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Notes -
Some hard science news, that nevertheless became part of culture wars.
As you probably heard, third recorded interstellar object is on the way. It stands out of sample of three, just like the previous two.
The usual suspects, most prominent Avi Loeb and John Brandenburg of ancient nuclear war on Mars fame sound an alarm to warn from incoming alien invader.
Mainstream science dismisses the concerns and sees the object as ordinary red colored D-type asteroid.
< tinfoil hat> well, what are they supposed to do? </tinfoil hat>
Not that "we" as mankind could do anything if ayys were really here. See just Avi Loeb's proposals.
Nah. I cannot imagine better way to ensure Earth's swift destruction than to introduce aliens to United Nations. Compared to this plan, doing nothing at all is the superior alternative.
The simulation masters have been teasing the alien reveal for almost a decade now, almost as much as they've been hinting at a WWIII/Nuclear exchange arc. I'm hoping it happens during Trump's term, at least.
More seriously, I think it is important to track these things and try to identify them, and interacting with them would be cool as hell, but I'm coming around to the idea that we're (currently) alone in the universe, and probably because we're one of the first true intelligent species to reach a point where we can really think about extraterrestrial life in a serious way.
IF these interstellar objects are sent by other intelligent civilizations then they're probably intended to kill us. And if so the tech difference is probably sufficient that we can't do anything about it.
Incidentally, this is just another reason why not mucking about with our civilization and bootstrapping some off-planet industry is a good idea.
Some days it feels strange that there's not more agreement on the following:
We absolutely have the tech to get into space and establish a presence there, if not full colonies.
There are literal gigatons of resources in space that we could make use of, to say nothing of energy.
Literally EVERYTHING ELSE in the universe is out there in space. Whatever you really care about or want, there's more of it out there.
Humanity has no compelling reason to stay on this one planet until we get wiped out by something.
THEREFORE, we should be removing every possible barrier, bureaucratic, economic, or otherwise, to getting our space industries to commercial viability.
It can be a competition, sure, but stop it with environmental reviews and such that are pure deadweight loss.
But then I look around and realize that the mindset of people who both appreciate why space is important AND have the chops to actually build the industries necessary to realize an outer space economy is incredibly rare, especially on a global scale. I'd guess a majority of humans are focused on/optimized for bare survival on the day-to-day, another huge chunk, especially in the West, are in a distracted hedonism loop, and of the remaining who might otherwise learn towards space exploration, many (half?) have been mindkilled by lefty politics, effective altruism, or some other nerd-sniping ideology or political orientation that diverts their focus.
Compared to what we're doing with our efforts to improve conditions on earth. Which involve depleting whole national treasuries in first world countries to keep third world countries afloat, failing at that, then opening up the floodgates to allow their citizens into the first world countries directly, without considering the second-order impacts this has on sustaining advanced industries like spaceflight. And other things.
Also depleting said treasuries to keep some of the most nonproductive, anti-civilization native citizens comfortable, for minimal perceptible gain. This isn't even a racial point, this is just a "questioning of national/international priorities" point.
Although I'm aggressively libertarian, I could be convinced to become a single-issue voter for whatever politician or party made it their platform that they would drop all corporate taxes on any company in the "space travel and industry" space to zero, protect such companies against all threats to their ability to operate, and oppose, with (sanctioned) violence if necessary, anybody who is either directly or indirectly attempting to keep humans stuck on this rock in the name of, e.g. 'social justice,' 'environmentalism' 'equality,' 'tradition,' 'religious belief,' or any variant of Luddism.
Simply put, I have literally never heard a viable moral objection to humanity becoming a multi-planet, let alone multi-stellar civilization, and unless the whole of humanity actively agrees that we really shouldn't do it, I think there's a moral imperative to get out there ASAP.
Oh, and, incidentally, This means I kind of have to support Trump to some degree. And oppose the Dems, because they're the ones trying to hamstring Elon Musk and SpaceX.
This doesn't mean I think Trump's a good guy, or that Dems are evil, but right now it is actually 'impossible' for me to imagine a future where we have a booming space industry if the Democrats gain control of the FedGov.
Sorry for the screed. But it is relevant because it actually BARELY FACKIN' MATTERS if we can detect these interesting objects hurtling through space if we lack the capability to reach out and touch them.
Since space optimism is rather common in the Ratsphere, I suppose it falls to me to articulate the opposing view, and to elaborate a little bit on why I find space (or at least, the prospect of space colonization) to be rather boring.
The human mind is currently the most interesting object in the known universe. All of the human minds are already here, on earth. We don't need to go out into space to find them.
Space of course has a lot of, well, space, in which humans can propagate and live their lives. But space colonization won't fundamentally change human nature. Humans on Mars will still love, laugh, cry, and die. They'll just be doing those things... in space. Thinking that that changes the fundamental calculus would be like saying that a painting becomes more interesting when you magnify it 100x and put it on a billboard. It's still the exact same painting. Just bigger.
There is certainly something to be said for the drama of scientific discovery, and the challenges of surviving in a harsh environment. But this is still just one potential drama among many, only one potential object of study among many.
I of course recognize the utilitarian value of space colonization in terms of hedging against extinction risks on earth. But this strikes me as essentially an administrative detail. Not unlike paying your taxes, or moving into a new apartment because your landlord is kicking you out of your current one. More like something to be managed, rather than an object of fascination in its own right. There seems to be something importantly different going on in the psychology of the dedicated space optimists: they are attracted to expansion as such, effervescence, projection, power for power's sake, and most importantly, size.
Well, no, there's not much out there right now. Admittedly phenomena like neutron stars are extremely interesting, exotic planet compositions can make planets interesting in their own right even in the absence of life, etc. I am extremely grateful that we have scientists who are dedicated to expanding our knowledge of these phenomena. But in the last analysis, I still don't find these phenomena to be as interesting as other people.
Of course, if we were to discover that there are other conscious intelligent beings in the universe, then everything would change. Suddenly, we may not be the most interesting things in the universe anymore. We would have to make every possible effort to study them, with great haste. But you already said that you think we're probably alone. So it's unclear what you expect to find out there; besides, as already stated, the satisfaction of the utilitarian aim of preserving and multiplying what we already have.
Still doesn't create a 'moral' argument for not going out there, and instead staying on the one planet we currently have.
Note I'm not targetting anybody who doesn't want to fund space exploits. If you personally want to stay on earth, and don't care to put money into the space exploration fund, that's fine with me.
And as I intimated in my post from a few days ago that I linked to up there, I don't think we can obtain an answer to The Last Question without hitting Kardashev II status, at least.
Of course, if you, yourself, decide "Entropy can never be reversed, and that alone shows that we won't solve anything by leaving this planet, why bother?" I don't blame you either.
But the final, nigh-insurmountable argument is... wouldn't it just be more fun? Can't we imagine how much better life would be if we were consuming almost all of the sun's energy, and using all the excess to do things that we enjoy? And not having to fight each other over it? We can build homes where anybody who wants to live 'a certain way' can do that! If somebody dislikes people altogether, they can launch themselves into deep space on a whim.
I'm not saying we go full Culture, a la Iain Banks, but if you already agree that its better to say in the 'real' world rather than plug into a 'world sim' VR program forever, (not saying you do) then shouldn't it be almost self-evident that we will need to acquire more energy and resources so as to give ourselves more and more interesting things to do, games to play, (real) experiences to have?
Earth is large, but finite. Eventually you'll squeeze all the novelty out of it.
If you are suggesting that this is possible for any one person, I would be extremely surprised if you believe it. There is such a vast amount to be experienced and learned even within one town, to say nothing of a larger city, a whole country, bordering countries, or faraway countries--and this is just in the natural world and not even considering the variousness of people--that there isn't any way for a singular individual in one lifetime to "squeeze the novelty" out of it all, unless one is very very quickly given to boredom or incuriosity. I understand though that this is a matter of personal disposition.
Well, I'm also banking on improvements in longevity.
I also note that most people can learn all the 'important' information about literally any place in the world via the internet. As well as any time in history.
I've never been to Rome, but I've watched dozens of documentaries on it and so I've got a pretty good understanding of the main attractions there. I'm sure there are more interesting things to find on the ground... but I'd also bet that the experiences are very corporatized and streamlined, seeing as MILLIONS of people per year visit and they have to accommodate that.
I don't know that actually going to Rome would be all that enlightening to me. I still want to try it.
And this will make me sound cynical, but the world really is homogenizing. I can eat at a McDonalds in virtually any European city. Cultures are just not nearly as siloed as they used to be.
"Ah, but Faceh! You should eschew commoditized food and eat the local cuisine, Anthony Bourdain style!"
EXCEPT that the magic of internet recipes and globalization means that pretty much ANY COUNTRY'S CUISINE is available to me in at most an hour's drive in my own state! There is no such thing as food that is truly 'unique' to a single geographic area anymore!
Literally within walking distance of my office (which is in a smallish town!) is a Greek food restaurant, a Sushi/Sake bar, a Tex-Mex spot (and like 4 different standard Mexican restaurants), an Italian spot, a Peruvian spot, an Indian spot a short jaunt away, a Pho place, a Poke bowl spot. Korean barbecue, Cuban, Brazillian, and even a Hooters. Every kind of seafood, EVERY kind of pizza. And a specialized Bar that stocks alcohols from everywhere around the world. My area hosts a large population of German Expats, and they host a LARGE Oktoberfest event every year. I've got a low-rent version of EPCOT right in my fuckin' backyard. Also, I live only hours away from the actual EPCOT... so I can enjoy travel to other countries in miniature.
There's a Korean-Baptist church, of all things, right down the road from my house. Also, a Hindu temple. also a Buddhist temple, I just now learned. The world is genuinely smaller than ever. And will continue shrinking, if I get my way and tech keeps improving!
And hey, it would be nice to go and visit certain countries just to say I did. BUT...
Something that's also becoming more evident is that outside of the West, especially outside of the tourist areas... most places are just shitty to visit. Beggars, pickpockets, scammers, filth, and aggressive cultures that would see me as a mark for exploitation.
However, I will actually admit that natural wonders are irreplaceable, and cannot be simulated or imitated with current tech. Yellowstone National Park is actually mindblowingly beautiful and unique, in a way that can't be captured on film. But how long would it actually take for you to experience all the natural wonders on the planet, if you spent approximately a couple weeks exploring each one. 10 years? 20 at most? THEN WHAT. Those wonders aren't changing or updating regularly!
Time to look for wonders on other planets!. Personally, I REALLY want to visit Olympus Mons.
if they can turn Mt. Everest into a Tourist Trap, they can do that with anywhere worth going.
Finally finally, what happens if we get approximately 1:1 simulations in VR of these places, which can convincingly simulate the natural wonders or any location on earth? Then you can go anywhere on earth cheaply and see all there is to see without leaving home.
What then? How quickly will you figure out that there's just not THAT much variety, in the end?
Okay I'm quite bullish on space exploration, but I really don't agree with this. At all. Even a little bit.
Globohomo is a thing but this is seriously overstating the point. I'm a Malaysian who now lives in Sydney and no, the Malaysian food joints in Sydney are not the same. I have lived here for nine years, and in that span of time I have only managed to find one authentic restaurant (which I only found last week. Yes it took me nine years to find one). Not gonna lie, I nearly teared up when eating the food.
Of course, it's a single restaurant, and it serves approximately 0.001% of Malaysian dishes. There is still no substitute for going to a country and trying their food there. The amount of variety your city offers may satisfy you, but no, it isn't a representative sample of what the world has to offer.
Have you... actually been to East Asia recently? Not 50 years ago. Not even 20. Recently. I have, and this is not what it's like there. Hell it wasn't even like that when I grew up in Southeast Asia. Things are clean, and generally quite safe - safer than in many Western countries to be honest (look up the crime stats in a city like Beijing and compare that to say London. There's no comparison). In addition, I routinely see more homeless in Western cities than I do in Asian ones, and more insane people who just do crazy shit on the subways and streets. There's a real sense of hope that things are getting better in many Asian countries.
In contrast, many areas in the West feel like they're stagnating. My recent trip to Toronto was eye-opening - the sense of torpor was palpable, the subways were fucking falling apart with water damage and exposed wiring in a lot of areas, and homeless were so common that it was hard to walk a kilometre without encountering one of their encampments. I would much rather go home to third-world Malaysia than visit Toronto again. Really, it's funny - I used to want to leave Asia, and now I really yearn to go back.
Tell me precisely what would stop you from producing food that is identical to back home, same ingredients, same process, in your current country, other than "I've got other things to do with my time."
Is there any intrinsic reason that "authentic" Malaysian food can only be made in Malaysia, if a person who knows the recipes is available?
What possible ingredient(s) can not be shipped to any other given country, on ice or otherwise, so as to produce them the exact same way they are back home. We can overnight any package from any first or second world country if needed. There is no physical limitation on this factor under current tech.
And more to the point, what possible combination of ingredients can produce a truly unique sensation that isn't similar to some other dish that you're familiar with?
Humans have a finite capacity for taste. There's only so many combinations of salty, sweet, sour, spicy, bitter, umami one can produce. I'm familiar with the basic 'philosophy' of cooking, but also that flavorspace is pretty strictly bounded by what humans are capable of sensing.
You can vary the textures, the consistency, the 'mouthfeel,' the temperatures and acidity and crispness. Indeed, I get the sense this is precisely what the best chefs on the planet are doing to come up with 'new' dishes.
But these foods aren't breaking the laws of physics. They're utilizing mostly the same constituent parts, just in different configurations.
Is there any evidence that there's anything resembling a truly 'infinite' diversity of possible food experiences available?
Is there some food experience out there that I can LEGITIMATELY only experience if I take a trip to some other country?
It's really too bad, then, that East Asians are self destructing by failing to reproduce. I'd like these cultures to survive and persist as unique societies. But they don't seem to want to.
This is my larger point. We're going to lose so, so much in the short term because we just decided hedonism was preferable to exploration.
Lack of experience, for one (so yes, I have other things to do with my time). Also a lot of Malaysian food requires exceptionally high heat to get proper wok hei, and the stove in my apartment does not allow for that.
Of course not. It's just nearly impossible to find in practice. And no, the amount of flavour and texture combinations in existence isn't infinite, it's just way larger than you will ever be able to experience in your lifetime. Which means @George_E_Hale's assertion that the variety on Earth is enough to satisfy most people is correct.
Let's actually subject that to large-scale analysis instead of focusing in on a few countries.
The major Asian countries with low birth rates relative to death rates are, unsurprisingly the hyper-modernised ones: China (death rate 8.3, birth rate 6.3), South Korea (death rate 6.7, birth rate 4.3), and Japan (death rate 12.3, birth rate 6.0). Interestingly enough, Japan's birth rate is the most unfavourable compared to its death rate across all East Asian countries, in spite of all the focus on SK. But there are a number of Asian destinations which are actually quite wealthy and also have higher birth rates than their death rates; e.g. Singapore (death rate 4.8, birth rate 8.2), Macao (death rate 4.8, birth rate 6.3), and so on. Southeast Asia is doing pretty good in general, with Malaysia clocking in at a death rate of 5.2 and a birth rate of 12.4 (I can testify that Malaysia isn't that much of a shithole, in spite of people's perceptions, and it doesn't seem to be disappearing any time soon).
What I think is interesting about this is that large swaths of the west seems to be depopulating as well. Many places in Western Europe possess birth rates well below their death rates, for example Austria (death rate 10.2, birth rate 8.2), Finland (death rate 10.7, birth rate 7.8), Spain (death rate 9.3, birth rate 7.0), Italy (death rate 11.2, birth rate 6.5), Portugal (death rate 11.1, birth rate 8.3) and so on aren't doing so good. Oh and don't look at Eastern Europe if you don't want to see depopulation. Even where they seem to be doing okay, this isn't the full picture. For example, I notice your article states that US births still exceed deaths. This is trivially true on its face but it's misleading since that obscures a shit ton of heterogeneity - non-Hispanic white American deaths exceed births, and this has been true ever since 2013. The fact that the US still has a higher birth rate than death rate is being driven by the immigrants they have brought in. Does this bode well for the survival of "American culture"?
Western countries are depopulating as well, and have been for a long time. Unlike Asia, they're just stemming that by bringing in immigrants who don't hold the same culture and values who breed like rabbits, so their overall birth rates look better. But that does not imply cultural survival.
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