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Ecumenopolis

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Zelos:
Ecumenopolis comes from the greek word for "world city". a city that never ends, the entire planet would be a gigantic city :D . for me its the perfect world. we will if the pridiction is right have that city when we reach 0,9 on the Kardashev scale. qurently we are 0,7. what would you think about this future? a future whit 1 city on this planet. a never ending city :evil: no forests, coz we wont need them, no animals, coz we dont need them, nothing else than what we want :evil:

Numsgil:
I think someone figured out that a world wide city would be impractical.

Imagine:

You have to transport perishable food items to the world from off world.  It would take many, many agrarian planets to sustain a single city planet of the density of, say, modern New York.

Now, imagine a planet that is even more urban.  Layered and layered under endless waves of steel and mortar.

First of all, there would be no plant life on the planet, or only meager amounts.  The sheer amount of waste materials such a planet would generate is astounding.  Massive amounts of energy would be needed just to scrub the water and air.

Second, the sheer amount of food necessary would mean transportation.  Even today most food is impractical to transport long distances.  Imagine trying to transport food to a urban planet from a different system (many planets, more than a single solar system could hold).

Such a city would represent a target too large to rivals.  The planet could easily be conquered by simply cutting off its supply of food.  Within a few months, years at most, the entire planet would die of starvation.

Last, as technology increases we become increasingly decentralized.  The internet represents such a system.  Soon, power sources will also be such a thing.  I think, if anything, we will see the eventual suburbanization of planets.  The need for us to gather in person will decrease as technology increases, until there is no incentive at all except for mating (and maybe even then!)

So we'll all live in the environment in which we find the most beautiful.  There is a predesigned environment of semi-arid that our species finds the most pleasurable (think the lawns that everyone lives on.  Short grass like that only grows naturally in semi-arid environments.  Wetter than that and long grass and eventually trees develop.)

So you'll eventually see the entire universe a homogenous mixture of suburban developments and massively organized farms supporting them on the same planet.

Zelos:
when it comes to food, what if each and every house have a machinge which is capable of taking the CO2 from the air, water from our water system, and our biproducts, you know what I mean I hope, and can change the molecules so they become what we call is food, it is identical, the machine made food of no food :D and why shall we mate if we dont want to when we can clone? make ppl by mixing genes from a enourmus gene bank. and about energy, such a city would most likly use the energy from the sun very effient, use the energy from the center of the earth, and most likly also fusion/fission, all this togheter can probely generate enough of energy to supply the entire planet. and why live in a world we dont like when we can get one we like? its perfect whit the right technology I tell you

PurpleYouko:
Who the heck would want to live in a giant city?

I hate cities. That is why I choose to live in the country with an acre of my very own short grass, a few ornamental trees and herds of wildlife like deer, birds and rabits.

Living in a world wide city would be shear torture for people like me. It will never happen. There's just too many nature lovers (and laws that protect bloody woodpeckers that keep attacking my house.  :shoot: Nasty little bastards!)

 :D  PY  :D

Numsgil:
First of all, I doubt that cloning or other 'artificial' means will ever replace good old sex as the dominant reproductive method.  The family unit is hard wired into our collective psyche, with children being an amalgamate of the parents, and families living on physical contact with one another.  Any system that denies this cannot be stable, and will eventually collapse.

Second, even pretending that we could make machines that could 100% effectively convert sunlight into food, and cover every single square inch of visible land with it, it would still mean a planet with a population density roughly that of a suburb.  (Perhaps a little denser, but definately not as dense as an urban center with sky scrapers).


--- Quote ---and why live in a world we dont like when we can get one we like
--- End quote ---

My point exactly.  Every human has two environments they like.

1.  Where they grew up
2.  A semiarid land in the springtime, with short green grass and a few trees.

The first is from environmental factors, and varies with every culture and person.  The second is universal to our species and speaks of a past time of common ancestory.

So, given infinite time and no limitations, you will eventually see every person in existance living in the environment their species dictates, namely a short grass semi arid environment.

This all adds up to eternal suburbs across every planet capable of sustaining earth life among the 200 Billion+ stars in the galaxy.

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