On August 01 2013 07:12 Kukaracha wrote: The shift is already there. We're missing it because it's the very air we breathe.
There isn't much time for growth, too. Following Kondratiev's pattern, new technologies will push the economy for a dozen more years until the market is overwhelmed and slowly deflates like a giant hot air balloon.
However, give it fourty more years and progress in genetics will open up the field of bioengineering... heh !
for somebody defending relativism not too long ago it is quite bold to proclaim patterns in history stretching over 50 years.
Hi ! Not really sure what you mean there ? Besides, Kondratiev and Juglar's cycles have been observed for more than two centuries. It simply feels safer to bet that the world will keep on running its course than predicting a sudden revolution.
On August 01 2013 07:12 Kukaracha wrote: The shift is already there. We're missing it because it's the very air we breathe.
There isn't much time for growth, too. Following Kondratiev's pattern, new technologies will push the economy for a dozen more years until the market is overwhelmed and slowly deflates like a giant hot air balloon.
However, give it fourty more years and progress in genetics will open up the field of bioengineering... heh !
for somebody defending relativism not too long ago it is quite bold to proclaim patterns in history stretching over 50 years.
Hi ! Not really sure what you mean there ? Besides, Kondratiev and Juglar's cycles have been observed for more than two centuries. It simply feels safer to bet that the world will keep on running its course than predicting a sudden revolution.
Well I am no expert on the subject, just skimmed across the wiki article but the first thing that crossed my mind was that the world's population and thus the number of scientists increased throughout history. Generally speaking an increased number of scientists should gather more knowledge. This is countered by the fact that complexitiy of research increases (aka: you discover easy things first.) So it may be (if population goes up + Show Spoiler +
I know this is a problem since there is a trend that birthrates decrease, except for "black africa" and Afghanistan.
or more people have access to university level of education) that "the wavlength" may decrease. Or increase since problems will become so complex that you need intelectual outliers to solve them. Or both effects occur at the same time since people could work on two paradigm shifts at once but on a larger timescale. It may also be that the "far left" are right and there is a fundamental flaw in capitalism which causes periodical large scale crisis. these periods may cause increase in unemployment thus decrease number of researchers and thus cause K-waves.
Edit: I just saw the latest picture of A JW Goldschmidt, who seem to acknowledge some of my issued because the waves differ in length. So it seems they are no "wave" rolling through history but rather a description of the cycle of new technology.
Another thing that bothers me is that these "large scale" theories remind me of Marx theory of history and that didn't work out that well. Furthermore it is quite bold to start to see patterns in modern human history from just about ~300 years of the industrial revolution. There could be a lot of noise in it. Last point is a technical thing: there is no "y-axis". And this is a real problem since you can't just calculate "inflation" like that. How much would my computer cost 10 years ago? prob. a lot more, since it was usable and better by this times standards. 50 years ago? questionable. People could reverse engineer a lot but it wouldn't have direct effects on costumers. 300 years ago? worthless piece of junk where nobody would understand what it could do. (assuming you don't explain them what it does)
On August 02 2013 03:06 packrat386 wrote: Precious metal's, helium 3, space solar power. All of these things require a large presence in space and far outweigh the costs of the commercial ventures to retrieve them.
I was going to ask you for numbers to support this astonishing claim, but since you lump in "solar power" it's pretty clear that you're bullshitting.
The idea of sending rockets into space to farm solar power and then take it back is crazy. It's only something that someone who hasn't studied high school physics could possibly entertain.
As for precious minerals and helium 3..."precious minerals" encompasses a variety of things, but helium 3 costs $100 per litre. The cost of sending a manned rocket to Mars is over a trillion dollars. Go figure.
On August 01 2013 01:08 GreenGringo wrote: The posts about space exploration are funny, because we're not even close to being able to put a self-sustaining colony on the Arctic -- let alone Mars.
You do get spin-off benefits, but the same is true of almost anything. You don't play the violin because it's good exercise for your right arm.
Actually we are. The US could start putting habitats on Mars in less than a decade if it really had the drive to and financial backing. Quite easily in fact with our advancement in computer, flight hardware, and robotics.
You don't understand what's meant by "self-sustaining". The colony would have to grow its own food and much else. To say that this is "easy" is simply ridiculous. Even George W. Bush's intended Moon-Mars mission was estimated to cost over a trillion dollars, and a colony rather than a manned flight would cost much more.
No gains have been suggested except a few small spin-off benefits. That can hardly justify trillions of dollars in expenses, regardless of how much mystique there is attached with space "exploration".
Of course nobody expects a colony to be self sufficient right off the bat. Space Colonies could take decades for such a sustainability to take effect. Which is why a colony wouldn't just sit there it would establish routines whether it's scientific or even industrial such as mining metals or even methane. Thus strategically located colonies while working to establish sustainability.
I so want to post the YouTube video "The Case for Mars" by Robert Zubrin yet I have posted it so many times on this site that it is either ignored or everyone is familiar with it.
The scientific gains simply aren't worth it. Unmanned space flight is almost just as good for scientific purposes as manned spaceflight. This is the consensus of astrophysicists. They can see the same things, extract the same materials, perform the same tests, with probes and rovers, for much cheaper. Scientifically, they could do all kinds of far more important things with the trillion dollars it takes to put a man into space (and presumably trillions of dollars more to put a colony on Mars and keep it there).
As for resources...how do you plan to transport them? The cost will outweigh the gain. Until there's a huge demand for the type of stuff they happen to have on Mars, colonizing such a planet simply isn't worth it.
Of course why do you think the ultimate goal for the Mars rovers are along with learning the history of mars. is? Or the recent moon mapping for water etc are for?
Fuck it:
Notice his plan for the first missions. Keep in mind this was in 1997! Cell phones are more powerful than the computers were at that time now if it was possible then... There is also discussing of transport etc. Now there is the private industries which are now in direction competition for NASA ISS contracts,. Times that to delivering to outposts on the Moon and Mars. Also note private companies aren't just in the logistics business some are actually working towards mobile fuel depots in Space. Some even want to manufacture in Space.
As for cost versus gain. Imagine the country or even a company that successfully manages to extract methane on the moon, or resources from an asteroid and not only did it successfully but they also plan to do it agauin several times over. They will have cornered the market and not a damn thing could be done to stop it or even prevent them from selling it except for other nations and companies to do the same. They will make the Oil companies look like lemonade stands.
On August 02 2013 03:06 packrat386 wrote: Precious metal's, helium 3, space solar power. All of these things require a large presence in space and far outweigh the costs of the commercial ventures to retrieve them.
I was going to ask you for numbers to support this astonishing claim, but since you lump in "solar power" it's pretty clear that you're bullshitting.
The idea of sending rockets into space to farm solar power and then take it back is crazy. It's only something that someone who hasn't studied high school physics could possibly entertain.
As for precious minerals and helium 3..."precious minerals" encompasses a variety of things, but helium 3 costs $100 per litre. The cost of sending a manned rocket to Mars is over a trillion dollars. Go figure.
You should try reading some of the articles that I linked to. A lot of lanthanide and actinide metals are found in incredibly small quantities on earth (we call these rare earth metals) but you can come across asteroids that are made up entirely of these metals. A lot of them are critical for new technology and industry so having a larger supply would be great.
As for space solar power, the idea is not to "mine" solar power in batteries and bring it back, but to put solar panels on the moon and in orbit and then send the energy back using microwave energy transfer. A lot of people believe in the technology, so here are 2 sources just off the top of my head that thing you're wrong
Both of them are infinitely more qualified than some random guy on the internet. Next time try reading before asserting that I can't possibly be right.
On August 01 2013 07:12 Kukaracha wrote: The shift is already there. We're missing it because it's the very air we breathe.
There isn't much time for growth, too. Following Kondratiev's pattern, new technologies will push the economy for a dozen more years until the market is overwhelmed and slowly deflates like a giant hot air balloon.
However, give it fourty more years and progress in genetics will open up the field of bioengineering... heh !
for somebody defending relativism not too long ago it is quite bold to proclaim patterns in history stretching over 50 years.
Hi ! Not really sure what you mean there ? Besides, Kondratiev and Juglar's cycles have been observed for more than two centuries. It simply feels safer to bet that the world will keep on running its course than predicting a sudden revolution.
Well I am no expert on the subject, just skimmed across the wiki article but the first thing that crossed my mind was that the world's population and thus the number of scientists increased throughout history. Generally speaking an increased number of scientists should gather more knowledge. This is countered by the fact that complexitiy of research increases (aka: you discover easy things first.) So it may be (if population goes up + Show Spoiler +
I know this is a problem since there is a trend that birthrates decrease, except for "black africa" and Afghanistan.
or more people have access to university level of education) that "the wavlength" may decrease. Or increase since problems will become so complex that you need intelectual outliers to solve them. Or both effects occur at the same time since people could work on two paradigm shifts at once but on a larger timescale. It may also be that the "far left" are right and there is a fundamental flaw in capitalism which causes periodical large scale crisis. these periods may cause increase in unemployment thus decrease number of researchers and thus cause K-waves.
Edit: I just saw the latest picture of A JW Goldschmidt, who seem to acknowledge some of my issued because the waves differ in length. So it seems they are no "wave" rolling through history but rather a description of the cycle of new technology.
Another thing that bothers me is that these "large scale" theories remind me of Marx theory of history and that didn't work out that well. Furthermore it is quite bold to start to see patterns in modern human history from just about ~300 years of the industrial revolution. There could be a lot of noise in it. Last point is a technical thing: there is no "y-axis". And this is a real problem since you can't just calculate "inflation" like that. How much would my computer cost 10 years ago? prob. a lot more, since it was usable and better by this times standards. 50 years ago? questionable. People could reverse engineer a lot but it wouldn't have direct effects on costumers. 300 years ago? worthless piece of junk where nobody would understand what it could do. (assuming you don't explain them what it does)
In the technologist interpretation of kondratiev's cycle, there is an important distinction that is made between "incremental" innovations and "radical" innovations. The increase in scientist doesn't mean that the wavelength of the cycle may decrease because there are economical mecanism that play in the cycle that goes beyond the population : it's not only a question of "research" but how and where you are researching. For exemple, Schumpeter consider that at the end of a crisis, there is a mecanism of "creative destruction" that occur, where the ressources (money and men mostly) that were used in a specific industry that is destroyed by the crisis is reinvested in other type of industries where there are possibilities for radical innovations. It's that process that permit research in fields where there are radical innovations and not the number of scientist nor our knowledge.
From an economic perspective, Schumpeter's interpretation of the Kondratiev's cycle is really interesting but people should not misunderstand why the interpretation was needed : Kondratiev's cycle came with deflation periods, and deflation was described as a central mecanism of the cycle. In today's world, deflation is not really a common occurence, and the trend is completly different from how it was at Kondratiev's time (it was flat, not it's going up). It's attracting to think that there are some kind of grand economic and historic scheme that repeat itself and that could define for us how and when revolutions are going to occur, but in my opinion that's kinda wrong.
On August 01 2013 07:12 Kukaracha wrote: The shift is already there. We're missing it because it's the very air we breathe.
There isn't much time for growth, too. Following Kondratiev's pattern, new technologies will push the economy for a dozen more years until the market is overwhelmed and slowly deflates like a giant hot air balloon.
However, give it fourty more years and progress in genetics will open up the field of bioengineering... heh !
for somebody defending relativism not too long ago it is quite bold to proclaim patterns in history stretching over 50 years.
Hi ! Not really sure what you mean there ? Besides, Kondratiev and Juglar's cycles have been observed for more than two centuries. It simply feels safer to bet that the world will keep on running its course than predicting a sudden revolution.
Well I am no expert on the subject, just skimmed across the wiki article but the first thing that crossed my mind was that the world's population and thus the number of scientists increased throughout history. Generally speaking an increased number of scientists should gather more knowledge. This is countered by the fact that complexitiy of research increases (aka: you discover easy things first.) So it may be (if population goes up + Show Spoiler +
I know this is a problem since there is a trend that birthrates decrease, except for "black africa" and Afghanistan.
or more people have access to university level of education) that "the wavlength" may decrease. Or increase since problems will become so complex that you need intelectual outliers to solve them. Or both effects occur at the same time since people could work on two paradigm shifts at once but on a larger timescale. It may also be that the "far left" are right and there is a fundamental flaw in capitalism which causes periodical large scale crisis. these periods may cause increase in unemployment thus decrease number of researchers and thus cause K-waves.
Edit: I just saw the latest picture of A JW Goldschmidt, who seem to acknowledge some of my issued because the waves differ in length. So it seems they are no "wave" rolling through history but rather a description of the cycle of new technology.
Another thing that bothers me is that these "large scale" theories remind me of Marx theory of history and that didn't work out that well. Furthermore it is quite bold to start to see patterns in modern human history from just about ~300 years of the industrial revolution. There could be a lot of noise in it. Last point is a technical thing: there is no "y-axis". And this is a real problem since you can't just calculate "inflation" like that. How much would my computer cost 10 years ago? prob. a lot more, since it was usable and better by this times standards. 50 years ago? questionable. People could reverse engineer a lot but it wouldn't have direct effects on costumers. 300 years ago? worthless piece of junk where nobody would understand what it could do. (assuming you don't explain them what it does)
In the technologist interpretation of kondratiev's cycle, there is an important distinction that is made between "incremental" innovations and "radical" innovations. The increase in scientist doesn't mean that the wavelength of the cycle may decrease because there are economical mechanism that play in the cycle that goes beyond the population : it's not only a question of "research" but how and where you are researching. For exemple, Schumpeter consider that at the end of a crisis, there is a mecanism of "creative destruction" that occur, where the ressources (money and men mostly) that were used in a specific industry that is destroyed by the crisis is reinvested in other type of industries where there are possibilities for radical innovations. It's that process that permit research in fields where there are radical innovations and not the number of scientist nor our knowledge.
From an economic perspective, Schumpeter's interpretation of the Kondratiev's cycle is really interesting but people should not misunderstand why the interpretation was needed : Kondratiev's cycle came with deflation periods, and deflation was described as a central mecanism of the cycle. In today's world, deflation is not really a common occurence, and the trend is completly different from how it was at Kondratiev's time (it was flat, not it's going up). It's attracting to think that there are some kind of grand economic and historic scheme that repeat itself and that could define for us how and when revolutions are going to occur, but in my opinion that's kinda wrong.
well, thank you for that. it still doesn't convince me.
Just to add for the first paragraph: Due to the increase of scientists there open up more fields which we can research at the same time. For example: A lot of people are researchers in the field of communication systems and computers, but there are also vast improvements made in genetic engineering. So it isn't like Civ 5 where we are researching "optics" and nothing but optics. So it's quite arbitrary to sum them both together because they happen "in between two crysis".(even that being questionable since you said that there are no more deflations).
On August 01 2013 07:12 Kukaracha wrote: The shift is already there. We're missing it because it's the very air we breathe.
There isn't much time for growth, too. Following Kondratiev's pattern, new technologies will push the economy for a dozen more years until the market is overwhelmed and slowly deflates like a giant hot air balloon.
However, give it fourty more years and progress in genetics will open up the field of bioengineering... heh !
for somebody defending relativism not too long ago it is quite bold to proclaim patterns in history stretching over 50 years.
Hi ! Not really sure what you mean there ? Besides, Kondratiev and Juglar's cycles have been observed for more than two centuries. It simply feels safer to bet that the world will keep on running its course than predicting a sudden revolution.
Well I am no expert on the subject, just skimmed across the wiki article but the first thing that crossed my mind was that the world's population and thus the number of scientists increased throughout history. Generally speaking an increased number of scientists should gather more knowledge. This is countered by the fact that complexitiy of research increases (aka: you discover easy things first.) So it may be (if population goes up + Show Spoiler +
I know this is a problem since there is a trend that birthrates decrease, except for "black africa" and Afghanistan.
or more people have access to university level of education) that "the wavlength" may decrease. Or increase since problems will become so complex that you need intelectual outliers to solve them. Or both effects occur at the same time since people could work on two paradigm shifts at once but on a larger timescale. It may also be that the "far left" are right and there is a fundamental flaw in capitalism which causes periodical large scale crisis. these periods may cause increase in unemployment thus decrease number of researchers and thus cause K-waves.
Edit: I just saw the latest picture of A JW Goldschmidt, who seem to acknowledge some of my issued because the waves differ in length. So it seems they are no "wave" rolling through history but rather a description of the cycle of new technology.
Another thing that bothers me is that these "large scale" theories remind me of Marx theory of history and that didn't work out that well. Furthermore it is quite bold to start to see patterns in modern human history from just about ~300 years of the industrial revolution. There could be a lot of noise in it. Last point is a technical thing: there is no "y-axis". And this is a real problem since you can't just calculate "inflation" like that. How much would my computer cost 10 years ago? prob. a lot more, since it was usable and better by this times standards. 50 years ago? questionable. People could reverse engineer a lot but it wouldn't have direct effects on costumers. 300 years ago? worthless piece of junk where nobody would understand what it could do. (assuming you don't explain them what it does)
In the technologist interpretation of kondratiev's cycle, there is an important distinction that is made between "incremental" innovations and "radical" innovations. The increase in scientist doesn't mean that the wavelength of the cycle may decrease because there are economical mechanism that play in the cycle that goes beyond the population : it's not only a question of "research" but how and where you are researching. For exemple, Schumpeter consider that at the end of a crisis, there is a mecanism of "creative destruction" that occur, where the ressources (money and men mostly) that were used in a specific industry that is destroyed by the crisis is reinvested in other type of industries where there are possibilities for radical innovations. It's that process that permit research in fields where there are radical innovations and not the number of scientist nor our knowledge.
From an economic perspective, Schumpeter's interpretation of the Kondratiev's cycle is really interesting but people should not misunderstand why the interpretation was needed : Kondratiev's cycle came with deflation periods, and deflation was described as a central mecanism of the cycle. In today's world, deflation is not really a common occurence, and the trend is completly different from how it was at Kondratiev's time (it was flat, not it's going up). It's attracting to think that there are some kind of grand economic and historic scheme that repeat itself and that could define for us how and when revolutions are going to occur, but in my opinion that's kinda wrong.
well, thank you for that. it still doesn't convince me.
Just to add for the first paragraph: Due to the increase of scientists there open up more fields which we can research at the same time. For example: A lot of people are researchers in the field of communication systems and computers, but there are also vast improvements made in genetic engineering. So it isn't like Civ 5 where we are researching "optics" and nothing but optics. So it's quite arbitrary to sum them both together because they happen "in between two crysis".(even that being questionable since you said that there are no more deflations).
I'm not saying that we are only researching in one area. The idea of neo technologists economist like Freeman is that there is more to innovations than just long term productivity gains, but that some innovations (radical innovations) are like at the center of an economic model (what they call a technologic system) : the usage of the petrol for the industrial era for exemple. Most of the innovations that comes afterwards are only innovations that take the radical innovation and apply it to another field or make it more efficient, but the society as a whole is based around this radical innovation. According to them, there are conditions that are needed for our society to really invest and use economically a new technology that could completly change our view on things, our economy but also our society as a whole. One of that condition is that our old innovations are unable to progress anymore to a point where it push us to a crisis, and a lot of ressources are unused and thus can be reinvested in other fields - but it's not the only "condition", and we could easily extrapolate to say that there are social conditions.
You must also take into consideration that the world "innovation" doesn't refer to a new technology, but to the usage of that technology and especially the economic and social valorisation of that technology. Maybe we already researched something that could completly change our world, but we are not using it broadly for various reasons.
But yeah in modern economy there is some kind of attractiveness to the idea that the more scientist, the more long term growth. The european 2020 is based around an economy of "knowledge"... it didn't really helped our growth to be fair, and I don't really see europe as the region that will really change the world and give birth to that new "paradigm".
Why does everyone assume the coming paradigm shift will be something positive? It seems apparent to me that the global human population is unsustainable at present western standards of living. The coming shift in my mind will be a drastic reduction in the standard of living. The causes will be numerous, but will primarily include steadily rising energy costs, ballooning government debts, and clean water shortages.
On August 01 2013 07:12 Kukaracha wrote: The shift is already there. We're missing it because it's the very air we breathe.
There isn't much time for growth, too. Following Kondratiev's pattern, new technologies will push the economy for a dozen more years until the market is overwhelmed and slowly deflates like a giant hot air balloon.
However, give it fourty more years and progress in genetics will open up the field of bioengineering... heh !
for somebody defending relativism not too long ago it is quite bold to proclaim patterns in history stretching over 50 years.
Hi ! Not really sure what you mean there ? Besides, Kondratiev and Juglar's cycles have been observed for more than two centuries. It simply feels safer to bet that the world will keep on running its course than predicting a sudden revolution.
Well I am no expert on the subject, just skimmed across the wiki article but the first thing that crossed my mind was that the world's population and thus the number of scientists increased throughout history. Generally speaking an increased number of scientists should gather more knowledge. This is countered by the fact that complexitiy of research increases (aka: you discover easy things first.) So it may be (if population goes up + Show Spoiler +
I know this is a problem since there is a trend that birthrates decrease, except for "black africa" and Afghanistan.
or more people have access to university level of education) that "the wavlength" may decrease. Or increase since problems will become so complex that you need intelectual outliers to solve them. Or both effects occur at the same time since people could work on two paradigm shifts at once but on a larger timescale. It may also be that the "far left" are right and there is a fundamental flaw in capitalism which causes periodical large scale crisis. these periods may cause increase in unemployment thus decrease number of researchers and thus cause K-waves.
Edit: I just saw the latest picture of A JW Goldschmidt, who seem to acknowledge some of my issued because the waves differ in length. So it seems they are no "wave" rolling through history but rather a description of the cycle of new technology.
Another thing that bothers me is that these "large scale" theories remind me of Marx theory of history and that didn't work out that well. Furthermore it is quite bold to start to see patterns in modern human history from just about ~300 years of the industrial revolution. There could be a lot of noise in it. Last point is a technical thing: there is no "y-axis". And this is a real problem since you can't just calculate "inflation" like that. How much would my computer cost 10 years ago? prob. a lot more, since it was usable and better by this times standards. 50 years ago? questionable. People could reverse engineer a lot but it wouldn't have direct effects on costumers. 300 years ago? worthless piece of junk where nobody would understand what it could do. (assuming you don't explain them what it does)
In the technologist interpretation of kondratiev's cycle, there is an important distinction that is made between "incremental" innovations and "radical" innovations. The increase in scientist doesn't mean that the wavelength of the cycle may decrease because there are economical mechanism that play in the cycle that goes beyond the population : it's not only a question of "research" but how and where you are researching. For exemple, Schumpeter consider that at the end of a crisis, there is a mecanism of "creative destruction" that occur, where the ressources (money and men mostly) that were used in a specific industry that is destroyed by the crisis is reinvested in other type of industries where there are possibilities for radical innovations. It's that process that permit research in fields where there are radical innovations and not the number of scientist nor our knowledge.
From an economic perspective, Schumpeter's interpretation of the Kondratiev's cycle is really interesting but people should not misunderstand why the interpretation was needed : Kondratiev's cycle came with deflation periods, and deflation was described as a central mecanism of the cycle. In today's world, deflation is not really a common occurence, and the trend is completly different from how it was at Kondratiev's time (it was flat, not it's going up). It's attracting to think that there are some kind of grand economic and historic scheme that repeat itself and that could define for us how and when revolutions are going to occur, but in my opinion that's kinda wrong.
well, thank you for that. it still doesn't convince me.
Just to add for the first paragraph: Due to the increase of scientists there open up more fields which we can research at the same time. For example: A lot of people are researchers in the field of communication systems and computers, but there are also vast improvements made in genetic engineering. So it isn't like Civ 5 where we are researching "optics" and nothing but optics. So it's quite arbitrary to sum them both together because they happen "in between two crysis".(even that being questionable since you said that there are no more deflations).
I'm not saying that we are only researching in one area. The idea of neo technologists economist like Freeman is that there is more to innovations than just long term productivity gains, but that some innovations (radical innovations) are like at the center of an economic model (what they call a technologic system) : the usage of the petrol for the industrial era for exemple. Most of the innovations that comes afterwards are only innovations that take the radical innovation and apply it to another field or make it more efficient, but the society as a whole is based around this radical innovation. According to them, there are conditions that are needed for our society to really invest and use economically a new technology that could completly change our view on things, our economy but also our society as a whole. One of that condition is that our old innovations are unable to progress anymore to a point where it push us to a crisis, and a lot of ressources are unused and thus can be reinvested in other fields - but it's not the only "condition", and we could easily extrapolate to say that there are social conditions.
fair enough.
You must also take into consideration that the world "innovation" doesn't refer to a new technology, but to the usage of that technology and especially the economic and social valorisation of that technology. Maybe we already researched something that could completly change our world, but we are not using it broadly for various reasons.
well the most obvious reason would be that it doesn't compete well with technology we have at hand.
But yeah in modern economy there is some kind of attractiveness to the idea that the more scientist, the more long term growth. The european 2020 is based around an economy of "knowledge"... it didn't really helped our growth to be fair, and I don't really see europe as the region that will really change the world and give birth to that new "paradigm".
While I also do think that more science = better, I also don't see Europe doing quite well. Germany is at the height of its power. But its society is overly aging and not trying hard enough to get more children. They also dump a lot of money into solar power and windcraft without proper storing technology. I don't know much about France but I heard the quota of gvmt is quite high and thus the industry is quite unflexible. Let alone UK who basically deindustrialized a lot.
@Artax: Because we believe in the good of mankind and the power of innovation. We never believed that we could feed 7b people but as it seems we will be able to sustain more than 10b. Never in the history of humanity so much people had this much wealth. Also it seems that your examples are rather poorly chosen: Money in itself has no value. But behind this stands the power of the country it issues. As long as "the west" stays powerful we will not suffer reduction in life quality. (also: lol at the water thing. what is this? 1980?)
On August 02 2013 03:06 packrat386 wrote: Precious metal's, helium 3, space solar power. All of these things require a large presence in space and far outweigh the costs of the commercial ventures to retrieve them.
I was going to ask you for numbers to support this astonishing claim, but since you lump in "solar power" it's pretty clear that you're bullshitting.
The idea of sending rockets into space to farm solar power and then take it back is crazy. It's only something that someone who hasn't studied high school physics could possibly entertain.
As for precious minerals and helium 3..."precious minerals" encompasses a variety of things, but helium 3 costs $100 per litre. The cost of sending a manned rocket to Mars is over a trillion dollars. Go figure.
You should try reading some of the articles that I linked to. A lot of lanthanide and actinide metals are found in incredibly small quantities on earth (we call these rare earth metals) but you can come across asteroids that are made up entirely of these metals. A lot of them are critical for new technology and industry so having a larger supply would be great.
As for space solar power, the idea is not to "mine" solar power in batteries and bring it back, but to put solar panels on the moon and in orbit and then send the energy back using microwave energy transfer. A lot of people believe in the technology, so here are 2 sources just off the top of my head that thing you're wrong
Both of them are infinitely more qualified than some random guy on the internet. Next time try reading before asserting that I can't possibly be right.
I haven't been able to respond for the last two weeks, but this is just infuriating.
You clearly haven't read the papers you refer to, because they have NOTHING to do with your original claim that it's a good idea to colonize Mars for the purpose of solar energy and helium-3.
Neither of the papers mention helium-3 (whose cost of $100 per litre would be dwarfed by the cost of transportation back from Mars). Both papers are about harnessing energy from the Sun by means of satellites in geosynchronous orbits. As goes without saying, that is a different proposition from putting solar panels on Mars. The optimal position for any solar panel array certainly wouldn't be on Mars. The papers you refer to take this for this granted.
On August 02 2013 03:06 packrat386 wrote: Precious metal's, helium 3, space solar power. All of these things require a large presence in space and far outweigh the costs of the commercial ventures to retrieve them.
I was going to ask you for numbers to support this astonishing claim, but since you lump in "solar power" it's pretty clear that you're bullshitting.
The idea of sending rockets into space to farm solar power and then take it back is crazy. It's only something that someone who hasn't studied high school physics could possibly entertain.
As for precious minerals and helium 3..."precious minerals" encompasses a variety of things, but helium 3 costs $100 per litre. The cost of sending a manned rocket to Mars is over a trillion dollars. Go figure.
You should try reading some of the articles that I linked to. A lot of lanthanide and actinide metals are found in incredibly small quantities on earth (we call these rare earth metals) but you can come across asteroids that are made up entirely of these metals. A lot of them are critical for new technology and industry so having a larger supply would be great.
As for space solar power, the idea is not to "mine" solar power in batteries and bring it back, but to put solar panels on the moon and in orbit and then send the energy back using microwave energy transfer. A lot of people believe in the technology, so here are 2 sources just off the top of my head that thing you're wrong
Both of them are infinitely more qualified than some random guy on the internet. Next time try reading before asserting that I can't possibly be right.
I haven't been able to respond for the last two weeks, but this is just infuriating.
You clearly haven't read the papers you refer to, because they have NOTHING to do with your original claim that it's a good idea to colonize Mars for the purpose of solar energy and helium-3.
Neither of the papers mention helium-3 (whose cost of $100 per litre would be dwarfed by the cost of transportation back from Mars). Both papers are about harnessing energy from the Sun by means of satellites in geosynchronous orbits. As goes without saying, that is a different proposition from putting solar panels on Mars. The optimal position for any solar panel array certainly wouldn't be on Mars. The papers you refer to take this for this granted.
Helium 3 is a reason to visit the moon and asteroids, I never said we should go to mars for that. The reason you would go to mars is because of the 2 articles that I linked indicating that we need to get off the rock in the long run.
If a firm is eventually able to bring ore down to Earth, the total wealth available to humanity will be increased. The estimated Helium-3 reserves on our moon would create, in a controlled fusion reaction, 10 times as much energy as is contained in Earth's recoverable coal, oil, and gas combined.2° What is stopping these companies now, perhaps more than the money or technology, is the uncertainty of the legal regime. If exploitation of outer space's bounty is our goal, we must establish a space property legal system that creates both incentives and predictability.
All of the authors that I linked to indicated that there is an abundance of natural resources in space that cannot be retrieved because of uncertain legal doctrines. All of them indicate that if these legal doctrines were clarified it would be a relatively simple process to make billions in space. You have absolutely no qualified evidence indicting any of these claims.
Since you will probably assert without any evidence that there are no valuable resources in space, here is another quote from the same article.
Perhaps the most lucrative area of development is the mining of celestial bodies. On the moon, an assay of only 30 km2 of the lunar surface during Apollo-17 turned up deposits of Helium-3, a radiation-free fusion reactor fuel, practically nonexistent on Earth, that is more efficient than any radioactive fuel currently available.6 So-called near-Earth asteroids ("NEAs"), six are closer to Earth than our moon and more than 50 closer than Mars,7 might also be optimal targets for early development. The smaller of these asteroids have negligible gravitational fields, which would reduce fuel costs far below what is necessary for a lunar mission. Many of these NEAs seem to be rich in raw materials that are either rare and valuable on Earth, or common on Earth, needed in space, but expensive to launch.8 For instance, there is accumulating evidence that some NEAs contain gold, rhenium, germanium, and platinum-group metals -- platinum, palladium, iridium, osmium, rhodium, and ruthenium -- at concentrations of up to 100 times those that are mined on Earth.9 Glenn Reynolds0 has observed, "The smallest known near-Earth metal asteroid contains more metal than has been mined by humanity since the beginning of time."'" It has been estimated that 2,000 NEAs larger than 1 km in diameter exist.
On August 17 2013 00:52 packrat386 wrote: Helium 3 is a reason to visit the moon and asteroids, I never said we should go to mars for that. The reason you would go to mars is because of the 2 articles that I linked indicating that we need to get off the rock in the long run.
Two points here:
(1) The author is speculating about the possibility that fusion engines will be invented one day. Cold fusion hasn't been discovered yet and that's the only controlled-fusion reaction that is economically viable. The value of helium-3 at this date, as I mentioned, is about $300 a litre. Your point about helium-3 can be dismissed even though you've conveniently changed the subject to colonizing the Moon when the post I critiqued was about putting a colony on MARS.
(2) I see you've backed off your claims about colonizing Mars for space solar energy. That is because you can't defend that and you know that NOBODY would colonize Mars just to place solar panels.
Western strategists need to look at all potential background shifts and the latest identifies a lot of what's been mentioned here already. But my #1 prospect for earth shattering paradigm shift is the collapse of Western populations, and a concurrent acceleration of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and North African and Arabic populations.
The aging of G8 (now the G7 + Russia) population is clearly underway, and as Baby Boomers and their parents debilitate and pass on, Western-oriented populations will shrink and transition, and the wealth and influence of Europe and Japan and their sphere of allies will diminish. By 2024, half of France's kindergarten cohort will be of North African descent. Similar transitions will occur across all of Western Europe between 2030 and 2060: most quickly in urban centers but continuing to rur arwas as well. And by the end of the 21st C. Western Europe as we knew it a generation ago will be gone.
Depending on how that Western "population bust" demographic transition unfolds, all paradigms we have grown accustomed to will be subject to radical change.
Corrections to the above include: the latest (strategic assumptions on major trends) includes what's already been mentioned. Also, from 2030-2060, Europe's demographic transition will start in urban centers but migrate to RURAL AREAS AS WELL. (Putting the blame for that typo on the stupid "smart phone")
EPT
