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[abculatter_2]

That's all very true, and you definitely seem to have heard of this before.
Although, I'm having a hard time imagining a sustainable, artificial route... I guess we could try to play god and just fuck over everything and make a new, totally human-centered earth-sized factory. Though, that sounds like a highly dangerous route, and one with a potentially razor-thin margin for error... It could, however, certainly lead to something which, when looking at the recordkeeping books, would be a significant improvement on nature.
And the price? Just your humanity, is all.

I'd personally prefer the more natural route... It means we get to laze around on the beaches instead of work the spinach factory all day long.

[Rose]

You got that mixed up.

Natural route is you work in the spinach fields all day, instead of lazing on beaches while robots work the spinach factories.

[Criptfeind]

I have absolutely no idea what you guys are talking about.

[Rose]

Neither do I, but I love chipping in when people say natural=better

[abculatter_2]

Neither do I, but I love chipping in when people say natural=better

;P

I have absolutely no idea what you guys are talking about.

Basically, we figure out a way to turn the Earth back into the Garden of Eden, and then everyone will be happy again and we won't have to fuss with all this horrible economy stuff.
Or something like that.

The videos and people are examples of how we have already taken surprising steps toward that goal in small parts of the world, now we just have to figure out how to do it globally.

[Descan]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

Robots!

Robots in the factories, robots in the restaurants, robots in the warehouses, robots in the military (if we have one), robots in the fields/greenhouses/farms!

And us humans, we laze about on the beaches, or in the labs, or build new businesses.

What I'd LOVE is have robots do the grunt work, and humans do the Innovate/Research/Relax/Whatever. The stuff that actually requires a brain, you know, the thing we're most famous for?


Note: Just because the stereotypical robot is mechanical, doesn't mean it has to be in this scenario. All robot means here is a semi-intelligent workforce, dumb enough that it's not a morally-reprehensible slave race, but smart enough to deal with most unexpected scenarios, and with more complicated, but still ultimately grunt work, manual labours.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Basically, we figure out a way to turn the Earth back into the Garden of Eden, and then everyone will be happy again and we won't have to fuss with all this horrible economy stuff.

You'd have to kill the majority of the human population, and then suffer under the conditions our ancestors did for the remainder of your short life.

You crazy.

[kaijyuu]

Do we get to strut around naked eating fruit? If so, I'm all for it.


There's an upper limit of how much energy we have to use: the amount that reaches us from the sun (and maybe some geothermal energy on the side). If we stole every drop of sunlight and converted it with 100% efficiency, we'd have ~20x the energy the world currently uses (from all sources). Not really all that much, when you think about it. So we need to be shooting for efficiency. We won't have any sort of scarcity free utopia until we have energy to use in abundance.

[Nadaka]

Do we get to strut around naked eating fruit? If so, I'm all for it.


There's an upper limit of how much energy we have to use: the amount that reaches us from the sun (and maybe some geothermal energy on the side). If we stole every drop of sunlight and converted it with 100% efficiency, we'd have ~20x the energy the world currently uses (from all sources). Not really all that much, when you think about it. So we need to be shooting for efficiency. We won't have any sort of scarcity free utopia until we have energy to use in abundance.

We would have WAY WAY more than 20 times the energy the world currently uses if we captured 100% of all sunlight hitting the earth. By vast vast margins.

[abculatter_2]

Basically, we figure out a way to turn the Earth back into the Garden of Eden, and then everyone will be happy again and we won't have to fuss with all this horrible economy stuff.

You'd have to kill the majority of the human population, and then suffer under the conditions our ancestors did for the remainder of your short life.

You crazy.

Let me revise my statement...
Garden of Eden... With technology.

Robots!

Ehhh.. I guess...
I can't see anything technically wrong with it, but I dunno, seems too close to slavery... Maybe I'm just old fashioned.

Do we get to strut around naked eating fruit? If so, I'm all for it.

Hell yeah!

There's an upper limit of how much energy we have to use: the amount that reaches us from the sun (and maybe some geothermal energy on the side). If we stole every drop of sunlight and converted it with 100% efficiency, we'd have ~20x the energy the world currently uses (from all sources). Not really all that much, when you think about it. So we need to be shooting for efficiency. We won't have any sort of scarcity free utopia until we have energy to use in abundance.

What's the efficiency of plants converting sunlight into calories?
And, to be perfectly honest, life really does NOT take THAT much energy...

We would have WAY WAY more than 20 times the energy the world currently uses if we captured 100% of all sunlight hitting the earth. By vast vast margins.

From what I've heard, he has his numbers right, but I may be wrong?
TO THE RESEARCH!

[kaijyuu]

My source is an educational video I watched last year at college, so I can't link it, and am too lazy to go to wikipedia at the moment

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Basically, we figure out a way to turn the Earth back into the Garden of Eden, and then everyone will be happy again and we won't have to fuss with all this horrible economy stuff.

You'd have to kill the majority of the human population, and then suffer under the conditions our ancestors did for the remainder of your short life.

You crazy.

Let me revise my statement...
Garden of Eden... With technology.

Modern technology doesn't just exist independent of our way of living. We need maintenance, specialists, engineers, R&D labs. 


Yes, even the sunlight that hits Earth alone is thousands of times more energy than we use. If we harnessed all of its energy we'd have massive, massive amounts of energy beyond what we could feasibly use.

[Nadaka]

each square meter receives about 1366 watts of power across the spectrum on average. Or 32.784 kilowatt/hours a day. or about 11941572 kilowatt/hours per year.

earth has a surface area of about 510,072,000,000,000 square meters. Total Earth insolation is about 6,091,061,513,184 Terrawatt/hours per year.

In 2008 human energy consumption was about 132,000 Terrawatt/hours. That is about 1/ 46,144,405.4 of earths insolation.

[penguinofhonor]

Note: Just because the stereotypical robot is mechanical, doesn't mean it has to be in this scenario. All robot means here is a semi-intelligent workforce, dumb enough that it's not a morally-reprehensible slave race, but smart enough to deal with most unexpected scenarios, and with more complicated, but still ultimately grunt work, manual labours.

This is starting to sound like the unquestionably bad parts of Brave New World.

[kaijyuu]

each square meter receives about 1366 watts of power across the spectrum on average. Or 32.784 kilowatt/hours a day. or about 11941572 kilowatt/hours per year.

earth has a surface area of about 510,072,000,000,000 square meters. Total Earth insolation is about 6,091,061,513,184 Terrawatt/hours per year.

In 2008 human energy consumption was about 132,000 Terrawatt/hours. That is about 1/ 46,144,405.4 of earths insolation.

Facts: My one weakness.