IMHO the biggest risk of nucleur war is Not Ukraine war, where Putin is a very rational. actor, but Israel, a messianic ethno-national paranoid state, that has a Samson policy where it would destroy the world rather than lose a war. Your overall view makes me think of the sci-fi book The Three Body Problem, and rest of trilogy.
What version of a cargo cult will emerge to entice the arrival of the benevolent aliens? I must confess that this is a religion that is appealing to me.
Well back on Planet Earth I hope the Sleeborans staff physics departments. They are providing 80 million peace officers in robotic form. To compress this mass of material for interstellar voyage would approach the limits of retaining the information and structure of the robots themselves. Are there really civilizations that upon discovering quantum mechanics find a first application something other than one hell of a bomb?
If California in their less than speedy roll out of high speed rail is a template for our prospects in the United States, we are doomed.
What we cannot overlook in regards to our fossil fuel fueled diet is the destruction of top soil by over fertilization. It is true that fossil fuels remain crucial for transporting essential items. This is the chief reason for weaning ourselves off of massive mobile metal objects. We don't have the luxury of travel by whim unless it is under our own power.
My question is: why would the Sleeborans value humans more than the integrity of the ecosystem and other lifeforms on earth ? Would they not just look on our behaviour that seeks to exploit every finite resources and land with absolute disregard to the integrity of the biosphere and ecosystem and decide that it would be much better to just wipe us out?
What would you personally do in this scenario: you have a large aquarium tank that used to have a variety of aquatic species. But one day, a mutated shark not only eats with such wanton greed that other fishes in the tank are all getting eaten to extinction, but this clever shark also somehow decided to also kill other animals that is not essential for its survival (sea shell for example) so that it can trade with other mutant shark to “grow their economy” or make artificial shark mansion etc. Do you go ahead and worry about correcting the seashell inequality within those mutant sharks or you just remove all of them for the sake of the animal diversity in the aquarium?
Back in the day, the rich used to take the grand tour of Europe. And they were able to take their time about it. Then there was a time when the traveling by rail on the Orient Express or on other luxurious coaches was the sign of being rich. Or a cruise. Then travel by air then by Concorde. It is the rich who do most of the flying.
These days the not-so-rich can afford flights and cruises. Maybe not as often or for as long or as luxuriously, but these things are no longer symbols of being in the top 1%. A few of them are looking to go to space next. But I don't see why the rest of rest of them should not revert to taking grand tours. Nobody else can travel for as long or as luxuriously. It needs a few leaders among them to lead the way. And the infrastructure that would need to be maintained to keep their travel comfortable would benefit the rest of us.
Just as important as high speed rail will be urban rail mass transit. In March 2009 (Jeesh,15 years ago! ) I posted on DailyKos "$3.195 trillion -TRILLION - for urban RAIL transit,"
in which I wrote "billions is the mark of a mere politician. A true statesman -- someone who understands what we need to bring our country into the new era dawning -- will be talking about how many trillions we need." TN makes the same point, but may I be allowed to console myself that in the past 15 years, there has been more willingness among the ruling class to consider solutions with price tags in the trillions, not billions. For example, the original Biden budgets which were stopped by Sinema, Manchin, and the (anti)Republicans.
I also wanted to get people to start thinking of such massive programs not as costs, but as investments. As opportunities to rebuild our economies and put millions of people to work doing useful and productive things:
"To build adequate urban rail transit systems in the 39 largest U.S. cities, where nearly half of all Americans live, is going to require $3.195 trillion. That is just construction costs – it does not include the cost of new rolling stock and maintenance rail vehicles. It is a project that can create 7.5 million jobs a year, for ten years. And it is a project that we most assuredly will not even initiate so long as we are content with politics and business as usual."
IMHO the biggest risk of nucleur war is Not Ukraine war, where Putin is a very rational. actor, but Israel, a messianic ethno-national paranoid state, that has a Samson policy where it would destroy the world rather than lose a war. Your overall view makes me think of the sci-fi book The Three Body Problem, and rest of trilogy.
Holmes, the biggest emitter on earth of greenhouse gasses is by far the US military.
What version of a cargo cult will emerge to entice the arrival of the benevolent aliens? I must confess that this is a religion that is appealing to me.
Well back on Planet Earth I hope the Sleeborans staff physics departments. They are providing 80 million peace officers in robotic form. To compress this mass of material for interstellar voyage would approach the limits of retaining the information and structure of the robots themselves. Are there really civilizations that upon discovering quantum mechanics find a first application something other than one hell of a bomb?
If California in their less than speedy roll out of high speed rail is a template for our prospects in the United States, we are doomed.
What we cannot overlook in regards to our fossil fuel fueled diet is the destruction of top soil by over fertilization. It is true that fossil fuels remain crucial for transporting essential items. This is the chief reason for weaning ourselves off of massive mobile metal objects. We don't have the luxury of travel by whim unless it is under our own power.
Hey, what these robots can do, why can't we?
My question is: why would the Sleeborans value humans more than the integrity of the ecosystem and other lifeforms on earth ? Would they not just look on our behaviour that seeks to exploit every finite resources and land with absolute disregard to the integrity of the biosphere and ecosystem and decide that it would be much better to just wipe us out?
What would you personally do in this scenario: you have a large aquarium tank that used to have a variety of aquatic species. But one day, a mutated shark not only eats with such wanton greed that other fishes in the tank are all getting eaten to extinction, but this clever shark also somehow decided to also kill other animals that is not essential for its survival (sea shell for example) so that it can trade with other mutant shark to “grow their economy” or make artificial shark mansion etc. Do you go ahead and worry about correcting the seashell inequality within those mutant sharks or you just remove all of them for the sake of the animal diversity in the aquarium?
Back in the day, the rich used to take the grand tour of Europe. And they were able to take their time about it. Then there was a time when the traveling by rail on the Orient Express or on other luxurious coaches was the sign of being rich. Or a cruise. Then travel by air then by Concorde. It is the rich who do most of the flying.
These days the not-so-rich can afford flights and cruises. Maybe not as often or for as long or as luxuriously, but these things are no longer symbols of being in the top 1%. A few of them are looking to go to space next. But I don't see why the rest of rest of them should not revert to taking grand tours. Nobody else can travel for as long or as luxuriously. It needs a few leaders among them to lead the way. And the infrastructure that would need to be maintained to keep their travel comfortable would benefit the rest of us.
Just as important as high speed rail will be urban rail mass transit. In March 2009 (Jeesh,15 years ago! ) I posted on DailyKos "$3.195 trillion -TRILLION - for urban RAIL transit,"
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2009/3/18/710248/-
in which I wrote "billions is the mark of a mere politician. A true statesman -- someone who understands what we need to bring our country into the new era dawning -- will be talking about how many trillions we need." TN makes the same point, but may I be allowed to console myself that in the past 15 years, there has been more willingness among the ruling class to consider solutions with price tags in the trillions, not billions. For example, the original Biden budgets which were stopped by Sinema, Manchin, and the (anti)Republicans.
I also wanted to get people to start thinking of such massive programs not as costs, but as investments. As opportunities to rebuild our economies and put millions of people to work doing useful and productive things:
"To build adequate urban rail transit systems in the 39 largest U.S. cities, where nearly half of all Americans live, is going to require $3.195 trillion. That is just construction costs – it does not include the cost of new rolling stock and maintenance rail vehicles. It is a project that can create 7.5 million jobs a year, for ten years. And it is a project that we most assuredly will not even initiate so long as we are content with politics and business as usual."