Elon's loop doesn't require breaking a law of physics or unimaginable technological breakthrough either, its just something with fatal premises & problems---for a dyson swarm there's an actually unimaginable amount of factors we're simply brushing aside to say its something we can definitely do. granted, a wee solar panel station floating around the sun isn't crazy, but an operation made entirely or almost entirely of robots harvesting raw resources & doing an entire production line to churn out billions of those? that's an insane organizational, nevermind technological, feat.
it's similar with 'trivially' sending out probes to survey the expanse of space... is it trivial though? one of the proposals is self-replicating probes--just casually making robots that can explore, prospect, mine, refine, smelt, manufacture... while also fueling itself somehow... all this for the only guaranteed return being survey data?
we know a staggering amount about distant astronomical objects just with fancy telescopes, wouldn't more & better telescopes & such---possibly in various-but-still-nearby places---be a much simpler investment with similar guaranteed returns?
Elon's Loop's fatal problems are that at best it's shittier than a train. I guess I don't think it's comparable.
It definitely would be a huge technological feat, but put in the context of what we already know what's possible, millions of years to work with, and the size of the universe, it doesn't explain none being currently observable by us unless you are suggesting that these technological challenges may be absolutely insurmountable.
I would say the same about the Von Neumann (self-replicating) probes. Also, from what I understand, telescopes have some limitations, like if a planet's orbit does not pass in between a star and us, we can't detect it, since we can't detect the star's dimming from when it passes by (I could be wrong though).
my point is more the L00p can never function as its supposed to even if 'car go thru tunnel' is something that works. satellite that absorbs solar energy is plausible, but billions-strong network of automatically constructed versions of that incorporates a lot more elements that might not work.
i kinda am asserting that either the technological challenges are insurmountable--which is probably an opinion that'd be shared by artificial intelligence skeptics, or that the technological challenges aren't worth surmounting. If it would take several million years to do a project, even a couple thousand, I wouldn't blame anyone for not doing it.
Is your opinion the same for a project that, though it could take a million years for it to be "finished", you start reaping the rewards immediately? (E.g. A dyson swarm, where each additional station is useful.
idk unless we've got immortal beings overseeing it the timescale is gonna throw a wrench in it, hell, even if they're immortal. cultures are constantly developing, language changes, bad things could happen. there's no examples yet of the kind of institutional & political cohesion we might need. space communism being an infinitely stable and enduring system is probably a bit naive
I don't think I agree that such a high amount of political and institutional cohesion would be necessary. It's less of a singular project that has a start and a finish and more of a thing that would be continuously added on to as power and/or habitats are needed until it's full and we can't add anything else.
Elon's loop doesn't require breaking a law of physics or unimaginable technological breakthrough either, its just something with fatal premises & problems---for a dyson swarm there's an actually unimaginable amount of factors we're simply brushing aside to say its something we can definitely do. granted, a wee solar panel station floating around the sun isn't crazy, but an operation made entirely or almost entirely of robots harvesting raw resources & doing an entire production line to churn out billions of those? that's an insane organizational, nevermind technological, feat.
it's similar with 'trivially' sending out probes to survey the expanse of space... is it trivial though? one of the proposals is self-replicating probes--just casually making robots that can explore, prospect, mine, refine, smelt, manufacture... while also fueling itself somehow... all this for the only guaranteed return being survey data? we know a staggering amount about distant astronomical objects just with fancy telescopes, wouldn't more & better telescopes & such---possibly in various-but-still-nearby places---be a much simpler investment with similar guaranteed returns?
Elon's Loop's fatal problems are that at best it's shittier than a train. I guess I don't think it's comparable.
It definitely would be a huge technological feat, but put in the context of what we already know what's possible, millions of years to work with, and the size of the universe, it doesn't explain none being currently observable by us unless you are suggesting that these technological challenges may be absolutely insurmountable.
I would say the same about the Von Neumann (self-replicating) probes. Also, from what I understand, telescopes have some limitations, like if a planet's orbit does not pass in between a star and us, we can't detect it, since we can't detect the star's dimming from when it passes by (I could be wrong though).
my point is more the L00p can never function as its supposed to even if 'car go thru tunnel' is something that works. satellite that absorbs solar energy is plausible, but billions-strong network of automatically constructed versions of that incorporates a lot more elements that might not work.
i kinda am asserting that either the technological challenges are insurmountable--which is probably an opinion that'd be shared by artificial intelligence skeptics, or that the technological challenges aren't worth surmounting. If it would take several million years to do a project, even a couple thousand, I wouldn't blame anyone for not doing it.
Is your opinion the same for a project that, though it could take a million years for it to be "finished", you start reaping the rewards immediately? (E.g. A dyson swarm, where each additional station is useful.
idk unless we've got immortal beings overseeing it the timescale is gonna throw a wrench in it, hell, even if they're immortal. cultures are constantly developing, language changes, bad things could happen. there's no examples yet of the kind of institutional & political cohesion we might need. space communism being an infinitely stable and enduring system is probably a bit naive
I don't think I agree that such a high amount of political and institutional cohesion would be necessary. It's less of a singular project that has a start and a finish and more of a thing that would be continuously added on to as power and/or habitats are needed until it's full and we can't add anything else.