And to add the cherry on top, should you ever reach his arbitrary speed limit, it distorts time itself. Even if you flew through space at c for a little weekend getaway, you’d return to a now foreign world only to find time had skipped forward +2,000 years, your entire family and social circles long dead from old age with societal and technical advancements beyond what you could have ever thought possible, completely isolating you. You’re now doomed to live in an unfamiliar world where not a single human speaks your language nor can they relate to you in any meaning way.
AKA, gods speeding ticket.
I have a solution for this: When you travel somewhere, travel with everyone’s mind at light speed. You see we think about lightspeed wrong. It’s meant for whole species to migrate. Not 1 individual.
Another alternative is just take a snapshop of everyone’s minds at that point, then let them continue living even with your snapshot. When you return you pick back off where you left off. Living in your own dimension. The other dimension is long gone but you miss nothing.
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99% of the universe is nothing. Wouldn’t that really be the dick move?
The universe is basically 100% empty. An atom is more than 99.9999999 empty space.
Say that again when a brick made of 99,9999999% empty space hits you!
(Mustn’t be a hard hit, maybe more like a soft touch. For science, you know.)
Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, is it really fair to say my client hit him, when the brick is essentially 100% empty space? And isn’t he also essentially 100% empty space so can he even be hit?
But, ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a wookie from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about that; that does not make sense! Why would a wookie, an 8 foot tall wookie, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two foot tall ewoks? That does not make sense!
But more importantly, you have to ask yourself, ‘what does that have to do with this case?’ Nothing. Ladies and Gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case. It does not make sense! Look at me. I’m a lawyer defending a major record company, and I’m talkin’ about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you’re in that jury room deliberatin’ and conjugatin’ the Emancipation Proclamation, does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.
Yeah, I rounded down.
wow. never thought of this in that way.
How much of a proton or electron is empty space?
99% of the universe is nothing.
Worst video game developer ever.
Clearly it was made by Bethesda.
It’s actually just our solar system, the rest is just rendering tricks making us think there’s distance
Broad as an ocean, deep as a puddle. Oh great, more rock.
Do you believe that the wide expanses of our planet Earth were crafted for the common ant to explore?
There is no evidence to suggest our planet or any animals on it are crafted.
Of course, but I’m trying to work within the established framework of the meme here
I think it wouldn’t be too unreasonable to suggest hyperintelligent ants could build a vessel the size of a human or larger and travel the Earth with enough speed.
Some of those ant colonies are larger than people so, seems reasonable enough.
That’s closer to us exploring our solar system I think, in scale, than it would be for us to explore even the galaxy let alone the whole observable universe let alone the whole universe.
Except that a large point of my comment is pointing out the hubris of man, so it’s important to note that ants are not hyperintelligent. They organize and build, but there is a finite limitation to their capability, at least in this and any known previous state of their evolution. Like that we are the most intelligent thing on our little planet doesn’t imply to me that we are not effectively to scale with ants on the cosmic level.
The intelligence doesn’t matter. The point is what is physically possible.
Even if we were hyperintelligent in the same scale as making current ants intelligent enough to build ships to ride the world around in, we’d still have to face the issue of the speed of light being a limiting factor.
Unless we actually manage to find some of those theorised strange particles which would fit with the math of the warp engine theory.
Alright, valid, you’re right, the presented limiting factor in the meme is in fact the SoL and not actually man’s ability to reach it. I concede, cheers.
There is no evidence that the Universe is bounded at all. For all we know, it is infinite in spacial dimension.
John Green: Yikes!
True, but there is thought to be a finite amount of matter + energy, which cannot be created or destroyed. And since it is spreading out from an original dense point, it stands to reason that there would be a vacuum area that it has not reached yet.
Our current understanding of the big bang is not that it spread out from one place, it happened everywhere all at once. If the universe is infinite, it started from zero volume and infinite density then immediately became infinite in volume and finite in density. The density of matter/energy is what is finite, not the amount of matter/energy, that is infinite (if the universe is infinite). Then there was a period of rapid inflation, then is settled down to the inflation we see today.
Infinite or finite, the universe is not spreading out into anything, the distances between points are simply increasing.
it started from zero volume
This is not true. It started with apparently infinite volume. This is the confusing nature of infinities.
It’s so obvious, to me, to think of the universe as occurring 'in a box’and that expansion happening like someone is inflating a balloon inside it - so we’re running out of room as such.
Take away the box and my brain just melts. I’m not very familiar with this stuff, however
The important thing in the balloon analogy isn’t what the balloon is expanding into, it’s just that every point on the balloon is drifting away from every other point.
One thing to consider, though, is that space may not even be a real physical thing. Maybe location is just a property of things, like mass or electrical charge. It could just be an inherent value that adjusts and influences other things according to the laws of physics. Maybe it’s less that “space is expanding” and just that “the location property of everything is constantly diverging.” There’s no need to worry about what anything is expanding into because our conception of space may just be a mental construct.
…absolutely wild
edit on a 2nd read it strikes me that determining whether space is expanding vs the location property of everything is diverging is a relatively impossible exercise (key word, there).
A lot like the non-trivial thought experiments, ‘prove you’re in/not in a simulation’
Hum, no. It’s widely believed that the amount of matter + energy in the universe changes all the time.
That’s not at all how it works. In particular, it didn’t start from an original, dense point. It started everywhere, with nearly uniform density apparently infinitely in all directions. If the Universe is boundless, there is no reason to suspect the material it contains is not equally boundless.
It may as well as it is unreachable. It hasn’t existed forever hence only a limited amount of space is closer to us than the age of the universe.
Not really. As far as we know information can’t travel faster than light speed, and the oldest/farthest stuff we can see is 14 billion years old / 14b light years away. That gives us the radius and age of the observable universe.
By our current understanding of how the universe works we can’t see anything further or older than that (and will never be able to), so any assumption about things outside/before the observable universe is completely baseless
Wait, now that I think about it, the observable universe have precisely that length because the speed of light, doesn’t it?
Its a combination of the speed of light and how inflation has varied the size of the universe. Light’s only been able to travel about 14 billion light years since the universe began but those further regions used to be closer so light from them was already part of the way here when they vanished over the cosmic horizon.
There is idea in the three body problem novels:
Tap for spoiler
That the speed of light was infinity at the birth of the universe but sentient species reduced the speed of light several times as a offence/defense mechanism to protect themselves from others.
The mere though of that is dreadful to me.
Dark Forest Theory is probably wrong. In-universe, the series unknowingly undermines it with communication tech that can transmit instantaneously. That would take away the assumption that civilizations can’t effectively communicate over interstellar distances and build trust.
In reality, it’s something of an extension of the “every individual for themselves” mindset of evolution–something White Supremacists have loved. Kin Selection Theory does away with that. There is a basis for building trust and working together within evolution. The precursor ideas were even done in Peter Kropotkin’s “Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution” over a century ago. Kin Selection Theory put a mathematical foundation on it.
I like the book series as literature, and the Netflix series has been OK so far (not great, but OK). Liu Cixin himself, however, has some really shitty opinions that come through the text.
Humanity stands on the brink of self-destruction because we have yet to overcome the primitive, selfish aspects of our nature. I have to believe that any civilization advanced enough for interstellar travel—without having destroyed itself along the way—must have achieved a certain level of cooperative enlightenment.
I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Anything capable of altering fundamental physical parameters like that will be unknowable to us. We’d be like bacteria are to a human.
Or maybe they were just bored, and wanted to make a cool new celestial object called a black hole.
Yeah the whole concept of the “paraplegic universe” in Deaths End is so fucking good. And by good I mean bone chillingly terrifying.
Its probably for the best.
If humans are able to get to another planet with life on it we would probably do horrific unspeakable things to the aliens.
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Dispensing freedom you mean.
*Aliens pulling out literal fireswords*
“Okay.”
I feel like I would treat my Togruta wife very well ;-;
Real talk tho, humans will eventually reach the stars, being negative/nihilist about it and saying it’s better if it doesn’t happen is dangerous because people like Elon/Donald will definitely do horrible things if people with remorse and morals aren’t involved/ already established there / the one’s initiating
Not saying you’re nihilist, but I go to Uni in SF and everyone is so anti-imperialism that they think any form of colonization (even on a dead planet like Mars) is bad and it’s pretty grating.
Elon should not be the one who decides how the land/living conditions are set up
It’s not nihilist to recognize historical precedent combined with current human conditions and come to a logical prediction.
I wouldn’t have any problem with a completely dead planet being colonized by humanity but I absolutely do not trust humanity as a whole when it comes to a planet with life on it we don’t even respect our own species much less other ones history has shown this over and over again.
even if it is an inevitability doesn’t mean that it is positive just because it was inevitable that nuclear weapons got invented doesn’t mean that It’s a good idea for us to have that technology I would rather nukes not exist.
The fact is that any manned vehicle capable of interplanetary travel is by the nature of the energies involved, also a weapon of mass destruction. A spaceship is a weapon in the same way a car can be a weapon.
So either you massively restrict access to this technology, or you create a system of surveillance and defense that is so pervasive and effective that it makes 1984 look benign, OR you just say fuck everyone else and use that weapon to remove yourself from range of everybody else’s weapons.
Proliferation is an existential problem for anyone in range.
The usefulness of a fusion engine as a weapon is directly correlated to its efficiency.
It doesn’t really matter what kind of engine it is if it’s going fast enough.
Anything with enough mass and acceleration to move a human being from planet to planet in a reasonable timeframe has the kinetic energy required to wipe out a city. Once you start reaching relativistic speeds, you can take out entire planets by simply not slowing down on approach.
Although you are correct, this destroys the engine.
A good, efficient fusion engine just needs to point the exhaust end towards the enemy and the hyper-accelerated particles will punch a hole through the target for you. And then you point at the next target, etc. etc.
Also, it’s a butchered quote from Larry Niven’s Known Space books, referred to as the “Kzinti Lesson” - because the Kzinti thought humanity was unarmed and helpless until they discovered that humans are really good at improvising weapons.
Yup! Totally plausible - just more expensive and less repeatable. And harder to use against moving targets.
Common trick map builders do, if you need to teleport the player for a scene e.g. they’re in a dream, but you dont want to load a whole new map you put the scene in the main map but someplace it cant be seen and is unreachable.
I love map breaking. It’s also fun to see what developers didn’t use.
To be clear it’s lightspeed in space time, we “just” need to get rid of time to conquer the space.
Nah, we can bend space. Sam Neill checkmates God.
Take a shortcut through hell, eh?
For those of us who work retail, yeah…
That movie is about the first time humanity tried to enter the Warp without a Gellar field.
Best part of Warhammer lore imho.
When putting together an outfit always remove the last accessory you put on.
Are you trying to get my pants off?
alcubierre drives are (theoretically) a thing. wormholes are also a (theoretical) thing.
we could just bend space.
Okay… go ahead!
😀
sure! give me a couple hundred years.
You know, if you could use one of them wormhole thingies, you could already be there!
Checkmate!
look, give me a couple of centuries alright. its complicated.
just a couple of centuries bro, please bro i swear just a couple of centuries bro.
And a small loan of a trillion dollars!
that oughtta do it
You have 1¾ centuries to have a fully functioal wormyhole-thingamabab so that you can make your Abercrombie drive.
Do not disappoint me.
There’s a bit of skipped step here. Just how do you get to the speed of light when it requires an infinite amount of fuel, with diminishing returns on the quantity of fuel you have?
Well we can’t assume we know physics completely yet (or within bounds of the question) something down the road may open an idea or ability to generate more power than we know what to do with. If this was a game we may only been on the first or second step of a technology tree. Or we just aren’t able to travel that far realistically, we have to overcome our idea of our species being singular and send out generation ships that go for ages (in human time) to explore more as a species, even if the originators (Earth humans) may never know the outcome.
Of course if we discover that much power we’d likely annihilate ourselves anyways, least with our current society.
I do mostly agree but I try and think of other possibilities since the universe is so vast.
Let’s say we reset everything today, wipe out everyone’s memory. God will be forgotten, science will still exist. People will figure out science sooner or later.
If I’m being honest, I think people will figure out god too. All it is is a question.
“Did someone do all this?”
It’s a reasonable question. Easy to ask, hard to answer. Attempt to identify this variable “someone”, and people will eventually land on some kind of god.
I mean you can answer that today lmao.
Exactly my point! I was a staunch atheist in childhood, mostly out of rebellion against Christianity. I’m something else now because I asked the question in sincerity. I’m still definitely not a Christian, mind you. But man, the void is cool to ponder about.
In a similar boat, I guess I would be considered a pantheist by definition.
Staunch atheist growing up, asked myself a similar question. My religious views don’t necessarily change my view of how the world comes to be, or promises anything like eternal salvation; just an acknowledgement that all of this comes from something and by definition you could consider that something to be god.
Any extrapolations ontop of that would have to be considered faith or conjecture.
In fact I think most people would find it somewhat depressing to come to a similar conclusion initially, but the questions that come from this pondering have really helped me find a harmony with the universe and I’m appreciative of that
Hey, welcome to the club! Pantheism has helped me find some deceptively obvious truths in life. “As above, so below” being a big one. Meshes remarkably well with science, and if anything it rekindled my enjoyment of science and reality in general. It’s the healthiest relationship I’ve ever had with “religion”.
Yes, but the point is that every time god is “rediscovered”, the form of that god changes as does the scripture surrounding that new religion.
Science, for the most part, wouldn’t diverge from our current understanding of it, because it is ultimately our understanding of the world and its fuctions.
Different form, same essential content.
Science laws won’t cease to exist, but if you wipe out everyone’s memory, their knowledge of that science will cease to exist - so they’ll have to figure it out from zero - and there’s no guarantee that there won’t be another placeholder in a sense (i.e. what religions have been historically) for what’s yet to understand.
Edit: maybe it’s more accurate to say science laws would cease to exist, but won’t cease to work; they would cease to exist in a formulated way (in that hypothetical memory loss) since they were put together by humans.
I think the intent is more “Scientific discoveries could be rediscovered, your One True Religion wouldn’t be.”
Yeah, in this sense I agree. I’m overanalyzing again.
God will always exist before science, it is necessary to rationalize existence to have any hope of living long enough to develop science.
If there’s no meaning to what you’re doing, there’s no point in dealing with suffering. Only through extreme alienation from suffering can you start to have a non divine world view.
god didn’t invent km’s ; satan did
