Dyson swarm, yes. Dyson sphere, not on our home system. The risks of blotting out your only livable planet’s biosphere is too great, not to mention stuff like the dark forest theory.
Actually, it might be worth doing this first. Once you’ve got even a partial Dyson swarm you’ve got ample energy to make interstellar travel a lot easier. You could either use beamed propulsion (lightsails or magsails), or manufacture bulk antimatter to fuel high-efficiency rocketry, or a combination of the two.
But you can’t do this to earth’s sun without causing catastrophic changes on earth, so you have to reach a different star before doing this. Blocking out even like 1% of the sun’s energy from reaching earth would likely wreak havoc on the earth
No, there’s ways to do this without damaging Earth. You could arrange the sphere so that there’s a gap that allows light through specifically to keep Earth lit, or you could use mirrors or straight up artificial light sources to maintain Earth’s sunlight levels.
Or you get over the obsession with maintaining Earth exactly as it always was and carry on without it. Once we’re talking about Dyson spheres a planet like Earth would be a very minor population center. Probably more valuable as a source of additional building material than as a place to live in its own right.
Every argument I’ve seen against the cool science fiction future boils down to “we couldn’t do it this financial quarter, so it’ll never be possible at all”.
It’s not that. It’s that organized civilization won’t last long enough to get that advanced. How long do you think it’ll take to get that far scientifically? 3-4 centuries? We’re lucky if we get 2-3 decades left out of civilization between running out of resources, climate change, pfas, microplastics, fascism/war, and unbridled capitalism. That’s just shit that’s happening right now, not even including unexpected shit like super volcano eruptions or major meteor strike or something. We simply don’t have enough time to get that advanced.
The risks of blotting out your only livable planet’s biosphere is too great
If our Dyson sphere project has become large enough that this is a risk, then we’ve got ample energy to spare to artificially light Earth. Assuming we still want to keep it around at that point and not dismantle it for additional raw materials.
not to mention stuff like the dark forest theory.
Dark Forest only works in the context of a cheesy sci-fi story. Under real-world physics it fails utterly.
Dyson swarm, yes. Dyson sphere, not on our home system. The risks of blotting out your only livable planet’s biosphere is too great, not to mention stuff like the dark forest theory.
Exactly, this won’t be worth looking into before we have interstellar travel, and that is probably a very very long time away
Actually, it might be worth doing this first. Once you’ve got even a partial Dyson swarm you’ve got ample energy to make interstellar travel a lot easier. You could either use beamed propulsion (lightsails or magsails), or manufacture bulk antimatter to fuel high-efficiency rocketry, or a combination of the two.
But you can’t do this to earth’s sun without causing catastrophic changes on earth, so you have to reach a different star before doing this. Blocking out even like 1% of the sun’s energy from reaching earth would likely wreak havoc on the earth
Put the Dyson swarm at the orbit of the asteroid belt. Won’t block much in the way of light, but comets could become an issue.
We’ll just keep a window open on that side of the Dyson sphere.
Well, given that the earth only utilizes about 1 billionth of the sun’s energy, so I think we could have both with just a little effort.
No, there’s ways to do this without damaging Earth. You could arrange the sphere so that there’s a gap that allows light through specifically to keep Earth lit, or you could use mirrors or straight up artificial light sources to maintain Earth’s sunlight levels.
Or you get over the obsession with maintaining Earth exactly as it always was and carry on without it. Once we’re talking about Dyson spheres a planet like Earth would be a very minor population center. Probably more valuable as a source of additional building material than as a place to live in its own right.
Lol even in theory it’s dubious, in reality it’s absurd. Well never make it to that point.
Every argument I’ve seen against the cool science fiction future boils down to “we couldn’t do it this financial quarter, so it’ll never be possible at all”.
It’s not that. It’s that organized civilization won’t last long enough to get that advanced. How long do you think it’ll take to get that far scientifically? 3-4 centuries? We’re lucky if we get 2-3 decades left out of civilization between running out of resources, climate change, pfas, microplastics, fascism/war, and unbridled capitalism. That’s just shit that’s happening right now, not even including unexpected shit like super volcano eruptions or major meteor strike or something. We simply don’t have enough time to get that advanced.
Very pessimistic viewpoint. We have issues to solve for sure but I very much doubt humanity will implode in less than 50 years.
We’re entering a new dark age
Guess we’ll see.
Humanity won’t, but civilization will.
RemindMe! 50 years
If our Dyson sphere project has become large enough that this is a risk, then we’ve got ample energy to spare to artificially light Earth. Assuming we still want to keep it around at that point and not dismantle it for additional raw materials.
Dark Forest only works in the context of a cheesy sci-fi story. Under real-world physics it fails utterly.