Why do most wannabe SF writers reject science?

[Junghalli]

The meek shall inherit the Earth, the rest of us will take the stars. What are the rednecks and treehuggers that can actually comprehend the event going to do? March on Washington?

I don't think it's so much rednecks and treehuggers he was talking about there as governments that would have an interest in stability and security, which are ill-served by a situation where every Tom, Dick, and Harry has access to potential WMDs. Governments have every incentive to try to keep potential WMDs out of the hands of random non-state actors. This is true for nuclear material in today's world, and it's most likely going to be true for potentially planet-destroying phased array lasers in the world of 2200. I believe it's part of his argument about why random people wouldn't be trusted with the kind of energy needed to launch high fraction of c starships.

If so it's wrong, however, because a starship riding a laser pusher doesn't control that energy any more than a subway train operator controls the power plant that keeps the subway trains running. The system is a lot like an electric railroad in that the vehicle doesn't supply the energy and has very limited freedom of movement, so it's got very little terrorist potential. Bussard ramjets would be the ones to worry about in that respect (if we could overcome the formidable technological challenges of building them).

[Simon_Jester]

Laser lightsail propulsion requires something like 6-7 gigawatts per newton. So a 1 million ton ship accelerating at 1 gravity would use somewhat less than 7 X 10^19 joules. That is a little less than .00002% of the sun's energy.

A fairly robust colonization program certainly seems feasible even if it is a very low priority for the civilization as a whole.

Absolutely, so long as the guys controlling the launch lasers are trusted by the rest of civilization. Though I really don't think you'd see "colonies per second" levels; allowing for the limited efficiency of the Dyson swarm and the proportion of the system energy budget being spent on other purposes, I don't think you'd get more than something on the order of 10000 ships going at a time. And they take an average of well over 10 years to get where they're going... that doesn't multiply up to anything much faster than "colonies per day," at best.

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EY has some sort of 'legalize rape' fetish, I'm not sure what it is or if he even has any real comprehension of the phenomenon.

Did he ever promote this idea anywhere else, or did it just occur in this one place?
If it just occured in one place, then the most likely explanation is that he was trying to prove that his future society is WEIRD, in which case he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. If he's brought it up before or since, your explanation is as good as anything else I can think of.

He also brings it up as a potential for how far society might 'degenerate', I think in his 'Continuous Extrapolated Vision' article (if I spelled that right). I don't think he understands what is going on with our 'degeneration' - the rise of individual will and respect for that will, so long as it does not interfere with another.

Wait... does he mention it as a good idea, or does he mention it as something that might conceivably happen in some hypothetical weird society? It matters. For example, Heinlein introduced certain sexual weirdnesses repeatedly in his work, in terms that make it pretty clear he approves. Does Yudkowsky believe that "legalized nonconsensual sex" is a good idea (which I doubt), or is it just something he's thought of? Remember, the guy has a very powerful idea generator in his brain; the fact that he thinks of a sexual weirdness does not mean he has a fetish for it or that he approves of it.
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It's really hard to predict how it can turn out, being the future and all.

The issue is not so much that it might be a unified or diversified political bloc - keep in mind, whoever builds this sort of thing is going to be beyond any sort of need for resources. There is a not-insignificant chance that it actually gets set up as a system authority sort of scenario - the controller would not be human, but something a number of humans understood and agreed to. This has several advantages - you need technically and mathematically keen people to design this sort of thing, you do not want to fuck up, and in game theory terms, the benefit for cooperation is effectively guaranteed +infinity, while non-cooperation has a large -infinity chance. The problem has "cooperate, dumbass" written on its face.

Any rational agent is going to want to cooperate and find an ideal solution. The threat is some yahoo group actually managing to get a four-year head start. It falls under the level of 'existential risk', much the way Seed AI proponents discuss.

As long as people are aware of just how much power even a partial Dyson statite swarm offers, there will be plenty of 'old style' power blocs willing to vaporize anyone they don't trust with that power level before the new groups can build up enough of a swarm to be invincible and all-powerful, so I think the existential risk is relatively low-probability here.

The first group to build such a swarm is, by necessity, going to be a group that its peer-groups were willing to trust with that kind of power, because a Dyson statite swarm cannot be constructed in secret or out of range of enemy attack.
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The concept of taxes in a society where individuals can be direct generators of more wealth than Earth has ever had is a bit amusing.

It would work more like "This many people want to give Venus a moon and terraform it. This many people want to expand our energy harvesting. This many people want to colonize stars 453-657. This many people want to terraform Mars. This many people want to terraform the Galilean satellites. This many people want to harvest deuterium from Uranus and Neptune. ..."

After you tally up the exaprojects, you distribute energy accordingly, possibly weighted e.g. their will be plenty of interest for terraforming Mars and that will only happen so fast.

In this case, when I said "taxes" I meant "resources (esp. energy) diverted from a project I'm interested in to a project I'm not interested in." When you get down to it, that's what ALL taxes are; an organized body allocates some of 'your' resources to something else that you wouldn't normally use them for.

The real question comes at the transition from "power is controlled by large organizations and sold to individuals, who use it only for 'personal' goals" to "power is controlled by individuals who use it both for 'personal' and 'large-scale' goals." I'm not sure people will keep building more statites to power civilization through that inflection point, not least because of the potential threat involved in giving random strangers access to terawatt-range power supplies.
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Remember that we're talking about planet-devastating energy levels here. Launch lasers for interstellar colony ships are more dangerous than nuclear weapons by orders of magnitude, and you damn sure don't see those being available to even large civilian organizations. Not even if those organizations protest that what they want the nukes for is 'really important'. So the level of social will required to sign over thousands of laser launch batteries is... nontrivial, just like the level required to sign over an arsenal of hydrogen bombs for an Orion drive.

The meek shall inherit the Earth, the rest of us will take the stars. What are the rednecks and treehuggers that can actually comprehend the event going to do? March on Washington?

Ah, yes, the apotheosis of the chauvinistic nerds... I don't buy it.

Remember, above all else, that governments are not stupid. At any given time they hold almost all the cards; if they didn't then someone else would replace them as the government. If you and your million fellow-minded colonization enthusiasts try to pull together a collection to build a Dyson swarm and a battery of lasers to fly out of the solar system, they're going to be asking you some pointed questions before you even get off the ground. They already have significant power resources of their own; they might be insignificant compared to what you could hypothetically have but they're damned sure significant compared to what you DO have. And they're not going to let you grab the keys to anything powerful enough to destroy them until they know very, very well they can trust you.

You might be able to trick the rednecks and acquire phenomenal cosmic power before they realize what's happening. But fooling Pentagon military analysts is not so easy. They may not be interested in interstellar flight, but that doesn't mean they can't do the math.
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So a nonhuman species for whom self-determination is already a creepy alien concept and is told that we take it dead seriously, so seriously that it's as important to us as doing utilitarian good, is going to be skeptical. They're going to point to all the people in our own history who infringed on others' self-determination for the sake of a proclaimed utilitarian good, and ask why they were not stopped, the way that someone who had pronounced their intention to eat thousands of babies would have been. If we take this so seriously when we're suddenly talking to aliens planning to reshape our species... why don't we take it so seriously when talking among ourselves?

In EY's world, probably not. In a future in which you or I are actually talking with said aliens, there would be a clear point at which we grew past that.

I am not so optimistic; I do not expect people to outgrow the impulse to find ways to make others do what they want.

Power corrupts even the rationalist technophiles when they actually start to get it.

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The meek shall inherit the Earth, the rest of us will take the stars. What are the rednecks and treehuggers that can actually comprehend the event going to do? March on Washington?

I don't think it's so much rednecks and treehuggers he was talking about there as governments that would have an interest in stability and security, which are ill-served by a situation where every Tom, Dick, and Harry has access to potential WMDs. Governments have every incentive to try to keep potential WMDs out of the hands of random non-state actors. This is true for nuclear material in today's world, and it's most likely going to be true for potentially planet-destroying phased array lasers in the world of 2200. I believe it's part of his argument about why random people wouldn't be trusted with the kind of energy needed to launch high fraction of c starships.

Well, they won't. The laser batteries are going to be the exclusive monopoly of people who had enough clout to build them without anyone else trying to stop them. People who don't have enough of other kinds of power to stop existing governments from interfering don't get them, any more than they get their own nuclear bombs today.

If so it's wrong, however, because a starship riding a laser pusher doesn't control that energy any more than a subway train operator controls the power plant that keeps the subway trains running. The system is a lot like an electric railroad in that the vehicle doesn't supply the energy and has very limited freedom of movement, so it's got very little terrorist potential. Bussard ramjets would be the ones to worry about in that respect (if we could overcome the formidable technological challenges of building them).

Thing is, the way Xeriar phrased it, it's strongly implied that one of these launch laser arrays gets built by a consortium of like-minded individuals, one that Xeriar identifies with, and not by a government. That's what I don't believe; I don't find it credible that existing power blocs will let some bunch of random people acquire control over the launch lasers. If they all hop on the ship and get fired into space by someone else's laser, that's fine as long as the someone else is trustworthy.

My argument is not that launch lasers will not be built; it's that they won't be built purely because Citizens # 5.9432 billion through 5.9433 billion want them built.

[Junghalli]

My argument is not that launch lasers will not be built; it's that they won't be built purely because Citizens # 5.9432 billion through 5.9433 billion want them built.

They may very well be, if the starting resources required are negligeable. They'd just be under the control of a trusted third party (probably an AI at this technological level), not under the direct control of the people who want to use them.

[Samuel]

I'm not sure people will keep building more statites to power civilization through that inflection point, not least because of the potential threat involved in giving random strangers access to terawatt-range power supplies.

Satellite.

Also, expansion does mean decentralizing control.

Remember, above all else, that governments are not stupid. At any given time they hold almost all the cards; if they didn't then someone else would replace them as the government. If you and your million fellow-minded colonization enthusiasts try to pull together a collection to build a Dyson swarm and a battery of lasers to fly out of the solar system, they're going to be asking you some pointed questions before you even get off the ground.

All of the speculation assumes that the government builds the swarm in the first place and colonists appear latter when there is enough power generation for their project to be feasible.

I am not so optimistic; I do not expect people to outgrow the impulse to find ways to make others do what they want.

Power corrupts even the rationalist technophiles when they actually start to get it.

Only because you don't have absolute power. Once you do everything becomes much easier... er anyway this is why we use non humans- systems with extremely clearly defined rules or AIs.

...
How much difference is there between a laser for a colony ship and one to direct power to a planet?

[TheLostVikings]

I'm not sure people will keep building more statites to power civilization through that inflection point, not least because of the potential threat involved in giving random strangers access to terawatt-range power supplies.

Satellite.

Statite

[Ariphaos]

I don't think it's so much rednecks and treehuggers he was talking about there as governments that would have an interest in stability and security, which are ill-served by a situation where every Tom, Dick, and Harry has access to potential WMDs. Governments have every incentive to try to keep potential WMDs out of the hands of random non-state actors. This is true for nuclear material in today's world, and it's most likely going to be true for potentially planet-destroying phased array lasers in the world of 2200. I believe it's part of his argument about why random people wouldn't be trusted with the kind of energy needed to launch high fraction of c starships.

If so it's wrong, however, because a starship riding a laser pusher doesn't control that energy any more than a subway train operator controls the power plant that keeps the subway trains running. The system is a lot like an electric railroad in that the vehicle doesn't supply the energy and has very limited freedom of movement, so it's got very little terrorist potential. Bussard ramjets would be the ones to worry about in that respect (if we could overcome the formidable technological challenges of building them).

Without a disruptive scenario such as seed AI or commonplace fabrication, it will certainly be governments that initiate the process. But the people making the decisions - from the coding on up - are going to be the ones responsible for creating the harvesting system, and they are not necessarily going to trust themselves to do it correctly and most certainly not another government. Cooperating with teams from other governments, however, is certainly a possibility.

The people initiating the process - whomever they are - will know at some point that they are creating a self-sustaining process in space.

Satellite.

If you can come up with an orbital mechanism that can allow satellites to absorb more than a tiny fraction of the Sun's power, I'd love to see it. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, between .06-.2 AU, light energy put off by the Sun is a meaningful amount of force. Statites so constructed will work for the same reason light sails will in the first place. In addition, distributing the energy becomes much easier.

Wait... does he mention it as a good idea, or does he mention it as something that might conceivably happen in some hypothetical weird society? It matters. For example, Heinlein introduced certain sexual weirdnesses repeatedly in his work, in terms that make it pretty clear he approves. Does Yudkowsky believe that "legalized nonconsensual sex" is a good idea (which I doubt), or is it just something he's thought of? Remember, the guy has a very powerful idea generator in his brain; the fact that he thinks of a sexual weirdness does not mean he has a fetish for it or that he approves of it.

It was originally presented as a means by which we might find a future society revolting but that it would be perfectly normal to said society. Seeing him drop it into a society of his creation is odd. I think it's a case of him not being so wise as he thinks he is.

As long as people are aware of just how much power even a partial Dyson statite swarm offers, there will be plenty of 'old style' power blocs willing to vaporize anyone they don't trust with that power level before the new groups can build up enough of a swarm to be invincible and all-powerful, so I think the existential risk is relatively low-probability here.

The first group to build such a swarm is, by necessity, going to be a group that its peer-groups were willing to trust with that kind of power, because a Dyson statite swarm cannot be constructed in secret or out of range of enemy attack.

Well, it can be built out of effective range (Moon colony). It can't be created in secret, no.

The most likely scenario to me is a cooperation between the space agencies of various superpowers. This is not quite the same as their governments, but there will be a push for transparency for the simple fact that it won't be a secret.

In this case, when I said "taxes" I meant "resources (esp. energy) diverted from a project I'm interested in to a project I'm not interested in." When you get down to it, that's what ALL taxes are; an organized body allocates some of 'your' resources to something else that you wouldn't normally use them for.

The real question comes at the transition from "power is controlled by large organizations and sold to individuals, who use it only for 'personal' goals" to "power is controlled by individuals who use it both for 'personal' and 'large-scale' goals." I'm not sure people will keep building more statites to power civilization through that inflection point, not least because of the potential threat involved in giving random strangers access to terawatt-range power supplies.

Gods, no. You do not let any single individual have access to this power. You don't even let groups have access to it. A rational AGI is the most obvious solution, but I'm not sure if it's necessary.

The 'voting' population would get to divide its power between goals it wanted to see formed - including its own survival, etc. Desired goals would need to be approved by the system authority before being enacted, as a safety measure.

Ah, yes, the apotheosis of the chauvinistic nerds... I don't buy it.

Remember, above all else, that governments are not stupid. At any given time they hold almost all the cards; if they didn't then someone else would replace them as the government. If you and your million fellow-minded colonization enthusiasts try to pull together a collection to build a Dyson swarm and a battery of lasers to fly out of the solar system, they're going to be asking you some pointed questions before you even get off the ground. They already have significant power resources of their own; they might be insignificant compared to what you could hypothetically have but they're damned sure significant compared to what you DO have. And they're not going to let you grab the keys to anything powerful enough to destroy them until they know very, very well they can trust you.

You might be able to trick the rednecks and acquire phenomenal cosmic power before they realize what's happening. But fooling Pentagon military analysts is not so easy. They may not be interested in interstellar flight, but that doesn't mean they can't do the math.

The goal is not to fool the Pentagon, or many nations larger than say, Ecuador. It has nothing to do with fooling the people smart enough to realize what the situation entails, and everything to do with fostering cooperation.

[Simon_Jester]

I'm not sure people will keep building more statites to power civilization through that inflection point, not least because of the potential threat involved in giving random strangers access to terawatt-range power supplies.

Satellite.

No; we're talking about Dyson swarms of solar cells held up by light pressure, remember? Statites, not satellites. At least, that's the power supply. The laser batteries might very well be satellites, of course.

Remember, above all else, that governments are not stupid. At any given time they hold almost all the cards; if they didn't then someone else would replace them as the government. If you and your million fellow-minded colonization enthusiasts try to pull together a collection to build a Dyson swarm and a battery of lasers to fly out of the solar system, they're going to be asking you some pointed questions before you even get off the ground.

All of the speculation assumes that the government builds the swarm in the first place and colonists appear latter when there is enough power generation for their project to be feasible.

On the contrary, if no one has a swarm yet it's even easier to stop anyone building the first parts, because the infrastructure to build more of it isn't in place yet. You'll need tools and resources drawn from elsewhere to strip-mine Mercury for materials and start positioning solar power arrays; whoever now has control over those resources won't just ignore you while you bootstrap yourself into a position to dictate terms to them.
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The people initiating the process - whomever they are - will know at some point that they are creating a self-sustaining process in space.

Yes, but they'll also know that they now have enough power to stop the self-sustaining process from putting power into the wrong hands, by making sure the power company* is trustworthy and by blasting any untrustworthy types who try to build their own arrays with their own massive Dyson swarm-powered laser cannons.

*In the most general possible sense of the word
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Again, none of this means that laser-launched solar sail craft won't be built and used, only that they won't be the result of small groups of private citizens building the necessary infrastructure. I can't foresee the human race having a future in that kind of environment if we're dumb enough to hand that amount of power to any single interest group, regardless of what their interests may be. It would be closely equivalent to handing out nukes to anyone who could get a few hundred signatures on a petition.

If you can come up with an orbital mechanism that can allow satellites to absorb more than a tiny fraction of the Sun's power, I'd love to see it. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, between .06-.2 AU, light energy put off by the Sun is a meaningful amount of force. Statites so constructed will work for the same reason light sails will in the first place. In addition, distributing the energy becomes much easier.

To be fair, any statite is a satellite if you put it a little further out from the Sun. There's no fundamental difference in the design except that one of them has a lateral velocity and the other doesn't. And, yes, it's harder to funnel power away from them.
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Well, it can be built out of effective range (Moon colony). It can't be created in secret, no.

The most likely scenario to me is a cooperation between the space agencies of various superpowers. This is not quite the same as their governments, but there will be a push for transparency for the simple fact that it won't be a secret.

Yes... but in that case you still have to convince government bureaucrats to let you build your laser, and give them control over the power supply.

Moreover, I doubt that by the time we actually have Moon colonies, moon colonies will remain out of effective range of Earthly governments. If you can go to the moon, so can the government's enforcers.

The closest historical analogy is of minority groups in Europe trying to colonize the Americas (or Russians heading out onto the steppes to become Cossacks) to escape the authority of the government. And that only worked because the government didn't care what happened in such distant territory. Even then it didn't work reliably; look what happened to the Mormons. Any sane government cares what kind of people are living on a moon base, and is going to be very nervous about a religious minority or a "let the stupid normals on Earth go rot" cult having much control up there.

To reiterate, I don't doubt that it can work; I just think you got a bit carried away earlier with the way you portrayed the system, and the degree to which any interstellar colonization project will have to be an effort supported by governments and the social will of the general public. The tools involved are too powerful for anything else.