Alan Watts on modern warfare

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iamnotaparakeet
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18 Oct 2010, 7:10 pm

Sand wrote:

Dox47 wrote:

Sand wrote:

I am like Edison who tried thousands of materials for his electric lamp that failed and was asked if he felt discouraged. He answered that it was valuable to know what wouldn't work.

In this thread, 'Keet is Edison throwing out ideas, you're just some guy looking over his shoulder saying "that won't ever work!".

Exactly. As I pointed out, that is valuable. Good that you are aware.
It is very important to understand what won't work so that a search continues for what will perhaps work. Keet keeps throwing in concepts straight out of StarTrek, interstellar spaceships and terraforming that are vague and unscientific fantasies so far beyond current technologies and practical finance that they have no value at all. It's important to understand this and move on to something more meaningful. I agree it would be wonderful to propose a useful program that could be initiated as soon as possible. That I cannot offer this is unfortunate but perhaps someone else can. I have yet to see this happen.

Do you think that artificial gravity is impossible, as one of your complains was regarding the human body and weightlessness? If your country allows access to YouTube, please watch this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7mwIHCBrjo[/youtube]

Gravity can be replaced by centrifugal force. Muscle tone need not be lost even during the longest travel, since you don't need to constantly apply torque to keep a spaceship rotating in the vacuum of space.

greenblue
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18 Oct 2010, 7:20 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

Gravity can be replaced by centrifugal force. Muscle tone need not be lost even during the longest travel, since you don't need to constantly apply torque to keep a spaceship rotating in the vacuum of space.

But that is only in space. Technology and economy seems limited currently, since Obama cancelled trips to the moon. And what about making other planets habitable? it seems more of a challenge than artificial gravity in space, so much as wether there is a need to simulate earth's gravity in other planets as well.

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Sand
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18 Oct 2010, 7:22 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

Sand wrote:

Dox47 wrote:

Sand wrote:

I am like Edison who tried thousands of materials for his electric lamp that failed and was asked if he felt discouraged. He answered that it was valuable to know what wouldn't work.

In this thread, 'Keet is Edison throwing out ideas, you're just some guy looking over his shoulder saying "that won't ever work!".

There is nothing innovative about artificial gravity. Werner Von Braun was proposing a spinning habitable satellite back in the late 1940's in popular magazine articles and such a satellite was featured in the film "2001". The impractical suggestions proposed indicate a major effort to run away from Earth to some unknown undiscovered safety planet which is most unlikely to be habitable without centuries of major effort. It makes far more sense to simply solve the suicidal current social policies. I don't know how this can be done, but I doubt it is totally impossible.

iamnotaparakeet
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18 Oct 2010, 7:33 pm

greenblue wrote:

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

Gravity upon Mars is only a third of that upon Earth, so people there would not completely lose muscle tone. As for Obama limiting the NASA budget and generally wrecking with NASA, here's to hoping that the next president has better regard for the space program. I can wait. Terraformation of a planet is not a simple thing, certainly, but it's not impossible. Heck, do you believe that global warming has been caused by humankind? Then consider that humans have not even tried to alter our climate and yet have succeed anyhow. What would it be like if we intentionally set out to change the climate? How far could we get in its alteration if we worked toward that?

iamnotaparakeet
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18 Oct 2010, 7:35 pm

Sand wrote:

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

Sand wrote:

Dox47 wrote:

Sand wrote:

I am like Edison who tried thousands of materials for his electric lamp that failed and was asked if he felt discouraged. He answered that it was valuable to know what wouldn't work.

In this thread, 'Keet is Edison throwing out ideas, you're just some guy looking over his shoulder saying "that won't ever work!".

Was I claiming it was a new idea? Anyhow, nobody is going to curb the bloodlust of humankind. War is inevitable and only the dead have seen the end of war.

Sand
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18 Oct 2010, 7:42 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

Sand wrote:

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

Sand wrote:

Dox47 wrote:

Sand wrote:

I am like Edison who tried thousands of materials for his electric lamp that failed and was asked if he felt discouraged. He answered that it was valuable to know what wouldn't work.

In this thread, 'Keet is Edison throwing out ideas, you're just some guy looking over his shoulder saying "that won't ever work!".

Was I claiming it was a new idea? Anyhow, nobody is going to curb the bloodlust of humankind. War is inevitable and only the dead have seen the end of war.

So, you are giving up. That's one approach. If you sincerely believe humanity is eternally embedded into a suicidal attitude, running away to another solar system certainly won't help.

iamnotaparakeet
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18 Oct 2010, 7:56 pm

Sand wrote:

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

Sand wrote:

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

Sand wrote:

Dox47 wrote:

Sand wrote:

I am like Edison who tried thousands of materials for his electric lamp that failed and was asked if he felt discouraged. He answered that it was valuable to know what wouldn't work.

In this thread, 'Keet is Edison throwing out ideas, you're just some guy looking over his shoulder saying "that won't ever work!".

Was I claiming it was a new idea? Anyhow, nobody is going to curb the bloodlust of humankind. War is inevitable and only the dead have seen the end of war.

So, you are giving up. That's one approach. If you sincerely believe humanity is eternally embedded into a suicidal attitude, running away to another solar system certainly won't help.

Robert Heinlein also said as much in one convention he attended as a speaker, only to get boos from the audience. It's not a popular thought, but popularity of a thought has nothing to do with that thought's veracity. As such, war is going to occur so it is best to be ready for it rather than just wishing happy thoughts.

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18 Oct 2010, 8:01 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

Gravity upon Mars is only a third of that upon Earth, so people there would not completely lose muscle tone.

The question is wether humans can adapt to it without negative effects, especially regarding bone structure, probably next generations could and wether they would be affected returning to earth, as well with agriculture, if that wouldn't be affected by the gravity and the time difference regarding day and night. I don't know so the question is wether that is a problem or not, and wether the new inhabitants are forced to change their diets and their way of life that would be less comfortable than earth.

I think there are also social impliciations, such as wether the rich are the only ones who have access to it.

Quote:

Terraformation of a planet is not a simple thing, certainly, but it's not impossible.

Theoretically it seems so, but in practice it cannot be done, for the time being and it seems for a long period of time.

Quote:

Heck, do you believe that global warming has been caused by humankind?

I don't know, I tend to think that global warming may be a natural thing rather, however that doesn't mean that humans can do whatever the hell they want with the planet.

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Sand
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18 Oct 2010, 9:10 pm

A serious consideration of the problems and possible realistic solution of emigrating to other star systems is described tn Arthur Clarke's novel "Songs of Distant Earth". It involves devising intelligent robots that would spend centuries probing for possible planets and carrying all the DNA for generating Earth life on a suitable site. The robots would not only have to construct an army of robots out of local materials, they would require robot teachers to educate the humans created out of the human genes. It is an intelligent consideration of the problems and difficulties with none of the childish crap presented by Star Wars or Star Trek. Clarke is a well informed intelligent writer who knows his business.

ruveyn
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19 Oct 2010, 2:32 am

Sand wrote:

His science fiction was more like SCIENCE fiction. The early generation of s.f. writers were often scientists or engineers. For example, Isaac Asimov was a PhD in Chemistry. Hal Clemen's who wrote -Mission of Gravity- was a professor at M.I.T., I think.

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19 Oct 2010, 2:58 am

greenblue wrote:

Theoretically it seems so, but in practice it cannot be done, for the time being and it seems for a long period of time.

.

At this juncture we cannot even terraform Earth.

ruveyn

Last edited by ruveyn on 19 Oct 2010, 1:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Sand
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19 Oct 2010, 3:38 am

ruveyn wrote:

Sand wrote:

Hal Clement whose real name was Harry Stubbs was known for his very scientific SF. His biography can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Clement. There are some noteworthy reasonably scientifically accurate SF writers around. Gregg Bear, Robert Heinlein, Robert Forward, Arthur Clarke, Fred Hoyle and a few others. There works do contain very speculative material but they rarely violate scientific fact. Their major violations usually accept faster than light travel and time travel.

Eldanesh
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19 Oct 2010, 1:04 pm

Fear is what stopped more major wars between powers. Fear of these. Fear is not just a variable in a decision, it's subconscious, it's chemical, and therein lies the power. Disarmament is only a solution in a perfect world full of "good"(whatever the heck that means) people, not this world.

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19 Oct 2010, 7:13 pm

Eldanesh wrote:

And what do you do with a fundamentalist nuclear power that lacks fear or believes a massive first strike would eliminate retaliation?

Eldanesh
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19 Oct 2010, 7:16 pm

Well, many people believed that that WAS the situation for the past last half of the century, and it worked out alright.
There is always doubt.

Sand
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19 Oct 2010, 7:19 pm

Eldanesh wrote:

Well, many people believed that that WAS the situation for the past last half of the century, and it worked out alright.
There is always doubt.

And the more nuclear powers there are, the larger the doubt becomes and the greater the chance that an apocalypse will occur. It's a losing game.

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