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[Belteshazzar]

So who's up for quantum computing? Seriously by that point it may become easier to invade other brane spaces or collapse them into our own.

[Baughn]

I see your millions of years and raise you AI and nanotechnology.

Seriously, it might seem like a long time now, but to our descendants it might not.


There are good reasons not to build anything like a dyson sphere, though. Ignoring the dyson sphere itself being impossible and intrinsically unstable.. you'd still end up using only one percent of the star's fuel, while having to somehow store its entire output when you can't figure out what to do with it.

[MuonDecay]

the sun (which will radiate 99.99999% of the energy into space)

Let's build a buuthandi!!

I have no idea what that is, but it would be awesome if we could build some sort of lead shell around the sun that orbited in a way so that sunlight and radiation would only reach earth.

It wouldn't be lead, but a Dyson Sphere is a theoretical construction which would encapsulate a star in order to collect the energy it radiates in all directions.

It's also so vast a construction that it is unlikely mankind will survive long enough to attempt it, of course. There's probably not enough usable mass in the solar system to build such a thing from, which means it would require interstellar travel and freight, which would probably require the sort of energy you get from a Dyson Sphere.

Catch-22.

[Mel_Vixen]

[nerdism]

Buuthandi = a Dyson sphere. It was Gatekeeper-term form the Webcomic "Schlock mercenary" and was first used iirc durring the "Terraport war"

It also meant "very large" iirc in our language(s).

The mass for a dysonsphere is relativly easy to get cause a dysonsphere dont has to be very thick and dont needs a very big radius.

The two meteorbelts of our sunsytem + some planets should have enought material to create a thin dysonsphere with a distantce of 0,3871 AU to the suns surface (same distance Merkur/sun).

done right we can grow a dysonsphere that is also a fungus 

[/nerdism]
 

[Baughn]

IIRC, "Buuthandi" translates literally to "this was (very?) expensive to build".

..yeah, it would be.

[Alfador]

[nerdism]

Buuthandi = a Dyson sphere. It was Gatekeeper-term form the Webcomic "Schlock mercenary" and was first used iirc durring the "Terraport war"

It also meant "very large" iirc in our language(s).

The mass for a dysonsphere is relativly easy to get cause a dysonsphere dont has to be very thick and dont needs a very big radius.

The two meteorbelts of our sunsytem + some planets should have enought material to create a thin dysonsphere with a distantce of 0,3871 AU to the suns surface (same distance Merkur/sun).

done right we can grow a dysonsphere that is also a fungus 

[/nerdism]
 

THANK you! Good to know someone gets it. I was expecting people to at least google it if they couldn't figure it out!

[LegoLord]

The sun will last 10 billion years

well, you bolster that with another tinier sun! - Jupiter.
You might squeek 11 billion years or so. However I doubt we will be a similiar form in 10 billion years.

Humans have stopped evolving.  We'll look the same.

[Footkerchief]

I doubt he was referring to "natural" evolution.

[LegoLord]

I doubt he was referring to "natural" evolution.

We'll still look the same.  Genetic alteration to that extent would be very harmful and probably illegal by the future government.  Wouldn't be considered ethical.

[Vigilant]

I'm no scientist, certainly not a fungi-specialist, but fungi don't consume as much nutrients as photosynthesising plants do, right? Include the fact that they're living deep underground, surrounded by a wealth of minerals (for nutrients, not money ) and they should be able to live for a very long time.

On a totally stupid note: Perhaps long enough to become sentient, cover the globe and... something... We'd all be dead in this hypothetical scenario, right? So it wouldn't be terrorizing us... What's a planet-sized sentient fungus to do?

Well, it waits for humans to come back, then it sends humanoid versions of itself to talk to them. Then the humans learn how to use the thought waves of it to power mechs and airships, and um... yea. Cookie time for reference. As soon as I saw that post I had to say something

[numerobis]

I doubt he was referring to "natural" evolution.

We'll still look the same.  Genetic alteration to that extent would be very harmful and probably illegal by the future government.  Wouldn't be considered ethical.

You clearly don't believe in AI.

The CMU robotics institute students made a popular T-shirt labeled "CMU RI: bringing on the robot holocaust since 1979."

[Baughn]

Even if you ignore the rest of the possibilities (nanotech, cyborgism and, yes, AI), what makes you think all the genetic engineering possibilities will be harmful, let alone forbidden?

In ten billion years, even?

No.

Just, no.

[Alfador]

I doubt he was referring to "natural" evolution.

We'll still look the same.  Genetic alteration to that extent would be very harmful and probably illegal by the future government.  Wouldn't be considered ethical.

How do you know what will be illegal by a government 10 billion years in the future? Are you a time traveler? ...Or are you not allowed to answer that question, for fear of causing a paradox?

[LegoLord]

Trends in human thinking.  It tends not to change, no matter how long you go into the future.  Such things would only be used to save lives.

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

The sun will last 10 billion years

well, you bolster that with another tinier sun! - Jupiter.
You might squeek 11 billion years or so. However I doubt we will be a similiar form in 10 billion years.

Humans have stopped evolving.  We'll look the same.

This is 10 billion years
Chances are the human race won't even be a memory by then.

EDIT:
And even if we are still around we'll have embraced genetic manipulation. We might oppose it at first, but deep down we're still curious monkeys who understand that having glowing skin and 4 arms is cool.