatcircle.com/cms/why-the-future-might-hold-troubl...
The limits of growth are real. Very real. And unfortunately, many problems we are seeing might be the prelude to the prediction.
"It’s quite human-centric to assume that all other possible civilizations will make the same choices."
Well, there should be many and we see none. This is not encouraging. While the best idea to look for life is to look for an entropy source, I think advanced live in space may be similar to us. They would need some kind of sensors (eyes, ears) and likely they would have been predators at one stage in the evolutionary path.
Well, it is seventh grade mathematics. https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/
https://expatcircle.com/cms/why-the-future-might-hold-troubl...
The limits of growth are real. Very real. And unfortunately, many problems we are seeing might be the prelude to the prediction.
"It’s quite human-centric to assume that all other possible civilizations will make the same choices."
Well, there should be many and we see none. This is not encouraging. While the best idea to look for life is to look for an entropy source, I think advanced live in space may be similar to us. They would need some kind of sensors (eyes, ears) and likely they would have been predators at one stage in the evolutionary path.
Those links are so oversimplified to not be useful. The arguments are for an ideological point of view and not a real analysis. Just consider that population growth is stagnating and going into decline. While energy use per capita is likely to increase, it’s not clear at all that things will continue as before even a 100 years from now. Even the AI race is seeing smaller models perform as well or better a year old ones. We are definitely in a fast growth phase of energy use there, but will it continue to grow indefinitely or will we become much more efficient and hit diminishing returns stalling further investment or plateauing energy use? Who knows… On the scale of the next 100 years, humanity can definitely meet its energy needs with nuclear and clean sources if we have the collective will. Will we? Time will tell.
The argument that our rate of growth will decrease in the future is not incompatible with the argument that our current rate of growth is unsustainable.
The changes that our growth rate will turn long term negative before 2050 are pretty good. I won't go into details for the consequences.
Sir, on this planet we obey the laws of thermodynamics, but politicians don’t seem to mind. If you argue that growing energy by 2% yoy is oversimplifying, look at previous trajectory and who gets to lose their jobs if the pattern stops.
Your first link says that in 400 years, we’ll need a second location to continue growing.
And…?
I think that actually supports the other person’s view: if your entire argument amounts to “in 400 years, we’ll need to have space stations or settle Mars with nuclear!” that isn’t really an argument against growth now.
And…?
I think that actually supports the other person’s view: if your entire argument amounts to “in 400 years, we’ll need to have space stations or settle Mars with nuclear!” that isn’t really an argument against growth now.
The link predicts that in 400 years we reach a growth limit at the 100% solar exploitation of earth's entire surface area, so it's likely we'll have to get off planet well before that.
It goes on to predict that to maintain
> 2.3% annual energy growth for 1350 years from the present time
Will require total exploitation of our local star. This is a tight timetable to construct the relevant dyson sphere, even with the associated gains in engineering/construction efficiency and expertise.
There are additional cogent arguments that bypassing the solar energy requirement (with e.g. nuclear methods) will pose significant challenges in radiating the waste heat within ~1400 years.
These projections are based solely on the rate of growth, so it seems clear that while we may be able to keep growing indefinitely, the rate at which we do so will need to asymptotically approach zero.
It goes on to predict that to maintain
> 2.3% annual energy growth for 1350 years from the present time
Will require total exploitation of our local star. This is a tight timetable to construct the relevant dyson sphere, even with the associated gains in engineering/construction efficiency and expertise.
There are additional cogent arguments that bypassing the solar energy requirement (with e.g. nuclear methods) will pose significant challenges in radiating the waste heat within ~1400 years.
These projections are based solely on the rate of growth, so it seems clear that while we may be able to keep growing indefinitely, the rate at which we do so will need to asymptotically approach zero.
I couldn’t have predicted 2024 from 1624 — so I assume I’m similarly incompetent at forward predictions of 2424.
Trying to guess from 1AD what 2024AD would look like would make me sound like I was speaking myths — so again, I have to assume I’m similarly unable to guess at the timeline (4000AD) where we’d run out of galactic solar energy what our existence would be like.
There’s nothing in my grandchildren’s grandchildren’s time that would prohibit growth — and I’m okay admitting I lack the wisdom or capability to solve problems on so grand a scale. The links posted bolster my position that the “limits of growth” are irrelevant to me, almost entirely.
To the extent that they may impact my great-great-great-great-grandchildren, I think they’ll be better able to handle the troubles of their time with the benefits of a robust economy, vibrant society, and abundant wealth. Nothing you’ve posted suggests that I should try to limit growth or that anyone would benefit from the attempt.
Trying to guess from 1AD what 2024AD would look like would make me sound like I was speaking myths — so again, I have to assume I’m similarly unable to guess at the timeline (4000AD) where we’d run out of galactic solar energy what our existence would be like.
There’s nothing in my grandchildren’s grandchildren’s time that would prohibit growth — and I’m okay admitting I lack the wisdom or capability to solve problems on so grand a scale. The links posted bolster my position that the “limits of growth” are irrelevant to me, almost entirely.
To the extent that they may impact my great-great-great-great-grandchildren, I think they’ll be better able to handle the troubles of their time with the benefits of a robust economy, vibrant society, and abundant wealth. Nothing you’ve posted suggests that I should try to limit growth or that anyone would benefit from the attempt.
Certainly--I am still investing in the stock market.
However, this thread is about detecting alien civilizations in far off star systems so I'm not sure why you'd expect any of this conversation to be relevant to your immediate situation.
However, this thread is about detecting alien civilizations in far off star systems so I'm not sure why you'd expect any of this conversation to be relevant to your immediate situation.
You can clearly see the energy growth slowing down starting from 1980's or so.. and yet the rest of article keeps going like this is not happening, and same rate from 1650's will hold for many more years.
It won't. Population growth is slowing down, per-human energy growth is probably even decreasing compared to 20 years ago.
It won't. Population growth is slowing down, per-human energy growth is probably even decreasing compared to 20 years ago.
I read this whole article and I can't figure out what they're actually claiming, other than some version of "we should try to imagine that things might be different than we imagine."
can somebody (or ChatGPT) take a stab at making this make more sense?
can somebody (or ChatGPT) take a stab at making this make more sense?
We’re not considering the possibility that most civilizations will consider progress to be a move to a utopian state of living in harmony with nature, with buried machines. Not paving the planet and the sun with solar panels.
Advanced civilizations may be indistinguishable from nature, as they prioritize sustainability by integrating their technology into their planet’s biosphere rather than expanding destructively. This challenges assumptions like exponential growth and the Kardashev Scale, suggesting that undetectable, harmonious technospheres could be the norm. Researchers argue for rethinking planetary histories, sustainability, and life beyond Earth to better understand the Fermi Paradox.
One thing that immediately came to mind upon seeing the title is the way that efficient (digital) radio communications look much more similar to noise (due to information density) than old analog communication methods.
The article seems to be looking at things from an energy-usage perspective. Why don't we detect Dyson spheres and other large-scale technological projects? Maybe the most efficient ways of harnessing the energy of a planet blend in with the natural processes of the planet itself.
Or, as a sibling comment suggested, maybe the civilization that makes (alien) people happiest is one that outwardly resembles the world they evolved in.
The article seems to be looking at things from an energy-usage perspective. Why don't we detect Dyson spheres and other large-scale technological projects? Maybe the most efficient ways of harnessing the energy of a planet blend in with the natural processes of the planet itself.
Or, as a sibling comment suggested, maybe the civilization that makes (alien) people happiest is one that outwardly resembles the world they evolved in.
They claim one resolution to the Fermi paradox is that civilizations tend to evolve toward a state that resembles nature (non-industrial or non-civilizational, I'm not sure).
So the idea of a highly advanced civilization requiring so little resource extraction, or even being able to entirely synthesize all its resource needs from energy, and manage global resources in a non-destructive way, while letting the natural ecology revert to as close as possible to a pre-civilizational state.
So you see small hubs of super-high-density cities, and vast expanses of "nature". Harder to detect from space that way, thus it could resolve the paradox?
You can see our own time moving that direction with urbanization and re-greening happening simultaneously, population growth falling, and a huge effort to abolish the use of one particular variety of extracted resource.
So the idea of a highly advanced civilization requiring so little resource extraction, or even being able to entirely synthesize all its resource needs from energy, and manage global resources in a non-destructive way, while letting the natural ecology revert to as close as possible to a pre-civilizational state.
So you see small hubs of super-high-density cities, and vast expanses of "nature". Harder to detect from space that way, thus it could resolve the paradox?
You can see our own time moving that direction with urbanization and re-greening happening simultaneously, population growth falling, and a huge effort to abolish the use of one particular variety of extracted resource.
The 'plastic rock' formations off Brazil [1] may be something? Like if advanced civilizations incorporate some element of time/pressure/environments to something, the plastic that has melted, merged, and reformed into rock formations may produce newer elements that turn out to be breakthroughs?
[1] https://phys.org/news/2023-03-scientists-disturbing-remote-i...
[1] https://phys.org/news/2023-03-scientists-disturbing-remote-i...
I think it's saying something like: what if it's impossible for a civilization to grow big enough or quick enough with our current technological path to make the bigger steps like harnessing the energy of our star and becoming space-faring. Perhaps instead there's some other path that looks more like nature which is why we can't detect it.
Like what if it was easier to master biology, create some kind of biologic computer distributed amongst all the living things on a planet, and load all the consciousnesses of the advanced beings onto that.
Like what if it was easier to master biology, create some kind of biologic computer distributed amongst all the living things on a planet, and load all the consciousnesses of the advanced beings onto that.
Sales pitch for sustainability tax on space economy.
A lot of sci-fi already makes this premise. The bright future is not one of concrete and metal, it’s sunsets and trees and lakes tended to by invisible robots, with all the ugly machines, generators and data centres buried deep in rock.
I like the future offered by Iain Banks in the culture series.
Nature isn't 'natural'by any sense of the word. But the advanced machines all tend to show an interest in maintaining natural spaces for humans to enjoy. And the machines are part of the beauty as well!
Nature isn't 'natural'by any sense of the word. But the advanced machines all tend to show an interest in maintaining natural spaces for humans to enjoy. And the machines are part of the beauty as well!
No Mind wants to be responsible for a wholly Brutalist petting zoo.
Or, a fully biologic solution, even for a space habitat as was envisioned in John Varley's "Gaea" Trilogy: _Titan_, _Wizard_, and _Demon_.
To quibble a little Gaea is not fully biological. For instance, at one point a particle accelerator is mentioned as being in the ship's shell, and both the original (well, latest) Gaea entity and later Gaby are obviously running on some giant supercomputer somewhere. The inhabitants (crew?) are certainly biological, though.
Where does mechanism end and biology begin when the entirety of the structure was made from an "egg" which was sent off to mine a nearby moon? (possibly extending the rings still more)
nanotech? some things are very weird, for example when the physical (or are the human astronauts the same as they were on Earth? no they are not - see Gene for example) Gaby dies and is transported to the hub. what is going on there? and when she appears to Rocky? none of this is ever made clear, and I guess Shirley was making much of it as he went along, which is what novelists do.
I think you could argue that they (humans) all died when the Ringmaster was grabbed by the Gaea entity, and they are now all living in a simulation.
I think you could argue that they (humans) all died when the Ringmaster was grabbed by the Gaea entity, and they are now all living in a simulation.
I don't like the simulation idea --- that's a very different story, see Vernor Vinge's novella "The Cookie Monster" or the short story "Lena":
https://qntm.org/lena
There was so much effort to do things biologically, that that needs to be an aspect of the story. Another author, more grounded who also wrote about such ideas was Hal Clement, see his short stories, "The Mechanic" and "Raindrop" (which are still relevant today).
https://qntm.org/lena
There was so much effort to do things biologically, that that needs to be an aspect of the story. Another author, more grounded who also wrote about such ideas was Hal Clement, see his short stories, "The Mechanic" and "Raindrop" (which are still relevant today).
In Arthur C. Clarke's 3001 they have velociraptors as gardeners and babysitters. When are we getting that?
I was expecting something along the lines of: A very advanced civilization will exist while hiding signs of its existence; kind of creating a privacy shield as it is aware of potentially dangerous situations if it is discovered.
This has all been "hacked out" in sci-fi, where the techno VS bio ideas have been explored and quiet VS LOUD civilisations are thought through.
To put things into perspective, we are still discovering VERY LOUD types of phenominon eminating from deep space, and puzzling over what they might be.And if we can miss and not understand every type of pulsar and black hole collision,stellar mergers, etc ,etc, then it is
presumptuous to to speak about exo-civilisations
energy signatures in any absolute terms.
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There are still plenty of things in nature we don't fully understand. In some sense fungi might be more advanced than us, but nothing on earth seems more inclined towards growth and omnivorous consumption as humans. It's almost tautological that many people think our own qualities are markers of sophistication among lifeforms. We're the best because we act a certain way and acting that way is the best because we do it.
The problem is that it's very difficult to think in, or even imagine, a new paradigm.
Here's the paradigm: the introduction of technology (starting with the wheel?) led us inexorably down the wrong path, and only in this century are we beginning to see its civilization-ending effects.
Technology breeds new technology. It's seductive (all those cool mechanical/electrical/quantum-mechanical problems to solve!). It relieves many burdens, and makes life easier - but then leads to explosive population growth dependent on technology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process). And attendant to this, pollution and environmental degradation: a slow erosion of life-sustaining processes.
The path of technology inevitably leads to a dead end. There's no escaping our vast population: 8 billion individuals is a lot, by any measure. It is the root cause of all our environmental problems. Can we creatively apply new technologies to solve this problem in time to prevent ecological and environmental collapse? We're right in the middle of the experiment, and there's no guaranteed outcome...
Imagine if we had chosen an alternative path to "civilization" without mechanical technology - what would it look like? It's easy to mock the idea of "living in harmony with Nature", but what if that's the only way to a sustainable human civilization?
Here's the paradigm: the introduction of technology (starting with the wheel?) led us inexorably down the wrong path, and only in this century are we beginning to see its civilization-ending effects.
Technology breeds new technology. It's seductive (all those cool mechanical/electrical/quantum-mechanical problems to solve!). It relieves many burdens, and makes life easier - but then leads to explosive population growth dependent on technology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process). And attendant to this, pollution and environmental degradation: a slow erosion of life-sustaining processes.
The path of technology inevitably leads to a dead end. There's no escaping our vast population: 8 billion individuals is a lot, by any measure. It is the root cause of all our environmental problems. Can we creatively apply new technologies to solve this problem in time to prevent ecological and environmental collapse? We're right in the middle of the experiment, and there's no guaranteed outcome...
Imagine if we had chosen an alternative path to "civilization" without mechanical technology - what would it look like? It's easy to mock the idea of "living in harmony with Nature", but what if that's the only way to a sustainable human civilization?
> the introduction of technology (starting with the wheel?) led us inexorably down the wrong path, and only in this century are we beginning to see its civilization-ending effects.
It is interesting to think about what technology harbored the destruction of the civilization said technology ushered in.
For context, the wheel is estimated to have been invented around 3,500BC, while we've had structures and systems that resemble and arguably are foundational to today's civilization: the cities that even older than wheels, like Argos, Athens, Plovdiv, Jericho, Thebes, Larisa, etc.
It is interesting to think about what technology harbored the destruction of the civilization said technology ushered in.
For context, the wheel is estimated to have been invented around 3,500BC, while we've had structures and systems that resemble and arguably are foundational to today's civilization: the cities that even older than wheels, like Argos, Athens, Plovdiv, Jericho, Thebes, Larisa, etc.
Nitpick: the wheel is easy. The true revolution was the axle.
reminds me of the metamorphosis of prime intellect.
Ironically, you are already more advanced than you can imagine. In your human form, you set yourself apart from existence. Most humans don't identify as the the ground of reality, but you are as much as you are human, just as the rocks and trees are, and so on.
OMAM's "Numb Bears" track off their "My Head is an Animal" album is delightful. We are already there.
OMAM's "Numb Bears" track off their "My Head is an Animal" album is delightful. We are already there.
I don't know why each time on topics about Advanced Civilizations they mention Kardashev Scale, species of types I, II, etc. ? All those energy-centric speculative ideas are simply stupid. "Civilization" is modern concept and it's not isomorphic to "Intelligence" nor intelligence is a long-preserved property of any system per se. What we know so far is Nature allows to exist systems that can show some unusual (statistically speaking) properties, although connecting those to necessarily "interesting" information-processing formations is IMO wrong. Even AI (eq. AGI) is possibly a short-term phenomenon - who knows if "smart matter" or "smart energy" can ever be distinguishable from their "dark" pairs.
Some, probably not all. Same thing with the dark forest idea: some may buy into it, hard to argue none ever making a grab for more. Having so much more stuff seems like a pretty robust dominant strategy against a bunch of smaller terrified entities hiding in the forest lobbing relativistic missiles at discovered others (such lobbing itself being somewhat self-exposing). And at some point shouldn't von neumann probes let one dominate a forest/galaxy if growth to rearrange tons of natural-looking matter really must take vast amounts of time?
Article does a bad job summarizing the great filter position, and seems unaware of the follow-up on grabby aliens -- the latter being fairly convincing as a resolution to the paradox.
Article does a bad job summarizing the great filter position, and seems unaware of the follow-up on grabby aliens -- the latter being fairly convincing as a resolution to the paradox.
Unless it's a simulation and stuff exists only when you look at it to save GPU cycles for more important stuff.
Bullshit. Nature evolves through small random mutations. Random mutations can't build structures like Aeroplane or a Watch. That requires thought and creativity. Advanced civilizations would continue to use creativity. And hence making them distinguishable from structures that are present in Nature.
So birds and circadian clocks accurate to seven years are not the result of random biological mutations?
You can tell a bird is built through evolution pretty easily. Lot of give aways in the structure which serves no point or is badly designed because mutations can only change small changes at a time without being able to think through to future.
I am not saying random mutations can't build entities that are accurate or can exist in reality. Of course they can. But it's also pretty obvious these structures are result of mutations and not creative thought.
I am not saying random mutations can't build entities that are accurate or can exist in reality. Of course they can. But it's also pretty obvious these structures are result of mutations and not creative thought.
As far as we know, creative thought, at least in humans here on earth, is an outflow of evolution through natural selection. In that sense, creative thought is produced by evolution, and not some supernatural phenomenon. There are some that talk about consciousness and intelligence as something that permeates the universe and hence orthogonal to evolution on earth, but that is highly speculative and not scientific assertion.
Bedrock on Scientific knowledge is also a widely speculative assumption that a physical reality exists outside consciousness.
it's a wildly speculative assumption to believe the world existed before last Thursday!
It could be something like Minecraft right? You experience it constantly but there is no physical existence outside consciousness.
Also last Thursday is also just an idea. There no Physical representation of last Tuesday out there. Tuesday is also merely an idea.
There is only the now.
Also last Thursday is also just an idea. There no Physical representation of last Tuesday out there. Tuesday is also merely an idea.
There is only the now.
That is the other possibility.
Intriguing new perspective.
>Random mutations can't build structures like Aeroplane or a Watch.
Perhaps that's why nature evolved us (randomly or by some not-entirely-random 'mechanism' we haven't spotted - does it matter?) (Consider how many bacteria live in the human body. Could we even exist without them? ) ... WE could be the experiment that builds structures ... and is able to let the whole works look at itself.
>Random mutations can't build structures like Aeroplane or a Watch.
Perhaps that's why nature evolved us (randomly or by some not-entirely-random 'mechanism' we haven't spotted - does it matter?) (Consider how many bacteria live in the human body. Could we even exist without them? ) ... WE could be the experiment that builds structures ... and is able to let the whole works look at itself.
This assumes nature has an intent, a plan and is conscious at a higher level. Is that what you are saying?
Nature could just have happened upon us. That seems to be the case, no?
In that sense the plane and the watch are just natural products, just like this website is.
In that sense the plane and the watch are just natural products, just like this website is.
Sure. I was talking from the context of this article though. What you are saying will reword the heading to Nature could be indistinguishable from Nature. Which I accept.
what? evolution isn’t just random mutation, it’s also environmental selection & recombination (for the most part iirc). in the right environment, if some species evolved some mechanism like flight or time keeping - so long as it would be beneficial to survival in the environment it will endure. it’s definitive proof you don’t need a conscious process to create complexity. sure there’s baggage & imperfections, but it certainly gave rise to higher order phenomena like consciousness & intelligence - if only by accident :)
Yes. What I meant was nature doesn't generate a mutation based on thinking through what is good for the species or individual. The mutations just happens randomly and the ones which are beneficial continue to pass through because it ended up in the genes that reproduced.
Unlike designing a plane for example which consists of thousands of decisions carefully thought through based on a human objective.
Unlike designing a plane for example which consists of thousands of decisions carefully thought through based on a human objective.
This is science fiction, not science. If Star Trek didn't exist, nobody would think this way. It's wild how art can so powerfully colonize the minds of people to the degree that they believe their unfalsifiable assertions about the universe just happen to adhere to ideas about the world that were designed as metaphors for the human condition.
When people do not read Stanislaw Lem, they must reinvent him.
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Yeah bc birds are cameras
Advanced civilizations should be indistinguishable from nature.
Organized human civilizations go back 2000-3000 years. Industrial civilization at scale goes back less than 200. A useful starting point is the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (1830). This the moment when the industrial revolution got out of beta, and, quite literally, picked up steam.
Extractable natural resources are somewhat finite. Sometimes, with more inputs, you can get more output. Fracking is a modern example. An older example is taconite, the low-grade iron ore (15% iron) mined after the reserves of high-grade ore (65% iron) were exhausted.[2] Gold and rare earths are extracted at great expense from very low concentrations in the raw material. At some point, extraction in high volume becomes impracticable.
We're only two hundred years into high-volume mined resource extraction. The USGS has a Critical Materials List.[3] Most of the current problems are political and commercial, not outright shortages. USGS lists known reserves for mined resources. Most have at least a century of known resources left, but not a millennium. On a time scale of civilizations, that's not long.
Recycling is a battle against entropy. Almost all gold is recovered. About 80% of aluminum is recovered. About 60% of steel is recovered. Each time around, you lose some through dispersal into forms not easy to collect and recycle. So that, too, has a diminishing returns problem.
Sometime in the future, perhaps closer than the distance in time since Oxford University was founded, most of the minerals will no longer be available in large quantity. It will be a slow, but difficult transition.
Biological systems, though, mostly keep shuffling around C, H, O, and N. That's been working for over 300 million years now, pretty much recycling the same atoms. Long term, on the scale of millennia, systems running on the weaker bonds in that space can go on for millions of years. That's the default mode of planetary operation.
Energy isn't a long-term problem because forms of energy are convertible, and wind and solar keep working as long as the sun does, at least if there are enough materials left to build generators. That looks like a long-term win on the scale of thousands of years. Millions, though...
It's quite possible that industrial civilizations have a finite lifespan, bounded by material availability. Doesn't mean there can't be sentient civilizations. Or that they're limited to "nature". Biological systems can be engineered, too.
But you don't get interstellar travel out of biology. Too low-powered.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_and_Manchester_Railw...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taconite
[3] https://www.usgs.gov/news/national-news-release/us-geologica...