The Singularity

[RPGuru1331]

I was mostly talking about extra-terrestrial colonization as a remedy for human population growth, which as ideas go really pushes the frontiers of impractical stupidity.

Yes, I'm aware. It can't be entirely impossible to put people on mars at all, if it 'only' costs half a mil to get a settler in place.

The gains for doing so however strike me as exceedingly minimal. Mars is a goddamn hellhole that makes Antarctica look like paradise.

Antarctica also has penguins, though, and if fiction has taught me anything, it's that penguins are 7-foot tall albinos that devour the flesh from humans.

Those things aren't mutually exclusive.

There's only so much money and organizing power. It's true that they're not magically mutually exclusive, but almost definitionally, very little put into colonization will be useful outside it. On the scale of a few hundred years, maybe it's a great idea. It doesn't sound like we can really make a self-sufficient one as it stands, which doesn't make it much of a backup copy, though.

[Water_Bear]

I'm well aware that sending people to Mars and fixing other problems aren't mutually exclusive. However a certain section of the population tends to parade colonizing the solar system as this weird necessity to the point of ignoring things that are actual problems. This tends to annoy me, as it seems like pretending that fulfilling a personal fantasy is somehow of paramount importance.

My guess is that people don't generally dwell on issues like climate change and hunger because they're depressing and have obvious solutions. They're questions of resource allocation tied up in international politics, and while we need to exert more pressure on our governments to actually deal with them there's a serious limit to what one person can do. Obviously it's better to be an activist than not, but it's something which burns you out when you spend a lot of mental energy on it.

On the other hand space exploration / colonization is essentially an engineering problem, and since it's speculative it stays comfortably away from any moral issues. Messing around with ideas for permanent space stations or terraforming Mars is a fun diversion, even for astrophysicists, not something super heavy. It's more like a fun hobby, rather than a pressing issue.

I don't think it's fair to say people who like thinking and talking about this stuff are doing anything wrong because they spend a lot of time on it; if they're educating themselves on heavier issues, making day-to-day lifestyle changes and voting that's really enough, you don't need to put your whole life on hold if you're not up to it.

Mostly because the continuation of the species isn't what I'd call a pressing issue for me. I'm far more concerned with how we continue than whether or not we do. If we do continue, I'd like it to be in as just and sensible a way as possible. If we don't, the problem ceases to matter one way or the other. There's moral cost to making damaging choices because there's somebody around to suffer the consequences. There isn't a cost to everybody dying, because nobody can assess it. Putting people on Mars has a definite opportunity cost. The extinction of the species doesn't. If everybody's dead, nobody cares.

But the species dying out is the ultimate opportunity cost; all the potential people who could theoretically exist and do things which you think have moral value have no way to come into existence. If you're using a consequentialist framework you have to consider impacts on future generations, and those generations not existing as moral agents is a pretty big impact.

-Edit-

There's only so much money and organizing power. It's true that they're not magically mutually exclusive, but almost definitionally, very little put into colonization will be useful outside it. On the scale of a few hundred years, maybe it's a great idea. It doesn't sound like we can really make a self-sufficient one as it stands, which doesn't make it much of a backup copy, though.

Yes, I mentioned this in my post; permanent space colonization isn't going to be feasible for at least a few centuries and even then will be expensive, if only to set up. Saying it doesn't make sense because we can't do it or afford it now is a complete non sequitur, because it's not something we'll be able to do until the technology is mature anyway.

And as for a colony as a backup, remember that the human race can entirely repopulate from populations of less than a hundred thousand people. A few colonies with a population of a million or so between them across the solar system, starting from genetically diverse groups to minimize genetic drift, and the ability to return to earth if necessary is more than enough to prevent any one catastrophe from wiping out the species.

[warty goblin]

My guess is that people don't generally dwell on issues like climate change and hunger because they're depressing and have obvious solutions. They're questions of resource allocation tied up in international politics, and while we need to exert more pressure on our governments to actually deal with them there's a serious limit to what one person can do. Obviously it's better to be an activist than not, but it's something which burns you out when you spend a lot of mental energy on it.

On the other hand space exploration / colonization is essentially an engineering problem, and since it's speculative it stays comfortably away from any moral issues. Messing around with ideas for permanent space stations or terraforming Mars is a fun diversion, even for astrophysicists, not something super heavy. It's more like a fun hobby, rather than a pressing issue.

I don't think it's fair to say people who like thinking and talking about this stuff are doing anything wrong because they spend a lot of time on it; if they're educating themselves on heavier issues, making day-to-day lifestyle changes and voting that's really enough, you don't need to put your whole life on hold if you're not up to it.

More or less yes. Like I said, I don't really see anything wrong with it, and as a point of debate it can be amusing. It just seems a stupid way to spend resources. Arguing it as a solution for human over-population is stupid.

But the species dying out is the ultimate opportunity cost; all the potential people who could theoretically exist and do things which you think have moral value have no way to come into existence. If you're using a consequentialist framework you have to consider impacts on future generations, and those generations not existing as moral agents is a pretty big impact.

Impact on future generations is predicated on those future generations existing. If they don't exist, there won't be a negative or positive impact on them because they won't exist to experience it.

Human values are entirely dependent on humanity, they aren't external, laid down by the cosmos or anything else. In order for them to be relevant, humans have to exist. Without humans, there are no human values, and therefore any calculus made based on them is no longer valid. If every human on the planet turned up dead tomorrow, it wouldn't be a tragedy because there wouldn't be anyone around to experience it as such. Half the planet dying is a tragedy, because the other half has to endure the consequences.

[Water_Bear]

Impact on future generations is predicated on those future generations existing. If they don't exist, there won't be a negative or positive impact on them because they won't exist to experience it.

Human values are entirely dependent on humanity, they aren't external, laid down by the cosmos or anything else. In order for them to be relevant, humans have to exist. Without humans, there are no human values, and therefore any calculus made based on them is no longer valid. If every human on the planet turned up dead tomorrow, it wouldn't be a tragedy because there wouldn't be anyone around to experience it as such. Half the planet dying is a tragedy, because the other half has to endure the consequences.

It seems like you're conflating the fact that our moral systems cannot exist without us with how those systems classify outcomes which result in our nonexistance. The difference is significant, since most people seem to factor those judgements of possible outcomes into their decision making.

By most utilitarian schemes I've seen, no human pleasure is worse than a positive amount of human pleasure. Thus, a future with no humans to experience pleasure is a worse alternative than a future with a small number of humans experiencing some pleasure. Therefore, taking action to prevent the species from dying out is good according to that system. Most other moral systems also value human existence more highly than non-existence.

Since you seem like someone concerned with morality and mentioned moral opportunity costs, it seems odd to neglect the obvious opportunity cost your own moral system likely assigns to a future without people.

[warty goblin]

It seems like you're conflating the fact that our moral systems cannot exist without us with how those systems classify outcomes which result in our nonexistance. The difference is significant, since most people seem to factor those judgements of possible outcomes into their decision making.

By most utilitarian schemes I've seen, no human pleasure is worse than a positive amount of human pleasure. Thus, a future with no humans to experience pleasure is a worse alternative than a future with a small number of humans experiencing some pleasure. Therefore, taking action to prevent the species from dying out is good according to that system. Most other moral systems also value human existence more highly than non-existence.

Since you seem like someone concerned with morality and mentioned moral opportunity costs, it seems odd to neglect the obvious opportunity cost your own moral system likely assigns to a future without people.

I feel like I've covered this. My moral logic assigns no opportunity cost to human non-existence because there would not be any humans to experience that opportunity cost. If nobody experiences the loss, it does not meaningfully exist. Other logics require assigning value to the 'experience' of things which, under the hypothesis of the scenario, do not exist.

This strikes me as literally nonsense, on the order of becoming upset that the asteroids are not populated by a species of joyful green rabbit. The distinction between non-existent humans failing to experience joy, and non-existent asteroid-bunnies failing to experience joy is not evident to me, and surely mourning the lack of green space rabbits is ridiculous. For another case not dripping in hyperbole, I don't regret not having eight children by my current age of 25. Yet by the logic you propose, shouldn't I feel bad about depriving them of pleasure? To which I hope the obvious answer is of course not, because I haven't actually deprived anything of pleasure. My eight children don't exist, so talking about whether they experience pleasure or not is meaningless.

Which isn't to say I think that humanity getting wiped out by an asteroid is a good thing. We'd likely see this coming, and, as people have a definite interest in existing, this would cause a lot of suffering. However the difference between everybody dying, and ten thousand people surviving while everybody else survives isn't very large to my mind. It's definitely not large enough to justify massive resource expenditures that could be used to alleviate the suffering of actual people who exist right now.

[Anecronwashere]

Wow. and I thought my morality was skewed.

You really think a global extinction event is a MORALLY NEUTRAL effect

If I have you right, and I don't think I do because your morality is so different from mine, you think that as soon as the extinction event nulls all morality at the point it becomes Extinction. Because there aren't any Humans to say "that's bad"

WTF?
Alright, in that case then any other action taken to prevent this extinction would be a Morally Positive effect, because it would result in continued existence, and thus the accruing of more Morally Positive effects.

So by your morality, or rather my interpretation of your morality gleaned from me trying to dechiper your posts, then the colonization of other planets is a Positive Moral effect and should be done.



Now, I agree that sending Humans to mars wont stop our over-population issues, I know this. Hence why I didn't mention it at all in my post. I said it is insurance to an extinction-level effect. And progress in our civilizations evolution into a higher race.
We need another solution to the problem of overpopulation, just as we need one for global warming.
Perhaps go Chinas route with the 1 child policy. maybe 2 maximum so our nations at maximum maintain numbers and likely lose populace.

There are numerous problems with the world and our civilization, Right Now. These are:
Nuclear War
Super-Virus
Over-population
Global Warming
Overuse of arable land

Nuclear war: Dearmament of all nations. Politically hard but I think we are working on it.
Super-Virus: Hard to solve without it showing up, though the increase in knowledge of general virus, bugs, etc. gives us a greater chance of fixing the problem before it explodes everywhere
Over-Population: There are numerous solutions for this, some good, most bad. From culling to a 1-2 child policy to colonizing places like Antartica or the middle of Aus and converting them into self-sustaining cities/states. Maybe increase population density and make more cities in non-farmland?
Global Warming: Reusable Energy, taking airborn pollution and holding in tanks for release when the pollution levels are decreased enough to allow gradual release, whatever
Overuse of arable land: idk, I haven't studied it much. Improved research on Crop Rotation? Nitrate reclamation?

None of these are mutually exclusive except in that they cost resources.

[warty goblin]

So rereading this, I realize I've fallen into Classic Internet Argument Trap #3: Arguing your position until it becomes so hardline you don't even agree with yourself anymore.

Let's leave it at this: extra-planetary colonization as species-insurance isn't a very compelling argument for me. Not least because there's better, cheaper ways to do this, and frankly there are other, rather more pressing issues at hand.

Also, humanity evolving into a 'higher race?' Did this turn into Babylon 5 at some point?

If so, is Ivanova available?

[Anecronwashere]

Maybe I put that wrong

The way i see it is is:
Cell -> Multicellular -> Dominate species -> Early tribal -> Basic Civ -> Global Civ -> Interplanetary Civ -> Intersolar Civ -> FTL Civ

We are Global right now.
And yes I know it is possible to skip steps, like Multicellular to Early Tribal
And Im talking about whole species, so it's Humans not Americans or English etc. that qualify for this.

If/When we colonize mars or any other planet in our solar system we become Interplanetary

[Water_Bear]

Maybe I put that wrong

The way i see it is is:
Cell -> Multicellular -> Dominate species -> Early tribal -> Basic Civ -> Global Civ -> Interplanetary Civ -> Intersolar Civ -> FTL Civ

We are Global right now.
And yes I know it is possible to skip steps, like Multicellular to Early Tribal
And Im talking about whole species, so it's Humans not Americans or English etc. that qualify for this.

If/When we colonize mars or any other planet in our solar system we become Interplanetary

Wow. No.

I'm too tired to unpack this completely, but basically:

• Evolution does not have a goal, it is not a progessive process and there is no such thing as "higher" organisms. Evolution is the tendency for species to change over time, currently understood to happen through a number of processes including but not limited to natural selection sexual selection and genetic drift. Notice I said change and not improve.
• Human civilizations do not evolve, neither does our technology. These things do not have heredity.
• FTL travel is almost certainly impossible. The speed of light as a limiter is pretty seriously fundamental to a lot of branches of physics, and it's pretty unlikely that it's going to be disproven any time soon. Even ideas for globally faster than light travel rely on purely speculative ideas about wormholes or space folding which have no real evidence behind them.

[Anecronwashere]

I'm NOT using the biological Evolution, it's simply the name I gave to the progression of a race towards being a higher power as a species.

And a subatomic particle travels FTL, not much but it's there. It was a whole Thing a while back.
And even if it isn't possible it's something to strive for, because in doing so we can unlock a lot of interesting technologies.
If it is possible then yay, we can explore the rest of the galaxy without becoming so spread out there isn't any contact for Decades.

[warty goblin]

I'm NOT using the biological Evolution, it's simply the name I gave to the progression of a race towards being a higher power as a species.

So Babylon 5. I'm just hoping Ivanova is into dudes this season.

And a subatomic particle travels FTL, not much but it's there. It was a whole Thing a while back.
And even if it isn't possible it's something to strive for, because in doing so we can unlock a lot of interesting technologies.
If it is possible then yay, we can explore the rest of the galaxy without becoming so spread out there isn't any contact for Decades.

You mean that thing with the neutrinos a while back? Yeah, that turned out to a cable problem .

Relativity is one of the most strongly confirmed theories in physics. It isn't going away. Nobody is going faster than the speed of light, which means nobody is going anywhere.

Some perspective: the closest star is Alpha Centauri, which (depending which star in the system you're counting to) is about 4.24 light years from Earth. The farthest a human has ever been from the Earth is the Moon, which is on the order of one light second away, or 1/70640640th of the distance to Alpha Centauri. Eight orders of magnitude counts, it's why I'm not a trillionaire. And it takes a hell of a lot less energy to get to the Moon, you don't even need to beat Earth's escape velocity. To get out of the Solar System, you need to escape the Sun's gravity. Starting from Earth has an escape velocity of 42km/s. That's if you're far enough from the Earth that Earth's gravity is negligible. Remember those figures I calculated earlier for minimum energy requirements to get anywhere in the Solar System? To get out of the Solar System those go up by a factor of fourteen. If you're launching from a deep space platform on the other side of the Sun from Earth.

Voyager 1, after having been flying for thirty five years, is now getting somewhere close to interstellar space. It's only managed that by slingshotting around some favorable planetary alignments that only occur about once every 177 years.

As I said, nobody is going anywhere. Let's base our aspirations on the somewhat plausible, and not Spore here folks.

[Anecronwashere]

Alright, I didn't know that the testing was disproved.

And I haven't seen Babylon 5 so I dont know what your referencing.

And people once thought it was impossible to go around the world or that tornadoes were because the Olympian Gods were mad.
Things get disproved, the Earth is round and tornadoes are due to wind currents and hi/low pressures.

[warty goblin]

Alright, I didn't know that the testing was disproved.

And I haven't seen Babylon 5 so I dont know what your referencing.

And people once thought it was impossible to go around the world or that tornadoes were because the Olympian Gods were mad.
Things get disproved, the Earth is round and tornadoes are due to wind currents and hi/low pressures.

Relativity isn't a case where we have very little evidence or understanding, and make up a weird theory to fit it. This is a case where we have a lot of evidence and a very good understanding we put into practice continuously to produce usable, repeatable results. The orbits of planets are only explicable via relativity. The effects of time dilation are, and have been, directly measured repeatedly. The GPS that's probably in your cellphone only works because we understand relativity and designed the system to take it into account.

Sure people have been wrong before. This has been shown by demonstrating them wrong. Nobody has come even close to demonstrating relativity wrong - every test has confirmed it as right. At this point saying relativity might not hold is the intellectual equivalent of jumping off a cliff with feathers taped to your arms because this time you might fly.

Look, you seem genuinely interested in this stuff which is great. The world needs people who are interested in understanding the universe. Just, you know, start from a position rooted in science, or at least plausible speculation about how science may develop, instead of straight-up science fiction.

Historical note on people thinking the Earth was flat: People hypothesized the Earth was round as early as the sixth century BC, and calculated its diameter to a high degree of accuracy as early as 240 BC. People way back when tended to be smarter than we give 'em credit for.

[Anecronwashere]

Right but some people actually did think it.


But anyway, yeah I am interested in this stuff, but I'm not really good at researching or stuff so I mostly use logical deductions and hyberbole. Heck I cant even focus on reading a book more than 3 pages without having to put it down and stand up because I get distracted with something.


But to use your feathered arms example:
Yes, we can't fly using wings due to our body shape, size and composition but what if we added in a secondary element that provided greater lift? An anti-grav function could amplify the up:down ratio by decreasing the down while maintaining the level of upwards momentum from air resistance when we drag the wings down.

Sure it is far-fetched, but if we can do that then it's possible.

The same thing could be said of FTL travel, we could find a method of decreasing the speed at which the Light-Barrier kicks in. Or we could find a method of accessing another dimension with different physical laws, one where we could move FTL (like a Hyperspace, Slipstream etc.)

It's like the advent of the engine, before that biological means of conveyance where superior to purely mechanical, and indeed the only way people moved over land.
But due to this far-away colonies where hard to keep in contact with on a macro scale. But when we made trains we could simply make a link from Point A to Point B and bam, massed-transport of dozens in times that where weeks.

The same thing could happen with space-travel, the movement of rockets as analogues to the horses and buggies, or just walking, of the times and some new tech we don't know about yet would be the Engines

[Carry2]

Operates on inherently different time scales...
...As opposed to genetic engineering which, as has been stated here in the thread, more likely then a normal time scale, we can't make accurate predictions for it out past 100 years.
...You still seem to take for granted that it's just something simply done or will happen.

Again, I have spent many posts in this thread rebutting assertions to the tune that GNR technologies are purely speculative. I do not care to recapitulate those arguments.

I'm not saying that we can make 100% reliable long-term predictions on what form such impacts will take, and doing so would abnegate the possibility of meaningful choice. What I do insist upon is that these technologies will matter, in a big way, over the coming decades. Pretending they are not going to matter is not doing humanity any favours.

"If you are in a developed nation, you should be able to afford technology that makes school life easier. If not, your school should get it for you". Is one of the examples. Others would be assumptions upon IQ being based in genetics rather then observing starting position and support structures in life.

All else equal, I do not see the illogic of suggesting that things which cost less money are better for the poor than inefficient technologies which cost more money. Given that, e.g, even the homeless have blackberries at this point.

There have been extensive studies done on both twins and siblings separated at birth and raised in different environments, and they all support the conclusion that IQ is anywhere between 50% and 80% heritable. Short of severe malnutrition, physical trauma, or childhood neglect (which are certainly problems in many parts of the developing world, but not widespread in, say, europe or the states,) environment alone cannot explain the bulk of variation in adult IQ.

Frankly, I barely see why these things need to be stated, as I assumed they would be common knowledge. Denial of the significance of genetics is about as tenable as ignoring climate change. Given this, I do not believe it is illogical to suggest that governments willing to invest thousands of dollars in a given child's education might see the wisdom in one-time genetic interventions with comparable lifetime benefits.

Now, certainly, current PGD/IVF costs are high enough that you'd need to see at least a 10X price drop, preferably 100X, before this procedure could be widely subsidised by or for nations like, say, Cameroon. But the existing NHGRI roadmap already assumes that similar cost reductions will occur within the next 10-20 years.

Given that it will likely take at least 20 years before our knowledge of genetics enters active gattaca-baby territory, and another 20-25 before the recipients enter the workforce, any genetic-aristocracy-scenario relies on (A) the cost of the procedure remaining high for much longer than is normal in the technology sector, or (B) them taking advantage of a fairly narrow window of opportunity for establishing a New World Order(tm). (Assuming that nothing else obliterates us first.)

Again, I can't totally rule out that possibility, but the twin goals of (A) reducing the costs associated with clinical genomics through automation/economies-of-scale and (B) introducing protective legislation on this topic to-
(1) safeguard bioconservative rights,
(2) subsidise universal access to clinical genetics, and
(3) forbid the creation of amoral sociopaths,
-does not strike me as an unattainable goal.

[Carry2]

I already told you the price, in actual dollars, based on your lowballing of that cost....
Enforcement tends to matter as well, that's certainly true. More seriously, nothing you've said to 'prevent' this is tenable. Unless you believe we have 700 trillion lying around?

I believe that governments- and parents- around the world invest similar sums in long-term education on an annual basis, and that genetic interventions are likely to have comparable or greater long-term cost/benefit ratios, especially if one assumes long-term cost reductions over time. I have covered this in some detail both earlier in the thread and in my previous post.

I am not blind to the existence of social inequality in our present-day society, and I do not pretend that this is solely representative of differences in ability rather than the effects of historical privilege. However, pretending that historical privelege is the only reason for such inequalities does not seem well-founded in evidence.

I've heard of this upper-class twit already. If you seriously think charging people half a million for the 'privilege' to live the difficult life of a settler is a winning plan, well, I'm not surprised.

The upper-class twit has an impressive engineering track record. Regardless of what you think about his business plan- and frankly, if I had a million dollars, I would give serious thought to the prospect of exploring an alien world- it should be reasonably clear that the technical barriers to offworld colonisation are coming down pretty fast.

Now, to be clear, I consider this a very tangential discussion- this is not going to be a viable solution for dealing with population pressures or resource shortages for several decades. (And by that time, we'll either have solved those problems at home, or catastrophe will have struck.) I was simply curious about some of the math involved, since wartygoblin brought it up.

No, no you haven't, actually. You've provided your reasons, but they are left... wanting.

This sentence appears to be content-free.

[Terraoblivion]

Again, I have spent many posts in this thread rebutting assertions to the tune that GNR technologies are purely speculative. I do not care to recapitulate those arguments.

And again and again it has been pointed out that you act as if golden rice and gattaca babies are essentially the same and just a few tweaks away from each other and that biology just plain doesn't work like that. You've done the same for spambots and sapient AI. I don't really see much point in continuing when you lack even a rudimentary understanding of the scientific fields you're making bold predictions about.

[Carry2]

FTL travel is almost certainly impossible. The speed of light as a limiter is pretty seriously fundamental to a lot of branches of physics, and it's pretty unlikely that it's going to be disproven any time soon. Even ideas for globally faster than light travel rely on purely speculative ideas about wormholes or space folding which have no real evidence behind them.

I agree that the technology in this area is still extremely speculative, but the Alcubierre Drive still gets me very excited.

IRRELEVANT TANGENT: While Mars is a hell-hole now, I would point out that getting an actual biosphere in place could alter the surface conditions radically.

[Carry2]

And again and again it has been pointed out that you act as if golden rice and gattaca babies are essentially the same and just a few tweaks away from each other and that biology just plain doesn't work like that. You've done the same for spambots and sapient AI. I don't really see much point in continuing when you lack even a rudimentary understanding of the scientific fields you're making bold predictions about.

I agree that sapient AI is still very much speculative, and I wouldn't predict it's arrival date with any confidence within this century, but I do believe that it's eventual development is extremely likely. I also believe that existing robotics technology, once it jumps a few regulatory hurdles, is likely to have large- and potentially dangerous- social impacts in and of itself.

And once again, PGD/IVF is already here. We have already identified a number of genes that contribute to personality and intelligence. I don't even need to speculate on this point. Only the most modest extrapolation of current trends is required to put 2 and 2 together and come out with 4, here.


.

[Tavar]

Right but some people actually did think it.

And people still think it now.

Back then I would imagine that most educated people did not think the Earth was flat(the Columbus thing was actually a disagreement on how big the diameter was, with Columbus in the wrong).

[warty goblin]

Right but some people actually did think it.


But anyway, yeah I am interested in this stuff, but I'm not really good at researching or stuff so I mostly use logical deductions and hyberbole. Heck I cant even focus on reading a book more than 3 pages without having to put it down and stand up because I get distracted with something.

Logical deductions are great, but they need to start with the correct assumptions. Generally the specific theory is question is a better starting point than arguing via syllogism without consulting what we actually know.

But to use your feathered arms example:
Yes, we can't fly using wings due to our body shape, size and composition but what if we added in a secondary element that provided greater lift? An anti-grav function could amplify the up:down ratio by decreasing the down while maintaining the level of upwards momentum from air resistance when we drag the wings down.

That was a simile to illustrate the uselessness of doubting relativity, not an example.

And there's no reason to believe 'anti-gravity' exists.

Sure it is far-fetched, but if we can do that then it's possible.

That's circular logic. Sure my conclusions is far-fetched, but if we assume it's true than it's true!

The same thing could be said of FTL travel, we could find a method of decreasing the speed at which the Light-Barrier kicks in. Or we could find a method of accessing another dimension with different physical laws, one where we could move FTL (like a Hyperspace, Slipstream etc.)

Firstly you'd need to increase the speed of light in order to get past it. There's no remotely plausible way to do this of which I'm aware. Secondly even if you did, you'd still have to accelerate to something near light speed in order for it to matter. Which is possible, particle accelerators do it all the time. Of course they do it with protons and require the power supply of reasonably sized city to pull it off...

It's like the advent of the engine, before that biological means of conveyance where superior to purely mechanical, and indeed the only way people moved over land.
But due to this far-away colonies where hard to keep in contact with on a macro scale. But when we made trains we could simply make a link from Point A to Point B and bam, massed-transport of dozens in times that where weeks.
The same thing could happen with space-travel, the movement of rockets as analogues to the horses and buggies, or just walking, of the times and some new tech we don't know about yet would be the Engines

Arguing by analogy is not useful here, because there's no reason to think the analogy is valid, and a large body of evidence suggests it is not. Using historical examples to argue physics is not likely to produce particularly valid outcomes. You have to be very, very careful when extrapolating models based on trends, and when the trend model disagrees with what you know to actually be true, the model is wrong.

I agree that the technology in this area is still extremely speculative, but the Alcubierre Drive still gets me very excited.

IRRELEVANT TANGENT: While Mars is a hell-hole now, I would point out that getting an actual biosphere in place could alter the surface conditions radically.

Ah, the Alcubierre Drive. Works fine, except for that whole part where you need something with negative energy density. Which doesn't appear to exist. There's also pesky issues like getting vaporized by Hawking radiation as soon as you go superluminal, or blasting out absurd amounts of gamma radiation when you stop - which itself may not even be possible.

Stuff like this always strikes me as physicists playing an elaborate game with equations, rather than something liable to actually work.

And assuming a biosphere on Mars without any plausible way to get one there is essentially circular reasoning.

[hamishspence]

Terraforming Mars would be pretty slow- and require huge amounts of water. One idea I've seen is that of crashing large numbers of comets into Mars.

[RPGuru1331]

I believe that governments- and parents- around the world invest similar sums in long-term education on an annual basis, and that genetic interventions are likely to have comparable or greater long-term cost/benefit ratios,

You have no earthly idea how much money 700 trillion dollars is, do you? The US Federal budget for a single year is in the neighborhood of 2 trillion dollars. And if you really think '20 IQ points' makes the difference you think it does for the price tag you think is reasonable, you should probably go look at the difference between good schooling and terrible schooling in economic terms. IT's a lot bigger than the gap that IQ allegedly creates.

especially if one assumes long-term cost reductions over time. I have covered this in some detail both earlier in the thread and in my previous post.

You're assuming it, and your assumptions almost universally suck. 10k is already flipping cheap based on what we know. This notwithstanding that the whole point is to keep the rich from getting richer! That means you can't just use the cheap stuff, but you have to keep pace with the top of the line crap.

I am not blind to the existence of social inequality in our present-day society, and I do not pretend that this is solely representative of differences in ability rather than the effects of historical privilege. However, pretending that historical privelege is the only reason for such inequalities does not seem well-founded in evidence.

Oh no, someone who knows jack-all about sociology wants to lecture me about what's not well-founded in the evidence! It's the bulk of it. The rest generally springs from the resources and connections that spring up from the past.

The upper-class twit has an impressive engineering track record.

Making him yet another engineer who doesn't know jack about anything outside of physics.

Regardless of what you think about his business plan- and frankly, if I had a million dollars, I would give serious thought to the prospect of exploring an alien world

Saying that as a poor person who's never worked construction is rather a meaningless statement. Construction is actually really hard. 500k is a lot of money. For a billionairre supposedly sincerely working for the human future, he doesn't seemw illing to pony up his own money.

it should be reasonably clear that the technical barriers to offworld colonisation are coming down pretty fast.

No, it isn't. Because it isn't really true. And Warty Goblin said it better.

If I proposed a plan where we resettled people to self-sufficient bubbles in Antarctica, I'd be rightly called a moron. But put that idea on a distant planet that's even more hostile, and vastly harder to get to, hey must be a brilliant idea!

Also the part about the Falcon 9 being less efficient.

This sentence appears to be content-free.

well, charging 500k for the privilege of working construction appears reasonable to you. 700 trillion doesn't appear to be that huge a price tag to you. At this point, I'm not really worried that you have an accurate read on the situation.

More bluntly, it only seems that way because you're ignoring the number of times and number of places your 'refutations' were blatantly, honestly, and completely wrong.

[Poison_Fish]

Again, I have spent many posts in this thread rebutting assertions to the tune that GNR technologies are purely speculative. I do not care to recapitulate those arguments.

You mean how you over focus on a single subject without taking into consideration how it fits into larger system? Because that is what you keep doing.

I'm not saying that we can make 100% reliable long-term predictions on what form such impacts will take, and doing so would abnegate the possibility of meaningful choice. What I do insist upon is that these technologies will matter, in a big way, over the coming decades. Pretending they are not going to matter is not doing humanity any favours.

This doesn't change what I've been saying. "These things will happen in the form that I see them happening" is different then "Eventually something will happen". I'm not sure you get the subtle distinction.

All else equal, I do not see the illogic of suggesting that things which cost less money are better for the poor than inefficient technologies which cost more money. Given that, e.g, even the homeless have blackberries at this point.

"All else equal" is what you have been doing ever since this thread. You keep forgetting important factors again and again. I'm saying you don't actually see the issue and you are just now trying to cover that up with a poor argument attempting to eliminate those 'pesky variables' like different levels of social inequality.

There have been extensive studies done on both twins and siblings separated at birth and raised in different environments, and they all support the conclusion that IQ is anywhere between 50% and 80% heritable. Short of severe malnutrition, physical trauma, or childhood neglect (which are certainly problems in many parts of the developing world, but not widespread in, say, europe or the states,) environment alone cannot explain the bulk of variation in adult IQ.

Maybe you just aren't up to the full field of science, or maybe you just cherry pick, but Come back when you have a a better understanding of the subject. Again, assumption on your part that I'm somehow denying heritability. My criticism remains of your poor understanding of social inequality. "If we just genetically selected kids for better IQ, everything would be a lot better" is, again, missing many steps and presumes that is a better and more simple solution then changes to environment.

Frankly, I barely see why these things need to be stated, as I assumed they would be common knowledge. Denial of the significance of genetics is about as tenable as ignoring climate change. Given this, I do not believe it is illogical to suggest that governments willing to invest thousands of dollars in a given child's education might see the wisdom in one-time genetic interventions with comparable lifetime benefits.

See above about your assumptions.

Now, certainly, current PGD/IVF costs are high enough that you'd need to see at least a 10X price drop, preferably 100X, before this procedure could be widely subsidised by or for nations like, say, Cameroon. But the existing NHGRI roadmap already assumes that similar cost reductions will occur within the next 10-20 years.

Given that it will likely take at least 20 years before our knowledge of genetics enters active gattaca-baby territory, and another 20-25 before the recipients enter the workforce, any genetic-aristocracy-scenario relies on (A) the cost of the procedure remaining high for much longer than is normal in the technology sector, or (B) them taking advantage of a fairly narrow window of opportunity for establishing a New World Order(tm). (Assuming that nothing else obliterates us first.)

Again, I can't totally rule out that possibility, but the twin goals of (A) reducing the costs associated with clinical genomics through automation/economies-of-scale and (B) introducing protective legislation on this topic to-
(1) safeguard bioconservative rights,
(2) subsidise universal access to clinical genetics, and
(3) forbid the creation of amoral sociopaths,
-does not strike me as an unattainable goal.

Again, assuming so many steps and simplicity. Also, PGD is not about making designer babies, possibility doesn't mean actuality, and you keep assuming it is. Also, I do not think you know much about sociopathy, but it doesn't surprise me that not only do you fail sociology, but you also fail psychology. Especially around the discussion of IQ in the first place.

[Carry2]

Ah, the Alcubierre Drive. Works fine, except for that whole part where you need something with negative energy density. Which doesn't appear to exist...

Like I said- extremely speculative. I like it anyway.

And assuming a biosphere on Mars without any plausible way to get one there is essentially circular reasoning.

I was under the impression that various extremophile microbes have been documented as surviving under simulated martian soil conditions (albeit in a dormant state, or deep underground.) You might be able to genetically engineer a few strains to actively reproduce under favourable conditions. I also seem to recall there's good evidence for frozen/underground water reserves. *shrugs*

Anyway. Like I said, I'm not proposing space colonisation as a panacea for terrestrial problems. (There are good reasons to do it- scientific exploration, and insurance against extinction events, not just for ourselves but life in general- but acting as a demographic stopgap isn't one of them.)

[warty goblin]

Terraforming Mars would be pretty slow- and require huge amounts of water. One idea I've seen is that of crashing large numbers of comets into Mars.

Mars has a lot of water in the ice caps. Really, you have two real problems:

1) Heat.
2) Atmosphere

Annoyingly, solving the first one makes the second one really hard, while solving the second without the first doesn't get you very far. Mars has much weaker gravity than Earth, which means it can't hold as much of an atmosphere.

There's also issues like Mars lacking a magnetic field, which besides exposing anybody living there to hard solar radiation so they can develop brave new forms of cancer, also makes it harder to build an atmosphere. Firstly the high energy solar radiation just plain pushes parts of the atmosphere away, and secondly it breaks down heavy chemicals into lighter ones which are easier for it to push away.

One way to look at it is that Mars used to have thicker, richer atmosphere. It doesn't now, for a lot of good, hard to change reasons.

It's not utterly and completely totally out of the realm of vague possibility, but it's stupidly, stupidly hard. We're a long ways from even being able to attempt something like that.

Otherwise you're down to Venus for potentially terraformable places. And Venus makes Mars look like a walk in the park. At least Mars won't roast you like a hotdog in a blast furnace.

[Ravens_cry]

I bet the first bet would be to engineer some microbes that can stand the extreme conditions and produce oxygen. Over the thousands of years, we will probably have to add a little supplementary CHON as some escapes the gravity well, but that is definitely a long term proposition, though, admittedly, so is terraforming a planet.
If you want a fun challenge, try taking a crack at Venus, though there is a region already where the atmospheric pressure and temperature are quite close to Earth. While terraforming may be extremely difficult, oxygen balloons would be one form of habitat that could work there.
I imagine them looking like flat Jelly fish, with fabric solar panels on both sides and long cables reaching down into the hellish depths to take advantage of the temperature gradient.

[Water_Bear]

I am not blind to the existence of social inequality in our present-day society, and I do not pretend that this is solely representative of differences in ability rather than the effects of historical privilege. However, pretending that historical privelege is the only reason for such inequalities does not seem well-founded in evidence.

It's not actually pretense though, considering how incredibly small the differences between people are today. There really isn't any evidence that innate ability correlates with, well, anything really; not race, not income level, not ethnicity. And even when dealing with outliers like savants/geniuses or the mentally handicapped you see that things like education can narrow those differences to something manageable.

Amusingly, this is actually why I made that post which kicked up such a ****-storm a few pages back. Currently the people in power have no real reason for being in power except for accidents of history, and are not any better suited for that power than the average joe. That's something which is going to start changing within our lifetimes, for better or worse depending on how you look at it.

Maybe you just aren't up to the full field of science, or maybe you just cherry pick, but Come back when you have a a better understanding of the subject. Again, assumption on your part that I'm somehow denying heritability. My criticism remains of your poor understanding of social inequality. "If we just genetically selected kids for better IQ, everything would be a lot better" is, again, missing many steps and presumes that is a better and more simple solution then changes to environment.

On the IQ front, I'll make the suggestion I always make whenever it comes up; everyone needs to read The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould. It's a fascinating history of the origins of the concept of General Intelligence and goes into a lot of depth on the problems with IQ as a measurement.

Also, can we maybe agree to tone down the rudeness a bit. I'm guilty of it as much as anyone else here, but it's still really toxic to reasoned discussion. Assuming bad faith is neither helpful nor respectful.

[Carry2]

You have no earthly idea how much money 700 trillion dollars is, do you?

Forgive me, but if you are assuming that (A) this procedure would somehow have to applied simultaneously to every child born on earth at once, and (B) that costs in the biotech sector will remain static indefinitely, then you appear to be the one making unrealistic assumptions.

...if you really think '20 IQ points' makes the difference you think it does for the price tag you think is reasonable, you should probably go look at the difference between good schooling and terrible schooling in economic terms...

Given that weaker students tend to drop out- or be actively ejected- from the educational system, yes, I imagine that there is a correlation. (Not that I disagree that our educational systems could stand drastic improvements, but that's another tangent.)

A 20-point IQ boost works out statistically to roughly an extra 10K in earnings per year in the US, and it seems quite plausible that embryonic screening could select for other personality traits conducive to individual success (including some which might be harmful to society at large, which is part of what worries me.)

...It's the bulk of it. The rest generally springs from the resources and connections that spring up from the past.

Well... that would mean you are asserting that all variation in life outcomes springs from historical privilege. I believe this is nonsense, but okay, what is your evidence? Where is the chart that shows a perfect, 100% correlation between your socioeconomic background and life outcomes as an adult, across all individuals? Outside of the archives of Lysenkoism, that is?

Making him yet another engineer who doesn't know jack about anything outside of physics...
For a billionairre supposedly sincerely working for the human future, he doesn't seemw illing to pony up his own money.

There are actually a surprising number of millionaires out there, you know. And he's not talking about right now, he's talking about in 20 years. ...And I rather imagine, that as the owner of aerospace tech company, that he does invest quite a bit of money in related R&D.

[Carry2]

This doesn't change what I've been saying. "These things will happen in the form that I see them happening" is different then "Eventually something will happen". I'm not sure you get the subtle distinction.

With respect, I'm not sure that you see the subtle distinction. There have been a number of participants in this thread who seem very eager to assume that the genetic-aristocracy-scenario will automatically prevail in the way that they see happening. I suggested that this was unlikely, that better scenarios exist, and that misguided efforts to shut down development or application of these technologies could backfire severely.

If this is not what you or the bulk of posters to this thread believe, but in fact agree that there is potential for both good and bad uses of gene-tailoring, then we are not disagreeing, and might be more productively engaged in discussions on the specific forms of legislative and economic policy needed to address the situation.

"All else equal" is what you have been doing ever since this thread. You keep forgetting important factors again and again...
Maybe you just aren't up to the full field of science, or maybe you just cherry pick... ...Come back when you have a a better understanding of the subject.

You keep forgetting that even places like Somalia have mobile phones. Listen, if you want to discuss educational policies, take it over to the educational policies thread. I am not saying that environmental influences are unimportant or should not be addressed. Environment does matter. But so does genetics- quite a lot in some cases.

You may dispute my credentials if you wish. But it is stupid to dispute the credentials of leading experts in the fields of genetics who are worried-about/predicting essentially the same things as me.

(FWIW, the studies you cited were conducted on rather young children, when it's well-established that heritability of IQ increases with age, and seems to be about 75% in adults. Not that these temporary effects on childhood IQ are unimportant or uninteresting with respect to quality-of-life, but their economic impact is probably small. And I am well aware of the usual quibbles made with respect to IQ-measurements. But the fact that IQ only measures certain things does not matter as long as it measures things which happen to impact life outcomes and economic development. And it seems entirely plausible that other factors which IQ does not measure also have some genetic component.)

Also, PGD is not about making designer babies, possibility doesn't mean actuality, and you keep assuming it is...

No, PGD/IVF is actually the technology showcased in Gattaca, because that, by itself, is sufficient to have a large impact on the content of the human gene pool. I am not assuming that any particular nightmare scenario will come to pass, any more than I am assuming that anthropogenic CO2 emissions will trigger a second Great Dying, but I do believe it is prudent to take precautions against such an eventuality.

I would also appreciate less content-free baiting from you.