Pushing the Standard Model

[ysabetwordsmith]

Here's a review of physics from 2021. 

I keep waiting for people to find gravitons, but honestly, I'm kind of glad they haven't.  As much damage as they've done with other scientific advances, they don't need graviton technology where fuckups can crack a planet's crust or fling a space station across the galaxy.

Comments

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Well, if certain theories are anywhere near right, it;s possible that somebody could trigger a domain transition and that'd end the universe.<<

Yes, there are a variety of ways to end a universe...

>> Of course, the fact that the universe *is* here argues that it's damn hard to do that. <<

... fortunately, most of them are uncommon and hard to reach. But it is, ultimately, sort of like a bubble, and bubbles can pop; also, the expansion phase is followed by a contraction phase so things can reset.

>> But we're still stuck with the fact that every year the IQ required to end the world drops.... <<

Yeah. That's really not good. Especially when you consider how much of the current damage is being done by a bunch of far-flung idiots and people who are just trying to survive. It's not an orchestrated destruction.

Re: Thoughts

[kengr]

As numerous people have said, this is *the* reason we need to get self-sufficient colonies *off* earth.

That way we won't have all our eggs in one basket.

Also what we'll learn about closed ecologies will be needed to terraform earth. :-(

If we can get over that hump (and regardless of how folks feel about Branson, Bezos, et al they *are* working on getting us off this rock) then destroying humanity gets a lot harder.

Silly thought. Folks who think the California agriculture inspectors at the border are a pain will be unpleasantly surprised at the inspections they'll get if they visit a colony that still has a somewhat unstable ecosystem!

Not so silly thought. In a widespread interstellar civilization there are going to be horror stories about colonies that accidentally killed a critical link in the local ecosystem before they could get a sufficiently large "terran" ecosystem established.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> As numerous people have said, this is *the* reason we need to get self-sufficient colonies *off* earth.<<

Well, that would be some use against a cracked planet, and possibly even a flung space station, but not against decrystalizing the universe. We're nowhere near what it would take to even try salvaging that.

>> That way we won't have all our eggs in one basket.<<

Always a good plan.

*ponder* You know what we could do now? Bank some stuff on the Moon and Mars. Information at minimum, biological samples would be better. Resources for colonists if we're lucky, refugees if not.

>> Also what we'll learn about closed ecologies will be needed to terraform earth. :-(

Yyyyeah. No, actually, we've already seen that the best thing we can do here is back the fuck off. Not even a nuclear disaster was harder on wildlife than humans. You want to fix something in the biosphere, just keep everyone well away from it.

Humans are terrible at that.

>>If we can get over that hump (and regardless of how folks feel about Branson, Bezos, et al they *are* working on getting us off this rock) then destroying humanity gets a lot harder.<<

*shrug* You rarely see more than one type of genius per person. It can happen, but it usually comes at the cost of even more weird shit. Because the human brain is finite and just not really all that big when it comes to storing something as massive as a soul. If you want to upgrade one area, you're going to have to throw out something else -- maybe a lot of somethings. I have a linguistic coprocessor that does things other people insist are impossible. I also have the shareware version of the memory module that normal people use for names-faces-dates-etc. instead of their nice factory model. I wouldn't trade it. And I'm pretty sure those guys wouldn't trade whatever they tossed for what they wanted to pack into this life. People should STFU and let them work. So they're assholes, so what? Most genii are. We need genii, the popular people aren't doing jack to save us.

>>Not so silly thought. In a widespread interstellar civilization there are going to be horror stories about colonies that accidentally killed a critical link in the local ecosystem before they could get a sufficiently large "terran" ecosystem established.<<

There are colony failure horror stories in every settled space. Including Earth: "Croatoan."

One of my favorites is "The Catch." <3 whimwham trees. If that doesn't teach people not to plant invasive species, nothing will.

Re: Thoughts

[(Anonymous)]

>>*ponder* You know what we could do now? Bank some stuff on the Moon and Mars. Information at minimum, biological samples would be better. Resources for colonists if we're lucky, refugees if not.<<

I recall reading something about using the Moon as a naturally occurring cryogenic site - it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to have freeze-dried embryos or seeds, instead.

>>*shrug* You rarely see more than one type of genius per person. It can happen, but it usually comes at the cost of even more weird shit. Because the human brain is finite and just not really all that big when it comes to storing something as massive as a soul. If you want to upgrade one area, you're going to have to throw out something else -- maybe a lot of somethings. I have a linguistic coprocessor that does things other people insist are impossible. I also have the shareware version of the memory module that normal people use for names-faces-dates-etc. instead of their nice factory model. I wouldn't trade it.<<

I suppose that the overlapping skillsets allow us all to access more information - if we can interact fluently and balance out all our different skillsets.

>>And I'm pretty sure those guys wouldn't trade whatever they tossed for what they wanted to pack into this life. People should STFU and let them work. So they're assholes, so what? Most genii are. We need genii, the popular people aren't doing jack to save us.<<

I don't really like the flavor of jerkishness that involves someone essentially flaunting extravagant survival fulfillments while failing to provide for the survival needs of their followers. To be fair, that probably has a lot to do with my own upbringing and individual life experiences, and how those things have shaped my values. And the et all folks are probably acting ethically by their values...which mismatches (or seems to mismatch) enough with mine to cause error messages. And some of my annoyance is at society at large, which pushes all of us around like chess pieces on the gameboard...

...I guess I like the idea of exploration and scientific advancement...but not when it feels like it's being paid for at the expense of people's wellbeing. So go forth! Explore, advance! Do your great works! But try not to shred or stomp other people while you're working.