Society if the earth was going to be destroyed in 20 years
Say hypothetically scientists discover some catastrophic incident will completely destroy the entire earth in 20 years.
For the sake of this hypothetical let's say this calamity is 100% certain to happen and 100% impossible to prevent.
What would life on earth be like for the next 20 years?
Would kids still go to school? Would people still go to work? Would people still go to casinos and play poker? Would there still be major sporting events? Would new movies continue to be made? Would people still have children (in large numbers that is)? Would countries still be fighting wars?
Basically would people still lead mostly normal lives for most of the time? What major changes if any would you expect to see happen and what sort of timeline would you expect to see them happen in?
For the sake of this hypothetical let's say this calamity is 100% certain to happen and 100% impossible to prevent.
What would life on earth be like for the next 20 years?
Would kids still go to school? Would people still go to work? Would people still go to casinos and play poker? Would there still be major sporting events? Would new movies continue to be made? Would people still have children (in large numbers that is)? Would countries still be fighting wars?
Basically would people still lead mostly normal lives for most of the time? What major changes if any would you expect to see happen and what sort of timeline would you expect to see them happen in?
We would work 24/7/365 in absolute cooperation to save everything and we would do exactly that effectively moving all to Mars , atmosphere of Venus and the moons of the gas Giants. We would also have an arc ship ready just in case. You better believe it its doable.
Each one works in some proper subproject unit in a value/payoff system based on performance to increase the personal probability to be saved and that of their family (thats the prize of effort). So you do nothing you die unless others can make it for all with breakthroughs. You contribute a lot you have higher chance to survive etc. That is motivation 101 right there. Technology and Science can deliver it then. Its like Manhattan or moon landing projects only 1000x more intense and 4-5x longer in time.
If going to Mars in numbers was a priority we would be there in a year actually let alone 20.
Basically military law in all countries and whoever doesnt like it and wants to party to suicide endgame kill them right away and be done with one more loser out.
Work is priority of massive importance and entertainment to be able to continue that work with high moral becomes a scientific project also in order to maximally satisfy and do it efficiently too. Eg everyone gets sex once a day with quality partners (if not married) for 30 min, then work work work and great absolutely magnificent meals and some other cultural entertainment that boosts emotional motivation and then plenty quality sleep. Excellent health tested for all for free etc. Work 12 hours a day all needs covered (work is also designed to be doable, tolerable in 12 h, not depressingly tiring/repetitive/uninteresting etc, takes proper design and rational compassion).
It is doable if we put focus into it. We can produce the energy needed to save anywhere from 1 mil to 5 bil people. Population control is also a must, only 1 kid per family. Energy usage goes up 100% per year for a decade lol.
Many people and parents would even work for free (no need to be saved i mean) for their kids or mankind in general. It is how you win in death.
Each one works in some proper subproject unit in a value/payoff system based on performance to increase the personal probability to be saved and that of their family (thats the prize of effort). So you do nothing you die unless others can make it for all with breakthroughs. You contribute a lot you have higher chance to survive etc. That is motivation 101 right there. Technology and Science can deliver it then. Its like Manhattan or moon landing projects only 1000x more intense and 4-5x longer in time.
If going to Mars in numbers was a priority we would be there in a year actually let alone 20.
Basically military law in all countries and whoever doesnt like it and wants to party to suicide endgame kill them right away and be done with one more loser out.
Work is priority of massive importance and entertainment to be able to continue that work with high moral becomes a scientific project also in order to maximally satisfy and do it efficiently too. Eg everyone gets sex once a day with quality partners (if not married) for 30 min, then work work work and great absolutely magnificent meals and some other cultural entertainment that boosts emotional motivation and then plenty quality sleep. Excellent health tested for all for free etc. Work 12 hours a day all needs covered (work is also designed to be doable, tolerable in 12 h, not depressingly tiring/repetitive/uninteresting etc, takes proper design and rational compassion).
It is doable if we put focus into it. We can produce the energy needed to save anywhere from 1 mil to 5 bil people. Population control is also a must, only 1 kid per family. Energy usage goes up 100% per year for a decade lol.
Many people and parents would even work for free (no need to be saved i mean) for their kids or mankind in general. It is how you win in death.
Was sure this was David's thread until I checked
A general strong recommendation that people shouldn't have more children would and should be issued. Almost assured death within less than 20 years is unethical. The unborn would be the only ones being able to avoid it.
I'm supporting masque in that Mars for the selected few is a good option, preferably through lottery among all people on Earth. Maybe separate lotteries among certain experts who absolutely are needed for the exodus.
I don't like the idea of making a Nazi regime all over the world during Earth's last days. We should have fun. I would be a bit too old for traveling at that point anyway.
People would work for the common goal anyway, without grotesque enforcement. Most of science and technology would be about how to get as many people to Mars as possible. But of course you can't get there more than, let's say 1-10 million, maybe not more than 10,000-100,000. Definitely nowhere near 7 billion.
And yes, children would go to school normally.
A general strong recommendation that people shouldn't have more children would and should be issued. Almost assured death within less than 20 years is unethical. The unborn would be the only ones being able to avoid it.
I'm supporting masque in that Mars for the selected few is a good option, preferably through lottery among all people on Earth. Maybe separate lotteries among certain experts who absolutely are needed for the exodus.
I don't like the idea of making a Nazi regime all over the world during Earth's last days. We should have fun. I would be a bit too old for traveling at that point anyway.
People would work for the common goal anyway, without grotesque enforcement. Most of science and technology would be about how to get as many people to Mars as possible. But of course you can't get there more than, let's say 1-10 million, maybe not more than 10,000-100,000. Definitely nowhere near 7 billion.
And yes, children would go to school normally.
Pretty much this. It is possible to do a lot if everyone is really focused.
Let me "paint" for you how to do it in crude argument terms.
Given the extreme nature of the situation and the potential divergence of population reactions we may even separate as society in 2 groups. Those that care and those that accept it and party till the end.
The rational thing to do is to do both of course in a designed organized manner!
Obviously you work hard and have fun for 20 years because it no longer matters who is rich or poor or who will win wars etc. All that matters is that there is a deadline and work to be done to produce self reliant systems far from earth.
From an energy perspective to see how doable it is you need for example for the case of Venus or Mars to develop a boost/carry/land there system that sends a lot of infrastructure there continuously and as much hydrogen (ok water or Hydrogen whatever is more efficient to carry given what exists in the target area in terms of resources - remember Mars and Venus have CO2 already but not much H unless in some harder to process compounds) in a very efficient manner.
It might be possible to build a space elevator real fast to make things simpler near the end of the period too.
But even if we simply used a rocket system we have enough water on earth to separate O2,H2 to then burn in boost systems to get infrastructure and raw materials to Mars. We can use essentially our sea water as both source of energy (deuterium) and source of rocket fuel.
Try this thought/question;
How much energy is needed to break down 1km^3 of H2O and how much payload (in terms of water mostly) can you take to Mars in this process using the resulting gases as fuel if you take 1 year for the trip? Ie what fraction of that km^3 gets to Mars in the end. And where will you get that energy from?
How much energy you can generate with compact and industrial scale generator Fusion if it becomes a reality in 10 years because of enormous urgent focus?
That energy from deuterium in the sea will be used to separate water for fuel if solar and nuclear fission from eg Thorium wont be enough.
So you need a geometric expansion process that starts with fusion/fission in large scale research and then build up of reactors everywhere and also resulting processing factories for all kinds of equipment needed to sustain the exponential growth of such system and the community that works on it. This has as general plan to develop a rapidly growing infrastructure that becomes as big as it can manage eventually, given the time constraint and which has as main objective to transfer things to Mars using the energy produced from fusion and the burning of O2,H2 for propulsion out of earth and landing/delivery there in a process that is either re-usable or part of the infrastructure build up of Mars (ie if you cant or doesnt make sense to recycle the part of the rocket ship that goes there, other than the cargo, you must find ways to make that ship part of the new civilization buildup there). So the carry ship takes you and materials there and is also used to build structure there .
Any process that is exponential can in principle within 20 years take indeed all of human population there regardless how ridiculous that sounds today. It is doable if energetically it is doable simply because the technology to go to Mars and settle there in pure survival mode is trivial if motivated. And also the technology to be reliable and self sufficient once there is also available or possible to develop within 10 years and apply it heavily the last 10.
So answer these questions above with example calculations and you have the crude solution of what needs to be done and then what happens to society will be the result of the recognition of what needs to be done for that effort to succeed.
You can choose to view some 4-5 bil population of proper age humans as a problem or as an asset. I think 5 bil working together can save themselves or a good fraction of their families no matter how ridiculous this sounds now.
The deal mankind makes with itself is simple. Since there is no life after 20 years no property ownership means anything anymore. All assets belong to the united across all planet system of governments to be used to save as many as possible and to also produce a lifestyle for all living humans for the next 20 years that will secure the stability of the planet and avoid the breakdown of society.
Effectively you have a spartan form of scientific society within 1 year and over time even an improvement of the last few years of the entire experience.
You promise everyone a secure decent lifestyle in exchange for their commitment to work 12h/day for 20 years in order to get to the target exodus solution for as many as possible of future humans and other life forms and for as much of Earth's biosphere/crust resources/technology as possible.
We have so much water on earth (order 10^21 kgr) that each human can take with them 10^11 kgr of water times the carry factor of the above calculation (see next order 2%) .
So dont let yourself think how ridiculous a task of saving say 5 bil humans sound! It is doable for a decent fraction of them (maybe even all) because we have a lot of water on earth and rocket systems using H2,O2 from that water can be developed.
Do the math above with me next and start the proper exponential process visualization to see if we can in fact carry such ridiculous amounts of water there and enough ground material (other compounds and elements, carbon, Nitrogen, metals etc) from our crust to initiate agriculture and heavy industry buildup on Mars before we are capable to extract local resources from there to recover a civilization further.
Maybe the first realistic solution is only 1 mil top specialized educated/prepared for that purpose people can get there and be stable enough. Maybe its 1 bil though if the process proves indeed a strong exponential. Mars has in fact enough area to match the current size of all continents of earth.
So you take there what you need for now and use it to restart a civilization there. Do the same for the atmosphere of Venus and other rocky worlds of interest eg Titan, Io, Enceladus etc. Mars is by far the friendlier solution due to gravity and ground conditions but it shouldnt be the only one.
In principle a rotating space colony can be created too. It may even make a lot of sense.
It is important to get all religious leaders and politicians to agree with the ultimate scientific solutions proposed in order to unite the masses of people behind the plan. Its like this; Lets unite and save each other for now , live reasonably well and work next 20 years and then after these 20 years we can be enemies again elsewhere (if such period of cooperation didnt change forever mankind and its stupid divisive culture).
Consider for "homework" now a few basic things;
2 H2(g) + O2(g) → 2 H2O(l) + 572 kJ (286 kJ/mol).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v#Astrodynamics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolko...ocket_equation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power
Imagine 1m^3 of sea water has order 10 grams Deuterium in it . Imagine fusion results in 0.1% mc^2 type energy release after all inefficiencies etc.
So 1 gram of Deuterium gives you ~10^11 J. This essentially separates 6000 kgr of water into its gases.
So it goes like this; 1 m^3 sea water has 10 grams deuterium and it can be used to separate to gases for rocket fuel 60m^3 of water. Excellent.
We then have typically for Mars missions some delta v of order 20 km/s and exhaust gases in boosters 5km/sec implying from above rocket equation links that we can get for Mars a 0.02 mass ratio of payload to total initial rocket mass for each mission. (developing space elevators and ion propulsion systems for the trip may improve that but we dont have enough time to go this way)
So we can carry to Mars 2% of the water we start from earth as fuel.
So using the fusion energy to break down water from oceans to H2 and O2 we can carry to Mars 2% of the water we have available on earth. That is more than the current pure used water we have in the land.
In any case keep from that the conclusion that if we develop fusion we then have enough energy to take to Mars 2% of any mass of water we manage from earth. If we took to Mars Hydrogen only and of course Deuterium for fusion there, it can get more interesting.
You see now since Hydrogen is only 2/18 of water ie say 10% of water by mass, the above 0.02 implies that we can take from earth's oceans 20% of the hydrogen to Mars (leave out O2) ! We then can use Deuterium on Mars to break down CO2 and re-synthesize water there using Mars' atmosphere and crust's oxides. That effectively means we can recover on Mars (or Venus) up to 20% of the water we start from earth using the CO2 there and other compounds on the crust.
So the transfer of enough water to Mars to sustain huge number of humans there is realistic using current technology if it was the main priority of a civilization.
In general imagine being able to transfer to Mars with current technology thousands of tons of equipment and raw materials per human we send there. So what we need is the exponential growth of a transfer industry buildup founded on fusion/fission and water. Then on Mars using solar energy and fusion/fission and infrastructure/raw materials sent there we can get things started again and try to exploit local ground resources going forward to maintain autonomy and self reliance. Materials processing on Mars is also another industry needed before its too late. In other words buildup process must start on Mars too as soon as possible to facilitate the transfer.
I see 1 mil people on Mars as very doable and i even can go as high as most of human population (even order 100 mil 1 bil) of motivated young and technically advanced people of all countries if the exponential process gains enough pace and triples each year say in growth. I see no reason in fact not to be able to come up with a solution for anyone that participates in the project from the first few years regardless of their education etc (or some probability per person).
We can sit down and die, witness the breakdown of society or party like losers that gave up to one last 20 year old binge party of abandonment or make it our finest hour!
Given the extreme nature of the situation and the potential divergence of population reactions we may even separate as society in 2 groups. Those that care and those that accept it and party till the end.
The rational thing to do is to do both of course in a designed organized manner!
Obviously you work hard and have fun for 20 years because it no longer matters who is rich or poor or who will win wars etc. All that matters is that there is a deadline and work to be done to produce self reliant systems far from earth.
From an energy perspective to see how doable it is you need for example for the case of Venus or Mars to develop a boost/carry/land there system that sends a lot of infrastructure there continuously and as much hydrogen (ok water or Hydrogen whatever is more efficient to carry given what exists in the target area in terms of resources - remember Mars and Venus have CO2 already but not much H unless in some harder to process compounds) in a very efficient manner.
It might be possible to build a space elevator real fast to make things simpler near the end of the period too.
But even if we simply used a rocket system we have enough water on earth to separate O2,H2 to then burn in boost systems to get infrastructure and raw materials to Mars. We can use essentially our sea water as both source of energy (deuterium) and source of rocket fuel.
Try this thought/question;
How much energy is needed to break down 1km^3 of H2O and how much payload (in terms of water mostly) can you take to Mars in this process using the resulting gases as fuel if you take 1 year for the trip? Ie what fraction of that km^3 gets to Mars in the end. And where will you get that energy from?
How much energy you can generate with compact and industrial scale generator Fusion if it becomes a reality in 10 years because of enormous urgent focus?
That energy from deuterium in the sea will be used to separate water for fuel if solar and nuclear fission from eg Thorium wont be enough.
So you need a geometric expansion process that starts with fusion/fission in large scale research and then build up of reactors everywhere and also resulting processing factories for all kinds of equipment needed to sustain the exponential growth of such system and the community that works on it. This has as general plan to develop a rapidly growing infrastructure that becomes as big as it can manage eventually, given the time constraint and which has as main objective to transfer things to Mars using the energy produced from fusion and the burning of O2,H2 for propulsion out of earth and landing/delivery there in a process that is either re-usable or part of the infrastructure build up of Mars (ie if you cant or doesnt make sense to recycle the part of the rocket ship that goes there, other than the cargo, you must find ways to make that ship part of the new civilization buildup there). So the carry ship takes you and materials there and is also used to build structure there .
Any process that is exponential can in principle within 20 years take indeed all of human population there regardless how ridiculous that sounds today. It is doable if energetically it is doable simply because the technology to go to Mars and settle there in pure survival mode is trivial if motivated. And also the technology to be reliable and self sufficient once there is also available or possible to develop within 10 years and apply it heavily the last 10.
So answer these questions above with example calculations and you have the crude solution of what needs to be done and then what happens to society will be the result of the recognition of what needs to be done for that effort to succeed.
You can choose to view some 4-5 bil population of proper age humans as a problem or as an asset. I think 5 bil working together can save themselves or a good fraction of their families no matter how ridiculous this sounds now.
The deal mankind makes with itself is simple. Since there is no life after 20 years no property ownership means anything anymore. All assets belong to the united across all planet system of governments to be used to save as many as possible and to also produce a lifestyle for all living humans for the next 20 years that will secure the stability of the planet and avoid the breakdown of society.
Effectively you have a spartan form of scientific society within 1 year and over time even an improvement of the last few years of the entire experience.
You promise everyone a secure decent lifestyle in exchange for their commitment to work 12h/day for 20 years in order to get to the target exodus solution for as many as possible of future humans and other life forms and for as much of Earth's biosphere/crust resources/technology as possible.
We have so much water on earth (order 10^21 kgr) that each human can take with them 10^11 kgr of water times the carry factor of the above calculation (see next order 2%) .
So dont let yourself think how ridiculous a task of saving say 5 bil humans sound! It is doable for a decent fraction of them (maybe even all) because we have a lot of water on earth and rocket systems using H2,O2 from that water can be developed.
Do the math above with me next and start the proper exponential process visualization to see if we can in fact carry such ridiculous amounts of water there and enough ground material (other compounds and elements, carbon, Nitrogen, metals etc) from our crust to initiate agriculture and heavy industry buildup on Mars before we are capable to extract local resources from there to recover a civilization further.
Maybe the first realistic solution is only 1 mil top specialized educated/prepared for that purpose people can get there and be stable enough. Maybe its 1 bil though if the process proves indeed a strong exponential. Mars has in fact enough area to match the current size of all continents of earth.
So you take there what you need for now and use it to restart a civilization there. Do the same for the atmosphere of Venus and other rocky worlds of interest eg Titan, Io, Enceladus etc. Mars is by far the friendlier solution due to gravity and ground conditions but it shouldnt be the only one.
In principle a rotating space colony can be created too. It may even make a lot of sense.
It is important to get all religious leaders and politicians to agree with the ultimate scientific solutions proposed in order to unite the masses of people behind the plan. Its like this; Lets unite and save each other for now , live reasonably well and work next 20 years and then after these 20 years we can be enemies again elsewhere (if such period of cooperation didnt change forever mankind and its stupid divisive culture).
Consider for "homework" now a few basic things;
2 H2(g) + O2(g) → 2 H2O(l) + 572 kJ (286 kJ/mol).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v#Astrodynamics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolko...ocket_equation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power
Imagine 1m^3 of sea water has order 10 grams Deuterium in it . Imagine fusion results in 0.1% mc^2 type energy release after all inefficiencies etc.
So 1 gram of Deuterium gives you ~10^11 J. This essentially separates 6000 kgr of water into its gases.
So it goes like this; 1 m^3 sea water has 10 grams deuterium and it can be used to separate to gases for rocket fuel 60m^3 of water. Excellent.
We then have typically for Mars missions some delta v of order 20 km/s and exhaust gases in boosters 5km/sec implying from above rocket equation links that we can get for Mars a 0.02 mass ratio of payload to total initial rocket mass for each mission. (developing space elevators and ion propulsion systems for the trip may improve that but we dont have enough time to go this way)
So we can carry to Mars 2% of the water we start from earth as fuel.
So using the fusion energy to break down water from oceans to H2 and O2 we can carry to Mars 2% of the water we have available on earth. That is more than the current pure used water we have in the land.
In any case keep from that the conclusion that if we develop fusion we then have enough energy to take to Mars 2% of any mass of water we manage from earth. If we took to Mars Hydrogen only and of course Deuterium for fusion there, it can get more interesting.
You see now since Hydrogen is only 2/18 of water ie say 10% of water by mass, the above 0.02 implies that we can take from earth's oceans 20% of the hydrogen to Mars (leave out O2) ! We then can use Deuterium on Mars to break down CO2 and re-synthesize water there using Mars' atmosphere and crust's oxides. That effectively means we can recover on Mars (or Venus) up to 20% of the water we start from earth using the CO2 there and other compounds on the crust.
So the transfer of enough water to Mars to sustain huge number of humans there is realistic using current technology if it was the main priority of a civilization.
In general imagine being able to transfer to Mars with current technology thousands of tons of equipment and raw materials per human we send there. So what we need is the exponential growth of a transfer industry buildup founded on fusion/fission and water. Then on Mars using solar energy and fusion/fission and infrastructure/raw materials sent there we can get things started again and try to exploit local ground resources going forward to maintain autonomy and self reliance. Materials processing on Mars is also another industry needed before its too late. In other words buildup process must start on Mars too as soon as possible to facilitate the transfer.
I see 1 mil people on Mars as very doable and i even can go as high as most of human population (even order 100 mil 1 bil) of motivated young and technically advanced people of all countries if the exponential process gains enough pace and triples each year say in growth. I see no reason in fact not to be able to come up with a solution for anyone that participates in the project from the first few years regardless of their education etc (or some probability per person).
We can sit down and die, witness the breakdown of society or party like losers that gave up to one last 20 year old binge party of abandonment or make it our finest hour!
I share Masque's optimism about what can be accomplished by humanity when all work toward a common goal. A follow up question, and probably more interesting, is how to get societies to all see and agree on a common threat before it's too late. The unstoppable astroid isn't what will likely destroy us, it will probably be something we could have avoided but didn't. That might be the answer to the Fermi paradox.
Given 20 years, who is to say that we won't find a way to avoid the problem in the 1st place?
Humans are at their most inventive when trying to save ourselves, or kill others.
Humans are at their most inventive when trying to save ourselves, or kill others.
It would be the same as today except you can replace "global warming theory" with "catastrophic incident theory".
- Groups of scientists would issue a new report every year about the upcoming disaster with a bunch of half assed models
- World leaders would meet in a different capital city every once in a while, make some speeches but very little action
- Some groups of people would deny the whole thing
- Most people would just go on with their lives
- A few people would try to do something about it with little success due to not having the support of the rest of the population
- Some young people would feel disenfranchised, set up camp in a park somewhere, get kicked out and told to get a job or mocked on twoplustwo.
- Groups of scientists would issue a new report every year about the upcoming disaster with a bunch of half assed models
- World leaders would meet in a different capital city every once in a while, make some speeches but very little action
- Some groups of people would deny the whole thing
- Most people would just go on with their lives
- A few people would try to do something about it with little success due to not having the support of the rest of the population
- Some young people would feel disenfranchised, set up camp in a park somewhere, get kicked out and told to get a job or mocked on twoplustwo.
It would be the same as today except you can replace "global warming theory" with "catastrophic incident theory".
- Groups of scientists would issue a new report every year about the upcoming disaster with a bunch of half assed models
- World leaders would meet in a different capital city every once in a while, make some speeches but very little action
- Some groups of people would deny the whole thing
- Most people would just go on with their lives
- A few people would try to do something about it with little success due to not having the support of the rest of the population
- Some young people would feel disenfranchised, set up camp in a park somewhere, get kicked out and told to get a job or mocked on twoplustwo.
- Groups of scientists would issue a new report every year about the upcoming disaster with a bunch of half assed models
- World leaders would meet in a different capital city every once in a while, make some speeches but very little action
- Some groups of people would deny the whole thing
- Most people would just go on with their lives
- A few people would try to do something about it with little success due to not having the support of the rest of the population
- Some young people would feel disenfranchised, set up camp in a park somewhere, get kicked out and told to get a job or mocked on twoplustwo.
(Let me add another long post with ideas about why expanding outside earth is not as impossible sci fi as it seems and mostly a matter of motivation and focus, using as pivot the crisis paradigm.)
You cant stop say a 500km object from the outer solar system that had a 10000 years orbit of high eccentricity that was just discovered say (only now due to that big period) which crosses Earth by some ridiculous low chance or some rogue asteroid that came in our solar system from another system (ejected) traveling millions of years and wasnt known already for that reason. Those are indeed impossible to stop because they have huge mass that you cannot change their momentum or destroy even if you had 100 years plus you probably never have 100 years in such setup. Of course the chance we face such risk until realized is beyond imagination in how small it is (probably less than 1 in a billion per million years in such mature solar system? Still big for life extinction risk, but much smaller objects like 10km rocks, that we can deal with if we have enough time, are one in a 100 mil years type things to compare for example. This is why this is not a realistic risk compared to other risks we may face, but still fancy enough to consider because of the grave consequences.)
There is a small window of about 200-300 years which if we evolve naturally without stress we will be able to have self sustained colonies anywhere in the solar system there are rocky surfaces and even design ark ships and rotating space colonies from asteroids or moons material if we establish a Helium 3 fusion society in our Moon or the Moons or Jupiter/Saturn using there also Helium 3 from the gas giants that have higher abundance than thought to be the case on our moon. This is not impossible. It is actually very doable. He3 may prove the new oil energy standard of the solar system expansion early era until large scale fusion of just standard Hydrogen becomes a reality much later). You obtain local material from those small moons to build rotating space colonies in orbit around gas giants (properly shielded from radiation) and use He3 from the gas giants' atmospheres to sustain the process with fusion for power generation. Who can stop you then when you have all the hydrogen and Oxygen in the world to create water (you can even get water from vast ice ocean thought to exist on Enceladus). We can use such rotating colonies, after being built near gas giant moons using these local resources, to travel to other stellar systems in time, while living inside for generations with artificial mini suns even all based on fusion power and advanced materials processing/manufacturing technologies. All this is doable in 300-1000 years.
It will then be hard to go extinct because each civilization branch will adapt to local conditions and develop appropriate complex technology to exploit local materials/conditions to build up further (and establish its control over hostile environment) and power itself with fusion and eventually even black hole technology (if theory works) to reach true mc^2 levels of energy generated, 100 times better than fusion even using any kind of material as input (Can you imagine what you can do then with even something as common as iron?). Remember life adapts always. Only it took in the past millions of years on our generally friendly earth (but not entirely non punishing either at times) and now it needs decades only. So this time it will adapt to space or other rocky worlds conditions, guided by superior intelligence and technology and backed by science to solve emerging problems and even turn adversity into advantage. This is the inevitable consequence of higher complexity.
Can you grow potatoes, wheat, corn, rice ,barley (for Zeno's beer), tomatoes, lettuce, fish and chickens inside climate controlled greenhouses on Mars using artificial light? Can you grow artificial quality protein muscle type beef meat in labs and produce even quality tasting sausages? You better believe it its all within decades reach! And you can use the waste products of all this as needed to do a lot more if you design everything with this sustainability requirement plan i mind where all products have a purpose and local waste is input elsewhere. Brave new world. This is why its all about energy production, not about how tough the environment, provided it has enough gravity and basic first level materials. So you can even use Martian ground to grow food if you bring the water with you and some other chemicals and keep using fission and fusion to power everything and process more local materials as you expand further to the planet. Eventually you find even better source of fusion material (possibly in other solar system locations as suggested near Gas giants) or go completely solar power on the surface (1/4 of earth's intensity so use lenses for same result) and build radiation shielded infrastructure below the surface or protected structures outside using EM fields and other tricks. You can have remote operated electric all terrain vehicles exploring the surface too for new materials. You just design society differently. You think its impossible to enjoy a Martian sunset or sunrise one day soon from some great vista point after a rich meal inside, surrounded by plants and nice sounding streaming water flowing all around and a thick 10 m deep window in front of you shielding radiation with EM fields or just its natural depth? In time we may even change the atmosphere and even centuries later change the entire magnetic field of the planet. But that is a much longer term project that may never happen if space colonies prove so much better environments that mimic earth style conditions more efficiently.
Examine the chemical composition of Mars to see how basically you have what you need there if you add the water (or just hydrogen).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_Mars
Right now we take for granted so much. Like all our tools, plastic, metal parts etc are made in so many different factories worldwide and each one depends on machines with parts made in another great number of other factories etc. If you lose that you have very little left to do. You are back to pre industrial era dark ages. But with 3d printing evolving and potential future compact factories that process local materials we may experience a paradigm shift in manufacturing soon. Once that happens we can start doing remarkable things with only one compact multipurpose adaptable factory and lots of nanotechnology and AI and software that processes remote information (instructions how to construct anything locally with limited number of base factories doing a vast array of possible tool building and developing exotic new raw building materials from new chemical industry compact style processing).
All is possible with enough cheap energy. We have what we have on earth with all its substantial entangled interdependence on thousands of factories because we didnt have enough cheap energy to do it a lot differently locally (it was more efficient given what we had then) . It was never needed so we didnt go that way. It doesnt mean its not possible if you have enough power to back up complex extravagant ideas in manufacturing. Once such machines and new materials become available it will be possible to live anywhere if you have enough strong start up in each location that replicates itself over time. This is why growing food on Mars when you have this new paradigm infrastructure manufacturing going is actually easy too.
All those things are not done fast in our time because they are not priorities and lack of vision by most top societies fails to grasp the value in having them as projects in terms of benefits to earth itself. Unless they make money for someone they are not tried. And yet many of them represent such potential deep barrier breakthroughs that once achieved produce value for many people but all these people divided in random groups never have enough money and resources/power to join forces and pursue them as small companies or individuals (very prohibitive large scale and severe complexity projects) and the large companies (that could do it) are constrained also by their exploitation plans of the rest of society to try to make easy money and accumulate more power instead of giving it away with breakthroughs that their opponents can use against them eventually to bankrupt them. Eg how can you expect oil companies to develop fusion as priority project when they can still make so much more while all oil is used up till the end, seen as super precious more and more rare valuable commodity, golden source of income for them acting as colluding monopolies. They wont even go drill in tough places that there is lots of oil still left, until its truly finally needed, to keep prices high and profits margins high, and mankind is so lazy that unless oil price gets super high societies wont do well funded research to replace it, so we are all guilty in a way both rich and poor accepting the world as it is and not what it can be with better design. See the problem when there is no unity and science leading and selfish power accumulation and money culture rule the world instead? It takes a crisis to advance as fast as you really could!
You cant stop say a 500km object from the outer solar system that had a 10000 years orbit of high eccentricity that was just discovered say (only now due to that big period) which crosses Earth by some ridiculous low chance or some rogue asteroid that came in our solar system from another system (ejected) traveling millions of years and wasnt known already for that reason. Those are indeed impossible to stop because they have huge mass that you cannot change their momentum or destroy even if you had 100 years plus you probably never have 100 years in such setup. Of course the chance we face such risk until realized is beyond imagination in how small it is (probably less than 1 in a billion per million years in such mature solar system? Still big for life extinction risk, but much smaller objects like 10km rocks, that we can deal with if we have enough time, are one in a 100 mil years type things to compare for example. This is why this is not a realistic risk compared to other risks we may face, but still fancy enough to consider because of the grave consequences.)
There is a small window of about 200-300 years which if we evolve naturally without stress we will be able to have self sustained colonies anywhere in the solar system there are rocky surfaces and even design ark ships and rotating space colonies from asteroids or moons material if we establish a Helium 3 fusion society in our Moon or the Moons or Jupiter/Saturn using there also Helium 3 from the gas giants that have higher abundance than thought to be the case on our moon. This is not impossible. It is actually very doable. He3 may prove the new oil energy standard of the solar system expansion early era until large scale fusion of just standard Hydrogen becomes a reality much later). You obtain local material from those small moons to build rotating space colonies in orbit around gas giants (properly shielded from radiation) and use He3 from the gas giants' atmospheres to sustain the process with fusion for power generation. Who can stop you then when you have all the hydrogen and Oxygen in the world to create water (you can even get water from vast ice ocean thought to exist on Enceladus). We can use such rotating colonies, after being built near gas giant moons using these local resources, to travel to other stellar systems in time, while living inside for generations with artificial mini suns even all based on fusion power and advanced materials processing/manufacturing technologies. All this is doable in 300-1000 years.
It will then be hard to go extinct because each civilization branch will adapt to local conditions and develop appropriate complex technology to exploit local materials/conditions to build up further (and establish its control over hostile environment) and power itself with fusion and eventually even black hole technology (if theory works) to reach true mc^2 levels of energy generated, 100 times better than fusion even using any kind of material as input (Can you imagine what you can do then with even something as common as iron?). Remember life adapts always. Only it took in the past millions of years on our generally friendly earth (but not entirely non punishing either at times) and now it needs decades only. So this time it will adapt to space or other rocky worlds conditions, guided by superior intelligence and technology and backed by science to solve emerging problems and even turn adversity into advantage. This is the inevitable consequence of higher complexity.
Can you grow potatoes, wheat, corn, rice ,barley (for Zeno's beer), tomatoes, lettuce, fish and chickens inside climate controlled greenhouses on Mars using artificial light? Can you grow artificial quality protein muscle type beef meat in labs and produce even quality tasting sausages? You better believe it its all within decades reach! And you can use the waste products of all this as needed to do a lot more if you design everything with this sustainability requirement plan i mind where all products have a purpose and local waste is input elsewhere. Brave new world. This is why its all about energy production, not about how tough the environment, provided it has enough gravity and basic first level materials. So you can even use Martian ground to grow food if you bring the water with you and some other chemicals and keep using fission and fusion to power everything and process more local materials as you expand further to the planet. Eventually you find even better source of fusion material (possibly in other solar system locations as suggested near Gas giants) or go completely solar power on the surface (1/4 of earth's intensity so use lenses for same result) and build radiation shielded infrastructure below the surface or protected structures outside using EM fields and other tricks. You can have remote operated electric all terrain vehicles exploring the surface too for new materials. You just design society differently. You think its impossible to enjoy a Martian sunset or sunrise one day soon from some great vista point after a rich meal inside, surrounded by plants and nice sounding streaming water flowing all around and a thick 10 m deep window in front of you shielding radiation with EM fields or just its natural depth? In time we may even change the atmosphere and even centuries later change the entire magnetic field of the planet. But that is a much longer term project that may never happen if space colonies prove so much better environments that mimic earth style conditions more efficiently.
Examine the chemical composition of Mars to see how basically you have what you need there if you add the water (or just hydrogen).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_Mars
Right now we take for granted so much. Like all our tools, plastic, metal parts etc are made in so many different factories worldwide and each one depends on machines with parts made in another great number of other factories etc. If you lose that you have very little left to do. You are back to pre industrial era dark ages. But with 3d printing evolving and potential future compact factories that process local materials we may experience a paradigm shift in manufacturing soon. Once that happens we can start doing remarkable things with only one compact multipurpose adaptable factory and lots of nanotechnology and AI and software that processes remote information (instructions how to construct anything locally with limited number of base factories doing a vast array of possible tool building and developing exotic new raw building materials from new chemical industry compact style processing).
All is possible with enough cheap energy. We have what we have on earth with all its substantial entangled interdependence on thousands of factories because we didnt have enough cheap energy to do it a lot differently locally (it was more efficient given what we had then) . It was never needed so we didnt go that way. It doesnt mean its not possible if you have enough power to back up complex extravagant ideas in manufacturing. Once such machines and new materials become available it will be possible to live anywhere if you have enough strong start up in each location that replicates itself over time. This is why growing food on Mars when you have this new paradigm infrastructure manufacturing going is actually easy too.
All those things are not done fast in our time because they are not priorities and lack of vision by most top societies fails to grasp the value in having them as projects in terms of benefits to earth itself. Unless they make money for someone they are not tried. And yet many of them represent such potential deep barrier breakthroughs that once achieved produce value for many people but all these people divided in random groups never have enough money and resources/power to join forces and pursue them as small companies or individuals (very prohibitive large scale and severe complexity projects) and the large companies (that could do it) are constrained also by their exploitation plans of the rest of society to try to make easy money and accumulate more power instead of giving it away with breakthroughs that their opponents can use against them eventually to bankrupt them. Eg how can you expect oil companies to develop fusion as priority project when they can still make so much more while all oil is used up till the end, seen as super precious more and more rare valuable commodity, golden source of income for them acting as colluding monopolies. They wont even go drill in tough places that there is lots of oil still left, until its truly finally needed, to keep prices high and profits margins high, and mankind is so lazy that unless oil price gets super high societies wont do well funded research to replace it, so we are all guilty in a way both rich and poor accepting the world as it is and not what it can be with better design. See the problem when there is no unity and science leading and selfish power accumulation and money culture rule the world instead? It takes a crisis to advance as fast as you really could!
Assuming people actually believed it was coming.
You'd probably see some pretty large inflation - much less incentive to save for the future, therefore a lot of savings coming out and a lot less being produced (less working). Probably some wild swings for a little until things get balanced out. Virtually all long-term investment goes away, so say goodbye to anything research related or education related. Entertainment would probably increase. You'll probably end up seeing a huge growth in cults and religiousness.
The elite would certainly try to siphon as many resources as possible to saving themselves through moving to space, and you'd probably expect brutality to increase as people resisted.
Don't think people would stop having kids. Assuming death was quick and painless, don't think it really matters too much here. Spending time with children before your death would certainly be consoling, especially as they might be the only ones to not realize what was going to happen.
You'd probably see some pretty large inflation - much less incentive to save for the future, therefore a lot of savings coming out and a lot less being produced (less working). Probably some wild swings for a little until things get balanced out. Virtually all long-term investment goes away, so say goodbye to anything research related or education related. Entertainment would probably increase. You'll probably end up seeing a huge growth in cults and religiousness.
The elite would certainly try to siphon as many resources as possible to saving themselves through moving to space, and you'd probably expect brutality to increase as people resisted.
Don't think people would stop having kids. Assuming death was quick and painless, don't think it really matters too much here. Spending time with children before your death would certainly be consoling, especially as they might be the only ones to not realize what was going to happen.
The good question regarding Mars transfer is also how many factories do you think are minimally needed to get a system self sufficient. I mean imagine chemical factories, smelting factories, plastics factories, drug factories, fertilizer factories to facilitate the usage of martian ground for agriculture indoors, computer equipment factories (those are enormous complexity systems on earth now that actually need hundreds of other factories for their parts so you need to design self sufficient ones now that are backed up by only at most 10 other facilities for their machines and parts. You would have to use 3d printing a lot more advanced than currently seen and design standard machines using parts that can be replicated that way and assembled easier by fewer factories. How to create a computer industry factory is not at all trivial. I mean imagine creating a cpu on Mars! How many steps you need to be able to perform? You need a minimal synergy of plants that work for each other and are backed up by other plants which keep expanding and replicating themselves as long as there is time in order to establish the great base of infrastructure that gave us the start up (Earth). Assembling habitable environments and factories will have to become a very basic simple steps process that uses standard common units. Pressurized environments technology must be able to reproduce easily. You can buy at least 50-100 years ahead of equipment that wont fail (designed to be super top quality) and hopefully within that 50 years you can start rebuilding industrial infrastructure on Mars from easier beginnings so that 50-100 years later you can recover what you had on Earth more or less in terms of what you can construct.
It is not going to be easy but its doable with proper specialization of tasks and planning and some efforts to universalize the manufacturing process so that one core system can be modified at will to produce countless other objects upon reprogramming. You have a society that is very committed to surviving. There is little room for error so people will live every day with an intense task in mind to secure their survival by continuously improving their capabilities (what they can do must keep expanding in order to survive and not have a complex technological demanding foundation collapse under its own accumulating problems because it cannot fix itself fast enough) . That would be an unprecedented effort era of responsibility, purpose in all jobs and unity of people under common stress. But the reward would be amazing as it would eventually lead to space colonies that would reproduce earth super realistically. Mars is not the endgame due to gravity anyway. We need to have 1 g eventually again.
Completely unimaginable today i am certain we will be doing great things on Mars in 50 years even without a crisis pushing things. I think, manufacturing this century will be revolutionized with AI and new exotic properties materials and nanotechnology as well as remote 3d computer controlled film by film building of complex objects. Software and complex machines can create other complex parts with just programming the target designs and usage of very well selected raw materials that are manipulated easily and have good properties. It will move towards a more compact local character and computers will start replicating themselves in easier steps than today and 3d printing will start happening for complex objects too like motherboards and chips. (that would be an extremely tough project for sure though).
A lot of what was taken for granted on Earth would have to be rethought and the only way to make it all possible is if we have indeed a revolution in energy production to be able to support extravagant ideas that never made sense in a more energy constrained earth system. Of course plenty of energy eventually creates for you the kind of complexity you need to recover efficiency and improve it and then you can start saving energy again. Crisis or no crisis going to Mars can teach us a ton of things and improve technology in unimaginable ways. And i still think Venus needs a better look and a study of the atmosphere to see how to survive in it floating in a controlled manner even against some severe weather...
It is not going to be easy but its doable with proper specialization of tasks and planning and some efforts to universalize the manufacturing process so that one core system can be modified at will to produce countless other objects upon reprogramming. You have a society that is very committed to surviving. There is little room for error so people will live every day with an intense task in mind to secure their survival by continuously improving their capabilities (what they can do must keep expanding in order to survive and not have a complex technological demanding foundation collapse under its own accumulating problems because it cannot fix itself fast enough) . That would be an unprecedented effort era of responsibility, purpose in all jobs and unity of people under common stress. But the reward would be amazing as it would eventually lead to space colonies that would reproduce earth super realistically. Mars is not the endgame due to gravity anyway. We need to have 1 g eventually again.
Completely unimaginable today i am certain we will be doing great things on Mars in 50 years even without a crisis pushing things. I think, manufacturing this century will be revolutionized with AI and new exotic properties materials and nanotechnology as well as remote 3d computer controlled film by film building of complex objects. Software and complex machines can create other complex parts with just programming the target designs and usage of very well selected raw materials that are manipulated easily and have good properties. It will move towards a more compact local character and computers will start replicating themselves in easier steps than today and 3d printing will start happening for complex objects too like motherboards and chips. (that would be an extremely tough project for sure though).
A lot of what was taken for granted on Earth would have to be rethought and the only way to make it all possible is if we have indeed a revolution in energy production to be able to support extravagant ideas that never made sense in a more energy constrained earth system. Of course plenty of energy eventually creates for you the kind of complexity you need to recover efficiency and improve it and then you can start saving energy again. Crisis or no crisis going to Mars can teach us a ton of things and improve technology in unimaginable ways. And i still think Venus needs a better look and a study of the atmosphere to see how to survive in it floating in a controlled manner even against some severe weather...
Grunching
Spoiler:
What if everyone important leaves and the argmageddon never happens?
do they try to come back? By that time Warlords will have taken over the earth and have made everyone slaves.
do they try to come back? By that time Warlords will have taken over the earth and have made everyone slaves.
The stock market would close 19 years and 364 days after the announcement were made.
Other than that, it would be indistinguishable from the world today.
Other than that, it would be indistinguishable from the world today.
what if we changed the time frame of this hypothetical to say 100 years and instead of the entire earth being doomed it was just those living now.
if society's action would differ between op's hypothetical and mine, why and how would it do so?
if society's action would differ between op's hypothetical and mine, why and how would it do so?
As for colonizing Mars, first of all the available technology isn't going to change much in 20 years. We can scale it up some, but not by orders of magnitude. Given an all-out effort by all capable countries on earth, I guess we might get 25,000 people to Mars in 20 years in our most wildly optimistic dreams. The rest are going to die.
The average time to get a ship to Mars is over a year given the changing orbital positions. The best time of 9 months only has a launch window every year and a half. So between the capable countries we ramp up and by year 5 we can get 12 ships a year launched carrying 20 humans each, plus a bunch of cargo-only ships. Gradually ramp up over the next 15 years to max out at 24 ships a year carrying 100 humans each (which is massively beyond our capability today). We still don't get 25K there. And the problems with establishing an artificial environment to support them might be insurmountable with only 20 years to do it.
The average time to get a ship to Mars is over a year given the changing orbital positions. The best time of 9 months only has a launch window every year and a half. So between the capable countries we ramp up and by year 5 we can get 12 ships a year launched carrying 20 humans each, plus a bunch of cargo-only ships. Gradually ramp up over the next 15 years to max out at 24 ships a year carrying 100 humans each (which is massively beyond our capability today). We still don't get 25K there. And the problems with establishing an artificial environment to support them might be insurmountable with only 20 years to do it.
That doesn't mean much at all. Almost everyone living now will be dead in 100 years anyways. It'll only reduce incentives to develop life extension technology.
http://channel.nationalgeographic.co...vacuate-earth/
if-giant-asteroid-will-hit-earth-300-years-1387746/
Somehow I like the 20 years though, well done OP. Long enough for pretending something can be done, short enough for grasping.
wouldn't happen at all like Masque thinks, mostly because the bulk of those 20 years would be spent with everyone sticking their head in the sand and arguing that the scientists are wrong. Then it would just be a giant bureaucratic cluster **** of slow moving inefficiency until there was about a year left and then it would be isolated pockets of people working to do something, as the rest of the earth just falls into total ****ing pandemonium. Some country prolly pulls their **** together and gets some kind of ship of to mars, but its mostly just laden with the records of humanity we hope some day are recovered so we arent forgotten because the mission itself is doomed to fail. A few billionaires orbit in space for a while after the planet is destroyed until they run out of supplies, and then thats it.
we're all under the assumption that we will be dead in100 years, yet everyone is not frantically searching for a way to extend our life expectancy.
why arent we all working together and devoting all of our resources to solve the problem of death?
why arent we all devoted to figuring out how to slow/stop the aging process or working towards a singularity?
we are essentially faced with this problem today, so i dont see society making much of a change if the timeline were shrunk down to 20yrs.
perhaps the key distinction between reality and op's hypothetical is in the notion that our entire species would be facing extinction instead of just those living now.
but then i have to ask:
what is difference between knowing you're not going to make it and knowing the entire species is not going to make it?
why does that change anything?
is it our (cue true detective scene) programming?
Most people are concerned with the fate of their children and descendants, not necessarily with the species. And that the legacy they worked for all their lives to leave behind, had a purpose.
wouldn't happen at all like Masque thinks, mostly because the bulk of those 20 years would be spent with everyone sticking their head in the sand and arguing that the scientists are wrong. Then it would just be a giant bureaucratic cluster **** of slow moving inefficiency until there was about a year left and then it would be isolated pockets of people working to do something, as the rest of the earth just falls into total ****ing pandemonium. Some country prolly pulls their **** together and gets some kind of ship of to mars, but its mostly just laden with the records of humanity we hope some day are recovered so we arent forgotten because the mission itself is doomed to fail. A few billionaires orbit in space for a while after the planet is destroyed until they run out of supplies, and then thats it.
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