"Ian Parker" <ianpark...@gmail.com> wrote in messagenews:00b6efe2-bd7b-433a-b991-7fa10bb5fcbe@t54g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
On 30 Apr, 22:21, "Rob Dekker" <r...@verific.com> wrote:
.....

There is one other scenario we have considered, the "race" situation.
The civilization that develops first will colonize the galaxy. You
either ask "where are the aliens?" or alien colonization is a matter
of historical fact. I seem to recall that we have indeed discussed
this and come to the conclusion that if the Earth is to colonize the
galaxy, the nearest civilization will differ by about 50 million
years. This is the result of the tail of the Gaussian.

You are right. We cannot rule out that the Galaxy was already colonized before, maybe multiple times.
However, that brings up several questions. Two come to mind :

I did not say what I really meant to say was not that there was a

Our future is indeed in our hands and the next 100 years will probably
be the critical period. If we survive 100 years we will probably
colonize the galaxy. 100 years is the real danger period for the human
race.

I would not be so sure of challenges to disappear after 100 years.
We humans are better in anticipating than most animals that roam the planet, but we are still pretty poor in long-term planning.

I think there are 4 categories of challenges : The ones that you know that you know (such as fossil fuel running out, and global
warming), the ones that you don't know that you know (such as what drives humans to do the things they do), the ones that you know
that you don't know (such as how to build a spacecraft that can bring a colony to another star system), but the tricky one are the
challenges that you don't know that you don't know. That last category can kill us. And it may be the largest collection of
challenges in the future. It might be something that we created ourselves, or that is part of the great rules of evolution.

In short, We can see the short-tem problems that we created ourselves but we don't know the challenges ahead. Heck, we don't even
know what the challenges were in the past.
Remeber the time that homo sapiens got almost extinct ? We were going through an evolutionary corridor of about 20,000 individuals.
Evolutionary scientists are pretty sure that this happened. We don't know what the challenges were that time, but they sure were
more problematic for the survival of our species than the inconveniences of the next 100 years.

Indeed we did. This is the reason why genetic variation in human

I am going to say one thing which is perhaps a little antscientific
and slighly comtroversial. It might perhaps be better not to
investigate Martian life. Let me expain the logic. We can psych
ourselves into a crisis. If you look for example at the sub prime
lending crisis one thing is apparant. The financial system is
committing collective suicide. Mervyn King the governor of the Bank of
England has said pretty much that although not in quite those words.
Mr. King is saying is saying that if banks do not lend to each other
they risk bringing about what they want to avoid - the collapse of the
financial system.

If we knew, or thought we knew, that the "filter" was in the future it
would change the way in which we behaved. It would make us a lot more
paranoid. Paranoia could easly contribute to the demise of humanity.

Trying not to know something because you are afraid of the concequences of what you will find is not just 'a little' non-scientific,
it is completely incompatible with science.
It transpires a fear of the unknown, and reluctance to explore. It's also a killer for making bolt steps forward.
It does show a different side of humans though, and I am glad you bring it up.
If most people think like this, then we will never get off this planet.
So if there is ONE reason why would would NOT become space-faring species, then it is this one.

The shortages of resources are :-

a) Due to the success of humanity. A big brain IS an advantage. The
number of humans born in 2 days exceeds the total number of all the
other great apes.

It's an advantage as long as we are doing good.
I bought some stocks that were really doing good the other day. The were on the right track for a long time, and the future looked
bright. The week after I bought them, they tanked. Why ? A nasty, unanticipated problem surfaced, and the consequences were
devastating. A problem that we did not know that we did not know.
Past success in no guarantee for future success.



b) They can be overcome by improvements in technology. As I have said
- cover the South West with solar panels and electoyse water.

When do we start ?

In a sense we already have. Installed solar power is growing at 50%

"Ian Parker" <ianparker2@gmail.com> wrote in message news:00b6efe2-bd7b-433a-b991-7fa10bb5fcbe@t54g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
On 30 Apr, 22:21, "Rob Dekker" <r...@verific.com> wrote:
......
There is one other scenario we have considered, the "race" situation.
The civilization that develops first will colonize the galaxy. You
either ask "where are the aliens?" or alien colonization is a matter
of historical fact. I seem to recall that we have indeed discussed
this and come to the conclusion that if the Earth is to colonize the
galaxy, the nearest civilization will differ by about 50 million
years. This is the result of the tail of the Gaussian.

You are right. We cannot rule out that the Galaxy was already colonized
before, maybe multiple times.
However, that brings up several questions. Two come to mind :

(1) Where are they now ? If they were so successfull to colonize the Galaxy (which took millions of
years at a minimum), why did
they vanish ?

(2) Where is the evidence ? They would have visited our solar system, but
apparently did not crunch-up the planets, and even left
the great Asteroid belt along. Full of easy to harvest building material.

Also, there is no sign of alien DNA in any of Earth's
lifeforms,

so they apparently did not even stay on Earth and became one
of us. They did not even contaminate our planet with any
alien bugs.

So they must have been extremely careful, to the point where
it looks like they were never here. Occam's rasor then
tells us that they probably never were here.

Our future is indeed in our hands and the next 100 years will probably
be the critical period. If we survive 100 years we will probably
colonize the galaxy. 100 years is the real danger period for the human
race.

I would not be so sure of challenges to disappear after 100 years.
We humans are better in anticipating than most animals that roam the
planet, but we are still pretty poor in long-term planning.

I think there are 4 categories of challenges : The ones that you
know that you know (such as fossil fuel running out, and global
warming),

the ones that you don't know that you know (such as what
drives humans to do the things they do), the ones that you know
that you don't know (such as how to build a spacecraft that can bring a
colony to another star system), but the tricky one are the
challenges that you don't know that you don't know. That last category can
kill us. And it may be the largest collection of
challenges in the future. It might be something that we created ourselves,
or that is part of the great rules of evolution.

In short, We can see the short-tem problems that we created ourselves
but we don't know the challenges ahead. Heck, we don't even
know what the challenges were in the past.
Remeber the time that homo sapiens got almost extinct? We were going
through an evolutionary corridor of about 20,000 individuals.
Evolutionary scientists are pretty sure that this happened. We don't
know what the challenges were that time, but they sure were
more problematic for the survival of our species than the inconveniences
of the next 100 years.

I am going to say one thing which is perhaps a little antscientific
and slighly comtroversial. It might perhaps be better not to
investigate Martian life. Let me expain the logic. We can psych
ourselves into a crisis. If you look for example at the sub prime
lending crisis one thing is apparant. The financial system is
committing collective suicide. Mervyn King the governor of the Bank of
England has said pretty much that although not in quite those words.
Mr. King is saying is saying that if banks do not lend to each other
they risk bringing about what they want to avoid - the collapse of the
financial system.

If we knew, or thought we knew, that the "filter" was in the future it
would change the way in which we behaved. It would make us a lot more
paranoid. Paranoia could easly contribute to the demise of humanity.

Trying not to know something because you are afraid of the concequences
of what you will find is not just 'a little' non-scientific,
it is completely incompatible with science.
It transpires a fear of the unknown, and reluctance to explore. It's
also a killer for making bolt steps forward.
It does show a different side of humans though, and I am glad you bring
it up.
If most people think like this, then we will never get off this planet.
So if there is ONE reason why would would NOT become space-faring species,
then it is this one.

Hi Matt,

How are things ? I have not been here for a while.

I feel like coming back to the water hole, but almost everyone is gone..
Where is everyone else ?

"Matt Giwer" <jull43@tampabay.REMover.rr.com> wrote in message news:48197062$0$31748$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...
.....
There is at present liquid water on Mars. A few years ago I gave a link to a rover image of it. Your hope is in vain.

The amusing point about the image was that it is water until shown to be some other liquid yet NASA never even drew attention to
the image.

You mean this image, right ?

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/1/p/307/1P155450047EFF38EVP2557L4M1.JPG

Here is the press-release again :
http://origin.mars5.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/opportunity/20041210a.html
It is rock called "Tipura", pictured on Dec 3, 2004 (sol 306).
It cannot be water, because it's freezing beyond belief there.
Do you think it is ice ?

Assume that these habitats have at least a couple of meters thick walls
(so you can plant things in soil), and swarms spherical around the star
between 1 AU and 2 AU, then the swarm will block less than 0.4 % of the
star's sunlight. So at best we can see a bit of dust/debrit in the IR
spectrum around the star, but that's it.

Rob Dekker wrote:
Hi Matt,

How are things ? I have not been here for a while.

I miss the old exchanges too.

I feel like coming back to the water hole, but almost everyone is gone..
Where is everyone else ?

Don't know where everyone went. But I suspect BOINC works so smoothly the basic reason we were here, to gripe about S@H is gone.

"Matt Giwer" <jull43@tampabay.REMover.rr.com> wrote in message news:48197062$0$31748$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...
.....
There is at present liquid water on Mars. A few years ago I gave a link to a rover image of it. Your hope is in vain.

The amusing point about the image was that it is water until shown to be some other liquid yet NASA never even drew attention to
the image.

You mean this image, right ?

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/1/p/307/1P155450047EFF38EVP2557L4M1.JPG

That's the one.

Here is the press-release again :
http://origin.mars5.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/opportunity/20041210a.html
It is rock called "Tipura", pictured on Dec 3, 2004 (sol 306).
It cannot be water, because it's freezing beyond belief there.
Do you think it is ice ?

It is something that was or is fluid enough to produce a flat surface. And it does not appear to be covered with dust to it formed
shortly before the picture. Less likely a dust devil cleaned it just before the picture.

Given those two facts I am open to any suggestion as to what the fluid could be. The only one I know of with even a remote chance
is water. I agree it is remote. I assume there are a mess of hydrocarbons that are candidates but that is even more interesting. A
better place to start for fuel than making methane from the atmosphere.

There are other photos of the other regions takes years apart that occasionally show what appear to be what form on earth after
flash floods. The official press releases note them so it is not due to higher resolution cameras.

You tell me. Any better guess?

--
We know and the entire world knows US domestic and foreign policy is created
by campaign contributors. Why are we surprised when they react to the AIPAC
lobby?
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3982
http://www.giwersworld.org/holo3/holo-survivors.phtml a3

Don't suppose there have been no
searches for IR radiation round stars. Beta Pictoris has some rubble
round it, but it is condensing asteroid like masterial, NOT Dyson
habitats.

As I think I have said before Dyson civilizations will have radio
teledcopes at least 4AU across and fragmented optical telescopes,
possibly thousands of kilometers across. Hence, if they are there at
all, they know everything about us. This is why SETI is such a
complete waste of time.

"Mike Combs" <mikeco...@nospam.com_chg_nospam_2_ti> wrote in messagenews:fvd652$bdk$1@home.itg.ti.com...
....
will block less than 0.4 % of the star's sunlight. So at best we can see a bit of dust/debrit in the IR spectrum around the
star,
but that's it.

Rob

Yes but we don't even see that. Don't suppose there have been no
searches for IR radiation round stars. Beta Pictoris has some rubble
round it, but it is condensing asteroid like masterial, NOT Dyson
habitats.

As I think I have said before Dyson civilizations will have radio
teledcopes at least 4AU across and fragmented optical telescopes,
possibly thousands of kilometers across. Hence, if they are there at
all, they know everything about us. This is why SETI is such a
complete waste of time.

- Ian Parker

And just tossing a wild hare out there, there seems to be a lot of missing
matter in the universe. Now just what escapes a Dyson sphere? Gravity.

"Ian Parker" <ianparker2@gmail.com> wrote in message news:ff257022-16d4-48d7-b7f2-77d62bb4e154@c65g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...

As I think I have said before Dyson civilizations will have radio
teledcopes at least 4AU across and fragmented optical telescopes,
possibly thousands of kilometers across. Hence, if they are there at
all, they know everything about us. This is why SETI is such a
complete waste of time.


I fail to see how you can combine that belief with that conclusion.
If they know about us, then current SETI (searching for beacons and astro engineering) would make even more sense..

On 1 May, 22:40, "Rob Dekker" <r...@verific.com> wrote:
"Ian Parker" <ianpark...@gmail.com> wrote in messagenews:00b6efe2-bd7b-433a-b991-7fa10bb5fcbe@t54g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
On 30 Apr, 22:21, "Rob Dekker" <r...@verific.com> wrote:
.....

There is one other scenario we have considered, the "race" situation.
The civilization that develops first will colonize the galaxy. You
either ask "where are the aliens?" or alien colonization is a matter
of historical fact. I seem to recall that we have indeed discussed
this and come to the conclusion that if the Earth is to colonize the
galaxy, the nearest civilization will differ by about 50 million
years. This is the result of the tail of the Gaussian.

You are right. We cannot rule out that the Galaxy was already colonized before, maybe multiple times.
However, that brings up several questions. Two come to mind :

I did not say what I really meant to say was not that there was a
colonization that we cannot see now. What I meant was that native
Americans do not argue about whether Europe exists of not. The fact of
Euopean colonization in America is a historical fact. I would be
better in fact to say "established fact". That is what I really meant.

Our future is indeed in our hands and the next 100 years will probably
be the critical period. If we survive 100 years we will probably
colonize the galaxy. 100 years is the real danger period for the human
race.

I would not be so sure of challenges to disappear after 100 years.
We humans are better in anticipating than most animals that roam the planet, but we are still pretty poor in long-term planning.

I think there are 4 categories of challenges : The ones that you know that you know (such as fossil fuel running out, and global
warming), the ones that you don't know that you know (such as what drives humans to do the things they do), the ones that you
know
that you don't know (such as how to build a spacecraft that can bring a colony to another star system), but the tricky one are
the
challenges that you don't know that you don't know. That last category can kill us. And it may be the largest collection of
challenges in the future. It might be something that we created ourselves, or that is part of the great rules of evolution.

In short, We can see the short-tem problems that we created ourselves but we don't know the challenges ahead. Heck, we don't even
know what the challenges were in the past.
Remeber the time that homo sapiens got almost extinct ? We were going through an evolutionary corridor of about 20,000
individuals.
Evolutionary scientists are pretty sure that this happened. We don't know what the challenges were that time, but they sure were
more problematic for the survival of our species than the inconveniences of the next 100 years.

Indeed we did. This is the reason why genetic variation in human
populations is small compared with other species. There is a question
about whether if H.sapiens had become extinct some other intelligent
species would have evolved. After all there were still chimps around
and they could have evolved a second time.

To get us down tio that level though we will need some horrendous
catastophe. Things like Global Warming will never cause the human race
to become extict for 2 simple reasons.

1) A human world population of several million people will not be
capable of causing environmental damage, even with an extremely large
amount of per capita pollution.

2) In practice Global Warming and fossil fuel shortages stimulate
technological development. In fact the "threatened" civilizations are
in the Middle East not the West. If you do no allow women to take part
in your society and your economy is based virtually 100% on oil,
technological developments of the sort we would all wish to see are
immensely threatning. If solar power + hydrogen is developed st $100
per barrel and we all start driving hydogen cars and aircraft use
liquid hydrogen (if not Mook's orbiting lasers) no one is going to go
bak to petrol, kerosene or diesel even if the price were to drop to
$20.

I am going to say one thing which is perhaps a little antscientific
and slighly comtroversial. It might perhaps be better not to
investigate Martian life. Let me expain the logic. We can psych
ourselves into a crisis. If you look for example at the sub prime
lending crisis one thing is apparant. The financial system is
committing collective suicide. Mervyn King the governor of the Bank of
England has said pretty much that although not in quite those words.
Mr. King is saying is saying that if banks do not lend to each other
they risk bringing about what they want to avoid - the collapse of the
financial system.

If we knew, or thought we knew, that the "filter" was in the future it
would change the way in which we behaved. It would make us a lot more
paranoid. Paranoia could easly contribute to the demise of humanity.

Trying not to know something because you are afraid of the concequences of what you will find is not just 'a little'
non-scientific,
it is completely incompatible with science.
It transpires a fear of the unknown, and reluctance to explore. It's also a killer for making bolt steps forward.
It does show a different side of humans though, and I am glad you bring it up.
If most people think like this, then we will never get off this planet.
So if there is ONE reason why would would NOT become space-faring species, then it is this one.


Basically I agree. However what I did want to show is that paranoia is
self generating and self feeding and can actually bring about the
situation you wish to avoid.

There are people, and I think most of the people in this group are in
this camp, who see technological development as being the solution to
environmental and resource problems. Some environmentalist, the "hair
shirt" brigade simply want to cut down on energy use and reduce our
standard of living. Of course "hair shirts" are going to maintain the
power of OPEC and the subjugation of women. I cannot see how any woman
can have any symparhy of support for "hair shirts".

Also "hair shirts" want our food sourced locally. Now trade is the
only way to raise living standards in the third world. The "hair
shirts" are all anti Third World. BTW - produce grown in greenhouses
in Holland is NOT green. Third World stuff is in point of fact a lot
greener.

The shortages of resources are :-

a) Due to the success of humanity. A big brain IS an advantage. The
number of humans born in 2 days exceeds the total number of all the
other great apes.

It's an advantage as long as we are doing good.
I bought some stocks that were really doing good the other day. The were on the right track for a long time, and the future
looked
bright. The week after I bought them, they tanked. Why ? A nasty, unanticipated problem surfaced, and the consequences were
devastating. A problem that we did not know that we did not know.
Past success in no guarantee for future success.



b) They can be overcome by improvements in technology. As I have said
- cover the South West with solar panels and electoyse water.

When do we start ?

In a sense we already have. Installed solar power is growing at 50%
per year. Nearly as fast as Moore's law.

What we in fact need now is feasibility studies.

Above all we need to feel that Science is the
solution. Of the political candidates Hillary is I think the best, she
has taled about ending the war against Science, next McCain who does
see the world in rather Cold War terms but believes in Science as a
solution. Obama does NOT offer "change we can believe in". He is in
terms of his scientific and religious attitudes rather a clone of
Bush. He is strongly evangelical.


- Ian Parker

"Matt Giwer" <jull43@tampabay.REMover.rr.com> wrote in message
news:481ab9d2$0$5167$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...
Rob Dekker wrote:
Hi Matt,

How are things ? I have not been here for a while.

I miss the old exchanges too.

I feel like coming back to the water hole, but almost everyone is
gone..
Where is everyone else ?
--------------------------------------------

Don't know where everyone went. But I suspect BOINC works so smoothly
the basic reason we were here, to gripe about S@H is gone.

Maybe, but most interesting discussions were not about Classic Seti or
BOINC.
Any way, it's good to have you back !
----------------------------------

And don't ask again, where is everyone else !

To get us down tio that level though we will need some horrendous
catastophe. Things like Global Warming will never cause the human race
to become extict for 2 simple reasons.

1) A human world population of several million people will not be
capable of causing environmental damage, even with an extremely large
amount of per capita pollution.

2) In practice Global Warming and fossil fuel shortages stimulate
technological development. In fact the "threatened" civilizations are
in the Middle East not the West. If you do no allow women to take part
in your society and your economy is based virtually 100% on oil,
technological developments of the sort we would all wish to see are
immensely threatning. If solar power + hydrogen is developed st $100
per barrel and we all start driving hydogen cars and aircraft use
liquid hydrogen (if not Mook's orbiting lasers) no one is going to go
bak to petrol, kerosene or diesel even if the price were to drop to
$20.

A catastrophe might be needed to eradicate homo sapiens altogether, but a minor hick-up might be enough for our technology
civilisation to end.
Remember that we have the bounty of millions of years of planet Earth and a perfectly stable environment for the past 20,000 years.
During these ideal conditions, we managed to take over the globe, transform it, irradicate our forests, and take away fossil
resources.

We do this already when conditions are ideal for us in the first place. What will happen if there is some stress ? Minor only :
Maybe a global nuclear war or a human-induced climate change, or an ice age or brutal global drought, or some other global hickup of
Nature that lasts a significant period of time (100 - 1000 years or so). We would sure be in very deep trouble. We won't go extinct,
but the anargy that inevitably will result from the stress could cost 90 % of us our lives, and most of us will fight and risk
anything before we die. During such a period of anarchy, it is hard to imagine how a free market can still operate, and what money
is worth, and consequently how a technological civilisation can continue to exist. During anarchy,  when we are busy protecting our
own life and our family's and we are scavaging for food, who will be making sub-micron devices ? Who will keep power plants running
? Who will maintain the internet? Who will survive such a period ? The very healthy and strong ones. Not the scientists, not the
technologists.

After this, when things calm down, the survivers will be left with a ravenged planet. We would probably go back to farming if that's
even possible (depending on what the hick-up was about), and it would sure take many generations before we can start re-inventing
some of our technology again. Not just that this takes time, but now the planet's resources. Fossil fuel is not there, all rain
forests are gone, fish in the ocean is hard to find etc etc. The next generation will thus have a harder time rebuilding. Maybe they
need so much time that the next hick-up of Nature is already occurring. Enough hick-ups and we may not get back to a technology
civilization at all.

We have been extremely lucky so far, so lucky that we forgot how fragile we are.

In fact the only thing which could totally eliminate the human race is

"Ian Parker" <ianpark...@gmail.com> wrote in messagenews:ff257022-16d4-48d7-b7f2-77d62bb4e154@c65g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...

On 2 May, 03:43, "Rob Dekker" <r...@verific.com> wrote:

"Mike Combs" <mikeco...@nospam.com_chg_nospam_2_ti> wrote in messagenews:fvd652$bdk$1@home.itg.ti.com...
...
will block less than 0.4 % of the star's sunlight. So at best we can see a bit of dust/debrit in the IR spectrum around the
star,
but that's it.

Rob

Yes but we don't even see that. Don't suppose there have been no
searches for IR radiation round stars. Beta Pictoris has some rubble
round it, but it is condensing asteroid like masterial, NOT Dyson
habitats.

How would you know the difference ?



As I think I have said before Dyson civilizations will have radio
teledcopes at least 4AU across and fragmented optical telescopes,
possibly thousands of kilometers across. Hence, if they are there at
all, they know everything about us. This is why SETI is such a
complete waste of time.

I fail to see how you can combine that belief with that conclusion.
If they know about us, then current SETI (searching for beacons and astro engineering) would make even more sense...

Because they will either find us first or they will be go out of their

Rob Dekker wrote:
"Ian Parker" <ianparker2@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:00b6efe2-bd7b-433a-b991-7fa10bb5fcbe@t54g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
On 30 Apr, 22:21, "Rob Dekker" <r...@verific.com> wrote:
.....
There is one other scenario we have considered, the "race" situation.
The civilization that develops first will colonize the galaxy. You
either ask "where are the aliens?" or alien colonization is a matter
of historical fact. I seem to recall that we have indeed discussed
this and come to the conclusion that if the Earth is to colonize the
galaxy, the nearest civilization will differ by about 50 million
years. This is the result of the tail of the Gaussian.

You are right. We cannot rule out that the Galaxy was already
colonized before, maybe multiple times.
However, that brings up several questions. Two come to mind :

(1) Where are they now ? If they were so successfull to colonize the
Galaxy (which took millions of years at a minimum), why did they vanish ?

You are making an assumption that they are doing full body
colonization. Not necessary. They may have sent out ships with their
DNA into star forming regions and simply dispersed it, knowing that
eventually a comet would carry some of it down on a wet planet. Absent
FTL this may be the only way in which a planet could ever hope to get to
another.