To infinity and beyond?
Prediction is very hard, especially about the future - Yogi Berra
Sometime in the near future humans are going to try to see what they can do without fossil fuels, at least without as much fossil fuels.
Some think under good conditions there'll be a smooth transition to alternative technologies and energy sources. I'm not very confident about this story considering the size of humanity's scale since we first starting burning coal, oil and natural gas. Ideally the future always has a backstep in case things turn tough - we can go back to old technologies, old energy sources, but there's a small problem - not all energy sources can scale to any desired level.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/eh/frame.html U.S. Energy usage graph
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Population_curve.svg World Population graph
Back when President Bush thought of sending people to the Moon and Mars, I thought a better mission would be to see how we could live on the Earth. I mean since we'd have to depend on solar power in space, why not on earth? Its much easier - breathable air, liquid water, nice temperatures, soil, microorganisms, a whole freaking biosphere at our service. But it's not as romantic to imagine merely surviving on earth I guess. Too easy?
I thought it would be good to build "sustainable cities" from scratch. Fill them with people willing to live within local means, local energy, local resources. Let them use the best technology possible, and see what it takes to live. Make it a school for research and learning. Seems like a good experiment.
Why isn't it as fun as it seems? Because there's a whole "world" of opportunities created by living within an advanced connected modern civilization, and it's a royal pain to try to build up something 1/10 as good over many years. So the experiment is left untried.
I sort of do take it in the "lifeboat" ideal - just in case things turn out bad for our monster global empire, we might like to SEE the alternatives. See what can be done without depleting every corner of the global of its wealth as fast as possible.
It would be interesting - perhaps a group would try their fortitude at local self-reliance, boosted by some good initial funding, but looking to create a system that can keep going even if the external imports disappear.
Then I think of the spaceship theory - going to the stars. One GOOD reason to NOT try to send humanity to the stars, even assuming we had the technology is it would take thousands of years, and it is as likely as not future technology would improve to a level that speeds could be increased. Imagine sailing along at 0.25% of the speed, traveling for 17 generations in isolation, when along comes a new spaceship traveling at 2.5% the speed of light, passing them by so fast that they don't even bother slowing down to do anything more than say hi - since it'd waste too much energy.
Technology can be a similar sort of experiment - well along with evolution at a different rate. And human changes to genes another acceleration!
Whatever future you imagine, you can take your best guess and jump at it, and find in 5 years a fully different approach has fully "out competed" yours and all your efforts are wasted, assuming your way is abandoned.
Nature perhaps doesn't optimize as much - allows more variations - AND of course speedy paths can lead to deadends much faster. That spaceship travelling at 2.5% of light speed might break down half way and have no way to slow down, while the tortoise prods along and wins the race eventually. Sometimes future winners and losers are not what you'd expect from a linear extrapolation of short term success.
Will human's experiments in culture and technology lead us to a deadend? The evidence seems high on mere probability, even knowing nothing of our methods or bottlenecks.
I suppose the best paths are ones that are fun on the way, and adaptable if circumstances change. Big is generally less adaptable all will admit. Nuclear power seems great by many measures, but much harder than a windmill. I'm not willing to bet which will WIN, but I'm betting a windmill seems a safer bet knowing nothing of the future, not to say there's not a million designs for either.
Plodding may win the race, but I know I'm a reluctant hare, wishing I could slow down, but still in awe of the speeds we travel, so I keep pretending I can slow down when circumstances change. I don't know.
Sometime in the near future humans are going to try to see what they can do without fossil fuels, at least without as much fossil fuels.
Some think under good conditions there'll be a smooth transition to alternative technologies and energy sources. I'm not very confident about this story considering the size of humanity's scale since we first starting burning coal, oil and natural gas. Ideally the future always has a backstep in case things turn tough - we can go back to old technologies, old energy sources, but there's a small problem - not all energy sources can scale to any desired level.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/eh/frame.html U.S. Energy usage graph
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Population_curve.svg World Population graph
Back when President Bush thought of sending people to the Moon and Mars, I thought a better mission would be to see how we could live on the Earth. I mean since we'd have to depend on solar power in space, why not on earth? Its much easier - breathable air, liquid water, nice temperatures, soil, microorganisms, a whole freaking biosphere at our service. But it's not as romantic to imagine merely surviving on earth I guess. Too easy?
I thought it would be good to build "sustainable cities" from scratch. Fill them with people willing to live within local means, local energy, local resources. Let them use the best technology possible, and see what it takes to live. Make it a school for research and learning. Seems like a good experiment.
Why isn't it as fun as it seems? Because there's a whole "world" of opportunities created by living within an advanced connected modern civilization, and it's a royal pain to try to build up something 1/10 as good over many years. So the experiment is left untried.
I sort of do take it in the "lifeboat" ideal - just in case things turn out bad for our monster global empire, we might like to SEE the alternatives. See what can be done without depleting every corner of the global of its wealth as fast as possible.
It would be interesting - perhaps a group would try their fortitude at local self-reliance, boosted by some good initial funding, but looking to create a system that can keep going even if the external imports disappear.
Then I think of the spaceship theory - going to the stars. One GOOD reason to NOT try to send humanity to the stars, even assuming we had the technology is it would take thousands of years, and it is as likely as not future technology would improve to a level that speeds could be increased. Imagine sailing along at 0.25% of the speed, traveling for 17 generations in isolation, when along comes a new spaceship traveling at 2.5% the speed of light, passing them by so fast that they don't even bother slowing down to do anything more than say hi - since it'd waste too much energy.
Technology can be a similar sort of experiment - well along with evolution at a different rate. And human changes to genes another acceleration!
Whatever future you imagine, you can take your best guess and jump at it, and find in 5 years a fully different approach has fully "out competed" yours and all your efforts are wasted, assuming your way is abandoned.
Nature perhaps doesn't optimize as much - allows more variations - AND of course speedy paths can lead to deadends much faster. That spaceship travelling at 2.5% of light speed might break down half way and have no way to slow down, while the tortoise prods along and wins the race eventually. Sometimes future winners and losers are not what you'd expect from a linear extrapolation of short term success.
Will human's experiments in culture and technology lead us to a deadend? The evidence seems high on mere probability, even knowing nothing of our methods or bottlenecks.
I suppose the best paths are ones that are fun on the way, and adaptable if circumstances change. Big is generally less adaptable all will admit. Nuclear power seems great by many measures, but much harder than a windmill. I'm not willing to bet which will WIN, but I'm betting a windmill seems a safer bet knowing nothing of the future, not to say there's not a million designs for either.
Plodding may win the race, but I know I'm a reluctant hare, wishing I could slow down, but still in awe of the speeds we travel, so I keep pretending I can slow down when circumstances change. I don't know.
posted by Ares Olympus at 5:06 PM
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