How close are we to warp engines ?

[Slew Foot]

More or less.

Be interesting if it could be built or something which accomplishes the same and if humans are smart enough to pull it off.

Once read a story where this enormous AI was built to determine how the universe came about. After many years the computer announced that it had figured it out. The excited scientists ask for the answer to the beginning of all and the computer replied that would be impossible. The scientists asked why and the AI replied that humanity wasnt smart enough to understand it.

The answer is 42.

 

[irishScott]

Actually what you've said is "that can't be. " Your biology is out of date.

And you're saying "We're inventing all of this more and more destructive stuff, eventually someone's going to murder the human race with it!" Which is identical to saying I own a gun, therefore given enough time it's inevitable that someone will steal it and shoot me with it.

You obviously don't want to be reassured. You're predicting that "your kids will see their grandkids, but they won't live to see theirs." So at minimum you're predicting 3-4 generations down.

So to put that in relative perspective, you're in the early 19th century. But I'm sure you're just so awesome you could see the internet, atomic bomb, landing on the moon, antibiotics, vaccines, cars, radio, light bulbs in every room of every structure, etc from that vantage point, couldn't you? Never mind that the advances we make in the next 3 generations will likely dwarf what we've done in the previous ten.

But you want to take a depressing view you can't possibly logically support? Be my guest.

 

[irishScott]

eh, despite our capacity to kill in much greater numbers, you'll notice that our wars are getting far less bloody as the decades progress.

an atrocity like Antietam, where you see 10s of thousands of bodies pile up in a a single day are simply unconsionable now--even when you think of day slike Operation Overlord, only 70 years after.

Look back at the Peleponesian wars, and much, much later, when Sala'hadin was laying waste to vast swaths of Persia and you would have 200k deaths in a single day.

a single fucking day...of hacking each other with swords.

It took about 500 years for humanity to return to that scale of insanity; and in 1945 we certainly managed to up the ante in efficient killing with mere minutes on the scale....and you know what? Never again.

Yeah, he's not predicting we'll do it willingly, he's predicting Osama-bin-future will get his hands on whatever our equivalent of the death star is and kill all humanity.

Because we'd just leave weapons that powerful lying around where anyone could pick them up...

 

[irishScott]

I'd like to see you "white hat" this.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/346997/description/Controversial_bird_flu_papers_fly


How about a slow virus? Something that sits quietly until a whole population is infected then switches on and kills?

Talk to me in a decade or two when we have a cure.

I'd also like to point out that Bird Flu only has about a 60% mortality rate. So even in the absolute worst case scenario: Cities fall, civilizations are wiped out, governments destabilize and chaos ensues, but 2.8 BILLION humans survive to repopulate the planet, likely with a developed immunity to the virus.

 

[Markbnj]

HAH! The holodeck is actually one of the most plausible sci fi devices they had on the show! You only have 5 senses to fool. Fooling humans into believing in alternate realities won't take much technological advancement. Heck they do it to themselves all the time when they believe fairy tales with no evidence just to name one example.

Lol, please. If that was the technology they wouldn't need the deck. You'd sit in a chair and put a helmet on. The holodeck creates these virtual worlds where virtual items have dimensions, mass and density. Admit it, it's silly.

 

[disappoint]

Lol, please. If that was the technology they wouldn't need the deck. You'd sit in a chair and put a helmet on. The holodeck creates these virtual worlds where virtual items have dimensions, mass and density. Admit it, it's silly.

Ok fine you want to go there? Forget about fooling your senses then. That's just child's play. Let's go one step further. All of reality as we know it is made up of fields. Matter fields, energy fields, etc. Manipulating those fields one day is not out of the realm of possibility as it breaks no laws of physics.

 

[sdifox]

im still holding out for that fusion guy to come back and start a new thread

Adlep is not the fusion guy. He is the cold fushion guy. Fusion is being worked on and is inching forward.

 

[Markbnj]

Ok fine you want to go there? Forget about fooling your senses then. That's just child's play. Let's go one step further. All of reality as we know it is made up of fields. Matter fields, energy fields, etc. Manipulating those fields one day is not out of the realm of possibility as it breaks no laws of physics.

Then why is it called a "holodeck" and not a "unified field projector?"

Still going with silly.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Talk to me in a decade or two when we have a cure.

I'd also like to point out that Bird Flu only has about a 60% mortality rate. So even in the absolute worst case scenario: Cities fall, civilizations are wiped out, governments destabilize and chaos ensues, but 2.8 BILLION humans survive to repopulate the planet, likely with a developed immunity to the virus.

Okey doke.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

eh, despite our capacity to kill in much greater numbers, you'll notice that our wars are getting far less bloody as the decades progress.

an atrocity like Antietam, where you see 10s of thousands of bodies pile up in a a single day are simply unconsionable now--even when you think of day slike Operation Overlord, only 70 years after.

Look back at the Peleponesian wars, and much, much later, when Sala'hadin was laying waste to vast swaths of Persia and you would have 200k deaths in a single day.

a single fucking day...of hacking each other with swords.

It took about 500 years for humanity to return to that scale of insanity; and in 1945 we certainly managed to up the ante in efficient killing with mere minutes on the scale....and you know what? Never again.

I'm not thinking nations. I'm talking about a crazy ass grad student with a really spiffy molecular genetic tool kit. Gene spicing isn't all that hard now.

 

[sandorski]

Drain your coolant....you're closer than you think...

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Ok fine you want to go there? Forget about fooling your senses then. That's just child's play. Let's go one step further. All of reality as we know it is made up of fields. Matter fields, energy fields, etc. Manipulating those fields one day is not out of the realm of possibility as it breaks no laws of physics.

How do you deal with entropy?

 

[Geosurface]

How close are we to warp engines ?

According to my readings, less than 20 feet away.

 

[Paul98]

Considering right now we can't even send information faster than light. Along with the only things we see moving faster than light is due to the expansion of space. I don't see it happening even in 1000 years.

But that being said we don't have to travel faster than light to travel to the farthest reaches of space. Constantly accelerating at 1g we could travel across our galaxy in 12 years. The problem with this is that if you want to go back to earth a huge amount of time would have passed.

 

[Paul98]

Though with learning computers and AI we might be able to get a huge jump in knowledge in the somewhat near future. That would be game changing. We also are working on things that should allow humans to live much much longer and in good health.

 

[CZroe]

Someone call the whaaambulance.

In first contact, humanity has just finished WWIII, and when the Borg sphere starts orbital bombardment of the site the humans of the time mistake it for an attack from one of the ex-warring nation states; so clearly there's been significant technological developments if orbital, surface-bombardment weapons platforms were in common use.

"Scrap parts" then are not "scrap parts" now. Hell nowadays we put 4-function calculators on key-chains and give them away to people who likely throw them away. Think that would have been done 50 years ago?

About 26 years ago I got a free "Big B Drugs" branded credit-card-sized solar calculator. Didn't see anything like it, free or otherwise, for many years. These days we should be seeing a lot more.

These days we should be seeing a lot better technology in our freebies, like the video ad in Entertainment Weekly or the E-ink page in Esquire:
http://www.wired.com/business/2009/08/cbs-embeds-a-video-playing-ad-in-a-print-magazine/

 

[dighn]

personally I think we'll reach a type of civilization where the long years of sub-light travel become irrelevant long before we have faster-than-light travel (assuming FTL is even possible). by that I mean technologies such as astronautical automation, life extension, thought virtualization etc. i.e. things that have theoretical basis and involve energy levels within our reach.

 

[Chaotic42]

A quick check says we need 185655 more research points and should finish in 3457 more turns.

 

[God Mode]

All of this is pointless for the most of you.

With the state of global politics, we'll all either be slaves or living in subterranean slums while the wealthy overlords rule us from the sky with their fancy food replicators and sex bots.

 

[aarontpx]

sex bots.

Who wants to get rich? Get on the "lets build super sex bots" wagon with me. It'll be like minting our own gold bricks.

 

[God Mode]

Who wants to get rich? Get on the "lets build super sex bots" wagon with me. It'll be like minting our own gold bricks.

I'm beyond bots. I want to create a device that roots into your brain and directly stimulates the pleasure sections of the brain making physical exertion unnecessary.

We can create a subscription model with daily allotments or for the affluent, an unlimited usage agreement. I believe my idea will make recreational drugs and most other forms of entertainment obsolete. Hippies can have their oldschool sloppy sex.

 

[aarontpx]

I'm beyond bots. I want to create a device that roots into your brain and directly stimulates the pleasure sections of the brain making physical exertion unnecessary. We can create a subscription model with daily allotments or for the affluent, an unlimited usage agreement. I believe my idea will make recreational drugs and most other forms of entertainment obsolete. Hippies can have their oldschool sloppy sex.

Unlimited usage agreement seems like a bad idea to start with, we need to get these people addicted so they pay everytime. Maybe in the future we can offer like 10x usage packs with like a 5% mark down People WILL pay for sex.

 

[BladeVenom]

personally I think we'll reach a type of civilization where the long years of sub-light travel become irrelevant long before we have faster-than-light travel (assuming FTL is even possible). by that I mean technologies such as astronautical automation, life extension, thought virtualization etc. i.e. things that have theoretical basis and involve energy levels within our reach.

All we need is cryogenics and radiation shielding. It might be slow, but they'll be frozen.

 

[disappoint]

How do you deal with entropy?

How do I deal with it? I am not the one who has to deal with it. Just understand it. The universe deals with it just fine, all the time. The question here is, how do YOU...._______ (fill in the blank)

Spoiler

Understand it? You were going to say deal with it weren't you? How did I guess?

If you're asking what you asked, I know that you don't.

Yet.

I could just tell you. But that would take a few pages. Then you might have more questions, then that would take some more pages.

And on and on it goes. Speaking of things that go on and on...

Maybe I'll just give you some hints. Because it's a very good question you asked you see.

So speaking of things that go on and on, the universe goes on and on too, forever. It is infinite. The observable part? Not so much.

So objects beyond the observable part are moving away from the observer at speeds exceeding c.

This means you are also moving faster than c from another observer who is moving faster than c from you. It's all relative. No matter where you observe from, at some distance, spacetime is flying away from you at >c.

You can see where this is going. Right?:awe:

 

[steve wilson]

I think it will take a few hundred years. There are so many different areas of science that needs to advance to get to that stage. Eventually it will be possible, it's just whether we get enough time to figure it out. Nuclear war/natural disaster could wipe us out before we have the chance.