Daily science stuff

[Silverbullet]

KTR, any time frame on those? In a few hundred years things could change dramaticaly.

Like I heard one time: Is there intelligent beings out there? Yes. Then why havenn't they contacted us. that shows they are intelligent."

Somehow I could not convince myself that an intelligence with interstellar travel would have any desire for what is on Earth as they could easily find it in great volume on other worlds that would be uninhabited. Slaves? Doubt if a human could exit for very long in an environment that aliens could live in. Curiosity perhpas but we really aren't all that interesting. low technology, Wars, continuuig conflice among groups. Cannot see humns being invaded by a species capable of intersteallar travel. Too darned much more intersting plces out there.

SB

[enterprikayak]

There was a documentary on Swedish TV about the ten most threatening things that could happen to mankind. From lowest to highest, they were:

10. Collapsing star
9. Deadly impact
8. Supervolcanic eruption
7. Hostile extraterrestrials
6. Natural pandemic
5. Physics experiments
4. Climate catastrophe
3. Doomsday war
2. Machine superintelligence
1. Synthetic biology

Frankly, I thought the whole thing too far fetched, like taken from a slew of sci-fi movies.

I mean, "hostile extraterrestrials". Sure, I subscribe to the camp that doesn't think we should presume that ETs are friendly, but I think we'd be hit by stray comets, asteroids or black holes before they would arrive. And "physics experiments", like the LHC, are just like a nutty conspiracy theory. And the less said about "climate catastrophe" (the man-made kind) the better.

Also, "doomsday war" is now a rather remote possibility after the end of the cold war. Say what you want about the islamo-fascists, but they won't be able to turn the world into a nuclear wasteland. And I've always been sceptical of the possibility of real artificial intelligence.

Yes, I find it odd that they think it's more likely that the machines are going to take over than almost anything else. And while the biological stuff has the potential to be creepy, I don't think it's necessarily going to happen before #6 and #8 which I would guess would actually be a lot more likely than the machines gaining intelligence any time soon.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

KTR, any time frame on those? In a few hundred years things could change dramaticaly.

Relatively soon. From a hundred to a few thousand years or so.

[justTripn]

Actually I read a book that listed the top best explanations for the Fermi Paradox: If the galaxy has been around for billions of years, why isn't the galaxy colonized by intellegent beings? That is, why don't we have visitors? Turns out the best explanation is that civilizations are short-lived, therefore half the book was devoted to ways all life on a planet could be destroyed overnight. The #1 threat identified in that book was also artificial biology, specifically nanotechnology, because it seems inevitable that it will be discovered and perfected, and also inevitable that eventually a fatal mistake will be made. A self-replicating nanobug will turn the biosphere into "grey goo." All the other threats were much more easily dismissed.

[Cogito]

Actually I read a book that listed the top best explanations for the Fermi Paradox: If the galaxy has been around for billions of years, why isn't the galaxy colonized by intellegent beings? That is, why don't we have visitors? Turns out the best explanation is that civilizations are short-lived, therefore half the book was devoted to ways all life on a planet could be destroyed overnight. The #1 threat identified in that book was also artificial biology, specifically nanotechnology, because it seems inevitable that it will be discovered and perfected, and also inevitable that eventually a fatal mistake will be made. A self-replicating nanobug will turn the biosphere into "grey goo." All the other threats were much more easily dismissed.

Self-destruction does seem the most likely threat, I have to agree. I remember reading a few years ago that the rate of improvement of computing-power-per-buck has been increasing exponentially for the last couple of hundred years (going back to an abacus, which is a bit of a stretch as 'computing power' but fitted the curve surprisingly well). That's not rate of technological improvement, it's how quickly the development is accelerating. Extrapolating forwards, there were four milestones that stood out:

$1000 computer has processing power equal to a human.
$0.01 computer has processing power equal to a human.
$1000 computer has processing power equal to human population of earth.
$0.01 computer has processing power equal to human population of earth.

I forget exactly how quickly they were predicted to occur, but it was either 20 years each or 10 years each - not long either way. It's hard to imagine us slow-witted and fragile biologics staying in charge for long after that, even assuming we haven't nano-teched ourselves into grey goo before then. I have a more optimistic take on the Fermi paradox though. Doesn't is just mean that civilisations don't retain advanced technology (near-light-speed space travel and such) for long compared to the time needed to contact neighboring civilisations? And given how immense space is, and how rare these civilisations might be, that could still be a very long time.

[Silverbullet]

Believe that Issac Asimv addressed this in his Robot stories. Humans programmed in that a Robot could not harm a human, not allow a Human to harm themselves. Also guess he had a bit of programming that prevented the Robots from programming that out. Could be possible. Until Computers started programming themselves. If humans still programmed Robots they could possibly prevent Robots from taking over.

SB

[Distracted]

It's a nice theory, but somebody's got to program them that way. The people who can afford to make fancy robots will likely be governments rather than private citizens. Governments would be more likely to want soldiers who can't be killed than anything else, and soldiers have to be able to kill people when necessary.

AI's not there yet, anyway. Robots won't "take over". Robots would have to be self-aware in order to want to take over, something that just isn't currently possible. Now, the idea of some dictator using robot drones to gain control of the populace, that's scary. It would be a logistical nightmare and very expensive, but if AI's with some moderate amount of decision making capability could be made mobile and able to interact with people, just a few human operators could control a large number of non-combatants. As long as nobody minded the occasional mishap that would necessarily occur when one puts live weapons in the "hands" of machines with immutable firing protocols.

[enterprikayak]

AI's not there yet, anyway. Robots won't "take over". Robots would have to be self-aware in order to want to take over, something that just isn't currently possible.

S'all I'm sayin'.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Travel to Mars in Three Hours

[Enerdhil]

Travel to Mars in Three Hours

It would be nice, but I still wait for the proof... (Physicist's origin)

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Earth 2 at last? Rocky exoplanet is just 1.4 times the size of Earth

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Hubble telescope zeroes in on green blob in space

[enterprikayak]

Hubble telescope zeroes in on green blob in space

Love the word "voorwerp". Cool blob!


So this isn't science really, but in a way it is, cause it scientifically explains why you actually aren't a Sagittarius at all, but something else. Like me! I’m an Ophiuchus! Yee-haw!

Lol

http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/ ... -sign.html

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

So this isn't science really, but in a way it is, cause it scientifically explains why you actually aren't a Sagittarius at all, but something else. Like me! I’m an Ophiuchus! Yee-haw!

Lol

http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/ ... -sign.html

That's actually old news. As a conversation piece I've over the years told people about this. I dunno why it's only now became "mainstream" news...

Being an Ophiuchus is a cool if odd sign. In Sweden we call it "the snake-bearer", as in someone who carries around a big snake. And I'm suddenly a Leo. Not that I believe in any of that crap...

[enterprikayak]

me neither, but I like being a snake bearer. Yar!

I sent the link to a real astrology-nut friend of mine, and she (not a trekkie) just sent this back to me:



Guess I've just thrown her entire apple cart across the street and shit all over the apples.