Someone I know was in St Petersburg last week. The government shut down the internet due to this meeting, and we totally lost touch with them. But the internet being shut down in a major Russian city to quash any attempt to protest doesn't even make news anymore.
troyunrau
joined 2 years ago
And every one of those are as grounded in reality as sci fi's agelong obsession telepaths, telekinesis, or mutants with powers.
There is a class of modern sci fi authors are all coming to terms with this.
I'd recommend checking out stories like Neptune's Brood -- sci fi which takes on interstellar economics in slower than light scenarios.
Exceeding FTL (and breaking causality) is basically a sci fi trope at this point with about as much credibility as psychics. To have at least some credibility you need one of: a testable hypothesis, or an unexplained phenomenon. Right now we have neither. At best, we have some equations, that work below light speed, where we can extrapolate past light speed and see how the math works. The problem is: none of these equations are testable as they all contain infinities or other asymptotic features that prevent passing light speed itself. So, if there's no viable math to get from sublight to FTL, and there's no unexplained phenomena, then what we're left with is nothing.
Even quantum entanglement, which is a darling of sci fi whenever they need a plot device (hello Le Guin and the ansible), has categorically been shown to obey causality and the light speed limit in every lab test.
At some point it's like asking for negative mass, antigravity, or other things that the math would allow. Except our universe doesn't.
I've got a wormhole to sell you ;)
Seems entirely reasonable that a Gattaca future is achievable. Whether desirable is the other question. Somewhere CJ Cherryh is being worshipped as a prophet.
Not FTL though. Slower than light, causality preserving version? Sure.
You have a confirmation bias.
Doubly so for being a trans brick
If the music is good, yes :)
I want to take that through airport security in the US. ;)
Wouldn't put more than like 5V DC on it, but you could use it to put power to some low power USB toys.
Things like platinum notwithstanding, It will almost always be more expensive to go get things in space than on earth.
Hell, even on earth it is often too expensive to get metals like iron if there isn't rail or a port nearby. Imagine having to fly iron ingots around and the associated aviation fuel cost. Whatever crazy fuel bill you're imagining, multiply by a hundred or more if you're imagining getting it from space.
No, all of those metals in space are best used to build some future version of our civilization _in situ. _
1.5% per month. Don't compare directly to your home country's annual inflation yet. Unless you're Turkey or Russia.