If they found a planet just like earth...

[Críostóir]

I think you are confusing America with Australia...While some of the charter groups were made up of socially outcast communities, they weren't dumped there, they went willingly in the hopes of building a better community.

Mostly. There were penal colonies in America as well, notably in Virginia. "Burnt in the hand" people (exiled in transportation) were sent there.

Have to watch that, they might just wind up being libertarians.

Impossible.

1. Someone has to program the AIs and parent robots and create the culture.
2. Only a government program would be able to spend a trillion dollars on this project.
3. No libertarian would participate in such a program. They'd be [STRIKE]out at the gates[/STRIKE] blogging in their mothers' basements about wasteful government spending.
4. Therefore the people who program the AIs and robots would not be libertarians.
5. Anyone who ISN'T a libertarian would take care that that particular infection of the mind would not take hold among the kids.

Screwups are possible, of course. But again, if we're assuming a NAFAL ship, we can also assume we know how to program a society to avoid grotesque results like totalitarianism and libertarianism.

 

[zoltanspawn]

1. Fuck no. We're a species of pillaging egomaniacs. If my contribution to the Extraterrestrial Nature Conservancy can't prevent our destruction of another entire planet I'd join the sensible party willing to sabotage the Trillion Dollar Rape Machine and blow it off the launchpad before ignition.

2. Or presuming my party's sabotage has successfully re-programmed the Trillion Dollar Rape Machine onto a crash course with the hottest nearby star, we should send the twisted individuals who most fervently believe that spreading more of our kind around the universe is a good idea.

3. Oh...me? You want to send me? Why, why I'd be honored to go! I mean, I really have a lot to offer, and well, I'd just love to see things and, well, my genes really are rather interesting.....

 

[Stardreamer]

Mostly. There were penal colonies in America as well, notably in Virginia. "Burnt in the hand" people (exiled in transportation) were sent there.



Impossible.

1. Someone has to program the AIs and parent robots and create the culture.
2. Only a government program would be able to spend a trillion dollars on this project.
3. No libertarian would participate in such a program. They'd be [STRIKE]out at the gates[/STRIKE] blogging in their mothers' basements about wasteful government spending.
4. Therefore the people who program the AIs and robots would not be libertarians.
5. Anyone who ISN'T a libertarian would take care that that particular infection of the mind would not take hold among the kids.

Screwups are possible, of course. But again, if we're assuming a NAFAL ship, we can also assume we know how to program a society to avoid grotesque results like totalitarianism and libertarianism.

I was jokingly referring to a science fiction novel Kuli recommended to me once. Voyage from Yesteryear by James P. Hogan. Exactly the scenario you laid out, a robot colony ship sent with the DNA patterns to incubate and grow humans once it arrives. The Robots then educated the new colonists and built the initial colony. The new Human colonists were supposed to be educated in an 'American' culture but that wasn't the result. When the second manned colony ship arrived they found a pure Libertarian society had developed.

 

[Stardreamer]

1. Fuck no. We're a species of pillaging egomaniacs. If my contribution to the Extraterrestrial Nature Conservancy can't prevent our destruction of another entire planet I'd join the sensible party willing to sabotage the Trillion Dollar Rape Machine and blow it off the launchpad before ignition.

2. Or presuming my party's sabotage has successfully re-programmed the Trillion Dollar Rape Machine onto a crash course with the hottest nearby star, we should send the twisted individuals who most fervently believe that spreading more of our kind around the universe is a good idea.

3. Oh...me? You want to send me? Why, why I'd be honored to go! I mean, I really have a lot to offer, and well, I'd just love to see things and, well, my genes really are rather interesting.....

We ARE the Borg, Resistance is Futile!

 

[Orlandude]

I'll stay here but would strongly urge them NOT to send any accountants, lawyers or politicians. Why screw up the new planet as bad as they've screwed this one?

 

[PolterGUYst]

If it was a planet just like earth, what makes you all think that we'd be welcome by the planet's human-like lifeforms?

 

[Kulindahr]

Have to watch that, they might just wind up being libertarians.

Or figure out some new social structure we haven't even imagined.

You're assuming the cost is the same no matter what size the ship is.

Yeah. Makes it simpler.

In reality, if the first ship cost a trillion the second would likely be 3/4 of that, the third 2/3, then possibly down to half and stay roughly there.

Even with embryos, I'd keep the standard ship size -- just send more Earth life along so the colonists aren't having to slave to make it like home; by the time they're walking, the oak trees will be as tall as they are.

I was assuming that all other tech would advance about as far as the spaceship tech. Did you know that right now NO ONE IN THE WORLD has a rocket that can boost to the MOON? (We might be able to make Saturn Vs again if we tried, but we don't, and no one else even has the capability.) If we're going to make a spaceship that can go 99.99% of the speed of light (a NAFAL ship, essentially), it's reasonable to assume we'll have advanced AI and robotics to the point where perfect imitation humans are commonplace, and the ship itself could be managed by what's known in the field as a "godlike AI."

Ah -- LeGUin, who uses science fiction as a cover for lethal social commentary. Her NAFAL is more like within 1^-100 of the speed of light -- using that for my hypothetical 30-LY journey would give a subjective time of less than a working morning... like, board, settle in, have breakfast, review your job on arrival, then start getting your gear ready for landing.

I don't know how to do the math. I'm pretty sure it's not quite as simple as percent of speed of light equals percent time dilation. Might be, but it's also true that being in a gravity field slows time too. We're in slower time than satellites in orbit; they have to have their clocks set slow in order to synch with devices on Earth (yes, an understanding of relativity is required for GPS to work). So it might be a lot more complicated. I don't know the physics though.

No, it looks like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation#Overview_of_formulae

Oh, if subjective time won't exceed 20 years, there's little advantage to my embryo idea. I was assuming hundreds of years.

There would in that space that would have been needed for adult human bodies will instead be occupied by banks of embryos in stasis. That means more room for things like an army of robots to slap together a prefab arcology for five thousand people as the "capital" of the colony while humans look for resources to refine for building the next one, along with a lot more stock in earth life. It's not a bad idea at all.

It would have to be. There wouldn't be any significant life on Earth if not for our moon.

Perhaps. The argument is over whether there would be significant life, or whether it would be as varied. I don't think you'd get an intelligent species without a moon, but you could get a planetary ecology (probably a very boring one). For colonization, a simple ecology already maintaining the atmosphere would be best; Earth life could fit in all kinds of ecological niches the planet doesn't even know exist.

Of course, if we can move a ship at 99.99% of the speed of light, given your technological assumption we could just go get a moon, once settled in.

Impossible.

1. Someone has to program the AIs and parent robots and create the culture.
2. Only a government program would be able to spend a trillion dollars on this project.
3. No libertarian would participate in such a program. They'd be [STRIKE]out at the gates[/STRIKE] blogging in their mothers' basements about wasteful government spending.
4. Therefore the people who program the AIs and robots would not be libertarians.
5. Anyone who ISN'T a libertarian would take care that that particular infection of the mind would not take hold among the kids.

Screwups are possible, of course. But again, if we're assuming a NAFAL ship, we can also assume we know how to program a society to avoid grotesque results like totalitarianism and libertarianism.

There's a massive strain of libertarians who who jump at the idea. And if you charge application fees for trying to join, a lot of funding could come that way.

And a colony like that would be the right size for just about pure libertarianism for a very long time -- don't let cities exceed 5k, and it would be a very long time indeed.

I'd be more worried about a flood of SfCA people going along expecting to set up baronies and counties and duchies.

 

[Kulindahr]

I was jokingly referring to a science fiction novel Kuli recommended to me once. Voyage from Yesteryear by James P. Hogan. Exactly the scenario you laid out, a robot colony ship sent with the DNA patterns to incubate and grow humans once it arrives. The Robots then educated the new colonists and built the initial colony. The new Human colonists were supposed to be educated in an 'American' culture but that wasn't the result. When the second manned colony ship arrived they found a pure Libertarian society had developed.

They were supposed to be educated in a very authoritarian "American" culture (one the Koch brothers would feel at home in). Kids being kids, they stopped listening to the robots once they learned enough to survive.

That would be what I'd call a "technolibertarian" society, where it's possible to be libertarian because robots provide just about everything, leaving humans free to pursue what they wish. They had three things necessary to that sort of society, which we lack:

• unlimited and effectively free energy
• effectively unlimited resources for manufacturing
• effectively unlimited and effectively free labor

 

[Kulindahr]

If it was a planet just like earth, what makes you all think that we'd be welcome by the planet's human-like lifeforms?

Um....

1. it has no moon and therefore never developed intelligent life
2. the intelligent natives are dying out from a plague and welcome us when we show we can cure it
3. the intelligent natives are locked in a war that's destroying their civilization and race, and we sell one side the technology to win
4. the intelligent life has a prophecy of beings from the sky arriving to lift them to the stars
5. we buy one of the continents for a basketful of beads and some Gerber knives
6. we throw a dozen politicians at them and promise not to do it again if they surrender
7. all the intelligent natives died out in a recent ice age

 

[onetwothreefour]

A trillion isn't too much compared to what we've spent on wars. No, I wouldn't go. I don't even get on airplanes.

 

[TheFireGod]

Robots and kids, sounds like the movie, WALL-E, they might have been adults but they sure were more like kids mentally.

I think you are confusing America with Australia. Most of the English colonies in the Americas were mercantile concerns sponsored by English companies on an investment in the colony's eventual trade. While some of the charter groups were made up of socially outcast communities, they weren't dumped there, they went willingly in the hopes of building a better community.

Sorry, I shouldn't have said dumped as it would mean the government was more involved. But the English Crown basically didn't care about non-Anglicans and other minorities as long as they were far away from England, they obviously didn't prevent French Huguenots, Catholics, and the Dutch to settle there either. One of the reasons for the American Revolution was that GB decided to take control in the colonies affairs after the Seven Year War.

Compare that to France which barred any non-Catholics from settling

 

[Beachguyj]

1. no
2. no one
3. no

 

[Críostóir]

Kuli, tidal pools were the key to the development of land life. No moon, no tides. No tides, no tidal pools. No tidal pools, no land life.

Barren rocks and oceans full of VERY SIMPLE organisms...perhaps not even multicellular ones. Not Earthlike at all.

 

[medic1]

Um....

1. it has no moon and therefore never developed intelligent life
2. the intelligent natives are dying out from a plague and welcome us when we show we can cure it
3. the intelligent natives are locked in a war that's destroying their civilization and race, and we sell one side the technology to win
4. the intelligent life has a prophecy of beings from the sky arriving to lift them to the stars
5. we buy one of the continents for a basketful of beads and some Gerber knives
6. we throw a dozen politicians at them and promise not to do it again if they surrender
7. all the intelligent natives died out in a recent ice age

If there was no Moon , then there would be no Tidal activity , hence a planet
NOT just like Earth .

 

[Críostóir]

This is a dilemma that humans will one day face unfortunately. Our sun is not immortal and will one day explode, albeit a million years from now. Although if we do manage to survive long enough to export whatever remnants of humanity we have left then it wouldn't be too farfetched to believe that by then we would have already mastered manipulation over the laws of physics allowing for all manners of teleportation, faster than light travel, and space technologies well suited for permanent living on ships if we choose to. Science fiction becomes science fact increasingly everyday. The wonders that we will see in this lifetime will be incredible, but alas, nobody will know the suffering that the world will pay for it.

Well, the sun doesn't have enough mass to explode, but it will expand into a red giant. But that's not going to happen for 5 billion (with a b) years.

Humans in our anatomically modern form have been around less than 200,000 years. It's unlikely that the red giant phase of the sun will be what wipes out humans in the solar system. We'll be long gone for good or ill by then.

My current belief is that humans will cease to exist as such before very much longer at all, probably within a few tens of thousands of years (assuming we don't destroy ourselves with our stupidity before that). What our posthuman descendants will be like, your guess is as good as mine, though I've read some fiction on the topic that I rather like.

 

[palbert]

I hope all of you choosing to go have a nice trip and an enjoyable rest of your life. I shall stay here thank you very much.

 

[shainski]

hmmm, isaac asimov wrote two trilogies on this subject

The robot series beginning with "Caves of Steel"
and
"Foundation" series.

In both, mankind eventually populated other worlds. But after that occurs, those worlds become independent cultures. Eventually, they won't entertain visitors from Earth because they have wiped out many of our diseases in their worlds where there are far fewer people.

I suspect that if this were possible, the people in those new worlds would become very different from those on this world in a short period of time.

Think of the comparison between America and the old world.

It's possible that after the first ship lands there - if the second or third ships don't arrive within a few decades, they wouldn't be welcome.

 

[Beachguyj]

The closest start to earth is 4.3 light years away. So would have to be on a ship traveling near the speed of light for over 4 years just to get to it.

 

[Críostóir]

Sharing is caring.

Charles Stross has a number of books that touch on this.

The most directly relevant is Accelerando, which starts with people not very different from the geekiest Early Adopters around today and goes step by step into the posthuman future. It also explains why we haven't been getting radio signals from advanced civilizations, which I thought was a nice touch.

In Singularity Sky the main characters are human, but there are some fairly exotic posthumans as well.

The characters in Glasshouse are all human...but have been exotically non- trans-, or posthuman in the past, sometimes horrifically so. And it has some interesting speculation about where humanity might go. This is the one that has the far-future people try (and fail) to act like 20th-Century Earth people; my favorite bit has the "wife" come downstairs to find her "husband" morosely spooning cornflakes into a bowl of milk.

Then, of course, there's Vernor Vinge. I'd start with A Fire Upon the Deep, which again has human and posthuman characters, as well as some mind-bogglingly exotic aliens. It's a great story, too; at first you can't understand what the different bits have to do with each other, but they all come together by the end, and everything matters.

 

[pat grimshaw]

^ do you recommend Vernor Vinge?