Realistic Hard SF has to deal with Accelerating Change making technology vastly powerful yet still limited. The hardest thing to write about is cognitively enhanced humans or any other entities (AI, aliens, etc.) exceeding human cognitive limits. JW Campbell famously said it couldn't be done, but without that depictions of the future or wider universe fall flat. Vernor Vinge became the master of such SF and showed several ways to do it. I recommend everything he wrote! Good Hard SF requires an author who has a good grasp of science without that stifling their imagination. It's easy if you cheat but Science Fantasy is unreadable by the science literate folks who frequent HN. Good Hard SF is out there, with and without spaceships, but you'll have to hunt for it - and thanks for all the recommendations here!
Where did all the starships go?
151–160 of 369 posts
Re: Where did all the starships go?
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is motivated pessimism. We knew in the 50s that breaking the speed of light was highly unlikely. We dreamed of the stars anyway. Now we refuse to dream, or to even attempt to solve the problems (a common pattern when discussing spaceflight is people who are blatantly searching for problems, rather than solutions), because we are pessimistic, devoid of imagination, and seek to legitimise our collective depression…
You don't need to break the speed of light to get to the stars. Time dilation and space contraction mean that you can get there in as little time as you desire. Everyone you knew on earth would be dead by the time you got back, but if it's just about you, the speed of light is no limitation at all. (The rocket equation, however, presents stupendous engineering challenges.)
Don't even need to do time dilatation - just make you lifetime longer by techjlnical means (ideally almost infinite) and you will be in the next star sumystem before you figure out how to exit your VIM session.
Re: Where did all the starships go?
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
A bit of an off-topic observation: Banks might not have focused on the hard sci-fi aspects but I have a difficult time imagining a more likely future for humanity than something like the culture civilization.
As cynic I would imagine eventual collapse to be more likely. Probably slow degradation back to some sort of semi-advanced agricultural society. Say kinda post-apocalyptic world(without proper apocalypse) with larger societal structures still existing. Slow degradation of industrial output until some balance level is reached. Probably not best sci-fi universe one can come up to. Or most selling one.
"The future is socialism or barbarism" (Rosa Luxemburg). I fear we have chosen the latter.
Re: Where did all the starships go?
#154The starships left with the optimism. In the 50s there was a greater demand for stories with an unconstrained vision of the future where growth and expansion amount to flourishing. Later generations that lived in the excesses of growth saw it as the source of an intensifying dystopia. They stood athwart history and demanded decelleration. Star Trek lost ground to Terminator, Foundation to Neuromancer. Escaping sidewa…
This doesn't explain why pessimistic and dystopian sci-fi has declined.
Also, Foundation takes place in a future where society is about to collapse and regress into dark ages. It's a borderline dystopian world.
Re: Where did all the starships go?
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, we've realized the scientific reality that traveling faster than light is likely impossible, and the vast distances to other habitable planets would mean tens of thousands of years of travel even with the most efficient technology. Interstellar space is also hostile to life, and any life present at the destination will not use the same DNA coding for protein (if gene expression even works that way). We also do…
I believe we already have the resources to colonise the Moon and maybe Mars right now. There would have to be considerable R&D, and willpower, and it would be very expensive but I think it is within our powers. Humans would have to live underground and deal with dust, maybe microbes in the case of Mars, but we could do it. The spaceships to go to Mars would have to be big but they could more easily be built on the Mo…
> I believe we already have the resources to colonise the Moon and maybe Mars right now.
That is or was essentially the mission of the US government's Artemis program, as I understand it. Some elements of the plan are (or were):
'Civilize' (my word) the Moon - build PNT, situational awareness, communication infrastructure, bases, permanent human presence etc. Bring it within a normalized region of operations, like Earth orbit (though obviously much more expensive and less utilized). A benefit is developing plans for infrastructure and operations on Mars, in a much more friendly and less expensive environment. What does it take to support humans efficiently and reliably on another body?
Also conduct experiments and develop technology for Mars in cislunar regions - again, much friendlier and less costly.
Re: Where did all the starships go?
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, we've realized the scientific reality that traveling faster than light is likely impossible, and the vast distances to other habitable planets would mean tens of thousands of years of travel even with the most efficient technology. Interstellar space is also hostile to life, and any life present at the destination will not use the same DNA coding for protein (if gene expression even works that way). We also do…
You don’t need to go faster than light. Once you approach anywhere near the speed of light, time slows down so much that journey time becomes irrelevant.
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Re: Where did all the starships go?
#157We wont go to space in the forseabe future. The brink archievment we might pull off is longterm civilizational stability, in ressource scarce, chaotic environments. Basically a oldfolkshome where we grow wise and vulcan enough to goto the stars. If we fallback into regressive behaviour call it facism, islamism, polpotism, whateverism and nuke ourselves - or decay into rotting landempires ala 1984, then we will never goto space today- and slowly downgrade back into very smart animals, with suprsingly sturdy DNA.
The Trap St.Fermi predicted is a two pronged one, made of technological progress and the inability to recognize ones true nature while not under ressource duress - until you walked over the cliff of no return. All those utopias, all those we shall overcome by education promises, hid the permadamage we have from ourselves. ICE, ISIS, decomplexification by redistribution fantasies, war-chieftains and permanently sending the young and hopeless into fights, that is what we really are.
Not some excemption, but the braindamaged norm under enough stress to trigger the "shizzoid" mode. Its sad, its real - and well how about we for once say thank you. Thank you Peter for dealing with reality, while the rest of us got high.
Thank you for the panopticon, forcing us to stay civil. All of us.
Thank you for doing a material stress test on humanity, while the climate change was not yet in full force upon us.
Thank you for moving down all the capability lanes in parallel, instead of doing the retarded one king, one plan, one tribe, mono-lane approach towards doom.
Thank you to the grown ups, shame on the retarded toddlers, the retarded nationalists and utopian idealists, shitting the diapers! Bravo!
Now for the final push- why not say it! We are going to have cooperate families - aka cloning by cooperations for loyal employees. All the other roads have proven dysfunctional under stress and the dysfunction is very plain to see. And the final building block, the ones willing too switch sides for this freedom are also in plain sights. Its going to be a weird mixture of cooperate lgbtq+ and conservatives- in an forced alliance with the retarded withering away in traditional hive societies unable to adapt.
Re: Where did all the starships go?
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Why try to cross an ocean when everything we could want is across the river? That "river" is still vast and nothing we want is on the other side. >1. The idea that Terran life is toxic and must not be allowed on other planets in the solar system. It's less the idea that Terran life is toxic and more that we're still hoping to find some forms of primitive life elsewhere in the solar system, and don't want those effor…
> nothing we want is on the other side Wow. > You decided the rest of the solar system is dead, not the scientific community. The odds are heavily stacked against other life existing, and get worse with every probe. Of course, nobody can prove there is no other life. And it's not very credible that Terran life will out-compete locally evolved life. And the idea that preserving some slime mold on Pluto justifies us co…
Notwithstanding the other myriad of reasons to not like Elon Musk (of which there are many)…
You’re equivocating a childish insult with insisting that a person is a pedophile and hiring a private investigator to prove so and then writing scathing emails to reporters because they refuse to repeat claims uncritically. This is an appalling failing of morality on your part.
I’m frankly not inclined to dive into why I, previously a big fan of Elon Musk, find him personally repugnant because I expect you to apply the same standards to everything he does. That doesn’t take away from SpaceX, but we shouldn’t overlook his failings just because rockets are cool.
Re: Where did all the starships go?
#159The starships left with the optimism. In the 50s there was a greater demand for stories with an unconstrained vision of the future where growth and expansion amount to flourishing. Later generations that lived in the excesses of growth saw it as the source of an intensifying dystopia. They stood athwart history and demanded decelleration. Star Trek lost ground to Terminator, Foundation to Neuromancer. Escaping sidewa…
> Star Trek lost ground to Terminator, Foundation to Neuromancer.
Interesting POV because Star Trek and Foundation both have recent, big budget streaming series while new Terminator movies were flops and Neuromancer has never seen any development(?)
Re: Where did all the starships go?
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There are a lot of ethical issues surrounding Neuralink and how it would be used Like what? (There are always ethical issues with new medical technology.) > It might be good for certain medical stuff Yes, like giving sight to the blind! What a monster Musk is! P.S. two of my largest medical fears are becoming paralyzed or going blind. Neuralink has promise in making these treatable. I'm all for it!
> Like what? (There are always ethical issues with new medical technology.) Like mind control, thought surveillance, neural torture (the last one would be easiest). I think these are inevitable technologies, I don't blame Neuralink in particular.
Mean people already do these things. Other people are already trying to use AI to decode your brainwaves and thoughts. There's no evidence Neuralink is doing anything unethical.