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“The United States was attacked by Great Britian [sic], the Indians, Japan, Germany, Spain, Afghanistan, Iran, and Mexico.”
There’s at least two sides to all those stories. I don’t know what this has to do with the virtue of democratic governments, but
Spain attacked the United States? When was that? Certainly not the Spanish American War.
Iran? When was that? Oh, you mean the embassy business. That really wasn’t much of an attack. How many killed? Zero, I think.
The Indians? Whose land was it anyway? What kind of nerve did these Europeans have to just come and take over whole continents from millions of people who’d lived there for ten thousand years?
Britain? Wasn’t it the Americans who declared war on Britain in June of 1812? And wasn’t it the smugglers and other ne’er-do-wells who ungratefully attacked the legitimate government after Britiain had saved the colonists from the French and Indians?
Mexico? The Americans colonized a Mexican territory we now call Texas, and declared their independence from Mexico. When the Mexicans tried to take it back, the US responded by slicing off not only Texas but about half of Mexico.
I’ve got to give you Japan, Germany and Afghanistan.
Bob
“The only reason the people exist, in the despot's mind, is to serve him.”
Despots, or non-democratic governments, can have many goals: proclaim and protect the one true faith, for instance. Or, to procure the safety and prosperity of the people. And thousands of others.
The English Henry VIII was motivated to have a male heir so that horrendous civil war could be avoided. Eventually his successor was Elizabeth I who ruled for 45 years, encouraged Shakespeare, had few wars (because they were too expensive), and about whom contemporaries said, “...and then God gave us our Elizabeth.” Nobody’s ever said that about me.
George III wanted no change in his time. He ruled for 59 years during which Britain lost the United States, acquired India, abolished slavery in England, the industrial revolution began, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars played out, the Concert of Europe was established with Pax Britannica for the next century, and the British declared the slave trade illegal and enforced the ban. I don’t think Mad King George got his wish, but the results weren’t all bad.
You don’t speak for the motives of my despots.
Bob
“What is government for?”
I don’t think that has a simple answer. Plato would hardly have agreed that it was to serve the people—more like to secure justice. Marx might have held such a view, but his goal was to dissolve all government. Hobbs felt that the people were best served by giving all their power to a soverign.
Even the founders of the United States of America were very concerned about the “tyranny of the majority.” That’s one of the reasons why the US Constitution has so many checks, balances, separation of powers, and hobbles put on government. Where does minority protection come in with government serving the people?
Bob
“I rather think Western culture improved Mongolia...”
I’m glad that’s your opinion. Why not ask the Mongolians what they think? Ghengis Kahn died in the 13th century, and they’ve pretty much minded their own business for 500 years. Don’t you think it’s time to let bygones be bygones?
Bob
“all the native tribes were peaceful democracies that threatened no one?”
They certainly didn’t threaten Europeans until those Europeans expropriated their land, habitat and resources. The culture and politics of aboriginal populations hardly justifies centuries of genocide and cultural destruction across four continents.
Slavery of millions of people promoted, protected and practiced by European and American democracies lasted for more than two centuries. Viciously racist policies have been followed by democratic governments for centuries.
Bob
“How do you then account for the unpopularity of the Iraq War?”
It doesn’t matter how people feel about a war; it’s actions that count.
“I thought you said we just loved to start wars and conquer people.”
Let’s not be silly. I certainly said no such thing, or anything like it. What I did suggest is that democracies do have the capacity to start wars and conquer people, and I sited a very large number of such instances. What matters is not a particular governmental form, but the policies that governments adopt. Democratic governments are very capable of adopting policies which are stupid, malevolent and lots of other bad things, a fact very amply demonstrated by history.
Bob
Roughly calculating, I think that the average probable distance from Earth of an advanced ET would be about:
22,000 light years if there were 10 such civilizations in the galaxy
7,000 light years if there were 100 such civilizations in the galaxy
2,500 light years if there were 1000 such civilizations in the galaxy (About 1 tenth of a percent of the stars in our galaxy are within about 3500 light years of Earth. So, with a thousand ETs in the galaxy, we would expect about 1 ET within this sphere of 3500 light year radius—an average of about 2,500 light years from Earth.)
A hundred years from now, looking at a civilization 2500 light years away that was like ours, we should know that there’s
> a terrestrial planet in the habitable zone with plenty of water and land.
> with widespread biology from oxygen, ozone, methane, nitrous oxide, chlorophyll and other indications
> we may be able to detect the first indications of agriculture, metal working, coal burning and, perhaps, other indications of pre-industrial civilization
Remember we’ll be seeing this ET 2500 years in its past, since it took light that long to reach us.
After another hundred years of observation we should know something about their cultural trends and, with our sophisticated understanding of cultural evolution developed over the previous 200 years, we may be able to predict that this civilization will now have reached a point where they could receive radio messages.
What would we do? Certainly some group amongst us would send radio and, perhaps, other sorts of messages. This is relatively cheap and easy even today. Of course, it would be 5,000 years before we heard back, at the earliest, but by 2200 humans may be considerably longer lived than now. How long would we continue to do this? Probably for varying periods of time, inconsistently, for who knows how long.
Assuming that super-luminal communication is not possible, I think this analysis suggests that, for us to expect to hear from ET any time soon, there must be more than 1,000 advanced ETs in our galaxy. Even if ETs are like us: gregarious, diversified, curious and not stuck-up.
To put it another way, the chance of an advanced ET associated with any given star system must be greater than about 1 to 400 million
Bob
The problem I have with this scenario is its totally depressing monolithic character. At least some of the ET civilizations (I really think all) will contain within them groupings of different kinds. Humans, for instance, have formed very large numbers of significant groups, any one of which could, even today, develop the ability to signal our presence to ETs for many different reasons. There are:
> About 200 nations, and hundreds of thousands of political sub-divisions.
> Thousands of religious groups.
> Tens of thousands of institutions of higher learning.
> Tens of thousands of observatories and other research centers.
> Tens of thousands of internationally operating non-governmental organizations such as Oxfam, Tropenbos International, the Mars Society or the Ford Foundation.
> Tens of thousands of national non-governmental organizations such as the American Automobile Association or AARP which has an annual budget in excess of $600 million.
> In the United States alone there are over a thousand business enterprises with receipts in excess of $1 billion per year.
> And there are about 100,000 individuals in the world with net worth in excess of $30 million. Any one of these people alone could start a signaling project with our technology.
If even a small percentage of ETs are like us, there will be millions of groups with the ability to signal their presence to us.
I find it hard to credit the idea that none of these millions of groups will want to contact us from
> altruism; suppling us the cure for cancer, Alzheimer’s and addiction, and saving us from numerous plagues and ignorance; or just believing that it is more blessed to give than receive.
> spreading religious truth as they see it, their brand of environmentalism, their political or other ideologies
> a desire to share their culture; art, music, story telling, architecture, and dozens of other creative pursuits
> as a memorial to themselves
> some will just be crazy
> some will be curious about oodles of different things
and there are lots of other reasons I haven’t thought of; maybe that no human has ever thought of.
I imagine that a hundred thousand years from now the human species, if we still exist and have continued technological advancement, will be even more diverse than we are today. Today, human cultures exist that are hundreds, thousands and even tens of thousands of years technologically behind 21st century industrialized society.
I don’t think a large percentage of advanced ETs will be monolithic; all lacking in altruism, religious, environmental and other ideological drives, uninterested in showing off their culture or having it remembered by others (no matter how lowly), completely lacking in irrational behaviour and curiosity.
If they really are all that dull and stuck up, maybe we’re better off without. We’ll certainly do a better job of letting others know we’re here. We will be the more advanced, generous and caring species.
Bob
“the thing that breaks it is when undemocratic states try to spread their tyranny and their power over neighboring states”
Democracies are hardly always benign; they have very frequently done great evil: conquered other nations, exploited people, imposed their will on vast masses of people, attempted to extinguish other cultures and whole ethnic groups.
What do you suppose happened to the native populations of the United States, Canada and Australia into the later part of the 20th century? The British handling of New Zealand beginning in 1840 and continuing through the 20th century might be an instructive example. There’s the 800-year tragedy of Ireland.
Asia and Africa were dominated by European democracies and the USA until far into the 20th century: Britain in India, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Africa, Egypt, Rwanda, Kenya and many other places. France in Indochina, Algeria, Ivory Coast, Chad, Tunisia and many other places. Holland in Indonesia. Belgium in Congo. The Americans in the Philippines. And they all nibbled off little pieces of China.
In the Western hemisphere the French, Dutch and British conquered many islands and parts of the mainlands, mostly held off from greater spoils by the Americans and their “Monroe Doctrine.” The Americans repeatedly invaded Nicaragua and Cuba, broke Panama off from Columbia the better to dominate it, and just conquered Puerto Rico—all in the 20th century.
We might shudder at the role of European and American democracies in the practice of slavery across international boundaries.
Contrast all of this bloody history with peaceful, non-aggressive authoritarian regimes that existed in Japan and China until Western influence changed them. Or with Franco’s Spain, Pinochot’s Chile, the Papal state in the 20th and 21st centuries, Mongolia since the 15th century, Tibet until the Chinese occupation (for which one could hardly blame them).
I think I’d be at least as worried about the aggressive behavior of hysterical democracies as I would be of rational despots.
Bob
"Can you name one instance of two democracies fighting against each other?"
The United States of American and Great Britain twice: the Revolution and the War of 1812.
The United States of America vs the Confederate states of America.
That was the largest conflict in all of human history until World War I.
Bob
You're supposing that ET will not act like we would--covering the Earth from pole to pole and highest mountain top to deepest ocean canyon.
With 1,000s of civilizaitins with 1,000s of different groups within each civilization, it's hard to credit that none would behave with the same curiosity and gregariousness as us.
It seems unlikely in the extreme that all ET civilizations (if there really are thousands) will be monolithic and mute.
Bob
“I am talking about the initial colony phase up to about 100 residents.”
You seem to be suggesting dis-economies of scale, which has certainly not been the mining experience on Earth.
Where has such a scheme ever worked? In which some company has convinced people to mine gold for nothing and give the gold to the company for their profit?
What a fairy tale that would make.
Bob
“Programming automated diggers to work at the regolith. Transfer of ore to automated processing machines which will then produce pure gold.”
Why not just use these machines on Earth thus avoiding enormous transportation and other costs?
Bob
“the basic crew are going to be there anyway”
Don’t these guys have anything to do besides mine gold? This might be your first disputed work assignment from one of the PhD’s, “I came here to study Martian tectonics, not shovel rock. Besides, you could get killed doing that.”
“Volunteer and scientific staff will be prepared to work unpaid...” You’ll need lots of luck with that one.
The sponsoring institutions won’t go for spending tens of millions of dollars sending a very highly trained specialist to Mars with all his really expensive equipment so he can shovel rock. That’s called an opportunity cost, and it won’t fly.
The personnel plan seems to be to spend many millions of dollars to send people who volunteered for a minimum of three years doing unskilled labor in an unpleasant and really dangerous environment, so (as they may see it) some organization can make lots and lots of money off their backs. Volunteers are notoriously unproductive, and they will probably get a lot more unproductive after the first two or three are killed.
Gap year students may be only too happy to help poor communities build wells and so on, but they don’t get much done, especially when they start dying.
People went to Australia in the 19th century because they were forced to, they saw an economic opportunity, or they came to convert the heathen. You’re not suggesting that any of those motives apply to Mars and the gold mining operation.
Bob
What happens if somebody gets sick and can’t work? Do you just toss him out the airlock? (Makes for difficult recruiting and really bad publicity.) Or, who pays for medical care? Supporting this guy till he gets well or dies? Who pays the funeral expenses? This might apply even if you do just toss him out the airlock.
When there are kids, who pays for pre-natal care, birthing, day care, schooling, medical care, etc?
If somebody is murdered or something is stolen, what mechanism is in place to find out who did it and to apprehend the perpetuator? Who pays for these mechanisms as well as all the legal processes? Presumably incarceration won’t be necessary since you can simply toss him out the airlock, unless you want to avoid that bad publicity and difficulty in recruiting.
Somebody has to decide who sleeps where, what’s for dinner, who gets to go where and how, and a million other things.
Somebody has to organize the work and the workers: who works when, where and doing what.
Somebody has to plan how often things are cleaned, lubricated, filters changed, a host of other preventive and other maintenance issue.
Somebody has to decide what machines and personnel to use for everything, including mining, processing and transporting.
Somebody has to arrange to get the people, machines and supplies where and when they are supposed to be.
Somebody has to adjudicate disputes about work assignments and allocation of resources.
Planning where and how to mine, process and transport will be uniquely critical.
There has to be planning for the provision of medical and dental care and the supplies and equipment that goes with it.
Somebody has to monitor that all of these functions get done, done right and done on time.
Somebody has to keep productivity, accounting and many other records.
These are a few of the reasons that taxes (or their equivalent in payroll costs), administrative and planning costs will be large and completely unavoidable.
Bob
“so civilizations just wait”
If it were us, I don’t think we’d be that patient. ETs might be more or less patient than us, or about the same.
If ETs were sufficiently advanced they could paint images for us on the moon with colored lasers, or produce holographs considerably closer, use our electrical transmissions systems to play us a tone (ala ET), or they might do something we haven’t thought of.
A more ambitious approach might be, once identifying an abode of intelligent life, to send a robot craft to investigate and interact with the new civilization. Even more ambitious might be to send manned craft or colonizers. Assuredly, they might say, we have some space left on our magnificent world. If not, they could make some.
Bob
Starting in the 1920’s large amounts of Freon started to be used for refrigeration replacing methyl chloride and other chemicals and greatly expanding the refrigeration market throughout the world. Much of this Freon leaked into the atmosphere creating ozone holes and the like. There are all kinds of possibilities for detecting Freon and its effects by spectroscopic analysis.
Advanced ET 80 light years away would now be following our use of Freon and tracing our industrial development through this one measure alone. The bubble containing this information now has a radius of about 80 light years.
Bob
The Freon bubble on the other hand has been broadcast 24/7 with a a 600 million square kilometer antenna in a 360 degree sphere for 80 years; informing everyone that we use refrigeration, have substantial electrical distribution and freight delivery systems, fractional horsepower electric motors, measures of some kinds of industrial activity, and lots of other implications.
Then there’s the chemical bubble broadcast for 150 years: chloroform, gasoline, kerosene, naphthalene, benzene, DDT and numerous others.
The coal burning bubble for over 3,000 years.
The metal working bubble for 8,500 years
And the agriculture bubble for 10,000 years.
Radio is not at all necessary.
Besides, advanced ET may have other tricks up their sleeves no one has thought of.
Bob
This phenomenon is entirely explained by special relatively and has nothing at all to do with quantum theory. This is the same problem presented by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley in 1887. Michelson was the first American to win a Nobel prize (1907) and he did so primarily based on this experimental work.
But it was left to the genius of Albert Einstein to explain and make sense of the fact, which Michelson and Morley had experimentally demonstrated in 1887, that the speed of light is the same for all observers. The Theory of Special Relativity, published by Einstein in 1905, presented the explanation as it is still understood today.
Einstein explained the phenomenon for lay people in his book of 1916 entitled “Relativity, The Special and General Theory. A Clear Explanation that Anyone Can Understand.” The book is inexpensive and readily available: try Amazon, Borders, even eBay may have it.
Highly recommended, but it does require some work, as opposed to off-the-cuff silliness.
Bob
I can’t understand how you can believe that an industrial operation on Mars will be immune from administration and planning costs, from the things that taxes buy (like health, welfare and retirement benefits), and that capital will be free (no dividend payments).
“there be no salary payments”
I’d call that super-optimistic, not to mention totally unrealistic. But even then, the cost of transporting these people to and from Mars dwarfs the salary payments. And there’s also all of the costs of supporting them on Mars and in space when they’ll be doing nothing useful for a year.
Bob
“Those stars of different spectral type won't give out the right amount of light for planets with life.”
Those stars of different spectral type will give out the right amount of light for planets with life.
“What about those periodic eclipses that gas giant orbiting moons will have?”
An hour every few months?
“Leave it for a few million years...”
When was this experiment last performed?
“Then you run into the problem of evolution, which is currently in crisis.” ???
I guessed I missed that. What crisis?
“Even if it happens, most planets with life won't get beyond bacteria and primitive multicelluer.”
When it happens, most planets with life will get beyond bacteria and primitive multicelluer.
As for Venus being nearly tidally locked, a miss is as good as a mile.
Bob
Precious metals can be even more easily and much more cheaply extracted from the Earth.
Mining for export to Earth can't be viable without reducing transportion costs by orders of magnitude. Even then, will mining operations in vacuum, whether on Mars, the moon or an asteroid, ever be cheaper than on Earth?
Not in this century, if ever.
Bob
“Those other stars won't have the correct amount of Heavy elements for life.”
Stars formed at about the same time and place as our sun will have similar elemental compositions regardless of spectral type. Stars formed more recently than our sun may have even larger amounts of heavy elements, again, regardless of spectral type.
“The planet will become tidal locked.”
This isn’t true. Both electromagnetic radiation and gravity decrease with the square of the distance. In the solar system Venus at .72 AU is not tidal locked, which would seem to give a lot of room for non-tidal locked planets in a habitable zone around a star. Large moons orbiting gas giants in or near the habitable zones, which could be the most common places amenable to life, would completely obviate any issue of tidal locking.
“The orbit has to be nearly circuler in order to minimize the temperature swings.”
I don’t think this is true either. Large bodies of water can stabilize temperatures for many years, and life has demonstrated that it can readily adapt to cyclically changing environments
“Add a moon/primary planet into that to stabilize its axial tilt.”
Again, this isn’t necessary as the examples of the relatively stable climates of Mars and Venus suggest.
“The odds are so against life arising...”
I can as easily, and, I think, with more justification say, “The odds of life arising are almost 100%.”
Bob
“Since life itself is such a fluke, probably only 1 planet in every Spiral Galaxy (the only Galaxy capable of supporting life - See Galactic Habitable Zone) has life.”
We don’t know that life is a fluke. The fact that it arose on Earth apparently as soon as the water stopped boiling suggests that life may arise quite easily. And it has existed on Earth through huge solar, geologic, atmospheric and climatic changes over 4 billion years. Life on Earth arose easily and is very robust. Our own solar system contains at least one other planet and one moon where life may be, or have been, possible.
“Only stars in the same category of the sun (K2 is it?) will be able to support life.”
I don’t think this is correct. Stars smaller than the sun will have habitable zones closer to the star, but the stars will last longer—in most cases, much longer which will give time for many different processes to take place as the stars and their planetary family evolve.
Large moons orbiting gas giants beyond the habitable zone may provide a much larger population of abodes for life. There may be a trillion large celetrial bodies orbiting stars in our galaxy. That gives a rather huge range for biological experiment.
“1 in a 100 have complex life.” Maybe, or is it one in ten?
“1 in a 10,000 have intelligent life.” Maybe, or is it one in a hundred?
I’m glad you’re so certain about all of this. I’m not.
Bob
Most taxes in industrialized countries go to support health, welfare and retirement benefits. You figure on Mars nobody will get sick or live long enough to retire?
Administrative costs for a Mars operation would be much higher. Planning and logistical operations would be much more complex, critical and lacking in fall back options. You better do it right the first time, so you better plan carefully. What tasks are there on Earth that you don’t have to do on Mars?
How can energy possibly be less expensive on Mars than on Earth? On Mars there’s
> No hydro, geothermal, or fossil fuels (even if you had fossil fuels, there’s no oxygen to burn them with);
> Nuclear would be much more expensive to build and run;
> Wind would be much less viable with 1% of the air density of Earth.
> Earth has greater solar insolation (about 2.3 times as much), no necessity for overnight storage (since all kinds of alternate supplies are available) and easy access to all the raw materials needed for thermal or photovoltaic.
How can labor possibly be less expensive? Just the cost of transporting a worker to Mars with a reasonable amount of air, food, water, clothing and other personal items, plus habitat items that can’t economically be procured on Mars would cost $1,250 per hour--assuming a low low $5,000 per kilogram cost of transport and a two year contract. Plus he’d want to get paid. His wages and benefits could easily be more than an order of magnitude higher than the wages and benefits of a worker on Earth.
> Mars workers cost $1,400 an hour—and that’s really low ball
> Earth workers cost from $10 to $100 an hour—and that’s really realistic.
Which operation will have lower labor costs?
Any robotic mining or processing operation would be much cheaper to run on Earth, considering transport costs alone. But, on Earth, it would also be much easier and more flexible in hundreds of ways. The tech, for instance, can just walk up to the machine, take his gloves and googles off, eyeball the thing up close and personal, feel the trouble area and make the necessary tweak. Hard to do in a space suit, and no worries about lubricant behavior in a vacuum, the effects of overnight 100 degree temperature changes, super abrasive dust, radiation dangers and dozens of other problems.
The machinery, supplies and infrastructure for Mars would certainly cost much more than twice what they would on Earth. This will be very specialized, mostly “one off” stuff with requirements very different from Earth based operations. Different gravity, vacuum, temperatures and temperature changes not experienced on Earth, pervasive and abrasive dust, radiation, no ability to use fossil fuels, extremely limited water and oxygen for processing, and on and on.
And then there’s the cost of transporting this stuff to Mars. Mining machinery, supplies and infrastructure doesn’t approach $5,000 per kilogram in cost—maybe $100 per kilogram for really expensive stuff. The transportation costs alone mean that the equipment will cost 50 times what it would on Earth
Plus none of this stuff would have any resale value.
Also, your transit to market figure is too low--by a lot.
Bob