Rezwan
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Rezwan
ParticipantHi guys,
Looks like this can be split off starting at Breakable’s post on shielding requirements. Should it go under a new “shielding requirements for flights” post, or merge with “FF for jet engines” post?Participantbenf wrote: Patientman, a request was made to create a 30 second video as a timely response to the oil spill crisis. I think we should honor that request by Eric and focus on that particular issue and how to respond to it. I’m in agreement on the value of images. The web site content however is really on another topic, in my view it is saturated with valuable content. That draws people in and engages them too.
Yes. And I think step one is gathering public domain footage or still images.
The images required are (can also be stills if video is unobtainable) (Or even drawings inspired by these stills):
Video of live oil spill feed,
Video of some iconic footage from Gulf war/Iraq
Video—collage of panned stills: galaxies, quasars, video of solar flares
And we already have Torulf’s images free and clear.
So – who’s on that? Gather ye images, send the links to where I can download and edit. Or Patientman – if you could edit that would be great.
Much easier to slap something together when you have images to talk over.
ParticipantIndeed.
Now… to restate the point I hope a video will convey, it’s about the upside of uncertainty. Wordy copy (help!):
The BP catastrophe reminds us that we live in an uncertain world.
Our economy is dependent on energy.
Our current sources of energy are a dangerous business wrapped up in uncertainties.
The fuel we love the most is dangerous if mishandled.
In many parts of the world, it is a major cause of strife and political turmoil.But we need energy. We are driven to extract it –
and to spend as little as we can in extracting it.
So we try to cut corners, and it blows up in our face. (yes, “WE”. Like you want to spend more money at the pump)The folks at BP were hoping to get lucky, to get by without incident. They saved money on prevention, and now face the far more expensive cleanup, restoration, reparations and incalculable losses from this catastrophe.
The problem with the oil game is that it is rigged (cue picture of oil rig) for failure. It’s a dead end. It’s downwind of uncertainty.
The best that could happen is you keep extracting oil without too many mishaps or too many more casualties as supplies keep dwindling. The worst is catastrophe, rolling catastrophe.
But is there some sort of uncertainty we can flirt with that doesn’t threaten catastrophe? Isn’t there uncertainty with a strong upside?
Why are we so comfortable wasting our time with uncertainties that are negative, or -at best – business as usual? Why not attack, with gusto, the uncertainties that will open up the future? Like aneutronic fusion research [And here we have to link to more info with a line like “have you heard of aneutronic fusion? Here’s a starting point]. Unleash the energy of the stars.
The worst that could happen is we spend money and don’t get quick results. The best that could happen is we figure out how to harness fusion for the greater good of mankind and the whole planet – and move on to a pan galactic future.
What’s the opposite of catastrophe? And why aren’t we courting it?
[courting astral forces, rather than courting disaster. You know the root of disaster comes from dis-(expressing negation) and astro – star. Ill-starred event. So…harnessing the energy of the stars would be the opposite of disastrous. Just a thought.]
ParticipantPandora imagery also works.
Pandora opens the box and all these terrible things come out. War, oil spills, pestilence, plague. And then she shuts it before the most useful thing comes out – shiny hope.
I would say we don’t want people to shut the door to funding for fusion projects, because that’s the hope of humanity in the face of all the billowing, relentless, oil based havoc.
Colbert and Stewart keep joking about the response to the spill being “release the kraken!” It should be “release the fusion”
ParticipantEric’s first draft is certainly KISS. What do you want: oil spills and wars or fusion without nuclear waste?
Of course, the immediate objection of people to the video would be “of course we’d love clean fusion energy, but it’s impossible.”
As msmith points out, it’s still proof of concept.
But I don’t think we’re selling a dream or a dreamer. We’re selling a strategy: Engage in and fund proof of concept research. Pursue fusion. It’s worth it.
Take a look at this video: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-june-16-2010/an-energy-independent-future SEE all the presidents who promised to ween us off oil. LAUGH at all their weak solutions with ethanol etc. MARVEL that there is no mention of fusion.
A math approach: Show how we take shortcuts to save money (e.g., testimony about engineers & officials at BP rushing to complete the well, e.g., the email from the BP engineer who wrote “who cares, it’s done, end of story, it will probably be fine.” 4 days later, the well explodes, 11 workers are dead, and it’s the worst environmental disaster in US history.)
So, the score is:
Savings from shortcut: 10 million;
cost to company $17- $60 billion and rising…
cost to environment – incalculable…
Lives lost…(human, creature, ecosystem)vs.
Cost of aneutronic research: $1 million for DPF…to several hundred billion if the DPF doesn’t work and we have to go through the other fusion approaches out there (it’s OK to show uncertainty here, the hope of the immediate project is more valid if it’s the low end of the range. Gets people to realize that there may actually be a quick solution, at the same time not feel they are being oversold – so it helps build stamina for a longer quest. Hope and stamina, with a possibility of quick gratification.)
Benefit: Solving this unacceptable oil-based energy problem once and for ALL. Aren’t we all sick enough of it yet?
Don’t wait for 8 more presidential administrations. Humanity needs to rally behind the quest for fusion now.
ParticipantSo desu, neh!
ParticipantYep. Off track. This thread is now closed : )
I will split off the emerging bit about what FF can do to make other resources a “non-issue.“
Participant“Fiction” does seem inappropriate here.
fiction |ˈfik sh ən|
noun
literature in the form of prose, esp. short stories and novels, that describes imaginary events and people.
• invention or fabrication as opposed to fact : he dismissed the allegation as absolute fiction.
• [in sing. ] a belief or statement that is false, but that is often held to be true because it is expedient to do so : the notion of that country being a democracy is a polite fiction.
DERIVATIVES
fictionist |-nist| noun
ORIGIN late Middle English (in the sense [invented statement] ): via Old French from Latin fictio(n-), from fingere ‘form, contrive.’ Compare with feign and figment .Participantjamesr wrote:
Being very much in the mainstream of fusion research, and the one who is requesting large sums of public money to fund the programs, I think there is a careful campaign by the CCFE to portray the tokamak approach, and the whole program leading onto ITER & DEMO as a low risk, inevitable and necessary project, that just needs time (&money;) to provide the worlds energy needs in 50-100 years time.There is a resistant to anything, that distracts from this message.
This reminds me of one of the major barriers with fusion research. It’s possible that it’s impossible. Which makes it “illegitimate” and a probable drain on public funds. And in turn, this makes those working on it very cautious and risk averse, at a time when more creativity and diversity would, perhaps (but how can we be sure?) yield breakthroughs.
ParticipantSpeaking of synching sci-fi and reality, I attended the “Science of Star Trek” panel discussion at the World Science Fair.
They were talking about how close were were getting to the world of Star Trek. Interestingly, the talk kept coming back to replacing humans with artificial intelligence, and the infamous holodeck, where people are amused by the fakeries described in Miler’s essay. There were some pornographic suggestions there.
But I don’t buy that human beings are all a bunch of wankers who want to replace themselves with robots.
Of course, I don’t really find the 3-d movies that great either. A good story trumps effects every time. And I really enjoyed seeing the live performance of Christopher Walken, Sam Rockwell, et al on stage rather than a movie. You know it’s slightly different each time. The actor might try something different. Something untoward will happen with a prop…it’s unpredictable.
Of course, live is much more expensive.
We’re not lazy, we’re cheap.
ParticipantI’m all for transcendental laziness.
The essay about the aliens identifies the folks we’re trying to address here.
…MIT graduates who apply to do computer game design for Electronics Arts, rather than rocket science for NASA
There is a generation out there of bright, talented people. Lured by technologically delivered fakeries.
Actually colonizing the galaxy would be so much harder than pretending to have done it when filming Star Wars or Serenity.
We’re trying to re-connect the dream and the real. Keep re-grounding the dream so they don’t get so far out of synch.
Our job is to keep bringing up the fact that, AHEM, it’s still fantasy. How’s the real thing coming along? Have you taken any action towards making the real thing happen yet? All right, then get back to work, slackers.
Geoffrey Miller paints a dire picture, but I think we can have an effective balance of fun and reality.
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