02-08-2018, 11:16 PM | #31 |
Untagged
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Is TS optimistic or pessimistic?
It may or may not be hazardous for the majority of us, but that's not everyone, and at worst, it would be long term.
TS has loads of biotech to make that a non-issue long before 2100.
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02-09-2018, 02:20 AM | #32 |
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: near London, UK
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Re: Is TS optimistic or pessimistic?
Oh, yes. I was at a seminar on the Great Game in 1988 (GenCon), and Lester Smith (I think) said "look, guys, you're supposed to dislike the French" to general amazement - lots of gamers had assumed that, since they were the power largely in charge of things in the area that the game depicted, they were supposed to be the good guys.
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02-09-2018, 04:56 PM | #33 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: Is TS optimistic or pessimistic?
Quote:
Does anyone know much about biotech? Has any of their tech moved from 'maaybe if we are lucky and people do some horrific experiments' to 'nah'?
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02-09-2018, 05:56 PM | #34 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: Is TS optimistic or pessimistic?
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02-09-2018, 07:31 PM | #36 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Is TS optimistic or pessimistic?
Was that meant to be "Europans"?
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02-09-2018, 07:40 PM | #37 |
Untagged
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Is TS optimistic or pessimistic?
Maybe he's just suspicious of Europe in general. What with their funny way of speaking. JK
Europans though... I'm really skeptical of altering the human genome to something capable of surviving as a "cold-blooded" non-Earth seawater breathing fish form. But at least it doesn't break any laws of physics that I know of.
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Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check. |
02-09-2018, 07:51 PM | #38 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Is TS optimistic or pessimistic?
Quote:
Air carries 30x as much oxygen as water can so a set of gills for a human-like being have to move 30x as much water as lungs for them would move air. Cut that in half for "cold-blooded" and it's still a question of "How?" and "Why aren't they using if for propulsion too?". Like the turbopumps there may be an "extreme" answer but that extremeness might be pretty obvious such as "gills" that are larger than the organism they supply
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02-10-2018, 03:15 AM | #39 |
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: Is TS optimistic or pessimistic?
Even if nothing changed about bio-tech futurological knowledge, it seems to me that THS' attitude has changed, and that modern THS is ashamed of the optimism and radicalness with which it was conceived, and wants to push the genie back into the bottle. Probably the most blatant example is the amount of effort in the Bioroid Bazaar to make pheromone glands either illegal or useless, even though comparable fully-synthetic aerosols of the setting are both legal and effective. Or how about the attempts to deprive memetics of its revolutionary usefulness by making their effects weaker. Other examples would be more subtle and/or subjective, but I'd say that newer books seem to be less inclined to include signs of radical technologies or ideologies (as compared to 'oldies' such as Cabals, Hamlin, a major chunk of bio- and stellar-tech and Eidolons from Deep Beyond, Wiper Treatment etc.).
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02-10-2018, 05:26 AM | #40 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: Is TS optimistic or pessimistic?
Quote:
I think that THS has about the right amount of weirdness. Our 2100 will have different weird, but thinking about THS helps to prepare us for the fact that the future will be strange and alien and full of things we never imagined and things we thought were impossible.
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