The way humanity typically rears additional citizens, that is, biological offspring raised by their caregivers, typically parents, in genetically related households, is actually really bad at increasing population. It's great for education and transmission of values and personal investment in children, but terrible at raw numbers... and if you think about it in terms besides 'they have enough money for it, whyfor they no have kids', you'll realize that's because the first set of values contradicts the first!

There's a reason why an increase in women's rights and, quite tellingly, children's rights always results in an immediate collapse in fertility -- because even prospective parents, when given the choice, would rather invest all of their efforts into 1-3 kids rather than raise 4-6+ kids with half of the attention. You can see this effect when looking at the demographic shift of communist countries; it's why Stalin had to actively clamp down on feminist elements to support his long-term industrial goals or why China's one-child policy rapidly caused problems as the countryside adopted Maoist ideology.

Pro-growth advocates never want to talk about that tradeoff in childrearing, parental bonding versus quantity, because it makes them look more like they're invested in their own selfish political concerns than the wellbeing of the next generation. But if it's true, and I claim it is, it explains a lot of things that politically correct interpretations of demographic decline fail to capture, such as why both Japan and Sweden have collapsing birth rates in a way that culture/economy/free time/health care can't explain or why Iran had an explosion in birth rates after the 1979 until population control measures following the winddown of the Iran-Iraq War went into effect.

• So, if after humanity does reach post-scarcity yet there is a faction pushing for population growth, this indicates one of a few things: There's been a huge collapse in women's and/or children's rights. Given that the economy is post-scarcity, this implies a 1984-style authoritarian government more than economic stagnation/dysfunction like the Roman Empire or even something like the Empire of the Atom. Or if it's a colony, something went seriously wrong and the metropole isn't able to help within a few centuries.
• The idea of the traditional human family (i.e. parents and guardians are personally invested in the growth of a child with their own obligations beyond that) has fallen by the wayside. For example, a situation like The Race or The Yahoos where childrearing is done by entities who aren't the biological parent. Alternatively, most citizens aren't humans born and raised the traditional way, they're clones or even AI minds raised in a simulation or a dedicated caretaker or even having relevant memories imprinted on them.
• There's some external pressure imposed on humanity to push for population growth. This will probably be involuntarily, such as either our alien overlords demanding more babies or warleaders demanding more babies, but it could be voluntary, too, such as homeworld or even Galactic Union offering irresistible benefits to polities that maintain a certain level of population growth like psychic powers or Gattaca Babies.
• Something greatly changes in both the physiology and psychology of humans that pushes them towards R-selection but in a way that doesn't cause a rebellion from their neighbors or (more importantly) their descendants mid-transition. I have a hard time seeing this transition happening without genetic engineering or a period of extended isolation and artificial selection, but even if so, it's hard to call what will result from such a process 'human' given how important K-selection is to the psychology of a human.

direct terraforming is impossible perhaps terraforming? a barrier to hold the atmosphere in while also blocking radiation. io's volcanism is a major feature, perhaps geothermal energy could be a major power source used to power sun towers. io is full of sulphur and its abudnece would likely have ani impact on the culture and tech such as extensive use of sulpher lamps, sulpher concrete

If we cure aging, how will demography work in the long term?

I think it will depend on how much people will want to live (spoiler: they won't want to live forever) and how many kids will people have in their life.

Anti-aging technologies would slow all the changes, including demographic changes, so I'm not really afraid of overpopulation.

What are your thoughts? After a population increase, when would it reach a stability and at what amount of population?

I've watched the Stargate Episode 3 times now, and will rewatch it again. Trying to absorb it.

I'm trying to understand the section about the black hole beacons for communicating - what exactly is happening there? If an interstellar civilisation has 10 of them, are all 10 interconnected, or does each one need a corresponding one to connect to?

The way it was worded in the episode suggested that each region might construct one, thus tapping into the network, so they are all connected? How does it work?

I used to play the Orion Games when I was younger and I remember one technology was basically an Interstellar Internet, so information could be exchanged across the galaxy, and it gave you a science boost in the game. The idea of an Interstellar Internet of sorts has stuck in my mind, but I've never really thought of how it could work.

Could this be it? I know it was a Sci Fi Sunday and not necessarily possible, but I think I prefer my Sci Fi Parboiled rather than absolutely Hard, so I'm trying to understand roughly how this works.

Thanks!

Marble.

No. Seriously. It's a material derived from very specific conditions (primordial sea calcium carbonate containing creatures being ground up then exposed to geological influences over extremely long time spans) that don't necessarily exist everywhere else if at all.

With enough power you can obviously replicate everything and anything but barring that it's one resource that is both tangible and not comparatively abundant elsewhere.

By the same token I feel like having marble floors & statues is going to regain a lot of its old popularity during the first Millenium of solar settlement.

Nothing says "I'm rich" like lifting literal stones out of a gravity well for aesthetic purposes.

Micro/Post-scarcity is reedom of deprivation, not freedom of desire. 😎

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

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​It seems that if we were to make an Oniel Cylinder using today's tech the best way to go would likely be carbon fiber/ Kevlar given it's tensile strength going as far as 10 times that of steel, but the question is what would that entail in terms of the structure and the manufacturing of it, like would it be a single large mesh or multiple stiched ones?

Let's say earth is rendered uninhabitable by 2200 and humanity is extinct, our last hope is an AI sleeper ship transporting frozen passengers and embryos. The ship is advanced enough to travel at 1% light speed and can deal with the associated dangers of travelling that fast (dust grains, micrometeorites, etc), but going faster is too dangerous. It has no destination in mind, it's goal is to survey nearby stars for habitable planets. How long do you think it could feasibly last before:

1. The AI pilot decays
2. The ship decays
3. The passengers/embryos decay

Let's assume technological progression by 2200 AD is in line with Isaac Arthur's videos. (In my mind: Nuclear Fusion, orbital habitats around Earth, the cure to radiation-related cancers has been developed, small numbers of settlers on Mars, Venus, and other planets. It's doubtful we could go 1% of light speed at this stage but lets assume this sleeper ship is cutting edge technology). Future technological progression is unlikely since humanity is extinct.

So, let's say, a sufficiently civilization wants to directly mess with how the inner flow and movement of planetary geological activity works.

What methods can be used? What technologies or materials would be required to tamper the tectonics of the planet? How can, say, a civilization "kill" tectonic activity on a planet to remove the possibility of quakes; add some geological activity to sprout out islands or continents as they want by tectonic manipulation; etc etc etc.

I am aware that creating space habitats would be more practical, but for this scenario, let's throw that out of the window. Maybe the civilization places extreme cultural importance on that planet, Maybe they are resourceful and rich enough to the point harvesting planets is trivial. What might they do to do this? How would they do this?

I've been thinking lately that as technology improves especially in terms of hydroponics and vertical farming, rural areas will disappear, and suburbs will disappear due to car culture being undesirable and inefficient. City aesthetics will likely become more sought after and architecture will become more intricate and artistic again. Building vertically into arcologies that are compact yet still spacious, quiet, and comfortable will free up vast areas of wilderness from the endless monotony of farmland and suburban sprawl. Space habitats will follow this pattern for a while since space will be at a premium. Eventually space my become more rural as we feel free to get wasteful with our land usage up there, while earth will gradually transition into an ecumenopolis which will eventually expand its trend beyond and out into the wider solar system.

Do you think the scenario I laid out is likely and/or desirable?

Humans do not think fast. They instead carefully choose from infinite possibilities which few possibilities to think slowly about.

So whataboutism building a cyborg that mates human sensibilities to a very fast robotically insensible processor? The human picks items to worry about and the machine thinks these over very quickly then returns the worked out solution. You don't need to go find vast amounts of unused internal brain bandwidth that evolution has somehow left on the table and paid a suspiciously high price to maintain.

This can't be used for deep thought (as humans are applying this infinite selection shortcut at every step), but instead for broad scans of data, applying shallow tests much faster than the eye can scan. The human doesn't need to visualize the data in higher dimensions because the machine will try all of the different ways of projecting the data down into a format the human brain can grasp. It will then be up to the human to determine a narrative and a test of causation vs happenstance for the machine to go apply to verify the result.

Resurrecting an older question of mine to live on as a zombie poll... What's the best method for ships to land on and/or dock with large "open roof" ring habitats like a Bishop Ring or Banks Orbital?

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The Culture - Orbital, by Andrew Baker

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We don’t really need them. An advanced civilization would preferably live in space or on low gravity airless worlds as it’s far easier to harvest energy and build large structures. Once you remove this misconception galactic colonization becomes a lot easier. Stars aren’t that far apart, using beamed energy propulsion and fusion it’s entirely possible to complete a journey within a human lifetime (not even considering life extension). As for valuable systems I don’t think it will be the ones with ideal terraforming candidates but rather recourse or energy rich systems ideal for building large space based infrastructure.

When I say scientifically plausible super soldier I mean one with superhuman strength, speed, durability, endurance, stamina, senses, etc. They don’t have to be completely organic in the sense that things like carbon nanotube reinforced bones are allowed, but no cybernetic augmentations. So no mechanical arm for example. Also by superhuman I don’t mean Superman, just above what the current record holding athletes are capable of if possible.

https://youtu.be/gOtQElMEdi0?t=623

So apparently there's a small problem (cartoon sound effect) with what happens after a gyrojet round passes through a target.

Now to be fair these issues are solvable, and this video is using ammo that is I think 50+ years old. As a space gun there are the following advantages:

(1) using rocket motors for acceleration allows the bullet to have remaining fuel on the way to the target. A guided round could be made that allows for guidance, since shots on space stations and moons can potentially be at far greater ranges, due to vacuum and less bullet drop.

(2) less barrel heating as a lot of the propulsion is outside the barrel

(3) liquid rocket propellant is lighter than gunpowder per unit of energy

(4) Lighter weapon - less mass is always better when it's costly.

(5) Easier to mount on a drone due to less mass

(6) Whole bullet flies, no shell casings

I know the typical assumption that "intelligence recognizes intelligence" and that "intelligent life" is some grand status civilizations get like a metaphorical gold metal, but I'm not so sure. I feel like intelligence is more of a spectrum and advanced aliens are no more likely to treat us kindly than they are animals or bacteria, of course they might do that and be extremely benevolent, but if they aren't already augmto be hyper benevolent it doesn't make sense that they'd consider us to be like them at all.

Allow me to explain: I'm not talking about gererating actual gravity, but functionally enhancing it. For space ships this couldn't work, but say the Moon or Mars. Say also we need something like 80% of earth gravity for proper development and health maintenance. So instead of building those titled room houses Issac talked about a number of years ago, we build them and stack floors like on earth, but everyone wears magnetic boots and possibly weighted vests while inside the colony buildings, including things like parks and mining facility rest areas?

I would think as long as there is some gravity you don't have the problem of unwanted liquids, from water to coolant to bodily excretions going anywhere but the floor. And also given the Simpsons, jail broken ants and potato chips. And since most kids are not going to be going out into the open, they should be able to develop normally right?

Or not?

Many of Isaac's videos imply that we are going to make that leap in reliability.

Molecular assemblers come to mind. Those however are still highly speculative afik.

Barring these can we still archive technology that's reliable enough for space megastructures with and without active support? What are the hurdles for:

• engineering
• material science
• economics/logistics
• automation

An orbital ring shellworld with a surface gravity of 9.22 m/s² provided by the distance from star using omnicalculator, a surface area 35,490 times that of earth and a solar flux of 552 watts m² can be built around a red dwarf of 0.1 solar masses which will last 10 trillion years.

A secondary air supported shell provides protection from radiation and thermal insulation. It also uses the power of the star to shine visible light onto the habitat. Nanoscopic antennas can be up to 82% efficient. So an 80% efficient infrared nantenna converting the sunlight that hits the bottom of the shell into electricity to provide light to the top and power the rings. The infrared radiating from the ground can be captured by the secondary shell to provide additional energy efficiency. The entirety of the secondary shell if using nantennas can be used as a gigantic telescope. Imagine gravity trains on something like this!

I'm unsure of the thickness or mass of the orbital ring setup. Since the gravitational acceleration at the rings is ever so slightly less then Earth, I assume the stress would be the same as for Earth.

I do not know how to calculate how thick it should be or if I am right in that assumption. If you want to help then I thank you. Mostly I posted this because I think it's awesome. Up until today I considered a shell resting on Saturn's atmosphere and a birch world. But this is much more realistic then a birch world and way more awesome then Saturn. Sorry Saturn.

What are your thoughts?