Visible Minorities to be majority in 25 years

[Bonam]

We do not have fusion reactors capable of the kind of propulsion you're talking about. Such reactors are certainly foreseeable at some not so far-off point. Other technologies, like the Bussard ramjet, may also become a reality within the coming decades, but are still essentially on-paper designs with a good deal of technical work and innovation to bring them online. But low relativistic speeds are still not going to deliver you the necessary speeds to duplicate the colonization-trade loop that existed, particularly by the end of the 16th century (and earlier if you count the Spaniards pumping gold out of Central and South America and all the fishing that went on).

You are correct, with current and near term technologies, we need to focus on colonizing and using our own solar system's resources, before we can embark on interstellar journeys. Before the Europeans set sail for the Americas, they explored many tiny little islands in the Atlantic, of relatively little worth in themselves, but important to hone their skills and build the precedent necessary before transoceanic journeys could be begin. Perhaps that is stretching the analogy a bit too far.

But the point remains. We haven't used the resources of our Moon, or of Mars, or of the asteroid belt, or of the moons of Jupiter or Saturn, or indeed the vast energies available from the sun itself. Why set the goal interstellar right away. We have much to do much closer to home before we need to aim for other stars.

Now you get dangerously close to invoking magic here. The amount of energy to even propel a few grams of matter to .9c and above is astronomical.

Sure it's quite high, but not as impossible as you might think. The relativistic kinetic energy equation is:

mc²*gamma - mc²

Accelerating 1 kg to 0.9c would take 107 PG (petajoules) of energy. That's the energy equivalent of just 1.19 kg of antimatter, or about 30-50 kg of fusion fuel, or a few hundred kilograms of fissile material. High? Sure. Magical, impossible? Not really, not at all. Easily calculated and expressed in terms of currently foreseeable technologies.

Frankly, even .1c is pure science fiction right now, it will take innovations in production of energy far beyond anything we have right now, and from what I can tell most researchers feel that it borders almost on magic to think we will be doing that any time in the foreseeable future.

Most research publications focus on near term things, things that will get them money. Antimatter propulsion technologies aren't exactly at the top of the list. Nonetheless, if you are interested, read up on some of the studies by NASA's institute for advanced concepts.

By comparison, the innovations necessary to change the coast-hugging seacraft the Portuguese had been using to go down the African coast and up into the Indian Ocean are modest. We're talking about some sort of energy production process capable of moving very large (thousands, tens of thousands of tons) of mass at speeds that represent a substantial fraction of c. I'm almost with Larry Niven on this one, something like a Bussard ramjet would probably be the way to go, though its usefulness is greatly dependent on a number of assumptions which are not easily answerable at this point.

As I've demonstrated above, achieving 0.9c is a relatively simple matter, in principle, with antimatter or even with nearer term nuclear technologies, provided that you are willing to expend the necessary amount of propellant.

The reason to get to a healthy fraction of c is as much dilation effects as it is the length of time. But to be perfectly blunt, I think 99% of c is all but impossible. It's science fiction bordering on magic. As I said above even .1c is a pretty incredible speed that would require some pretty amazing energy production methods, but considering the physical constraints that going to very large fractions of the speed of light impose, I find it unlikely. Besides, if we could, in a self-contained reactor of some kind, produce that kind of energy, we'd probably be very far along to creating the sorts of exotic matter necessary for hypothetical stable wormholes, so wasting it on making a spaceship go really really fast would seem pretty frivolous.

Assuming such wormholes are possible, which they may or may not be. If we can build them, that'd be even better, I don't disagree.

But when invoking technologies that border on magical by our own physics allows for all sorts of "predictions".

People trying to predict what the year 2010 might have looked like in 1910 would have failed miserably, even though we still obey all the same physical laws they did back then. All but the most outrageous science fiction of that era has been far surpassed. To try to say that what we know and can easily foresee at this moment is what we will still be doing 100 years from now is folly. Technological progress has transformed our civilization on a very short time scale, and this progress continues to accelerate.

And again you dip into almost magical fields. yes, in theory, but in reality the fine control and energies required are far beyond our reach, and one wonders if we reach that point that we might find more interesting uses than making ships go really really fast.

At some point, making things go fast to reach other star systems and spread our civilization has to be done, so while we might find "better things" to use our technology on, movement will remain one of these things. Controlled nucleosynthesis is not voodoo magic, it is a process already used to produce many useful materials, including medical radioisotopes, tritium fuel, isoptopes for use in radioisotope thermoelectric generators, and in research. More mundane materials could already be produced this way, except that there is no need, since they can be produced or extracted much more cheaply on Earth. But in deep space, nucleosynthesis from hydrogen would be the fundamental source of all elements.

Most physicists tend to view these as interesting abstract solutions that might not having anything to do with reality. We have a long way to go before we can determine whether any of these hypothetical solutions to GR problems actually represent real physical solutions. The same goes with more exotic solutions that stem out of potential unions of GR and QM (like gravity drives).

Of course these are far in the realm of theory, and may be proven not to work, and many other theories may yet to be developed. What did you expect, a fully solved physical explanation of how FTL would work? Obviously we are not there yet, doesn't mean that it is necessarily impossible. But like I said, it's not strictly necessary either.

Or alternatively none of the solutions ever pan out; there is no more reason to assume that any of the obnoxious restraints that our understandings of the laws of physics seem to put on travel will ever in fact be solvable. I'm not trying to sound pessimistic. I'd love for their to be an easy to go to the stars, but the general consensus right now seems to be that making even modest amounts of normal matter move at substantial fractions of the speed of light would require amounts of energy far beyond any reasonable capability even in the medium term.

What is this "general consensus" you speak of? People still talking about the use of chemical rockets and solar panels? Of course with such technology we aren't going anywhere fast. In the short and "medium term", like I said, we need to focus on our solar system. But the types of energies needed to be able to go on interstellar journies are well described by physical phenomena that we already have a deep understanding of, and can potentially turn into propulsion systems in the future, when the incentive to do so arises.

Obviously you can never really project the future direction of technological advancement (it only really becomes obvious in retrospect), but even creating fusion reactors of even modest efficiency has proven a far more complex problem than at first envisioned, and for no lack of funding, and it seems to me that getting not just modestly efficient fusion working is important, you would need wildly efficient fusion. As to anti-matter reactors, that seems really sciency-fictiony at the moment, producing anti-matter in any quantity itself be a tricky problem with no obvious solution.

I think we are just talking past each other. I am presenting concepts which could potentially be used at some point in the future. You are retorting with, well, it's not yet fully developed and ready to go so we can't be sure it ever will be! There is nothing fundamentally impossible about the use of antimatter for propulsion. By the way, positrons (anti-electrons) can be collected from natural sources.

But ask me again in 200 years and I'm sure I'll look as dumb as the guy who said "Who will ever need more than 640k?"

I think even my most optimistic projections are likely far short of what we will really achieve in 200 years. Even acclaimed futurists who spend their life studying these issues can't see much further than 40 or 50 years ahead.

Edited July 5, 2010 by Bonam

[xul]

why would we want to?

Because there isn't a "we" as you think.

The people you called "we" are a group of people who have different understanding and interests on this matter. "Why would we want so many carpenter immigrants?" a laid-off carpenter who has no money to pay the bill of his plumber may ask like this. But a plumber who hates the price of his carpenter charged him may also complain "why wouldn't we get more carpenter immigrants to raise the competition?"

The policy of Canadian government usually is the reflection or compromise of the opinion and interests of your so-called "we" or the collectivity of Canadian, not merely a single one.

Sometimes the governmental policy looks like against most of its people's will, but it merely looks like. In most of cases it is because sometimes people can not see whereabouts their long-term interests lying on.

For example:

A laid-off worker: "I've just been fired by my boss. He hired a low-paid immigrant worker instead so he was able to cut off the cost of his business. Why do you move so many workers competing with me since I'm your voter?"

The politician: "First, your boss is not only my voter but also my funder, so his interests weighs to me more than yours. Secondly, even if I stopped moving cheap labours in, you boss would unlikely rehire you but more likely off-shore his business to someplace with plenty cheap labour resources, so I would not only lose one vote but also all votes from your fellow workers who are still been hired so far. And last, once all workers are unemployed and all capitalists are off-shoring, I will have nowhere to tax people and have to pay plenty for the welfare, the system will collapsed and everyone include you will not get welfare anymore. So what I'm doing is just to keep your unemployed welfare unbroken....so I still deserve you vote. "

Of course, a politician will never speak so honestly like that because it is totally political-incorrect, but I think I'm telling a part of the truth.

Edited July 6, 2010 by xul

[Remiel]

No, my view of human evolution is that our population continues to grow over countless millenia, both on Earth and on billions of other worlds that we settle throughout the galaxy, as we expand outward at a speed growing ever closer to the speed of light. My prediction is that unless we destroy ourselves or encounter alien intelligences that thwart our expansion, the human-machine civilization will span the entirety of our galaxy within 200,000 years.

While I agree that the future lies in outer space, I think your timescale is extremely optimistic even if do invent speed of light travel. It may be possible that we could have scouted the galaxy in that time frame, but not settled it.

[Remiel]

Another option is simply to send frozen human embryos or DNA, to be placed in artificial maturation chambers and attended by robotic servants, which would teach the first generation of humans thus created what they need to know to create their society.

Even when this method is possible, I am skeptical as to whether it would ever be used, unless the children were basically treated as slaves to be brainwashed as their creators see fit. Unless we were colonizing purely for the sake of colonizing, expected benefits would rest entirely on that new society cooperating with whoever sent them; they may not want to.

[Bonam]

Even when this method is possible, I am skeptical as to whether it would ever be used, unless the children were basically treated as slaves to be brainwashed as their creators see fit. Unless we were colonizing purely for the sake of colonizing, expected benefits would rest entirely on that new society cooperating with whoever sent them; they may not want to.

Why else would we be colonizing besides "just for colonizing"? It's not like we would be transporting physical goods/resources across interstellar space, certainly not at first, while it remained a major undertaking. And especially not a return journey from the newly founded colonies, at least not until they had developed into advanced civilization in their own right, capable of producing interstellar spacecraft.

While I agree that the future lies in outer space, I think your timescale is extremely optimistic even if do invent speed of light travel. It may be possible that we could have scouted the galaxy in that time frame, but not settled it.

Scouting the galaxy? We can do that from right here at home, just build big enough telescopes. The timescale for settlement is based upon conservative projections. If we assume for a moment that humans remain largely as we think of them today, biological biped entities with lifespans of ~100 years and generations of ~30 years in length. A colony ship landing on a new world and founding a new society, doubling in population every generation (not an unreasonable goal), can achieve an Earth level population within ~25 generations (700-800 years), even with a very small starting population. Take 1000 years as an average for the timespan from when a colony is founded until it sends out its colony ships. First wave of colony ships goes out from Earth, say to stars within 100 light years. In a thousand years, those colonies send out their own ships, to the next 100 light years. Basically, expand this way at a rate of about 100 light years per thousand years, not even counting of course that the older worlds would probably still be sending out colonies of their own. Basically, a 0.1c expansion rate is what this yields... 200,000 years would yield a civilization 20,000 ly across, a big chunk of our galaxy.

All of this is a vast underestimate of course because it doesn't take into account that humans in even 100 years, let alone thousands, will be nothing like the humans of today. That's a whole other aspect of technological progress, as human intelligence merges with artificial intelligence and produces a new human-machine civilization.

[Wild Bill]

But low relativistic speeds are still not going to deliver you the necessary speeds to duplicate the colonization-trade loop that existed, particularly by the end of the 16th century (and earlier if you count the Spaniards pumping gold out of Central and South America and all the fishing that went on).

Have you considered ion engines, TB?

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/05/ion-drive-aiming-at-mars.html

"Forward-thinkers say that VASIMR's continuous thrust could be what we need to get to Mars. The technology to maybe bang a bucket of bolts together and half-land it on Mars has been around for a while - the real race is against time, with the inconvenient fact that most of space is trying to kill us. You have to get there before the radiation that soaks interplanetary space becomes too much, and the superconducting plasma rocket could cut the trip down to 39 days - within what we're able to do with our soft flesh. "

Is 39 days not comparable to your model?

[Remiel]

Why else would we be colonizing besides "just for colonizing"? It's not like we would be transporting physical goods/resources across interstellar space, certainly not at first, while it remained a major undertaking. And especially not a return journey from the newly founded colonies, at least not until they had developed into advanced civilization in their own right, capable of producing interstellar spacecraft.

What is the incentive of future generations to make substantial sacrifices in order to create benefits they will never see? Nothing is ever colonized for the sake of colonizing. It is colonized to create profits, move excess population, and so forth.

Scouting the galaxy? We can do that from right here at home, just build big enough telescopes. The timescale for settlement is based upon conservative projections. If we assume for a moment that humans remain largely as we think of them today, biological biped entities with lifespans of ~100 years and generations of ~30 years in length. A colony ship landing on a new world and founding a new society, doubling in population every generation (not an unreasonable goal), can achieve an Earth level population within ~25 generations (700-800 years), even with a very small starting population. Take 1000 years as an average for the timespan from when a colony is founded until it sends out its colony ships. First wave of colony ships goes out from Earth, say to stars within 100 light years. In a thousand years, those colonies send out their own ships, to the next 100 light years. Basically, expand this way at a rate of about 100 light years per thousand years, not even counting of course that the older worlds would probably still be sending out colonies of their own. Basically, a 0.1c expansion rate is what this yields... 200,000 years would yield a civilization 20,000 ly across, a big chunk of our galaxy.

There is a difference between looking at something with a telescope and actually getting something there to do in depth analysis. Furthermore, to actuall " see " the entire galaxy, even with telescopes, is not possible. Sometimes things get in the way. With different kinds of telescopes, light bending and all that, that part may not be that big a problem, but that does not change the fact that there is a qualitative difference between scouting with the Hubble Telescope and scouting with the Mars Rover.

Anyway, when you said " settle the galaxy " I took you to mean the whole galaxy, not just a chunk of it. Seeing that it is like 100,000 light years across, I thought a light year every two years was crazy.

All of this is a vast underestimate of course because it doesn't take into account that humans in even 100 years, let alone thousands, will be nothing like the humans of today. That's a whole other aspect of technological progress, as human intelligence merges with artificial intelligence and produces a new human-machine civilization.

I think it more likely that most of the " colonizing " by that point will be done purely by machines. Making it more like a machine-machine civilization in the outer reaches.

[Machjo]

A recent Statistics Canada report on demographic trends shows that in just 20 years 28% of the people in this country will be immigrants, and 47% of people in this country will either be foreign born, or have foreign born parents. Within 25 years whites will no longer compose the majority of the population. With the foreign born population increasing at 4 times the rate of Canadian born, it is inevitable that they will become the majority, especially as their voting desires make themmselves felt and immigration from their homelands is further expanded.

I wonder if this is what anyone born here ever asked for or was ever asked about. Did the liberals, at any point in time, ask the population if it would be a good idea to bring in so many foreigners in such a short time that they would actually outnumber Canadians? Did anyone give a thought to what swamping the somewhat shaky, uncertain Canadian culture with masses of foreigners would mean? Did the elites in the Liberal party ever even suggest that opening immigration would make the Canadian born a minority in their own country? Did they even care?

National Post

So we've come full circle then to the days when Britons were moving to Upper Canada in droves. My how history repeats itself.

[Machjo]

With the conservatives opening Canada's legs its not a suprise that Canada will be flooded by a foreign population in the next generation.

Hadn't that already happened with the establishment of Upper Canada? Replay!

[Shwa]

I think it more likely that most of the " colonizing " by that point will be done purely by machines. Making it more like a machine-machine civilization in the outer reaches.

Which explains alot about V'Ger!

So far into the future one of our machine civilized worlds in the outer reaches reconstitutes an unmanned space probe from our remote past and sends it back to 1979 which is really the 23rd century. Man black holes DO bend time!

[Moonbox]

Which explains alot about V'Ger!

So far into the future one of our machine civilized worlds in the outer reaches reconstitutes an unmanned space probe from our remote past and sends it back to 1979 which is really the 23rd century. Man black holes DO bend time!

That was pretty funny actually.