The Need for a Frontier...
POSTED BY: nanite1018
UPDATED: Tuesday, August 1, 2006 02:19
VIEWED: 11082
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Basically, we humans need a frontier. A place where we can expand and start anew, do things differently. We don't have one. The whole planet is within 24 hours of any other part of the planet. Or less. That's too small to get a fresh start. Plus, there's no where left to go. Everything is claimed. All land is controlled by someone else, and so only war can really carve out a portion for a new country. Frontiers (as evidenced by the New World colonization and the Westward movement in the US) allow for new systems, new ideas, innovation, and invention. Enormous benefits result. Structures remain fluid, there is an influx of ideas and new inventions, and an overall kind of hope that if things aren't going so well here, well then i can try again, really start fresh somewhere very very far away. Governments on the frontier tend to be almost libertarian, small, functional.
What do we see today? Big governments (not necessarily a bad thing), and they are enormously, ludicrously inefficient (a terrible thing, especially when coupled with big government. efficient big government might be okay to good, but a big inefficient government isn't very good at all). A general lowering of dreams. We don't dream of the stars anymore, not most of us. We don't dream of a far far better world and actually believe it's possible. Well, most of us don't. We are becoming more and more conservative, innovation is slowing it's exponential growth (it'll always be exponential, it is just not exponentiating as fast as it was say 50 years ago). No new social systems can be tried. Pollution is becoming a huge issue, our energy supplies are dwindling, and our population is rising. Earth doesn't have the capacity to support us, especially if standards of living improve dramatically in the developing world (such as if they became developed) and if our population continues to grow. Extinctions are happening (i think i remember reading this somewhere) a thousand times or a hundred times faster than the standard background rate, why? Because of people. The Earth can't support us. Even if we stopped growing now, and developed far more efficient systems to support us, and stopped growing, levelled off totally, we would still be living in a negative sum game. Some believe the world is a zero-sum game (it can't be a positive sum game, everything is pretty much claimed, all the land at least. There's only so much resources on Earth after all, so there are limits, and we're pushing them). It's not. There will always be inefficienies, we'll always lose some small fraction of usable resources each year. it's inevitable, everything is at least just the slightest bit inefficient. The Earth is a negative-sum game.
So how do we solve it? What frontier is left? Where do we get our resources from? Easy: Space.
Yes, space. Outer space that is. The planets and moons, the asteroids and comets. There are enormous reservoirs of resources out there. One asteroid (16 Psyche) has enough iron-nickel to supply the worlds current demand for a milllion years! If we built giant space colonies that rotated to create artificial gravity, the maximum population size for one with current technology is about 10 million, although if you pushed it to the absolute limit you could get up to ten times that. And that's today. It might be possible to build ones that can have a billion people live in them. Even assuming inefficient use of resources, a million tons a person for such a system is about 100 times higher than the average estimate for the highest necessary. But let's say a million tons a person is necessary. How many could Colonies (or as O'Neill called them, Islands, i'll call them O'Neill colonies or Colonies from now on) made from the Moon support? About 10 trillion people if not more. It's been estimated there are enough resources in the solar system to support somewhere between as few as 100 trillion people and as many as 10000 trillion people, if not more. 10 quadrillion people! That's comfortably. So basically, the limits to growth in the Solar System are basically super
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Bumpage
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Interesting read, Nanite.
I think the desire to go into space is natural, especially for Browncoats. We live in an age where shuttle launches barely make the evening news (unless something goes wrong), and where we have the technology to sustain human life in space for extended periods of time. What we don't have is the money to do it on a large scale, or the driving necessity to make us devote the money.
I don't think any of us will see a full Colony in our life times. We might see eccentric millionaires building recreational space ships or full off-planet homes for themselves. But unless a hugely necessary resource (oil, good soil for crops, etc.) is found on a planet, moon, or asteroid; or unless some huge world crisis forces us to start moving off world, I doubt we'll even see the beginning stages of large scale colonies.
But I hear what you're saying about frontiers. There are two frontiers, other than space, that I can easily point to. The first is the oceans: I know very little about this frontier, other than to say that there are *still* areas of the ocean floor that are unmapped. There's so much about them that we don't know.
The other frontier is technology. I know, I know, not the physical frontier you were thinking of. But hear me out. All those things you described -- escaping big government, trying out new forms of society, dreaming of better worlds, looking into the black and wondering what's possible -- are alive and well on the technological frontier. The two areas of the technological frontier that I am most familiar with are Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual World creation.
The cutting edge research and development being done with AI is amazing, but I think you'd find virtual worlds more to your liking. Talk about dreaming of a new world! Working with technology that allows you to build an entirely new world from the ground up -- literally, from the rules of gravity on up -- and then opening that world up to hundreds of thousands of people... People who have the complete anonymity of the internet, who can start over, start a life different from their "real" one, live as whatever they want to be. It's powerful stuff.
The sociological studies of such worlds are unbelievable. We're seeing behaviors and societal norms that would *never* have happened in the real world. Most of the worlds are presented in the context of a game (i.e., World of Warcraft, Everquest, etc), but there are many out there that are just *worlds*, and the technology to allow anyone to create their own virtual world is just over the horizon.
I know this isn't the sort of frontier you're dreaming of. I know most of us want to experience life in the black. But I really don't think any of us will get that chance. For now, I'll take whatever frontier I can get.
~CK
You can't take the sky from me...
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I understand that it'll take something big to overcome our inertia and get the ball rolling, to start the expansion into space. But that resource you were thinking of, is easily found. And that is everything. That asteroid has enormous amounts of iron-nickel, and small amounts of other elements. Such as platinum. Platinum is worth more than 12000 dollars a kilogram. That's quite a lot of coin for a very small amount of stuff. And then there is energy, which we need a cheap supply of. Solar Power Satellites could be built that could be huge, way bigger than anything that could be on Earth, and also be more efficient than is possible on Earth, with absolutely no night, and no atmosphere to block the sunlight, they'd be at least 50% more efficient than ground based arrays, but would most likely require less in terms of maintenance and weigh next to nothing in construction because there is no gravity, and therefore little need for structural supports. We could definetely use solar energy for all our poewr, particularly if we did it from space. And then there is space manufacturing, which could make alloys and crystals and things that are simply impossible to grow on the surface of the Earth, things that may turn out to be very powerful or in demand or worth a great deal of money here on Earth.
Now, i know it'd be hard, really hard. But i think it might just happen that some of us Browncoats might actually be able to live in the black someday. Who knows, maybe Firefly will actually happen, maybe not exactly, but private spaceships, criminal jobs, dozens of "worlds" and "moons" (in this case man-made) where people live. Maybe, by 2517, almost everyone will live in the black, or at least many people. It's a wonderful thought.
And as to the oceans, yes they are a frontier. And they are very close. Problem is they don't have that much room. I mean to build something in the ocean is as hard as building something in space, because of all the problems with the water and such. Do i think that millions of people will one day live under the surface of the ocean? Yes. But i just don't see it as a big enough frontier. i mean you would be so close to the other people on the planet, there might be too much interconnection, and not much chance of simply leaving altogether, and disappearing. There is a huge amount of resources, yes. But not enough to sustain us for more than a few hundred years. We will eventually HAVE to move into space, because we will simply not be able to squeeze anything else out of this ol' rock.
As for technology, yeah it isn't the kind fo frontier i was thinking of. Of course science and technology are important frontiers, and virtual reality doesn't take much in the way of resources. I love the idea, and think it'll be a reality and very important part of the future. But again, the basic necessity remains: there's only so much gose down here to use, and we'll eventually use it up due to inevitable inefficiencies in recycling technologies. Eventually, space will be absolutely necessary for our survival.
You know, the whole idea in Firefly of Earth getting "used up" and people being forced to leave and colonize space is inevitable if we don't destroy ourselves first. I just hope we don't have to use up Earth to move out into space. It's such a beautiful place, it wouldn't be good to burn it all up and use everything up until we couldn't live here anymore.
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Quote:I disagree with much of what you wrote. It's not at all inevitable that Earth will get used up. Just one example: there's a lot of new science that strongly suggests that oil is a renewing resource - it's constantly being produced, and in quantities that will always exceed our use of it. The planet is not even beginning to come close to the start of the edge of overpopulation, and the most reliable forecasts suggest a large downward trend in population over the next few centuries. In economics, there's no such thing as a zero- or negative-sum game, unless irrational brakes are put on human achievement and innovation by repressive governments. Without such brakes, wealth is always expanding: in the U.S. at least, even the poorest people today live better than the kings of just a few centuries ago, and there's no justifiable reason why prosperity like that can't spread across the globe if people are just left to, as Mal said in the BDM, "go [[]their[]] way."
Originally posted by nanite1018:
You know, the whole idea in Firefly of Earth getting "used up" and people being forced to leave and colonize space is inevitable if we don't destroy ourselves first.
As for physical frontiers, there is the ocean, but, again because of governmental restrictions, we are largely prevented from entering that realm. The same is true for vast areas of land that have been declared off-limits to humans - yes, there are still many, many places we could be expanding into on land, but the laws don't allow it.
In space, with ventures like Virgin Galactic, we're finally seeing the birth of private space exploration. The best thing that could possibly happen on that front is for the government to get the hell out of the way and let it happen. The accomplishments would be beyond anyone's present ability to imagine them. Consider the advances in computers and the internet - the government regulated almost none of that, and who just twenty years ago could have guessed the wonders we have now? Leave people free and they accomplish great things.
Finally, there are huge opportunities in what I'll call "intellectual" frontiers. Some of the possibilities of technology have already been mentioned, and there are many, many more. There's also a philosophical revolution that needs to take place, one that puts the freedom of the individual at the center of all moral and political decisions. That's the only way to achieve the kind of freedom for everyone that someone like Mal Reynolds is fighting to achieve for himself. Fortunately, the right philosophy must eventually win out, because only a philosophy based on actual reality can ultimately survive, since reality and not Man always has the final say. How long it will take there's no way to tell, and there will be fits and starts, advances and setbacks, but long, long term there's no other possible outcome. Mal's descendents-in-spirit will have the sky, and no one will even want to take it from them.
--
"That's what government's for: get in a man's way." - Mal
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I agree with the nanite; we need to get the hell off this rock, if for no other reason than population (though there are other reasons that are self-evident to anyone paying attention, such as the psychological stagnation of the human race, the impending environmental collapse, and the inevitable [though still far-off] implosion of our planetary economy).
My only real worry is that we may already be too weak and passive for it. There's a huge number of people now who would find it much easier to just lay down and die when the lights go out --who are in fact eager for such a fate (as evidenced by current events in the Middle-East and elsewhere, propelled by people whose hatred outweighs their intellect and/or survival drive).
The inertia that you mentioned may end up being too strong to overcome.
-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.
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I have a student ( I will call him Alex here, but it's not his name)Alex is such a little mountain man, but he's stuck in the wrong century. He needs the challenges and adventure of a new frontier. He is tough, resourceful, intelligent, and remarkable and mending and building things with minimal number of tools. He, however, is lousy at school. He hates being confined and isn't all that keen on doing the intellectual work. I wish I could send him to explore space. He'd be so great at it. All his skills have geared him toward being an explorer and it just doesn't help him in this world we have....so I hope we get a frontier soon:)
I choose to rise instead of fall- U2
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Quote:
Originally posted by msg:
I wish I could send him to explore space.
NASA -- improving the world by sending people far away from it.
(I know that's not how you meant it, I just thought it a funny quote.)
-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Piz:Quote:I disagree with much of what you wrote. It's not at all inevitable that Earth will get used up. Just one example: there's a lot of new science that strongly suggests that oil is a renewing resource - it's constantly being produced, and in quantities that will always exceed our use of it. The planet is not even beginning to come close to the start of the edge of overpopulation, and the most reliable forecasts suggest a large downward trend in population over the next few centuries. In economics, there's no such thing as a zero- or negative-sum game, unless irrational brakes are put on human achievement and innovation by repressive governments. Without such brakes, wealth is always expanding: in the U.S. at least, even the poorest people today live better than the kings of just a few centuries ago, and there's no justifiable reason why prosperity like that can't spread across the globe if people are just left to, as Mal said in the BDM, "go [[]their[]] way."
Originally posted by nanite1018:
You know, the whole idea in Firefly of Earth getting "used up" and people being forced to leave and colonize space is inevitable if we don't destroy ourselves first.
As for physical frontiers, there is the ocean, but, again because of governmental restrictions, we are largely prevented from entering that realm. The same is true for vast areas of land that have been declared off-limits to humans - yes, there are still many, many places we could be expanding into on land, but the laws don't allow it.
In space, with ventures like Virgin Galactic, we're finally seeing the birth of private space exploration. The best thing that could possibly happen on that front is for the government to get the hell out of the way and let it happen. The accomplishments would be beyond anyone's present ability to imagine them. Consider the advances in computers and the internet - the government regulated almost none of that, and who just twenty years ago could have guessed the wonders we have now? Leave people free and they accomplish great things.
Finally, there are huge opportunities in what I'll call "intellectual" frontiers. Some of the possibilities of technology have already been mentioned, and there are many, many more. There's also a philosophical revolution that needs to take place, one that puts the freedom of the individual at the center of all moral and political decisions. That's the only way to achieve the kind of freedom for everyone that someone like Mal Reynolds is fighting to achieve for himself. Fortunately, the right philosophy must eventually win out, because only a philosophy based on actual reality can ultimately survive, since reality and not Man always has the final say. How long it will take there's no way to tell, and there will be fits and starts, advances and setbacks, but long, long term there's no other possible outcome. Mal's descendents-in-spirit will have the sky, and no one will even want to take it from them.
--
"That's what government's for: get in a man's way." - Mal
Yes it is. Inevitable i mean. In what world do you live in where oil is produced faster than we use it? I highly doubt somehow that oil is being produced at the rate of several billion barrels a day. And even if it was, what about the environment? Global warming is going to be a problem, a big one, if we keep using fossil fuels. And look for a second at places like Africa. Let's see, famine, plague, war... hm. Yeah, and why is that? Because there are too many people.
We are pushing the boundaries of Earth. For example, the demand for fish has led to overfishing to the point that fishing is not a profitable industry without government subsidies. Other industries will have such problems too, as the standard of living in the developing world increases, particularly in India and China. If China got to, in 50 years, the US's per capita use of oil and gas and coal, we would basically see gas prices about 3 times higher than we have now. 9 bucks a gallon, if not more.
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Quote:Sorry, but swallowing the conventional "wisdom" hook, line, and sinker isn't going to make one see clearly. All the information is out there, I leave it to you to look into it as I did. Suffice to say that nearly none of what you posit is accurate.
Originally posted by nanite1018:
Yes it is. Inevitable i mean.
--
"That's what government's for: get in a man's way." - Mal
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