General > Off Topic
Ecumenopolis
PurpleYouko:
Have you ever read Asimov's foundation series. There are some pretty wacky industrial planets in there.
:D PY :D
Numsgil:
Yeah, and you saw what happened to the Galactic Empire. Decay. The central city (forget the name) turned into a rural hick's paradise. The steel torn up and replaced with farms.
I'm telling you, it's going to be suburbia for ever and ever. The only possible debate is the size of the lots.
PurpleYouko:
You can see it all around even now, particularly in some of the older cities in places like England.
It goes like this.
First, everyone gets together and makes a big city because that was the way things worked a couple hundred years ago. No phones or decent roads so you had to be close together to do business.
The better off business men begin to live in the suburbs cuz it is just nicer out there.
Pretty soon the middle bit is a run down slum where only the poorest people live.
Eventually even the down and outs move out.
After a while developers move in, bulldoze the giant appartment blocks and put up trendy new dockside luxury appartments with surrounding reclaimed parklands.
The rich folk move back in cuz now they can have their cake and eat it.
The outcome?
Giant suburbs just like Num said.
Go to central Manchester or Birmingham and take a look. You can see it happening all over England.
Most US cities haven't quite reached that point because they got off to a later start than British cities.
:) PY :)
MightyPenguin:
--- Quote ---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.
--- End quote ---
Hydroponics. 'Nuff said, really.
--- Quote ---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.
--- End quote ---
Dyson sphere the sun. Simple; cheap. Like a one ex ten year long battery. Plus, a fully urbanised city would provide a stepping stone to set up a system to capture waste heat; you can feed the waste energy back into the waste products it resulted from. Yes, you lose some from energy transition, but it lowers the energy cost significantly.
--- Quote ---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).
--- End quote ---
You're still thinking in terms of off planet food production. Not necessarily true, and you also assume that interstellar travel is possible. Admittably, transport within the Ecumenopolis (actually, that word sucks ass; I'm going to go with Ravincia instead.), within Ravincia would be hell unless it was properly organised. Actually, Ravincia would be unworkable in any shape or form without an organised transport system. Look at the Earth now; the biggest cities already well beyond the capacity of their transport systems to bind them. We have to assume that anybody crazy enough to build this thing would have a transport system built to last in mind.
--- Quote ---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.
--- End quote ---
You assume that;
* 1: There are other intelligent species in the Galaxy
* 2: Interstellar travel is possible and/or feasible in a timeframe small enough for a war to be constructed
* 3: This species desires conquest of other worlds
* 4: It would be economicably viable to build and maintain an interstellar empire, even with travel as a given. Remember, the British Empire, the largest empire ever known, covered a bare third of the world's land and that was held together basically by force of will.
* 5: Such a planet would be a desirable prize; by your own arguments it would be a burden rather than much of a prize.
That leaves other humans as potential opponents, and even they would be bounded by 2,3,4 and 5. 5 could work if the planet was the centre of administration.
--- Quote ---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.)
--- End quote ---
We are fifteen years from fast rendered photo-realistic graphics. Add another five to develop VR to the point where it will be indistinguishable from life. At that point the human race will down tools and jack in, leaving robots to care for their rotting bodies in the most efficient manner. I.e. stacking them in warehouses. Urban planet a go.
MightyPenguin:
--- Quote ---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 rabbits.
--- End quote ---
I am the opposite. I know a girl from Hong Kong who hates this city because our buildings aren't tall enough to block out the sun. Different strokes for differing folks. (paraphrased, I know, but this is more elegant.)
--- Quote ---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.
--- End quote ---
Sex is something everybody enjoys. Having children is not. Look at the declining populations of the more developed countries if you want proof. And as the two can be made mutually exclusive...
--- Quote ---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.
--- End quote ---
:rolleyes:
See first point this post.
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