The Campaign Builder's Guild

Quote from: Light Dragon
Worried about pressurization? Explore undersea first to test at what is hopefully a cheaper price!; worried about robotics- develop them first to work on earth at long distances remotely, etc.

I suspect that this is one of the reasons why they brought Cameron onboard, he has extensive experience with stuff like this.

My feeling is that the question "can it be done?" is far more important than "is it profitable?" at this stage.  Even if a ton of money goes into an endeavor which isn't initially profitable per se that's still not money wasted if they manage to actually pull off any kind of asteroid mining, since the research they do and the stuff they build will pave the way for future, more commercially viable endeavors.  And if they fail spectacularly?  Well, future space pioneers will learn from their failures; the next time someone attempts something similar, they won't make the same mistakes.

I'm less about ZPG and more about NPG; we should be shrinking our population, ideally to a carefully managed, highly educated "paragon" society.  That is a good goal.  It's also a Cheo brand pipe dream, so make of that what you will.

Meanwhile, I dream that advancements in computer technology (or, hopefully, a more powerful technology that will usher in a post-computing age) can remove the need for humans to enter orbit and "mine" at all.  As mentioned on page 1 (skipped page 2, just realized), hauling fuel and water and whatnot up to support humans is a problem.  Additionally, since artificial gravity is, from my educational POV, fictional there's the problem of human degradation in orbit / out-of-orbit. A stop-gap would be to engineer a new phenotype (or species) that has systems made to function well in low gravity.  Another would be mechanical implants or biological enhancements to improve current human performance in orbit.  Neither of these are ideal, though - you still have the issue of needing to spend resources to bring them resources to eat.  There's corporate profits at stake here, and all cost savings are good savings.

A possible middle ground would be an especially fit and adaptable human overseeing part AI, part manually controlled systems in case we need a "thinking" brain on site.  Hell, maybe it'll literally be a brain - we've already managed to use a mouse brain to control a robot.  Once we perfect that technology there's less of an issue with body degradation.  Nobody has to sacrifice their life to pull this off in that case.

I think I had some other point to make but I can't remember.  I'll throw it up here later, if I do.  In any event, there's a golden-age scenario to chew on.

M.

Quote from: CheA possible middle ground would be an especially fit and adaptable human overseeing part AI, part manually controlled systems in case we need a "thinking" brain on site.

Ever seen Moon?  One of the best SF films of the last decade for my money, and kind of a version of what you're talking about.

EDIT: Negative population growth would be ideal, though it could bring with it a slew of problems while the population shrinks.

Quote from: Contumelious Che
Additionally, since artificial gravity is, from my educational POV, fictional there's the problem of human degradation in orbit / out-of-orbit. A stop-gap would be to engineer a new phenotype (or species) that has systems made to function well in low gravity.  Another would be mechanical implants or biological enhancements to improve current human performance in orbit.  Neither of these are ideal, though - you still have the issue of needing to spend resources to bring them resources to eat.  There's corporate profits at stake here, and all cost savings are good savings.

You can cheat gravity with centrifugal force by spinning a ship. Requires a fairly large ship to make it practical, but hey assuming we're mining asteroids we can build em large. Of course these wouldn't be for mining but rather for colonization and moving between colonies (or heck for use as space based colonies themselves if the ship is large enough). Personally if this happened I'd want to ride on one just so I could pull a dave bowman and go running along it :D

Hi Steerpike-
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Quote"Capitalism has proved to be a remarkably adaptable and remarkably good economic system"
This might degenerate into the wrong type of debate, but I'd dispute this.

Capitalism has really only been around for 200 years.  It's done some amazingly, amazingly good things.  It put the final nails in the coffin of the bizarre and horrifically unjust feudal/absolutist system, it industrialized our economy, it led to a much greater quality of life for everyone, it facilitated a tremendous amount of invention, and created an enormous amount of wealth. All tremendously good things.

But capitalism hardly has an untarnished history. 

I think you read a little much in my statement. I didn't say that Capitalism was perfect in all senses. I did say it was remarkably adaptable and remarkably good. Compared to Mercantilism or Communism, it's 100% better for increasing wealth and quality of life across the board (even for the poorest). And when you add in Welfare-State Capitalism hybrids, you can even convince some Socialist people that some amounts of Capitalism is good :).

QuoteTake the Great Famine in Ireland.  The reason that famine occurred was, in no small measure, because of the dependency on potatoes, which in turn was caused by the small size of plots, which was the result of landlords dividing up their land to maximize profits from rent.  The famine was hideously exacerbated as merchants continued to export food during even the worst years of the famine.  Some historians have shown that for some foodstuffs, exports actually increased.  With mass unemployment and poverty in Ireland, people had no money to buy food, so merchants simply shipped the food to better markets.  25% of the population - a million people - died.  Now one could argue that all sorts of factors conspired to create this bad situation, and that capitalism is hardly the sole culprit - that's totally true, and I'm not trying to lay the famine solely at the feet of capitalism.  But it really, really didn't help.  Profits were put before people, with disastrous results.  Government regulation, intervention (export bans, government projects for employment), and increased workers' rights and wages would have hugely mitigated the catastrophe.

I'm sure the same thing couldn't happen today, but this sort of thing is part of capitalism's history.  It has its strengths, and it's important not to forget them, but it isn't always "remarkably good."

I'm also of the understanding that politics and the introduction of a non-native cash crop played a very large part in that particular Irish situation.

The best point you made here was that in that particular situation Capitalism's stop-gap didn't function. That is, when food became scarce in Ireland, it should have become better to sell the potatoes domestically rather than to export. But Irish people lacked capital. Why did they lack capital? The profits were concentrated in rich people and they did not trickle down properly because the rich people were absentee landlords who lived in Britain and spent money there. (If I understand correctly)

I wonder what liquidity the Irish farmers had; that is, how much they could borrow in terms of debt. It also seems that they were essentially working as slaves rather than as independent workers... since they were paying profits to pay off their debts-- essentially it seems that they were so leveraged that there was an issue-- and that never should have happened. There is a difference between Managed Capitalism (with taxes and regulations and controls) and Laissez Faire Capitalism. (once again why I stated Capitalism is adaptable)

There is a lesson in the Irish situation though for current years though, I'll admit- debt burdens and the lack of capital in one country can lead to poverty. A similar situation may have happened in Africa post-colonialism. Africans mostly lacked education (I understand that in the Dutch Congo after decolonization there were less than 50 native College-educated persons... former British territories fared better.. and Leopold Sedar Senghor in a French territory was a well-respected Poet), and Africans lacked capital, but they had resources. So they exported them... then the money was hoarded and shipped abroad rather than invested at home. This is a valuable lesson for countries that are leveraging debt... some capital must remain for potential investment. When debt reaches a critical mass... then the society's chance to create wealth disappears.

And once again, one or two or three examples don't prove that Capitalism is a horrible system or that any other system is better than it. Almost any system has a few potential weak points-the key is to choose the system with the least problematic weak points for the particular social structure that is in place at that particular time. :)

So ultimately, I don't think you even really disagree with me that Capitalism is a better system that almost any other system currently extant--especially if I define Capitalism widely enough to include Welfare-state capitalism and Market-Regulationist capitalism (which abhors monopolies both private and public). Is that at least somewhat correct?
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[spoiler=Light Dragon]Yeah, that's totally fair - I wouldn't say Capitalism is a horrible system, and the Socialists/Marxists who think it is just haven't read their Marx very well.  Marx loved capitalism, he just saw it as the penultimate step.  His criticism of capitalism derives from his reading of it as containing an element of inevitable exploitation; while it's still better than everything that came before, modern capitalist nations, while incredibly affluent, are often left with vast disparities of wealth and an alienated labouring class (and increasingly an alienated middle class as well), which seems to undermine the idea that the market produces anything like a meritocracy, among other things.  This is a problem I think modern capitalism, in its multifarious forms, is still hugely struggling with.

I won't pretend to be exceptionally well-read on economic matters, but my particular thinking on the subject is that a well-regulated mixed economy is indeed best, tending towards the social market variety.  I'd point to places like Germany and Norway (and to a considerable extent Canada) as broad examples of the kind of economy I see as being healthiest given current global conditions - all places with extremely high standards of living, little poverty, and generally low unemployment.  This model seems to correct some of major problems and suffering capitalism can sometimes cause while also allowing for plenty of economic growth.  I confess to being a bit of a utilitarian - the greatest good for the greatest number, and all that.  The "goal" for me, for civilization, should be increasing everyone's quality of life, leisure time, opportunity for happiness, etc as much as possible for as many as possible.

I do feel that technology and other global conditions could still be a game-changer, though.  I don't think that any one economic system is more "natural" than another or better reflective of "human nature," as some (both capitalists and socialists) might argue.  That kind of thinking feels too essentialist; after all, people (notably Hobbes) used to argue that absolute monarchism was reflective of human nature.  Instead I'd argue for tailoring an economic system towards a particular place, time, and technology level.  I'm not saying you'd disagree with any of this - I'm just musing.

EDIT: Maybe someone should start an economics thread.  Or would that violate some of the site's policy?

Wow. Most fascinating thread in a while.

Quote from: Steerpike

Quote from: CheA possible middle ground would be an especially fit and adaptable human overseeing part AI, part manually controlled systems in case we need a "thinking" brain on site.

Ever seen Moon?  One of the best SF films of the last decade for my money, and kind of a version of what you're talking about.

EDIT: Negative population growth would be ideal, though it could bring with it a slew of problems while the population shrinks.

I have not, however it looks like I should check it out.  Thanks!

M.