Relativistic kill vehicles make the concept of oppression MEANINGLESS

[Phrossack]

​

Right, so despite the silly trendy title, I want there to be some discussion here.

I've been thinking lately about what I see as the eventual, inevitable destruction of humanity. I figure it might be only a matter of centuries, probably by humanity's own hand. Human technological progress is a hockey stick curve; it increases exponentially as more people use more advanced technology to discover even more stuff. More radical changes took place between 1900 and 2000 than between, say, 1000 and 1100. And humans are constantly trying to discover exciting new ways to kill each other.

The problem, then, is that weapons are just going to get deadlier and deadlier. I believe it's only a matter of time before genetically engineered viruses, orbital kinetic strike platforms, nanobot swarms, and de-orbited asteroids become serious threats. And, though it may seem unlikely today, if humanity ever discovers relativistic travel, I think it's doomed. Imagine if such relativistic transportation technology becomes widespread enough to be common on commercial cargo spacecraft. If some school-shooter-type-person or a terrorist got their hands on such a not-unaffordable craft, they could have a missile with a mass of thousands of tons that could accelerate to a small fraction of the speed of light. Or imagine if states or other powerful actors installed such powerful locomotive means to an asteroid. Even travelling at just 1% of the speed of light would make for a devastating missile. Yes, this seems absurdly unlikely now, but try explaining 9/11 to a 17th-century peasant with a straight face.

So just discuss your thoughts on how the world may end, be it a bang or a whimper.

 

[gay_Aleks]

By the time we invent super-weapons, we'll either be in space, or the Treants will rise and eat all the capitalists and industrialists.

 

[Borachio]

Link to video.

7 billion years in the future?

 

[gay_Aleks]

Whoa, whoa! When did we skip 1 billion year? I thought the true end for reals is in 8 billion years.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Fire and Ice
by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I read this book one time...advanced aliens encounter humanity with one of their small scout craft...humanity put aside all their petty differences and buckled down to developing technology so they could defend the Earth...a few decades passed, and the aliens arrived in larger ships to assess the newly discovered species...humans immediately put on their best bristling display with all the space based weaponry they had put up to defend the planet...the aliens were so impressed by the rapid development between the two encounters that they opted not to attack the earth, which was not their intent in the first place, and left the solar system.

They detonated the sun on their way out.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Oooh, bastards. Or, very, very smart aliens. It's the worst mistakes most aliens make - they either leave humans alone, they subjugate them, or *shudder*, they help them.

 

[Borachio]

Whoa, whoa! When did we skip 1 billion year? I thought the true end for reals is in 8 billion years.

That's because I didn't bother to look the figure up, but just guessed instead.

If that billion year short-fall bothers you, sue me. I shall be happy to pay up. When my long-term investments pay off. After 6 billion years.

 

[gay_Aleks]

If Fry got rich by waiting 1000 years in a cryogen coffin, imagine what would happen in 6 billion years!

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Technology can also make defenses against said weapons. Your salvos won't do much good if they get their inertia bled off by gravitics.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Or, you know, we could have shields. Or even better, deflectors! With their stones on their heads, I say.

 

[Kozmos]

Almost everything can have a countermeasure, but this is also a good incentive to spread out and terraform other planets in the solar system.

 

[Phrossack]

Technology can also make defenses against said weapons. Your salvos won't do much good if they get their inertia bled off by gravitics.

It's very difficult to stop an RKV. First, you have to detect it. If it's travelling at, say, .01c, and you see it 100 light-days out, it's actually just 99 light-days away. You get less warning time the faster or closer it is, and it's harder to stop. If, say, a 2-mile-wide asteroid were hurtling towards Earth at .01c, you're going to have a bad day.

Or, you know, we could have shields. Or even better, deflectors! With their stones on their heads, I say.

I'm skeptical that sci-fi energy shielding will ever exist or be practical. In order to stop an impact, you'd probably have to generate an equal and opposite amount of energy in an instant. Mere rifle bullets have a lot of energy, and with a good rapid-fire weapon you could put impossible demands for energy on the shielding. Besides, if you could somehow generate so much energy in an instant, you could also make a pretty effective directed-energy weapon.

 

[warpus]

I've been thinking lately about what I see as the eventual, inevitable destruction of humanity.

It's pretty inevitable..

You must have read this short story by Isaac Asimov about the inevitable demise of humanity.. If not, I highly recommend it!

Then again, if we figure out how to reverse the heat death of the universe or figure out how to create a new universe to live in, we could hop from universe to universe forever, in theory. But the Republicans probably wouldn't let us do that for some stupid reason anyway. I bet trying to escape the heat death of the universe is socialist.

 

[gay_Aleks]

I wouldn't worry about that. Once you've got something like MultiVac on an universal scale, nothing would matter, as it would be God, and all that God says is divine and therefore true.

 

[Phrossack]

Almost everything can have a countermeasure, but this is also a good incentive to spread out and terraform other planets in the solar system.

It is, but let's face it, the rest of the solar system is terrible (sorry, hobbs). You couldn't set up a restaurant on Mars. The food could be great, but there's no atmosphere.

Spoiler :

But really, they're terrible. Earth is ideal for human habitation, we evolved here. All other solar bodies have a strict "bring your own air and food and everything" policy. They're also bleak, lifeless, barren hellscapes, but that's just me. Terraforming is necessary for long-term self-sustaining habitation, but that couldn't account for the low gravity. I'm staying here because I'm loathe to abandon the natural world. It's the one place where I'm at peace.

It's pretty inevitable..

You must have read this short story by Isaac Asimov about the inevitable demise of humanity.. If not, I highly recommend it!

Then again, if we figure out how to reverse the heat death of the universe or figure out how to create a new universe to live in, we could hop from universe to universe forever, in theory. But the Republicans probably wouldn't let us do that for some stupid reason anyway. I bet trying to escape the heat death of the universe is socialist.

I do recall reading that story, but I'm not worried about the heat death of the universe or anything like that. I'm more concerned with the demands of the arms race killing us all. Nukes are just the beginning.

 

[warpus]

I do recall reading that story, but I'm not worried about the heat death of the universe or anything like that. I'm more concerned with the demands of the arms race killing us all. Nukes are just the beginning.

It's just sort of depressing to realize that once you're over this crisis, there's another one right around the corner, and another one, and another one.. to get around all of them it seems we're going to need to turn into gods.

 

[Phrossack]

It's just sort of depressing to realize that once you're over this crisis, there's another one right around the corner, and another one, and another one.. to get around all of them it seems we're going to need to turn into gods.

Keeps life interesting, I suppose. But you can't trust humans-cum-gods. Technology has made vast leaps and bounds, but basic human nature has not.

Perhaps in the future a lot of people will have "uploaded" into machines or AI programs, while others stick to the old ways. I imagine that the process of uploading actually kills the person and creates a computer program that mimics their personalities but is not them, though. Hopefully, all those who want to jump from the human ship will do that if they want and set their physical computing components on some barren rock, leaving the humans to live on more habitable planets in peace.

 

[warpus]

The only way to transfer consciousness to a computer would be to expand the brain step by step with electronic attachments, allow your mind to expand to them, and then eventually get rid of the brain itself. Of course that might not even be possible. But if it is, it's probably the only way to do it.

I suppose we could also really slow down time in an AI environment and allow people to live out decades, while only hours pass. That could give us more time, but I bet that most people are just going to play out their sexual fantasies in these simulations and not actually do science to try to save humanity.

 

[cardgame]

the human race will have evolved into something else a million times over by the time the sun goes nova