Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

But you are forgetting the depletion of the oil.

No, I'm not; depletion is included in EPR, because that value isn't static. Depletion is why oil's EPR today is 10. It was once 100.

If your reasoning in regard to depletion and TDP were valid, TDP would today be economically competitive with oil, and it's not.

Thus, the true EPR for TDP is considerably higher than it is for oil. If it wasn't there would be no interest in it.

No, the interest in it is speculative, not present-based. TDP's EPR will in the future be higher than oil's, because oil's will rise and TDP's will, at worst, remain constant. We are probably not very far from that point now, but we haven't reached it yet.

Once again, you are neglecting depletion. Solar energy has a far higher EPR than oil, this is why it is so appealing.

Solar energy's EPR (without introducing extraneous metaphors like depletion) is lower than oils, again for the present but not in the future. But if you want to include depletion, then you must take into account that PV cells also suffer depletion. If they didn't, then PV would have an EPR approaching infinity.

No, EPR is only one component of cost, and not necessarily the most important. The EPR for oil acconts for little of its cost, it's mostly depletion. Otherwise the market price would be $6-10 a barrel, instead of $40.

As I said earlier, EPR includes depletion. Depletion can be measured in terms of reduction in EPR.

I work in pharmaceutical manufacturing process development. Energy is a trivial expense in pharmaceutical manufacture.

Are you including the energy used to create the raw materials, to build the factories and equipment used, and to make the goods purchased by employees' salaries and company profits?

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

But you are forgetting the depletion of the oil.

No, I'm not; depletion is included in EPR, because that value isn't static. Depletion is why oil's EPR today is 10. It was once 100.

If your reasoning in regard to depletion and TDP were valid, TDP would today be economically competitive with oil, and it's not.

Thus, the true EPR for TDP is considerably higher than it is for oil. If it wasn't there would be no interest in it.

No, the interest in it is speculative, not present-based. TDP's EPR will in the future be higher than oil's, because oil's will rise and TDP's will, at worst, remain constant. We are probably not very far from that point now, but we haven't reached it yet.

Once again, you are neglecting depletion. Solar energy has a far higher EPR than oil, this is why it is so appealing.

Solar energy's EPR (without introducing extraneous metaphors like depletion) is lower than oils, again for the present but not in the future. But if you want to include depletion, then you must take into account that PV cells also suffer depletion. If they didn't, then PV would have an EPR approaching infinity.

No, EPR is only one component of cost, and not necessarily the most important. The EPR for oil acconts for little of its cost, it's mostly depletion. Otherwise the market price would be $6-10 a barrel, instead of $40.

As I said earlier, EPR includes depletion. Depletion can be measured in terms of reduction in EPR.

I work in pharmaceutical manufacturing process development. Energy is a trivial expense in pharmaceutical manufacture.

Are you including the energy used to create the raw materials, to build the factories and equipment used, and to make the goods purchased by employees' salaries and company profits?

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

If I had Bill Gates's money, one project I'd love to underwrite is to teach sign language to a whole load of chimps and gorillas and expose them as much as possible to the concept of death (humanely) and see what their "thoughts" are on the subject.

How workable would that be? I'm far from up to speed on the developments in animal communication, but IIRC the famous sign-language experiments produced controversial results.

The famous intelligent-seeming 'Koko' responses, for ex, has been claimed by some researchers to be deriving more from the human 'interpreting' her signs than from the primate herself. ISTR one critic posting the actual sign-language signs, and then matching them to what her trainers said she meant, and there was a big gap.

But as I said, I'm not seriously informed about that matter.

Yes. The results were controversial, but intriguing. That's one reason why I'd do more of it. A lot more of it. And set up experiments that attempt to answer the criticisms. Try to come up with reproducible results.

Even if some of the "interpretations" turned out to be stretched, there's little doubt that some extraordinary communicating was going on. Certainly more than a man can do with his dog.


Whichever way it turned out, I would try to introduce mortality into the picture and see how things turn out.

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

If I had Bill Gates's money, one project I'd love to underwrite is to teach sign language to a whole load of chimps and gorillas and expose them as much as possible to the concept of death (humanely) and see what their "thoughts" are on the subject.

How workable would that be? I'm far from up to speed on the developments in animal communication, but IIRC the famous sign-language experiments produced controversial results.

The famous intelligent-seeming 'Koko' responses, for ex, has been claimed by some researchers to be deriving more from the human 'interpreting' her signs than from the primate herself. ISTR one critic posting the actual sign-language signs, and then matching them to what her trainers said she meant, and there was a big gap.

But as I said, I'm not seriously informed about that matter.

Yes. The results were controversial, but intriguing. That's one reason why I'd do more of it. A lot more of it. And set up experiments that attempt to answer the criticisms. Try to come up with reproducible results.

Even if some of the "interpretations" turned out to be stretched, there's little doubt that some extraordinary communicating was going on. Certainly more than a man can do with his dog.


Whichever way it turned out, I would try to introduce mortality into the picture and see how things turn out.

Might be interesting to do the same with Alex, the African gray parrot who speaks English. Sign language wouldn't even be needed.

(OTOH, Alex is already a neurotic feather-plucker, so maybe we should spare him.)

Might be interesting to do the same with Alex, the African gray parrot who speaks English. Sign language wouldn't even be needed.

(OTOH, Alex is already a neurotic feather-plucker, so maybe we should spare him.)

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

By your logic, the United States can't exist, since the economic benefits of its creation can't be channeled back to Europe.

What are you talking about? The European resources initially used to colonize the New World did earn a return for their European investors. Otherwise they would never have been undetaken. Once the colonies became established, growth increasingly used colonial resources.

Recall the the model for New World colonization was the Spanish one, which was extraordinarily profitable. A small investment in men and ships yielded the huge return of the Treasure Fleet for 150 years.

Have you heard of the South Sea bubble of 1720? It was the "internet boom" of its day. The reason why this bubble happened was the ecitment about the prosects of the South Sea company. This company was chartered for the exploitation of the resources in the South Seas. The South Pacific is huge, and people figured there must be a continent in there somewhere, which they named Australia. They were right, there was a continent in there, which was discovered half a century later.

Based on the Spanish model of the wealth reaped by the first nation to discover and exploit a new continent, can you see why the South Sea stock "story" was so appealling and how people threw their money at the South Sea company just s they did at Amazon and Yahoo based on the "internet story". My point here is the colonization of our world was very much an entrepreneurial thing done for profit. It was also a migratory thing by people looking for better lives (but they came later).

Space is going to be the same. First come the investors. The problem with the Mercurian project is there is no way to finance the "seed" investment to get it going, because it cannot return the energy to the Earh-based investors.

But if the human race doesn't eventually expand outward, it will be an unprecedented shift of behavior.

This is your core argument. I don't see that it is true. I can think of two examples of humans reaching out into the unknown to exploit what might be there. The first and best known is European colonization of the New World and Australia. The second was the initial settlement of Polynesia The rest of the world was initially settled by people simply walking to new places to live when the old became unsuitable. Before the Europeans there is no convincing evidence of other Afro-eurasian peoples colonizing the Americas, nor of Americans coming to Africa or Eurasia.

I do not know what prompted the settlement of Polynesia, it could have been accidental (e.g. fisherman blown out to sea by storms). Accidental expansion to the solar system can be ruled out as a possibility.

I have already shown that European expansion followed the profit motive to get started. It is the lack of a way for extraterrestial settlements to provide a return (i.e. energy, resources) to the mother planet that prevents Earth-based finance of their initial development.

There is nothing to rule out an Earth-based wealthy benefactor (e.g. a foundation established by a bequest). And once it is started then you can see solar cells cover Mercury, but it would be financed by extraterrestial humans. Remember the heat balance limitation only applies to Earth, extra terrestials will not be concern about their homes becoming dead worlds throguh global warming, they are already dead worlds.

The difficulty of initially colonizing space is so great that it will take time before we are technically able to do it. If we could do your Mercury project today, in ten years, then we could swing it. But we can't. The 100-fold increase in energy transduction (wealth) will occur fast, probably in less than 100 years. After that, the profit motive won't do the trick, you will need a wealthy benefactor to finance space settlement with the expectation of nothing in return.

So its a race between technological advancement and economic growth. The technology could have happened, it didn't and now we have delayed too long. Perhaps I'm unrealistically gloomy, but I am older than you and can personally remember the early space program. Space stations and moon bases were not a pipe dream. We could have done this. We already had the ability to put a moon base up by 1980. We had a big space station in 1973. We could have put up a second one and then a third. And then link them together and we would have a huge one by 1980. None of this happened, we are less space capable today than we were then.

I don't see the technical ability appearing before the economics rules it out. This leaves the benefactor. By the time you have a benefactor with a fortune large enough to do this, a considerable amount of time will have passed. Human population is going to stop rising in this century. How many siblings were you raised with and how many children have you raised? For most of us the first number is bigger than the second. This is a widespread trend.

By the time our wealth grows to a point in which serious colonization is possible our population will be shrinking. Some will go of course. Others may opt for personal immortality through life-extension rather than through legacy-building.

What I don't see is humans that are physically and pyschologically like those of today still existing at a time when interstellar travel becomes technically feasible. Otherwise, I would expect to see aliens here--unless WE are the aliens.

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

By your logic, the United States can't exist, since the economic benefits of its creation can't be channeled back to Europe.

What are you talking about? The European resources initially used to colonize the New World did earn a return for their European investors. Otherwise they would never have been undetaken. Once the colonies became established, growth increasingly used colonial resources.

Recall the the model for New World colonization was the Spanish one, which was extraordinarily profitable. A small investment in men and ships yielded the huge return of the Treasure Fleet for 150 years.

Have you heard of the South Sea bubble of 1720? It was the "internet boom" of its day. The reason why this bubble happened was the ecitment about the prosects of the South Sea company. This company was chartered for the exploitation of the resources in the South Seas. The South Pacific is huge, and people figured there must be a continent in there somewhere, which they named Australia. They were right, there was a continent in there, which was discovered half a century later.

Based on the Spanish model of the wealth reaped by the first nation to discover and exploit a new continent, can you see why the South Sea stock "story" was so appealling and how people threw their money at the South Sea company just s they did at Amazon and Yahoo based on the "internet story". My point here is the colonization of our world was very much an entrepreneurial thing done for profit. It was also a migratory thing by people looking for better lives (but they came later).

Space is going to be the same. First come the investors. The problem with the Mercurian project is there is no way to finance the "seed" investment to get it going, because it cannot return the energy to the Earh-based investors.

But if the human race doesn't eventually expand outward, it will be an unprecedented shift of behavior.

This is your core argument. I don't see that it is true. I can think of two examples of humans reaching out into the unknown to exploit what might be there. The first and best known is European colonization of the New World and Australia. The second was the initial settlement of Polynesia The rest of the world was initially settled by people simply walking to new places to live when the old became unsuitable. Before the Europeans there is no convincing evidence of other Afro-eurasian peoples colonizing the Americas, nor of Americans coming to Africa or Eurasia.

I do not know what prompted the settlement of Polynesia, it could have been accidental (e.g. fisherman blown out to sea by storms). Accidental expansion to the solar system can be ruled out as a possibility.

I have already shown that European expansion followed the profit motive to get started. It is the lack of a way for extraterrestial settlements to provide a return (i.e. energy, resources) to the mother planet that prevents Earth-based finance of their initial development.

There is nothing to rule out an Earth-based wealthy benefactor (e.g. a foundation established by a bequest). And once it is started then you can see solar cells cover Mercury, but it would be financed by extraterrestial humans. Remember the heat balance limitation only applies to Earth, extra terrestials will not be concern about their homes becoming dead worlds throguh global warming, they are already dead worlds.

The difficulty of initially colonizing space is so great that it will take time before we are technically able to do it. If we could do your Mercury project today, in ten years, then we could swing it. But we can't. The 100-fold increase in energy transduction (wealth) will occur fast, probably in less than 100 years. After that, the profit motive won't do the trick, you will need a wealthy benefactor to finance space settlement with the expectation of nothing in return.

So its a race between technological advancement and economic growth. The technology could have happened, it didn't and now we have delayed too long. Perhaps I'm unrealistically gloomy, but I am older than you and can personally remember the early space program. Space stations and moon bases were not a pipe dream. We could have done this. We already had the ability to put a moon base up by 1980. We had a big space station in 1973. We could have put up a second one and then a third. And then link them together and we would have a huge one by 1980. None of this happened, we are less space capable today than we were then.

I don't see the technical ability appearing before the economics rules it out. This leaves the benefactor. By the time you have a benefactor with a fortune large enough to do this, a considerable amount of time will have passed. Human population is going to stop rising in this century. How many siblings were you raised with and how many children have you raised? For most of us the first number is bigger than the second. This is a widespread trend.

By the time our wealth grows to a point in which serious colonization is possible our population will be shrinking. Some will go of course. Others may opt for personal immortality through life-extension rather than through legacy-building.

What I don't see is humans that are physically and pyschologically like those of today still existing at a time when interstellar travel becomes technically feasible. Otherwise, I would expect to see aliens here--unless WE are the aliens.

Before the Europeans there is no convincing evidence of other Afro-eurasian peoples colonizing the Americas

My Cherokee great-grandmother would heartily disagree.

Before the Europeans there is no convincing evidence of other Afro-eurasian peoples colonizing the Americas

My Cherokee great-grandmother would heartily disagree.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

My Cherokee great-grandmother would heartily disagree.

My great-grandfather was an old Indian fighter. And my great-grandmother was an old Indian.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

My Cherokee great-grandmother would heartily disagree.

My great-grandfather was an old Indian fighter. And my great-grandmother was an old Indian.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Before the Europeans there is no convincing evidence of other Afro-eurasian peoples colonizing the Americas

My Cherokee great-grandmother would heartily disagree.

Would she? Wouldn't she believe her people had lived here always? Native American were the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas. I was referring to other groups who might have come as did the Europeans, but did not.

Native Americans' Asian ancestors did not set out to discover and colonize a new land. They migrated into Siberia as their technology permitted and eventually reached Alaska, from which they spread all over the Americas.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Before the Europeans there is no convincing evidence of other Afro-eurasian peoples colonizing the Americas

My Cherokee great-grandmother would heartily disagree.

Would she? Wouldn't she believe her people had lived here always? Native American were the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas. I was referring to other groups who might have come as did the Europeans, but did not.

Native Americans' Asian ancestors did not set out to discover and colonize a new land. They migrated into Siberia as their technology permitted and eventually reached Alaska, from which they spread all over the Americas.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Before the Europeans there is no convincing evidence of other Afro-eurasian peoples colonizing the Americas

My Cherokee great-grandmother would heartily disagree.

Would she? Wouldn't she believe her people had lived here always?

I don't think so, although HER great-grandmother probably would have.

Native Americans' Asian ancestors did not set out to discover and colonize a new land.

Well, actually, neither did the Europeans. Hence the terms "Indians" for Native Americans and "West Indies" for the Caribbean islands.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Before the Europeans there is no convincing evidence of other Afro-eurasian peoples colonizing the Americas

My Cherokee great-grandmother would heartily disagree.

Would she? Wouldn't she believe her people had lived here always?

I don't think so, although HER great-grandmother probably would have.

Native Americans' Asian ancestors did not set out to discover and colonize a new land.

Well, actually, neither did the Europeans. Hence the terms "Indians" for Native Americans and "West Indies" for the Caribbean islands.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Well, actually, neither did the Europeans. Hence the terms "Indians" for Native Americans and "West Indies" for the Caribbean islands.

Yes they did. The Spanish wished to build a trading empire in the east along the lines of what the Portuguese were doing. These were "new lands" for the Europeans in the form of new opportunities for exploitation.

The Portugese succeeded, while the Spanish failed. However in their falure the Spanish stumbled upon a rich civilization suitable for conquest as opposed to economic exploitation. In the end the Spanish got the btter deal.

In general, people who are comfortable where they are, won't seek new places to go. People have migrated when the situation they were living in became less suitable and new land, which they could see, beckoned them.
This is how Native Americans settled the new world.

Launching oceanic voyages to new opportunities provides another way for those who are not comfortabe to obtain a better situation. Europeans dissatisfied with their situation could not engage in the voyages of discovery and colonization on their own, however. They needed a sponsor to provide the resources need to make the trip. The Native Americans didn't need a sponsor. This is the key difference.

Space colonists need a sponsor, and so are comparable to the European colonists. They are not comparable to Native Americans.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Well, actually, neither did the Europeans. Hence the terms "Indians" for Native Americans and "West Indies" for the Caribbean islands.

Yes they did. The Spanish wished to build a trading empire in the east along the lines of what the Portuguese were doing. These were "new lands" for the Europeans in the form of new opportunities for exploitation.

The Portugese succeeded, while the Spanish failed. However in their falure the Spanish stumbled upon a rich civilization suitable for conquest as opposed to economic exploitation. In the end the Spanish got the btter deal.

In general, people who are comfortable where they are, won't seek new places to go. People have migrated when the situation they were living in became less suitable and new land, which they could see, beckoned them.
This is how Native Americans settled the new world.

Launching oceanic voyages to new opportunities provides another way for those who are not comfortabe to obtain a better situation. Europeans dissatisfied with their situation could not engage in the voyages of discovery and colonization on their own, however. They needed a sponsor to provide the resources need to make the trip. The Native Americans didn't need a sponsor. This is the key difference.

Space colonists need a sponsor, and so are comparable to the European colonists. They are not comparable to Native Americans.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

By your logic, the United States can't exist, since the economic benefits of its creation can't be channeled back to Europe.

What are you talking about? The European resources initially used to colonize the New World did earn a return for their European investors. Otherwise they would never have been undetaken. Once the colonies became established, growth increasingly used colonial resources.

In some specific cases, they made money for investors. Overall, esp. from the POV of the governments involved, the American colonies ran 'in the red' until the tobacco trade took off. (The Spanish were a different case, since they were less colonizing than looting, esp. at first.)

The reasons for colonization in America were economic in some cases, religous in others, dynastic/national prestige in yet others.

And yes, colonial resources were used, just as space-based resources will be used in comparable sense, in due time.

Space is going to be the same. First come the investors. The problem with the Mercurian project is there is no way to finance the "seed" investment to get it going, because it cannot return the energy to the Earh-based investors.

Meaningless. The Mercurian project is decades to centuries away, so we don't know what the economic picture will look like, or what will or won't be profitable. It won't happen until after there is a significant human presence in space, and that in turn is still some years away.

The investors don't come first, first come the explorers, and we're just barely into that phase. The explorers are often funded at a loss by either governments or private interests, for a variety of motives.

But if the human race doesn't eventually expand outward, it will be an unprecedented shift of behavior.

This is your core argument. I don't see that it is true. I can think of two examples of humans reaching out into the unknown to exploit what might be there. The first and best known is European colonization of the New World and Australia. The second was the initial settlement of Polynesia The rest of the world was initially settled by people simply walking to new places to live when the old became unsuitable. Before the Europeans there is no convincing evidence of other Afro-eurasian peoples colonizing the Americas, nor of Americans coming to Africa or Eurasia.

No, but there is plenty of evidence of African peoples coming to Eurasia and Australia. Human populations expand outward over time, unless there is some physical reason they can't, such as an ocean or a gravity well in the way. Then the expansion pauses for a while, until a way around the barrier is found.

The expansion is sometimes done in mass, sometimes only a trickle are involved, the end result is the same either way.

(Genetic studies suggest that only a relatively small percentage of the human population of Africa was involved in the outward spread.)

I do not know what prompted the settlement of Polynesia, it could have been accidental (e.g. fisherman blown out to sea by storms). Accidental expansion to the solar system can be ruled out as a possibility.

So, realistically, can the 'accidental' settlement of Polynesia. Now, I have no doubt that the settlers were not trying to 'settle the Pacific', per se. They were just striking out for greener pastures. But over time, they did just that (settle the Pacific). To found a new settlement, you have to have both sexes along for the trip, along with some basic supplies and a little practical knowledge. The idea that this could happen by accident over and over strains credulity.

It's probably conceivable that some specific islands in Polynesia were settled by accident, improbable things do happen, but the whole thing was not accidental.

I have already shown that European expansion followed the profit motive to get started. It is the lack of a way for extraterrestial settlements to provide a return (i.e. energy, resources) to the mother planet that prevents Earth-based finance of their initial development.

You haven't established that there is no way for extraterrestrial settlements to provide such a return. Nor can you, except in the very-near-term future.

There is nothing to rule out an Earth-based wealthy benefactor (e.g. a foundation established by a bequest). And once it is started then you can see solar cells cover Mercury, but it would be financed by extraterrestial humans.

So? Comes out the same. Over time, the distinction between Terran and extra-Terran humans is no more meaningful than the distinction between European and North American humans.

Remember the heat balance limitation only applies to Earth, extra terrestials will not be concern about their homes becoming dead worlds throguh global warming, they are already dead worlds.

Which is exactly what I said earlier, that the heat-balance limit prevents nothing, and that it's nearly a sure thing that humans will spread into space, thus meaning the heat-balance problem doesn't prevent interstellar travel (or anything else).

So its a race between technological advancement and economic growth. The technology could have happened, it didn't and now we have delayed too long.

Nonsense. I'm sorry, but this 'we're in a race with Malthusian catastrophe' theory is just as empty as the 'population explosion is going to doom us' theory was 30 years ago. There is no reason to believe that we're going to engage in exponential growth of energy use to that extent, and manifold reason to think it won't happen.

Perhaps I'm unrealistically gloomy, but I am older than you and can personally remember the early space program. Space stations and moon bases were not a pipe dream. We could have done this.

No, but you're reacting emotionally. A combination of the Generational Cycle and unexpected technical development in automation and miniaturization is what prevented manned orbital platforms (at that time), not economics. Likewise there would probably have been manned Lunar bases by now, if not for Cyclic effects. In fact, the largest single reason the Lunar exploration being carried out under the Apollo Project halted was not economic, it was political, in that Richard Nixon did not have any enthusiasm for continuing it, since it was politically linked to Kennedy. Ironically, the project was canceled just as it starting to do some really serious planetary science.

Now, note that I said 'bases', not 'colonies'. That is an important distinction, they aren't the same thing. We're talking about the early stages of exploration, not colonization. The idea of viable, self-perpetuating colonies coming that soon was a pipe dream. Such might eventually derive from the bases, but that would be further down the road. Such exploration would of necessity operated 'in the red', funded by tax money or willing private sources. But that would not be an insuperable problem in itself.

We already had the ability to put a moon base up by 1980. We had a big space station in 1973. We could have put up a second one and then a third. And then link them together and we would have a huge one by 1980. None of this happened, we are less space capable today than we were then.

True. The reason it all stopped is exactly the same reason that most of the serious work on manned undersea facilities stalled, at that exact same time. The Silent displaced the G.I.s in the decision make stage of life, and as a group, they didn't find it appealing or important.

I don't see the technical ability appearing before the economics rules it out.

The economics won't rule it out on any meaningful scale, unless out society goes into a large-scale Spengler-style decline, which could happen, but if so will require several centuries. A nuclear war might be sufficient to set it back several centuries, but in all probability it would still eventually happen.

By the time our wealth grows to a point in which serious colonization is possible our population will be shrinking. Some will go of course. Others may opt for personal immortality through life-extension rather than through legacy-building.

:lol:

You're building some highly questionable assumptions into your assessment. Life-extension technologies may or may not happen. Populations will not shrink indefinitely, and in fact it's as sure as anything can be that they'll eventually grow again. History marks several examples of long-term population decline, it's one of the earmarks of a declining society.

But new successor societies appear, and usually achieve greater heights than the ancestral culture. Population was delining in the Classical World throughout most of the Roman era. Yet Europe is not depopulated today.

What I don't see is humans that are physically and pyschologically like those of today still existing at a time when interstellar travel becomes technically feasible. Otherwise, I would expect to see aliens here--unless WE are the aliens.

Oh, they'll be at least somewhat like us, if the travel ability comes in the next few centuries. But you're quite right, people think and act differently at different stages of a culture's lifetime, just as individuals and Generations react differently at different life-stages. To use Classical Civilization as an example, the people of the 3rd Century Roman Empire were in many ways unlike the people of Alexandrian Era psychologically.

Ditto China. They went through cultural phases that were highly expansionist and looked outward, and phases that were inward-looking and sought only to make the outside world go away.

But things change, and the expansionist mood of the Alexandrian age reappeared in a similar cultural phase of Western Civilization. If the expanionist mood dies again, it won't be forever.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

By your logic, the United States can't exist, since the economic benefits of its creation can't be channeled back to Europe.

What are you talking about? The European resources initially used to colonize the New World did earn a return for their European investors. Otherwise they would never have been undetaken. Once the colonies became established, growth increasingly used colonial resources.

In some specific cases, they made money for investors. Overall, esp. from the POV of the governments involved, the American colonies ran 'in the red' until the tobacco trade took off. (The Spanish were a different case, since they were less colonizing than looting, esp. at first.)

The reasons for colonization in America were economic in some cases, religous in others, dynastic/national prestige in yet others.

And yes, colonial resources were used, just as space-based resources will be used in comparable sense, in due time.

Space is going to be the same. First come the investors. The problem with the Mercurian project is there is no way to finance the "seed" investment to get it going, because it cannot return the energy to the Earh-based investors.

Meaningless. The Mercurian project is decades to centuries away, so we don't know what the economic picture will look like, or what will or won't be profitable. It won't happen until after there is a significant human presence in space, and that in turn is still some years away.

The investors don't come first, first come the explorers, and we're just barely into that phase. The explorers are often funded at a loss by either governments or private interests, for a variety of motives.

But if the human race doesn't eventually expand outward, it will be an unprecedented shift of behavior.

This is your core argument. I don't see that it is true. I can think of two examples of humans reaching out into the unknown to exploit what might be there. The first and best known is European colonization of the New World and Australia. The second was the initial settlement of Polynesia The rest of the world was initially settled by people simply walking to new places to live when the old became unsuitable. Before the Europeans there is no convincing evidence of other Afro-eurasian peoples colonizing the Americas, nor of Americans coming to Africa or Eurasia.

No, but there is plenty of evidence of African peoples coming to Eurasia and Australia. Human populations expand outward over time, unless there is some physical reason they can't, such as an ocean or a gravity well in the way. Then the expansion pauses for a while, until a way around the barrier is found.

The expansion is sometimes done in mass, sometimes only a trickle are involved, the end result is the same either way.

(Genetic studies suggest that only a relatively small percentage of the human population of Africa was involved in the outward spread.)

I do not know what prompted the settlement of Polynesia, it could have been accidental (e.g. fisherman blown out to sea by storms). Accidental expansion to the solar system can be ruled out as a possibility.

So, realistically, can the 'accidental' settlement of Polynesia. Now, I have no doubt that the settlers were not trying to 'settle the Pacific', per se. They were just striking out for greener pastures. But over time, they did just that (settle the Pacific). To found a new settlement, you have to have both sexes along for the trip, along with some basic supplies and a little practical knowledge. The idea that this could happen by accident over and over strains credulity.

It's probably conceivable that some specific islands in Polynesia were settled by accident, improbable things do happen, but the whole thing was not accidental.

I have already shown that European expansion followed the profit motive to get started. It is the lack of a way for extraterrestial settlements to provide a return (i.e. energy, resources) to the mother planet that prevents Earth-based finance of their initial development.

You haven't established that there is no way for extraterrestrial settlements to provide such a return. Nor can you, except in the very-near-term future.

There is nothing to rule out an Earth-based wealthy benefactor (e.g. a foundation established by a bequest). And once it is started then you can see solar cells cover Mercury, but it would be financed by extraterrestial humans.

So? Comes out the same. Over time, the distinction between Terran and extra-Terran humans is no more meaningful than the distinction between European and North American humans.

Remember the heat balance limitation only applies to Earth, extra terrestials will not be concern about their homes becoming dead worlds throguh global warming, they are already dead worlds.

Which is exactly what I said earlier, that the heat-balance limit prevents nothing, and that it's nearly a sure thing that humans will spread into space, thus meaning the heat-balance problem doesn't prevent interstellar travel (or anything else).

So its a race between technological advancement and economic growth. The technology could have happened, it didn't and now we have delayed too long.

Nonsense. I'm sorry, but this 'we're in a race with Malthusian catastrophe' theory is just as empty as the 'population explosion is going to doom us' theory was 30 years ago. There is no reason to believe that we're going to engage in exponential growth of energy use to that extent, and manifold reason to think it won't happen.

Perhaps I'm unrealistically gloomy, but I am older than you and can personally remember the early space program. Space stations and moon bases were not a pipe dream. We could have done this.

No, but you're reacting emotionally. A combination of the Generational Cycle and unexpected technical development in automation and miniaturization is what prevented manned orbital platforms (at that time), not economics. Likewise there would probably have been manned Lunar bases by now, if not for Cyclic effects. In fact, the largest single reason the Lunar exploration being carried out under the Apollo Project halted was not economic, it was political, in that Richard Nixon did not have any enthusiasm for continuing it, since it was politically linked to Kennedy. Ironically, the project was canceled just as it starting to do some really serious planetary science.

Now, note that I said 'bases', not 'colonies'. That is an important distinction, they aren't the same thing. We're talking about the early stages of exploration, not colonization. The idea of viable, self-perpetuating colonies coming that soon was a pipe dream. Such might eventually derive from the bases, but that would be further down the road. Such exploration would of necessity operated 'in the red', funded by tax money or willing private sources. But that would not be an insuperable problem in itself.

We already had the ability to put a moon base up by 1980. We had a big space station in 1973. We could have put up a second one and then a third. And then link them together and we would have a huge one by 1980. None of this happened, we are less space capable today than we were then.

True. The reason it all stopped is exactly the same reason that most of the serious work on manned undersea facilities stalled, at that exact same time. The Silent displaced the G.I.s in the decision make stage of life, and as a group, they didn't find it appealing or important.

I don't see the technical ability appearing before the economics rules it out.

The economics won't rule it out on any meaningful scale, unless out society goes into a large-scale Spengler-style decline, which could happen, but if so will require several centuries. A nuclear war might be sufficient to set it back several centuries, but in all probability it would still eventually happen.

By the time our wealth grows to a point in which serious colonization is possible our population will be shrinking. Some will go of course. Others may opt for personal immortality through life-extension rather than through legacy-building.

:lol:

You're building some highly questionable assumptions into your assessment. Life-extension technologies may or may not happen. Populations will not shrink indefinitely, and in fact it's as sure as anything can be that they'll eventually grow again. History marks several examples of long-term population decline, it's one of the earmarks of a declining society.

But new successor societies appear, and usually achieve greater heights than the ancestral culture. Population was delining in the Classical World throughout most of the Roman era. Yet Europe is not depopulated today.

What I don't see is humans that are physically and pyschologically like those of today still existing at a time when interstellar travel becomes technically feasible. Otherwise, I would expect to see aliens here--unless WE are the aliens.

Oh, they'll be at least somewhat like us, if the travel ability comes in the next few centuries. But you're quite right, people think and act differently at different stages of a culture's lifetime, just as individuals and Generations react differently at different life-stages. To use Classical Civilization as an example, the people of the 3rd Century Roman Empire were in many ways unlike the people of Alexandrian Era psychologically.

Ditto China. They went through cultural phases that were highly expansionist and looked outward, and phases that were inward-looking and sought only to make the outside world go away.

But things change, and the expansionist mood of the Alexandrian age reappeared in a similar cultural phase of Western Civilization. If the expanionist mood dies again, it won't be forever.

[quote="Mike Alexander '59"]

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

In general, people who are comfortable where they are, won't seek new places to go. People have migrated when the situation they were living in became less suitable and new land, which they could see, beckoned them.
This is how Native Americans settled the new world.

Launching oceanic voyages to new opportunities provides another way for those who are not comfortabe to obtain a better situation. Europeans dissatisfied with their situation could not engage in the voyages of discovery and colonization on their own, however. They needed a sponsor to provide the resources need to make the trip.

Historically, it's always a minority who set out to settle new lands, a small minority. As you noted, they tend to be discontented by definition, but what makes a person discontented can cover a wide spectrum, and is sometimes determined by the surrounding society rather than the person.

The large majority are always stay-at-homes by choice. But that minority is sufficient. As for finding a sponsor, over time that usually isn't a big problem.

(Large mass migrations such as were seen in the 19th century are a different phenomenon, they aren't settlers, they're immigrants.)

[quote="Mike Alexander '59"]

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

In general, people who are comfortable where they are, won't seek new places to go. People have migrated when the situation they were living in became less suitable and new land, which they could see, beckoned them.
This is how Native Americans settled the new world.

Launching oceanic voyages to new opportunities provides another way for those who are not comfortabe to obtain a better situation. Europeans dissatisfied with their situation could not engage in the voyages of discovery and colonization on their own, however. They needed a sponsor to provide the resources need to make the trip.

Historically, it's always a minority who set out to settle new lands, a small minority. As you noted, they tend to be discontented by definition, but what makes a person discontented can cover a wide spectrum, and is sometimes determined by the surrounding society rather than the person.

The large majority are always stay-at-homes by choice. But that minority is sufficient. As for finding a sponsor, over time that usually isn't a big problem.

(Large mass migrations such as were seen in the 19th century are a different phenomenon, they aren't settlers, they're immigrants.)

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

[Depletion is included in EPR, because that value isn't static. Depletion is why oil's EPR today is 10. It was once 100.

No it isn't. The reason why oil price will rise as it becomes short in supply is not only because oil becomes harder to extract as it is exhausted. This factor does serve to put a minimum value on the average price of oil. Currently this value is about $4-10 per barrel. If the market prices falls below $10, some production will be taken down because it will cost too much to recover the oil and it isn't worth it.

To the extent that oil price is higher than $10 a barrel this reflects the cost of depletion. Depletion is physcially displayed only when supply runs short and price skyrockets. Bascially, it is a disaster. The market naturally provides insurance against this disaster. The cost of this insurance is the difference between the market price and the minimum price determined by the fundamantal difficulty of extracting oil (which does rise over time)

As the total world supply of oil declines the risk of shortage rises and so the average cost of insurance rises. Note this insurance is built into the market price, it is a "service" provived by the market and it is costly. Right now the insurance against depletion costs some $30 a barrel. You can use this insurance cost as a measure of the failure of Bush's Iraq war policy. Insurance was supposed to fall to ~$10 in the wake of the war.

If your reasoning in regard to depletion and TDP were valid, TDP would today be economically competitive with oil, and it's not.

TDP IS economically competetive with $30+ dollar oil. Last year oil was $30, is TDP competitive? Last year it was also believed that after the Iraq war the price of oil would fall. The last time it fell, in 1997-99, it got to $10, suppose this happeed in the wake of the Iraq war. Is TDP competitive? Now oil is $40, is TDP competive?

Are you including the energy to make the goods purchased by employees' salaries and company profits?

The cost of labor in the pharmaceutical manufacturing has little to do with with the energy needed to make the goods purchased by the workers. High priced labor is not high because they consume more energy. If your surgeon decides to ride a bike to work for his health, will he now charge you less?

Think of the things most households spend their incomes on. Include all company benefits and the company Social Security contribution as household income. Now how much do you actually spend on energy? Take your house. If you have a mortgage, most of that monthly payment goes to paying interest, which is an intangible service.

A substantial fraction of the income in this country goes to people who simply can't consume material goods in proprtion to their incomes.

Why do you think this EPR is relevant, anyways. Where did you get this idea?

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

[Depletion is included in EPR, because that value isn't static. Depletion is why oil's EPR today is 10. It was once 100.

No it isn't. The reason why oil price will rise as it becomes short in supply is not only because oil becomes harder to extract as it is exhausted. This factor does serve to put a minimum value on the average price of oil. Currently this value is about $4-10 per barrel. If the market prices falls below $10, some production will be taken down because it will cost too much to recover the oil and it isn't worth it.

To the extent that oil price is higher than $10 a barrel this reflects the cost of depletion. Depletion is physcially displayed only when supply runs short and price skyrockets. Bascially, it is a disaster. The market naturally provides insurance against this disaster. The cost of this insurance is the difference between the market price and the minimum price determined by the fundamantal difficulty of extracting oil (which does rise over time)

As the total world supply of oil declines the risk of shortage rises and so the average cost of insurance rises. Note this insurance is built into the market price, it is a "service" provived by the market and it is costly. Right now the insurance against depletion costs some $30 a barrel. You can use this insurance cost as a measure of the failure of Bush's Iraq war policy. Insurance was supposed to fall to ~$10 in the wake of the war.

If your reasoning in regard to depletion and TDP were valid, TDP would today be economically competitive with oil, and it's not.

TDP IS economically competetive with $30+ dollar oil. Last year oil was $30, is TDP competitive? Last year it was also believed that after the Iraq war the price of oil would fall. The last time it fell, in 1997-99, it got to $10, suppose this happeed in the wake of the Iraq war. Is TDP competitive? Now oil is $40, is TDP competive?

Are you including the energy to make the goods purchased by employees' salaries and company profits?

The cost of labor in the pharmaceutical manufacturing has little to do with with the energy needed to make the goods purchased by the workers. High priced labor is not high because they consume more energy. If your surgeon decides to ride a bike to work for his health, will he now charge you less?

Think of the things most households spend their incomes on. Include all company benefits and the company Social Security contribution as household income. Now how much do you actually spend on energy? Take your house. If you have a mortgage, most of that monthly payment goes to paying interest, which is an intangible service.

A substantial fraction of the income in this country goes to people who simply can't consume material goods in proprtion to their incomes.

Why do you think this EPR is relevant, anyways. Where did you get this idea?

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

The investors don't come first, first come the explorers, and we're just barely into that phase. The explorers are often funded at a loss by either governments or private interests, for a variety of motives.

Funding for the explorers is part of the investment. You are hypothesizing a benefactor here.

No, but there is plenty of evidence of African peoples coming to Eurasia and Australia. Human populations expand outward over time, unless there is some physical reason they can't, such as an ocean or a gravity well in the way. Then the expansion pauses for a while, until a way around the barrier is found.

Africans can walk to Eurasia. There is no need for an initial sponsor or investor.

Nonsense. I'm sorry, but this 'we're in a race with Malthusian catastrophe' theory is just as empty as the 'population explosion is going to doom us' theory was 30 years ago. There is no reason to believe that we're going to engage in exponential growth of energy use to that extent, and manifold reason to think it won't happen.

What are you talking about? I didn't say anything about a catastrophe.

A combination of the Generational Cycle and unexpected technical development in automation and miniaturization is what prevented manned orbital platforms (at that time), not economics. Likewise there would probably have been manned Lunar bases by now, if not for Cyclic effects.

This is just a statement of faith. You want to believe it.

Now, note that I said 'bases', not 'colonies'.

Bases were what I was talking about.

True. The reason it all stopped is exactly the same reason that most of the serious work on manned undersea facilities stalled, at that exact same time. The Silent displaced the G.I.s in the decision make stage of life, and as a group, they didn't find it appealing or important.

Wait a minute now. This is really far fetched. If space made economic sense we would be there now. Generations are meaningless.

The economics won't rule it out on any meaningful scale, unless out society goes into a large-scale Spengler-style decline, which could happen, but if so will require several centuries.

It has nothing to do with decline. Decline makes space colonization MORE likely, not less.

You're building some highly questionable assumptions into your assessment. Life-extension technologies may or may not happen.

You seem to believe interstellar travel will happen. You even hold out for faster than light travel, which violates our curent understanding of physics. But nothing in physics rules out humans living for thousands of years. No natural laws are violated.

But you're quite right, people think and act differently at different stages of a culture's lifetime, just as individuals and Generations react differently at different life-stages. To use Classical Civilization as an example, the people of the 3rd Century Roman Empire were in many ways unlike the people of Alexandrian Era psychologically

People are still the same creatures today as they were 2000 year ago. People who live for thousands of years and are partially cybernetic are not the same sort of creatures as we are today.

Remember this whole discussion started with explaining why others like us haven't come here. If it's a sure shot we are going out there, then it should be true for others. Once we get out there, what is to stop us from spreading everywhere? The hard part is getting to nearby stars. Once that is accomplished it's the same problem over and over again, getting to nearby stars from the outer edges of "human space". We should spread out throughout the entire galaxy in less than a million years, a very short time astronomically speaking.

The same holds for the others. Where are they? Why aren't they here?