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The Old Hack

Story Friday 22, December 2017

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3 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Remember that creating meteor eggs is natural for uryuom - and half-uryuom.

That's a logical step too far IMHO. It could hold true for all, some, or none, but I don't believe Dan has given any indications of this.

BTW, how many of you EGS fans have read any of the Vorkosigan books I mentioned a few posts ago? A really key gizmo in the whole series is an artificial womb Lois McMaster Bujold dubbed a "uterine replicator". Meteor eggs have the same function in EGS. If you're familiar with the Vorkosigan series, you should realize how major the effects on society if things like this become widely available, one of them being the possibility of lynching any politician who tries to make them illegal. Meteor eggs should really be a bigger secret for Edward to keep than just alien tourism or the odd deathless army of rage.

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13 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:
29 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Remember that creating meteor eggs is natural for uryuom - and half-uryuom.

That's a logical step too far IMHO. It could hold true for all, some, or none, but I don't believe Dan has given any indications of this.

True, but he also didn't given any negative indication.

13 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

BTW, how many of you EGS fans have read any of the Vorkosigan books I mentioned a few posts ago? A really key gizmo in the whole series is an artificial womb Lois McMaster Bujold dubbed a "uterine replicator".

I don't think I did.

13 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

Meteor eggs have the same function in EGS. If you're familiar with the Vorkosigan series, you should realize how major the effects on society if things like this become widely available, one of them being the possibility of lynching any politician who tries to make them illegal. Meteor eggs should really be a bigger secret for Edward to keep than just alien tourism or the odd deathless army of rage.

Maybe they are. Although the most important secret seems to be the fact that basically everyone can get magic including pretty dangerous spells most population has no defense against. FOR CENTURIES. I think Dan is not really good (or at least not interested) at exploring what effects on society can stuff like this have.

(On the other hand, I find hard to believe MiB would be able to keep the secret either. Luckily it's comedy and I can enjoy it regardless.)

 

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1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Presumably, Grace is still young enough to plausibly claim she didn't tried.

It's only been like 9 months since she found out? I still think she'd wait till after her and Tedd graduate before she considers having kids, both the egg way and the conventional way.

1 hour ago, Tom Sewell said:

Damien also believed he was basically a god, not a mere mortal. And even if he knew how, I don't think Grace's "grandfather" would have made Grace that way. Our Grace is more than anything else the daughter of his daughter.

Damien would have gotten that info from Dr Scuiridae, at the time, I don't think Dr Scuiridae would lie about it. And even if Dr Scuiridae wasn't 100% sure if Grace could or not, the possibility is still out in the open.

 

48 minutes ago, hkmaly said:
1 hour ago, Tom Sewell said:

Speaking of meteor eggs, shouldn't William's and Gillian's egg have hatched by now?

What makes you think it didn't? The kid is just still too young to need human form.

Don't know how long William and Gillian's egg was going when we saw them, but yeah it's very likely hatched by now.

There is a question of how Uryuoms grow though, is it roughly the same speed as Humans? Faster? Slower? On clue leaning towards slower is Grace, though it's unclear whether it a result of genetic manipulation (the scientists were trying to accelerate aging so they'd be able to mass produce assassins) or if it's just the Uryuom DNA that gives her that trait, though it did seem to be implied that even Hedge and Guineas aged slower as well so maybe its part of being conceived by egg.

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3 minutes ago, Scotty said:

There is a question of how Uryuoms grow though, is it roughly the same speed as Humans? Faster? Slower? On clue leaning towards slower is Grace, though it's unclear whether it a result of genetic manipulation (the scientists were trying to accelerate aging so they'd be able to mass produce assassins) or if it's just the Uryuom DNA that gives her that trait, though it did seem to be implied that even Hedge and Guineas aged slower as well so maybe its part of being conceived by egg

Sounds like another one of those wider implications that Dan isn't supposed to be interested in. But I'm interested.

It could be a trope from Star Trek or space opera stories in general. The two or three really important alien races in Trek are the Klingons, the Romulans, and the Vulcans, and all of them are much longer lived than humans. The Trill can effectively be immortal through their symbiotes.

One piece of Star Trek trivia I'm aware of that I don't think most people or even most of the current generation of Trekkies are aware of is that when Gene Roddenberry laid down the rules for what was acceptable in a Star Trek script, one of them was that there wasn't supposed to be anything about humans living longer in his future. I think there was only one human character in the original series who was allowed to live far beyond a mere century, Zephram Cochrane, whose life was prolonged by an energy being who was in love with him (!). But throughout the episode, he regretted living so long, and the resolution was that he got to grow old again, which he actually said he looked forward to.

Oh. Wait. Maybe this is an issue Dan wants to explore the darker implications thereof, what with aberrations who surrender empathy to keep from dying from old age, or Immortals who have to create a substitute for dying from old age to keep from going nuts, or elves who aren't allowed to age or reset. I'm pretty sure Pandora told her son it wasn't a good idea to get too atttached to mortals who all die of old age if something doesn't kill them first. And, of course,  that's exactly what Pandora did and why Raven is here at all.

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32 minutes ago, Scotty said:
2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Presumably, Grace is still young enough to plausibly claim she didn't tried.

It's only been like 9 months since she found out? I still think she'd wait till after her and Tedd graduate before she considers having kids, both the egg way and the conventional way.

We don't know enough about Uryuoms birds and bees to know if she would have some way to notice without starting the process of having kid. Like, human female would be unlikely to miss her capability of having kids :)

I agree with the "no kids until graduation" though.

32 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Damien would have gotten that info from Dr Scuiridae, at the time, I don't think Dr Scuiridae would lie about it. And even if Dr Scuiridae wasn't 100% sure if Grace could or not, the possibility is still out in the open.

Dr. Scuiridae or from notes of other people. IF Dr. Scuridae would attempt to lie, it would probably be in way which would PROTECT Grace, therefore saying she can't have children. He didn't.

32 minutes ago, Scotty said:

There is a question of how Uryuoms grow though, is it roughly the same speed as Humans? Faster? Slower? On clue leaning towards slower is Grace, though it's unclear whether it a result of genetic manipulation (the scientists were trying to accelerate aging so they'd be able to mass produce assassins) or if it's just the Uryuom DNA that gives her that trait, though it did seem to be implied that even Hedge and Guineas aged slower as well so maybe its part of being conceived by egg.

Her brothers would be part of same accelerating experiment ; however, I would say Grace was growing roughly the same speed as Humans ; 16 and 18 are not big differences.

9 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

It could be a trope from Star Trek or space opera stories in general. The two or three really important alien races in Trek are the Klingons, the Romulans, and the Vulcans, and all of them are much longer lived than humans. The Trill can effectively be immortal through their symbiotes.

That's actually something little different than speed of growing :)

9 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

One piece of Star Trek trivia I'm aware of that I don't think most people or even most of the current generation of Trekkies are aware of is that when Gene Roddenberry laid down the rules for what was acceptable in a Star Trek script, one of them was that there wasn't supposed to be anything about humans living longer in his future.

Sounds pretty stupid. So much progress in medicine and humans still die so young?

9 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

I think there was only one human character in the original series who was allowed to live far beyond a mere century, Zephram Cochrane, whose life was prolonged by an energy being who was in love with him (!). But throughout the episode, he regretted living so long, and the resolution was that he got to grow old again, which he actually said he looked forward to.

Sour grapes from scenarists.

9 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

Oh. Wait. Maybe this is an issue Dan wants to explore the darker implications thereof, what with aberrations who surrender empathy to keep from dying from old age, or Immortals who have to create a substitute for dying from old age to keep from going nuts, or elves who aren't allowed to age or reset.

I'm not sure if this means he actually wants to explore that, but yes he obviously spend more time thinking about this than about the changes in society Uryuoms or magic would cause.

I mean, in Ellen's second live universe, Uryuoms are out in open and even helped in war. And they MUST have space-travel technology and who knows what else (on top of cosmetic morphing devices), because otherwise they wouldn't get there. Yet, there was NOTHING about that universe being different because of that. Ellen can sing, but she doesn't have any advanced technology knowledge from that universe ... she was worried about history class, not about physic class, despite the fact that if speed of light can be exceeded it WOULD be mentioned in physic.

9 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

I'm pretty sure Pandora told her son it wasn't a good idea to get too atttached to mortals who all die of old age if something doesn't kill them first. And, of course,  that's exactly what Pandora did and why Raven is here at all.

I would assume Pandora wasn't hypocritical, so if she DID told this to her son she certainly used herself as example why it's bad idea. Maybe she even went with "It is bad idea and if you really feel that way make sure it will be worth it".

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10 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

It could be a trope from Star Trek or space opera stories in general. The two or three really important alien races in Trek are the Klingons, the Romulans, and the Vulcans, and all of them are much longer lived than humans. The Trill can effectively be immortal through their symbiotes.

Well, Romulans maybe have half the lifespan of Vulcans, but there's no confirmed mention of Klingons having longer lifespans, aside from in canon speculation:

Quote

In 2370, Odo observed that Kor "must be a hundred years old" and his "best friend," Koloth, was "probably a hundred and fifty years old."

In the TNG/DS9/Voy era, Human's average lifespan was 120 years, with Dr McCoy being 137 when he toured the Enterprise D, so there probably wasn't that much of a difference between Humans and Klingons in terms of lifespan.

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18 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

Getting back to the birds and the bees and Grace, we don't know if Grace can make meteor eggs, but we do know that Grace has to be in human form to get pregnant. 

Maybe she needs to be in her natural (half-squirrel) form to make eggs then?

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3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

 

The rate we are making new humans is ok. What's unnatural is how many of those survive until adulthood. Naturally, the least capable ones should die long before that.

 

Well in less you are in favor of murdering people the solution to me seems to be to be to try to prevent pregnancies.

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49 minutes ago, Scotty said:
1 hour ago, Tom Sewell said:

Getting back to the birds and the bees and Grace, we don't know if Grace can make meteor eggs, but we do know that Grace has to be in human form to get pregnant. 

Maybe she needs to be in her natural (half-squirrel) form to make eggs then?

Would make sense.

44 minutes ago, animalia said:
3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

The rate we are making new humans is ok. What's unnatural is how many of those survive until adulthood. Naturally, the least capable ones should die long before that.

Well in less you are in favor of murdering people the solution to me seems to be to be to try to prevent pregnancies.

It's not supposed to be murder. Also, I'm not so big proponent of nature. Personally, I think we need some progress in the area of FTL engines. Our society is very bad in adapting to no growth, we NEED to expand.

(Although ... it's true that some bigger war could help in reducing the population.)

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3 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Would make sense.

It's not supposed to be murder. Also, I'm not so big proponent of nature. Personally, I think we need some progress in the area of FTL engines. Our society is very bad in adapting to no growth, we NEED to expand.

(Although ... it's true that some bigger war could help in reducing the population.)

It's the natural consequences of improved medical science.

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3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

The rate we are making new humans is ok. What's unnatural is how many of those survive until adulthood. Naturally, the least capable ones should die long before that.

If by "natural" you mean humans with stone-age technology, yes. (Seeing hominids have been using tools since before homo sapiens evolved, a human culture without any tools would be unnatural.)

However, developing and using tools, and adapting to new environments and situations is part of human nature. So really, modern technology and society isn't all that unnatural for humanity.

At any rate, people who are well off and are safe and secure enough to reasonably expect their children to make it to adulthood tend to have fewer children. So the solution to the problem of overpopulation is to spread wealth out more evenly and improve living conditions for as many people as possible.

3 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Speaking of meteor eggs, shouldn't William's and Gillian's egg have hatched by now?

It probably has, we just haven't heard anything from them in a long time (probably because Dan's focus is on Magic and Immortals now, not aliens and other sci-fi themes). I wonder if Tedd has had any visits from them off panel since the last time the readers saw them?

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15 minutes ago, ChronosCat said:

If by "natural" you mean humans with stone-age technology, yes. (Seeing hominids have been using tools since before homo sapiens evolved, a human culture without any tools would be unnatural.)

However, developing and using tools, and adapting to new environments and situations is part of human nature. So really, modern technology and society isn't all that unnatural for humanity.

This.

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3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

It's not supposed to be murder. Also, I'm not so big proponent of nature. Personally, I think we need some progress in the area of FTL engines. Our society is very bad in adapting to no growth, we NEED to expand.

Unfortunately there's no proof that practical FTL travel will ever be possible, at least proof that isn't being hidden by the MIBs. So maybe it would be a good idea to explore ways to get along with a stable population while we wait for a definitive answer to the FTL question.

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

(Although ... it's true that some bigger war could help in reducing the population.)

No doubt about that. The the population could get reduced to zero.

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2 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

Given the time of year, this conversation is definitely reminding me of Scrooge's comment about reducing the surplus population....

England successfully reduced the surplus population of Ireland just a few years after the publication of A Christmas Carol in 1843 by continuing to export food from Ireland during the Potato Famine. Ireland has only about half the population it had before the famine, after 170 years. To be fair, not all of them died off; more emigrated, to the United States, Canada, Australia (many as prisoners), Chile (it's navy always has a ship named O'Higgins)--and England. Hence the Liverpool Irish that gave us the Beatles.

I know, topic drift.

 

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30 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

Pretty small-scale compared to what happened on this continent.  (Long article, but well worth the time to read!)

There's evidence that the Americas were depopulated twice! Archaeological finds and genetic analysis now suggests there was a human population South America well before the famous Siberia-to-Alaska migration from Asia. They seem to have come from either Australia or sub-Saharan Africa. Their culture suddenly disappears a little while after the route from Asia opened up. The last surviving pure-blooded aborigines of Tierra del Fuego  don't have any Asian genetic markers. BTW, there are only three of them.

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On 12/23/2017 at 8:14 PM, ChronosCat said:
On 12/23/2017 at 4:03 PM, hkmaly said:

The rate we are making new humans is ok. What's unnatural is how many of those survive until adulthood. Naturally, the least capable ones should die long before that.

If by "natural" you mean humans with stone-age technology, yes. (Seeing hominids have been using tools since before homo sapiens evolved, a human culture without any tools would be unnatural.)

However, developing and using tools, and adapting to new environments and situations is part of human nature. So really, modern technology and society isn't all that unnatural for humanity.

Well, sure, you can say technology is natural. You can also say that anything made from crude oil is natural as crude oil is prehistoric plankton, making all those "100% natural ingredients" on food look stupid ... what would it need to be to not count as natural, dark matter? exotic matter?

On 12/23/2017 at 8:14 PM, ChronosCat said:

At any rate, people who are well off and are safe and secure enough to reasonably expect their children to make it to adulthood tend to have fewer children. So the solution to the problem of overpopulation is to spread wealth out more evenly and improve living conditions for as many people as possible.

That's true. However, you can't reasonably expect they will go below 2. Also, spreading wealth doesn't automatically help people to feel safe and secure, you need to add lot of education to that ... which often helps with the wealth more than many charity programs.

On 12/24/2017 at 0:04 AM, Tom Sewell said:

Unfortunately there's no proof that practical FTL travel will ever be possible, at least proof that isn't being hidden by the MIBs. So maybe it would be a good idea to explore ways to get along with a stable population while we wait for a definitive answer to the FTL question.

If I should choose between believing that practical FTL travel will be possible and believing that majority of people will behave logically or rationally, the FTL travel seems FAR more likely.

So far we didn't managed to agree even just on the simple fact that burning oil is bad idea. Despite the fact we NEED it to produce plastic and food.

Any plan to keep stable population - or spread the wealth - would be even harder to agree on.

On 12/24/2017 at 0:04 AM, Tom Sewell said:
On 12/23/2017 at 8:03 PM, hkmaly said:

(Although ... it's true that some bigger war could help in reducing the population.)

No doubt about that. The the population could get reduced to zero.

Not THAT big war. Also, even nuclear war between US and SSSR back when it existed had quite good chance of leaving some parts of Africa habitable. No targets worth the nuke there.

But hey, if we explore some ways to get along with a stable population enough, the war will come for sure. How else would we convince others our way is good?

(Why do I think that the people ready to back their idea with war will not be the best ones to choose who should survive?)

On 12/24/2017 at 6:14 PM, Tom Sewell said:
On 12/24/2017 at 5:20 PM, CritterKeeper said:

Pretty small-scale compared to what happened on this continent.  (Long article, but well worth the time to read!)

There's evidence that the Americas were depopulated twice! Archaeological finds and genetic analysis now suggests there was a human population South America well before the famous Siberia-to-Alaska migration from Asia. They seem to have come from either Australia or sub-Saharan Africa. Their culture suddenly disappears a little while after the route from Asia opened up. The last surviving pure-blooded aborigines of Tierra del Fuego  don't have any Asian genetic markers. BTW, there are only three of them.

Just twice?

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46 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Well, sure, you can say technology is natural. You can also say that anything made from crude oil is natural as crude oil is prehistoric plankton, making all those "100% natural ingredients" on food look stupid ... what would it need to be to not count as natural, dark matter? exotic matter?

In many countries (the US included) those labels are stupid. Unless there are regulations defining the term (like with "organic") and enforcing it's usage, they can mean whatever the company wants them to mean, or nothing at all.

Even beyond food labels, though, the definition of "natural" is a tough one. 

Wiktionary mentions several, the most relevant being:

Quote
  • That exists and evolved within the confines of an ecosystem. quotations ▼
    The species will be under threat if its natural habitat is destroyed.
  • Of or relating to nature.
    In the natural world the fit tend to live on while the weak perish.

And they define "nature" (again omitting some irrelevant definitions):

Quote

By the first definition of nature, humans don't count as part of nature. In that case we can't talk about what is or isn't "natural" for humans, because by definition we're not natural. However, I don't like this way of thinking, as it makes it seem like we're alien to the Earth, and don't belong here.

By the third definition of nature, it's hard to figure out what would be unnatural, other than perhaps ghosts and invaders from another universe.

Ideally there should be a definition somewhere in between, that acknowledges that we are a part of nature without making the term nature meaningless, but I don't know if such a definition exists or what it would be.

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

That's true. However, you can't reasonably expect they will go below 2. Also, spreading wealth doesn't automatically help people to feel safe and secure, you need to add lot of education to that ... which often helps with the wealth more than many charity programs.

I think a combination of approaches is most likely to produce the best results...

We probably shouldn't pursue this part of the discussion much further, though, as it's getting close to stuff that probably belongs in the politics thread.

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

If I should choose between believing that practical FTL travel will be possible and believing that majority of people will behave logically or rationally, the FTL travel seems FAR more likely.

Well, that depends on how you define "people". If we're restricting it to homo sapiens, I agree. However, a population of sentient robots & computers could probably manage it... Heck, if it provided enough of a survival advantage, a future species of hominid might even be significantly more rational than us.

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46 minutes ago, ChronosCat said:

Unless there are regulations defining the term (like with "organic")

Oh, right. Crude oil is totally organic as well :)

46 minutes ago, ChronosCat said:

(uncountable) The natural world; that which consists of all things unaffected by or predating human technology, production, and design. e.g. the ecosystem, the natural environment, virgin ground, unmodified species, laws of nature. quotations ▼

46 minutes ago, ChronosCat said:

By the first definition of nature, humans don't count as part of nature.

Not true. The stone age humans were using tools, but not technology.

46 minutes ago, ChronosCat said:

By the third definition of nature, it's hard to figure out what would be unnatural, other than perhaps ghosts and invaders from another universe.

Hmmm ... can ghost be result of natural death? :)

46 minutes ago, ChronosCat said:
2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

If I should choose between believing that practical FTL travel will be possible and believing that majority of people will behave logically or rationally, the FTL travel seems FAR more likely.

Well, that depends on how you define "people". If we're restricting it to homo sapiens, I agree. However, a population of sentient robots & computers could probably manage it... Heck, if it provided enough of a survival advantage, a future species of hominid might even be significantly more rational than us.

If it includes limiting population growth, it's definitely survival DISadvantage. Also, would something with so alien thinking that it would be capable of behaving logically and rationally be considered "people"?

However, population of sentient robots and computers, OR population of genetically or cybernetically enhanced humans, might be able to survive on other planets in solar system, which would both be survival advantage AND would provide more time for that FTL travel development. I mean, it WILL take considerable time before Jupiter atmosphere starts feeling crowded.

(Meanwhile, with assistance of technology, unmodified homo sapient can MAYBE survive on Mars. He can VISIT Moon, but probably not survive there long-term - too low gravity and the risk of decompression will go to one given enough time. Seriously, look at state of municipal water system in few cities around and then say if you think municipal based pressure dome is realistically going to last long-term.)

Note however that the original statement was referring to homo so-called sapiens.

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14 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Not true. The stone age humans were using tools, but not technology.

Ah, maybe.  Technology is using tools to make tools and fairly early on in the stone ages tools were made to make tools, i.e.  rock chippers made of bone or antlers.

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26 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Not true. The stone age humans were using tools, but not technology.

In that case we need to define technology. Wiktionary's definitions are pretty vague, so I don't think they're helpful here; Wikipedia on the other hand says "Technology can be most broadly defined as the entities, both material and immaterial, created by the application of mental and physical effort in order to achieve some value. In this usage, technology refers to tools and machines that may be used to solve real-world problems. It is a far-reaching term that may include simple tools, such as a crowbar or wooden spoon, or more complex machines, such as a space station or particle accelerator."

By this definition, stone tools (and other tools used by stone age people) count as technology; the Wikipedia article even goes on to list stone tools and fire in the history of technology.

27 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Hmmm ... can ghost be result of natural death? :)

Actually, if ghosts really existed they'd probably count as part of the natural world (at least according the broader definition); my mentioning them was a half-hearted attempt to make a joke on the term "supernatural".

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