Highly recommend John Brunner's *The Sheep Look Up* for fans of ecological disaster.
davew On Fri, Aug 6, 2021, at 8:28 PM, Steve Smith wrote: > ... unbending the psychonaut thread > >> And something will have to power the artificial magnetosphere after the >> teraforming.. > ... as I understand it, Mars lost it's magnetosphere a (long) while back and > nobody knows why (with the atmosphere and liquid water following, blown off > into space by the solar wind). > > I think we should just wait another millisecond in our exponential > technological growth curve and build a Stapledon Sphere > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaf_Stapledon> (more commonly referenced as a > Dyson Sphere) instead. Stapledon's Golden Age era _*First and Last Men*_ > presaged both terraforming and genetic engineering . > > Jack Williamson (whose horn I toot here often), another Golden Age author, > wrote (in modernish times - 2001) the novel Terraforming Earth (he died at 98 > in 2006). A good friend of mine (who introduced us) met Jack when he (my > friend) was a pre-teen and kept in touch for the next 50+ years, gave him the > title "Terraforming Terra" which Jack really liked but they both were > ultimately overruled by his publisher. *Terraforming Terra *is much more > poetic than *Terraforming Earth*, no? > > (speaking of Terraforming... Mars) I held off reading Kim Stanley Robinson's > Red/Green/Blue Mars trilogy (ca early 90s) until Musk started being > convincing (to me) that he might get a modest number of humans TO Mars in his > (and my?) lifetime. I'm still an ffFFFing luddite about these things, but I > also see an inevitable arc here. Robinson did a good job (I thought) of > characterizing the sociopoliticalspiritual implications of all this. I > forget how he solved the magnetosphere problem (or powered it). > > For anyone who thinks there are endogenous existential threats afoot (e.g. > climate change) and also appreciates speculative fiction, I highly recommend > Robinson's Ministry-for-the-Future > <https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50998056-the-ministry-for-the-future> > written/published before COVID but not by much. While it doesn't > exhaustively discuss every sociopoliticaleconomictechnical response to a > tumbled gyro of our noo-bio-cryo-sphere of a planet, it covers a lot very > convincingly. I don't suggest any of his maunderings will come true or even > have more than passing resemblance to the future we are stumbling into in the > next few decades, but it was satisfying to read someone who has clearly > researched the hell out of the stuff coming at us like a swarm of bugs > hitting our windshield (while we proudly outdrive our headlights). > >> >>> On Aug 6, 2021, at 4:52 PM, Steve Smith <sasm...@swcp.com> wrote: >>> >>> Marcus Daniels wrote: >>> >>>> Don't forget about Mars! >>> >>> LANL physicist Steve Howe was a proponent of plowsharing Rover >>> <https://www.lanl.gov/science/NSS/issue1_2011/story4full.shtml> into a >>> nuclear rocket for Mars with the argument that the radiation exposure to >>> astronauts by the drive was less than the extra time spent outside the >>> earth's magnetic field (charged-particle shield) in the cosmic/solar >>> radiation flux. >>> >>> He went on to promoting antimatter (anti-protons) instead: >>> >>> >>> https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2020/06/steven-howe-breakthroughs-for-antimatter-production-and-storage.html >>> >>> Oh yeh, and he's the first person I know to have self-published (science) >>> fiction through Amazon (before Doug Roberts even). >>> >>> He used to carry a briefcase full of copies on his work-travels to sell on >>> the plane and/or restock the rack at the ABQ Sunport. I Just checked his >>> Amazon page and it seems he's continued to riff: >>> >>>> Steven-Howe >>>> <https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/entity/author/B005L9MAL2?_encoding=UTF8&node=283155&offset=0&pageSize=12&searchAlias=stripbooks&sort=author-sidecar-rank&page=1&langFilter=default#formatSelectorHeader> >>>> >>> His first book exposes his techno-libertarian tendencies. I just learned >>> of the sequel(s). >>> >>> >>> >>>> -----Original Message----- >>>> From: Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> On Behalf Of >>>> thompnicks...@gmail.com >>>> Sent: Friday, August 6, 2021 8:24 AM >>>> To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' >>>> <friam@redfish.com> >>>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] for our psychonauts >>>> >>>> Reminds me of that period in which people were desperately looking for >>>> something to do with nuclear explosives other than kill one another. Like: >>>> "Let's blow a new hole in the Isthmus of Panama!" Project Plowshares, it >>>> was called. >>>> >>>> Nick Thompson >>>> thompnicks...@gmail.com >>>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ >>>> >>>> -----Original Message----- >>>> From: Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ?>$ >>>> Sent: Friday, August 6, 2021 10:57 AM >>>> To: FriAM <friam@redfish.com> >>>> Subject: [FRIAM] for our psychonauts >>>> >>>> >>>> What Should We Make Of Sasha Chapin's Claim That Taking LSD Restored His >>>> Sense Of Smell After COVID? >>>> https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/what-should-we-make-of-sasha-chapins >>>> >>>> I haven't read it, yet. I'm hoping posting it here will remind me to >>>> actually read it. >>>> >>>> -- >>>> ☤>$ uǝlƃ >>>> >>>> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . >>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >>>> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe >>>> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >>>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >>>> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ >>>> >>>> >>>> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . >>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >>>> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe >>>> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >>>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >>>> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ >>>> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . >>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >>>> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam >>>> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >>>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >>>> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ >>>> >>>> >>> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . >>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >>> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam >>> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >>> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ >> >> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam >> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ >> > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ >
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