commit: 2d18605bca78bbea9752cc129211550891a60908
parent de7f5a112c652b614bf31d2d6f021d35730f7760
Author: jman <srht@city17.xyz>
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2021 14:14:11 +0100
fix typos
Signed-off-by: jman <srht@city17.xyz>
Diffstat:
1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
diff --git a/content/blog/Dark-forest.gmi b/content/blog/Dark-forest.gmi
@@ -18,11 +18,11 @@ This paints a grim understanding of the universe and our role in it, and it make
Sure, the total amount of matter in the universe is constant. But does civilization actually grow and expand continuously? No evidence is provided to support this assertion.
-In practice, we actually see that the opposite is true. Life seeks to endure, but humanity — the only known sample of intelligent civilization — does not grow without bound. Population growth is already slowing, and the scientific consensus is that the world popluation will stabilize within the 21st century. Social and economic development, along with a higher standard of living — all of which I would take as a pre-requisite of any higher civilization — is strongly associated with lower birth rates in humans.²
+In practice, we actually see that the opposite is true. Life seeks to endure, but humanity — the only known sample of intelligent civilization — does not grow without bound. Population growth is already slowing, and the scientific consensus is that the world population will stabilize within the 21st century. Social and economic development, along with a higher standard of living — all of which I would take as a pre-requisite of any higher civilization — is strongly associated with lower birth rates in humans.²
Furthermore, the situation presented in the novels is very unusual, something the novels themselves emphasize. The Trisolaran civilization is under pressure due to their unfortunate circumstances within a trinary star system's chaotic gravity well, which drives them to invade Earth. Even within the novel's axioms, this situation would be very rare! The usual outcome, per the hypothesis, would be that humanity is simply destroyed from afar should it be foolish enough to broadcast its location to the universe, not that it is invaded for its resources.
-But why should the universe be so cruel? Even within our solar system, we posess stunning access to resources. The sun alone has a power output of 3.83×10^26 watts! Humanity today uses only 2.1×10^12 watts, so we must by 100,000,000,000,000× before we would have to consider going somewhere else for energy. That assumes we make zero gains in the efficiency of our machines, too. We have three other rocky planets to occupy, and plenty of moons, plus the asteroid belt, and countless objects in the oort cloud, collectively representing an area many times larger than the Earth: there's no shortage of real estate. There are 2.784×10^27 kg of mass here that we can mine to get material resources, too. Even assuming that nearby stars are also occupied, and therefore we cannot exploit their resources, we can grow for a very, very long time — and science tells us that we probably won't!
+But why should the universe be so cruel? Even within our solar system, we posess stunning access to resources. The sun alone has a power output of 3.83×10^26 watts! Humanity today uses only 2.1×10^12 watts, so we must by 100,000,000,000,000× before we would have to consider going somewhere else for energy. That assumes we make zero gains in the efficiency of our machines, too. We have three other rocky planets to occupy, and plenty of moons, plus the asteroid belt, and countless objects in the Oort cloud, collectively representing an area many times larger than the Earth: there's no shortage of real estate. There are 2.784×10^27 kg of mass here that we can mine to get material resources, too. Even assuming that nearby stars are also occupied, and therefore we cannot exploit their resources, we can grow for a very, very long time — and science tells us that we probably won't!
Here's what I think would actually happen in the scenario presented by the books: the greatest refugee crisis in history. Humanity is not great at dealing with these, for sure, but the situation changes when the stakes are different. The Trisolarans are a more advanced civilization than humanity, and has a lot of technology to tempt us with. Moreover, they're armed. We would see an international humanitarian (or... gentiatarian?) movement to prepare for their arrival. The Trisolarans would send us instructions on how to prepare suitable accomodations for them on Mars or in the outer solar system, and we would get to work. We have no shortage of resources, and it will take hundreds of years for them to arrive. Ultimately, the incentives would favor an empathetic approach more than any other.
