Talk-Polywell.org

But that's an argument for another thread (ie: didn't we just leave this party?)...

The TalkPolywell party... you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave...

I completely agree that we should have attention to detail and build specialized, low-production run weapons today, because we have the luxury of doing so. WWII was a mass-production war, though, so the best strategy then was to focus on production of relatively few, standardized designs. The German...

Entangling alliances: nature abhors a vacuum. If the dominant power doesn't make alliances with its friends, others powers will move in. Alliances give you: 1. Basing rights (helping you to, say, maintain fleets in every ocean) 2. Military exchanges, so that your armed forces and armed forces of cou...

Yeah, I remember some old NASA artist's impressions of a spaceplane accelerating along a track run up the side of a mountain. The German gun example is interesting, but typical of the German war effort: too much attention to detail. The gun would have been very useful in one-off tactical situations,...

Josh, do you mean that you think AGW is as well proven as, say, evolution or gravity? Both are "theories" in the sense that everything in science is a "theory", but both are proven pretty much beyond reasonable doubt. I don't think global warming is anywhere near as well proven as those examples. Ho...

Josh, Oil may run out in the next several decades. There are probably unknown reserves yet to be tapped, and there are reserves like the Alberta oil sands that will see production ramped up when oil prices rise again. But yes, if demand for oil continues to grow at a high rate, it could run out this...

To achieve the touted 9000 meters/sec at the muzzle, at a modest 3 g acceleration used for manned space flight, you accelerate in 306.1 seconds and the gun need be only 1378 kilometers in length. A small continent will do. Think we can get Australia to let us build a gun across the Outback?! :twist...

I'd forgotten 1984 - I have read that three or four times. First time in high school.

I did start Stranger in a Strange Land, but I was very young - probably early teens. Didn't get far, I think I was too young to understand it. Sometime I'll have to go back to it.

If the sea level were to rise two meters in the next ten years, it would be catastrophic. Over generations, it's disconcerting - there would be time to adapt, although some historic cities and landmarks would be lost and decaying buildings would cause a lot of ocean pollution. I get the impression f...

Anyone interested in doing movies and tv shows too?

There are lots more being mentioned here that I've read once, stuff like Hitchhiker's Guide. I read a lot of Alan Dean Foster's books years ago - he did both sci-fi and fantasy (he had a character called the spellsinger, IIRC). I don't normally read novels twice though, just ones I like. I'm also on...

The scientifically sound predictions are not "alarming." They are disconcerting, perhaps, but they are not extraordinary. Skeptics like to use high end estimates and scenarios that are not part of the reliability curve to "prove" that they're "alarming" but that's not the case. Josh, when I hear yo...

"Psychopathic traits are geneticaly inherited." Yes and no. From what I've read, it seems to fall out this way: 1. A predisposition towards being a psychopath can be genetically rooted. Usually it is related to some kind of biologically driven lack of empathy. 2. The parents of a psychopath can be p...

Of course, if the West was pushed far enough, we would end up using the bomb. If the situation ever gets that bad, it will happen, come what may. But we shouldn't paint ourselves into a corner where that will happen without it being absolutely necessary. If it is absolutely necessary, democracy will...