Clash of Civilizations: Alien Invasion

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Alien attack through wormhole

Sooner or later we would meet an alien civilization. The question would be: What if that meeting was an invasion. It is not impossible, also not very likely. So how many ways could this happen?

Bad Reasons to Invade

So let us take a look at this from the worst to the least bad first.

They Want Our Women

So unless you are looking at old pulp sci-fi this is not going to be a concern. Unless for some reason our broadcast signals have created a new interstellar kink.

They Want Our Resources

Even for us most of the resources we want for expansion in space we are going to get from space. It is far better to get get it there than have to drag it up from a planet’s gravity well. Also unless they have figured out faster than light (FTL) travel trying to move those resources from our system is going to be cost prohibitive. Even with FTL the amount of energy needed wouldn’t warrant it. Even if we allow for the sake of argument that possibility there are always going to be closer systems to harvest unless our invaders are from Alpha Centauri. At this point our technology probably would have detected that.

We or Some Life on Earth is a Delicacy

The classic short story To Serve Man aside. It is highly unlikely that life on a different planet would be tasty or even biocompatible. If by some strange reason we were some delicacy, the technology of an advanced civilization makes cloning or some type of GMO human delicacy possible. At this point taking biopsies and sequencing the genes will give them all they need to grow what they want no major conflict needed.

They Want Our Land

Here at K2 Musings Central we feel that planets are a very bad colonization choice. Again the technology to build space habitats, such as an O’Neil Cylinder, gives you access to more land than a hundred planets in a system. Also it becomes easier to move resources back and forth rather than to move them up an down from a gravity well. Although advanced civilizations could build space elevators and orbital rings, but again you don’t need to.

We Are Located in a Good Strategic Location

The rules of real estate: location, location, location. As we have learned from all science fiction, Earth is always important, especially the United States or Great Britain. At this point it is hard to believe there would be a reason for that. Again for the sake of argument even if are space based assets are more likely better than a planet.

Good Reasons to Invade

And by invade here it is more likely to mean good reasons to destroy Earth. Since both the planet and us are not terribly useful to an alien species.

We Are Against Their Religion

Earlier we spoke about a Kardashev II civilization as pretty much a place we religion goes to die. However, it is not completely impossible that some religion formed that only their own people and system are special and all other species are infidels and must be destroyed.

They Have Created Artificial Intelligence That Wants to Wipe Out All Life

This is part of the plot of Dennis E. Taylor’s book The Singularity Trap. The galaxy is pretty much at war between artificials and uploaded biologicals.

This is the concern that we invent Artificial Intelligence and that is the last invention we create. The A.I. decides all life is a threat to its existence wipes us out then stands ready to wipe out any other other life it discovers.

A.I., keep it simple keep it dumb or end up under SkyNet’s thumb.

Isaac Arthur

We Represent and Existential Threat

This is perhaps the best argument for alien invasion. A K2 civilization has existed as a society for thousands of years, and it has time horizons running in centuries or millennia. A civilization discovering us would know a couple things. We are a technological civilization and we came to be where we are through evolution. We fought our way to the top of the food chain. The alien civilization most likely also pushed its way to the top of the food chain in a same way.

That means they can view us as a threat in terms of competition for resources. It may be a couple thousand years before we could pose a threat, but it is easy to eliminate that threat now before we become a space faring or multi planet civilization.

So What Does an Interstellar War Look Like

It pretty much looks like the entire NATO Alliance versus a second grader with a pointed stick. And the pointed stick might be giving us too much credit.

The simplest way to wipe us out is a Relativistic Kill Missile. This is basically just taking a large mass accelerated to some fraction of light speed. We would have almost no defense against this. It would have been accelerated up to its speed a good distance from Earth. So you have a dense, small, and fast object that is very difficult to detect and thanks to its speed very little warning.

So the war looks like a sudden burst of mushroom clouds around the planet suddenly out of nowhere. So a realistic alien invasion film look much more like Bambi Meets Godzilla.

Disclosure: I will use Amazon Affiliate links in where the content makes it reasonable. I will receive a commision if you click and make a purchase. However I only add links when it makes sense in the content. Content is not added just to add links.

The Automation Hump

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Cartoon robots waiting for job interview

In the previous post we seemed to hit a hump. In the long run we have all the energy, resources, and manufacturing we need, but it seems that no one has a job. The path to the future seems to be:

  1. Automation
  2. ??????
  3. Utopia

I think today we are all stuck on what that second step is. The fear is it will be more like:

  1. Automation
  2. ???????
  3. Dystopia

Is Universal Basic Income the Solution

Before Andrew Yang pushed his idea of a Universal Basic Income (UBI), I came to a similar conclusion as a solution for poverty. On the Media did a series called Busted: America’s Poverty Myths. The big takeaway I had is there is no specific type of poor person. I think the only consistent thing you can say about the poor is they have less money than the rest of us. So one solution is to just give them more money. Also many people don’t get benefits not because they wouldn’t be eligible, but because they don’t have the time to jump through the hoops of the bureaucracy. Largely because they are too busy going to their minimum wage job. The UBI gets rid of the bureaucracy and puts the money in the hands of the people who need it the most. It is also not a new idea Richard Nixon actually look at proposing something like this in 1969. It is even now a bill put forward in California.

Stress of Change is Reduced

UBI goes forward and gives everyone $1,000/month. Automation also starts displacing people. It is still an open question if new jobs replace the old ones that existed. Even if there are new jobs, training may also be needed so you may be looking at a lot of displaced workers. However, all those people are guaranteed a softer landing than before. Also the economy may also grow. The tax cuts of the past that went to the rich do not trickle back into the economy it just gets added to their savings. Money that goes to the poor immediately goes back in the economy providing growth.

Labor Becomes Mobile

In some cases with public assistance there was a residency requirement to get on assistance. So even if you wanted to move to find a job if you are poor you can’t afford it due to loss of assistance. With UBI this stops being a problem.

The Path to Bespoke Capitalism

The 2008 financial crisis led to job losses. People eventually recovered, but one part of the recovery was people starting their own businesses. There are many people who were in unfulfilling careers for some of them the downturn in the economy led them to find their own path. Once again with some level of guaranteed income it makes it easier to try something new.

One thing mass production gives us is a bunch of cheap and standardized goods. On one level this is good on another it leads to a bunch of homogenized culture. As the basic needs are met there is a need for individualization and customization. A major coming change is 3D printers, you can create your own custom objects or easily find downloadable content.

The economy grows due to the infusion of money at the bottom from UBI. Also the demand for uniqueness grows in both physical and non-physical goods. Services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime have changed how we find and consume entertainment. It has also opened up a bigger demand for content. Technology also has lowered the cost enough that making content for narrow markets. We also have a small barrier of entry in making content thanks to YouTube and the various blogging tools.

Switch to the Long Tail

An example of a power law graph showing popularity ranking. To the right (yellow) is the long tail; to the left (green) are the few that dominate. In this example, the cutoff is chosen so that areas of both regions are equal. Source: Wikipedia

Big business by its size needed to focus on the most popular and most good it could sell. Smaller business can look at the long tail of the distribution. Instead of focusing on the desire of the masses (the green part of the graph) you focus on the thousands or even individuals who are looking for custom goods or content. It is not the recipe for a big business. It is the recipe for many small businesses. Finding the right customers may be a challenge but we have managed with UBI to add once again a buffer to failures.

Getting Over the Hump

So here we can add some of the paths to the Bespoke Capitalist future:

  1. Automation
  2. Productivity gains reduce working hours due to same level of productivity/hour.
  3. Job losses happen due to contraction of labor demand.
  4. UBI helps to strengthen the economy by infusing more money at the bottom.
  5. More leisure time increases demand for custom goods and experiences.
  6. More small business takes up the custom demand for goods that large industry finds unprofitable.
  7. Utopia?

While there are a lot of questions this is a future we can all hope for.

Moving Toward Post Scarcity Economics

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The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force of our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity,

 Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Star Trek: First Contact
Island view from the endcap. Credit NASA Don Davis
Interitrtior view from an O’Neil cylinder. Credit NASA Don Davis

What is Post Scarcity Economics

Economics is the study of scarcity. You have scarce resources and have to find a way to allocate them. Money and capitalism has been useful is it allows a free market to set values on goods and allows for a processing of information that planned economies do not have access to. If you think about it there are three things that are really scarce today:

  • Land
  • Energy
  • Raw materials
  • Labor

You might debate how scarce, but there is a scarcity issue. So what are the future technologies that change this.

Land – Yes We Are Making More

Once you start moving to space the ability to build space habitats just gives you an unlimited amount of living space. The future lies in space habitats probably on the scale of large O’Neil Cylinders and not terraforming other planets. It is far cheaper to build a large habitat than terraform a planet.

Energy – Fusion (Only Twenty Years Away)

While the joke has been fusion is the technology that is only twenty years away and alway will be. It is coming closer be a reality. ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) is being built in France and will be the first fusion reactor that should produce 10 times more energy than it takes in 50 MW to 500 MW, and first plasma is scheduled for 2025. This will demonstrate the technological feasibility of a fusion power plant. This probably doesn’t get you to commercial fusion power in twenty years, but it is now a question of when not if.

Unlimited clean energy gets you to a lot of things. If we are concerned about freshwater the energy to run desalination plants is available. Recycling can be too energy intensive once power is available we can start turning trash back into more raw materials.

Space Mining

While some resources are getting difficult to get on Earth, as space infrastructure grows the same resources get easier to obtain in space. Where on Earth some of those resources may have been in short supply the asteroids are going to give us an almost unlimited supply in the short term. Also in some ways this becomes a virtuous circle. As more resources are mined in space the more resources are available to build infrastructure making obtaining resources still cheaper.

Automation

This for a point will be the dark side of the immediate future. We are looking at a major restructuring of the economy about to happen. For business owners and shareholders the goal is to increase profitability. The tipping point is coming where automating work with robots and Artificial Intelligence and robotics gets cheaper than paying employees. So we see are going to see jobs going away, and potentially less jobs being created. This is where it is hard to see the other side.

For the moment I am going to handwave the crisis away. As this needs a post of its own. However the positive is all goods get cheaper as well. So we will not be lacking for anything.

Work Circa 2060

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Last time we mused about where work is going. This time we jump to the near future for a work day.

My Work Day 2060

Amazed business colleagues relaxing in office rest room. Man and women wearing virtual reality glasses, sitting in motion chairs and touching air. VR entertainment concept

I woke as the window blinds in my bedroom opened, threw off the covers and stood up. I would have preferred getting up later than 9:45, but my 10 o’clock meeting wasn’t going to let me sleep in. I liked the new energy I had in the morning, glad my A.I. assistant had set my serotonin pump earlier. That quick morning pulse definitely helped get me going. The FDA approving the implants for all use not just depression was killing off the alarm clock industry.

I put on my robe and walked to the kitchen my cup of coffee waiting for me. Hey, my brain still liked old school caffeine too. I walked over to my standing desk and grabbed my headphones and glasses. The you have a Teams Ultimate meeting at 10:00 (10 minutes) message flashed in corner of vision. Okay, so alarm clocks are on there way out, but we managed to create something more insidious. I flicked my hand to snooze the reminder.

I expanded my virtual monitor screen and grabbed the meeting agenda. Some of the engineering specs where their for the Tangent hoverboard. Really just an issue of tweaking the A.I. settings as far as I could tell.

My meeting reminder pinged me again. I scanned some of my avatars decided on a pair or business casual jeans and a corporate logo polo. I swiped to enter the meeting. The lights in my office nook dimmed and my glasses switched into full VR mode.

A larger ogre with a battle axe stood by a model of the hoverboard along with some engineering schematics on the whiteboard.

“Morning Yang,” I said.

The ogre set down the battle axe. “Morning,” he said. “I don’t know if we really need this meeting as far as I can tell pretty much everything is ready. Still some tweaks to the accelerometer software, but I think we should be good.”

Mohammed form legal winked in. He was dressed in some Star Trek uniform from one of the old series. What was it again? Picard I think. “So do you think you have the settings locked down?”

“I think so.” I said. “We are just down to some of the software tweaks.”

“About that,” said Mohammed. “I would like to add a legal swipe through warning about the use at high speeds.”

“Seriously,” Yang said. Picking up the battle axe and half heartedly shaking it.

“Sorry, too many stupid people out there with access to lawyers.” Mohammed replied.

“I thought they wanted to be referred to as logically challenge?” I said

Mohammed rolled his eyes.”Turned out they weren’t bright enough to make themselves a protected class.”

Bob from Health and Safety flashed in. What the hell was he wearing? Different flashes of clothing and faces continued to flash around. I raised an eyebrow. “The Scramble Suit from a Scanner Darkly. Seriously could you be more of a hipster. You know that makes it really hard to talk to you?”

“Hey, its a cult classic. How did you know it was me?” Bob asked.

“I think it would have been that large ‘Bob’ text over the head of you avatar. Seriously what’s wrong with jeans and a polo anyway.” I said.

“OK, Millennial.” Bob said. “Probably would have been better if we were meeting in Time on my Face anyway.”

“You are too much of a hipster,” Yang said. “You do know that Apple and Microsoft are pretty much the same age as companies, right? And that Apple’s corporate cloud has sucked forever. Although I could use Time on My Face’s interactivity a little right now.” He finished swinging around his battle axe..

Jonathan from accounting flashed in, wearing full Stormtrooper armour. “That’s why it is the preferred platform for porn.” He said adding to Yang’s comment.

“Fine I’ll change if you insist.” Bob said as his Scramble Suit disappeared and he appeared naked.

Mohammed looked over at Bob then back at Jonathan and shook his head.

Sally from Marketing popped in. Her avatar was Minnie Mouse with excessively large breasts. Mohammed glanced at her and winked out.

“I wanted to go over the graphics on the Tangent hoverboard.” Sally said. “You said this was going to be really fast can we have it red with some flames on it.”

Yang looked at her. “You know we just want to get the last of the design right. Besides you know people are going to be able to get it quick fabbed in any style or color they want right?”

“It is going to be for the ad campaign. I swear you engineers know nothing about…”

The meeting room disappeared cutting off Sally’s last comment. I was back at my standing desk my glasses back in AR mode and the light back to normal. I lowered my desk and sat down. I pulled up the meeting link and tried going back in. A message just blinked back at me, “Meeting disabled by legal.”

Did I really need to be up for this? I guess not. May as well look over at other work. I Teams Ultimate message popped onto my glasses.

Singh, Mohammed: I apologize but I had to terminate today’s meeting due to gross IP violations. The Mickey Mouse Act of 2059 has added massive licensing restrictions to any Disney Properties. I will try and see if we can avoid terminating Sally however the legal exposure her avatar has caused may not be avoidable without her termination.
Johnathan I checked your IP license for your Stormtrooper appears to be in order, but please note it is close to its renewal period.
I will also note that while we have not had a policy on nudity in meetings it is not recommended, and Bob your photoshop is not fooling anyone.
Also to note that I am not exempt and my Star Trek uniform is properly licensed from ViacomCBSNetflix. You will all be receiving our AR/VR meeting guideline dress code. Please contact me with any questions.

Well, at least I can get back to doing real work I thought to myself as I took a sip from my coffee. I set down my cup and looked at the message on my cup. “I survived another meeting that should have been an email.” Yep, sometimes nothing changes.

Disclosure: I will use Amazon Affiliate links in where the content makes it reasonable. I will receive a commision if you click and make a purchase. However I only add links when it makes sense in the content. Content is not added just to add links.

Future Work

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Office or No Office

Yeah, I need to see you in the office more. OK, Boomer. Office Space boss.

When do you really need to be in the office. Not nearly as much as I think management would think. I currently have a laptop, cell, hotspot and VPN access. My job is field IT support. At this time I can work a help desk queue from anywhere. The only advantage of an office is a better monitor and peripherals and a better internet connection. We still have a culture of wanting to see people at work, because if they can see you they know you are working.

David Graeber in his book Bullshit Jobs talked about how at one time John Maynard Keynes predicted with all the gains in productivity by now we would have the 25 hour work week. That didn’t happen, but in some offices it is more like work 25 hours and then spend 15 hours on Facebook. From personal experience working in an office often means interruptions and random conversations. Working from home often is better because you can focus on the work at hand and you are removed from distractions and the commute is great.

A Human Element is Sometimes Still Needed

But meaningless work conversations are not always meaningless. They allow you to build rapport with coworkers and possible more cohesion within teams. There is also more trust and empathy when you are working face to face. It allows you to get more subtle details that can be critical to solving a problem.

Will I Even Have and Office in the Future

Even for a company that wants to see you at work the vast amount of meetings I am having in Microsoft Teams, and a good portion of the conversations over the phone or over Teams. You probably still need an office just so you have a space that is geared toward your productivity. The state of the art in virtual reality or augmented reality is still leaving something to be desired. I am not finding someone who has traded their monitor for some kind of augmented reality rig. For most people it sounds like they are a little too tiring for long term use, and the form factor is still a little bulky. That is today, however there is no reason you wouldn’t have a AR monitor that is no different from wearing a pair of glasses and is just as comfortable as using a good monitor today.

The future office is rapidly starting to look like a bunch of people sitting in a Starbucks with good WiFi. The computers either just a box that may only connect them to the cloud maybe with the form factor of a keyboard. Probably for the old school crowd. The rest may have their box and glasses, happily typing away with haptic gloves. The outside view is just a bunch of people sitting at tables with coffee wearing glasses and headphone occasionally talking to or randomly gesturing in the air. A coffee shop with a bunch of people simultaneously disconnected from each other and completely connected to the world

What About Factory Work

The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.

Warren Bennis

Warren Bennis was wrong, neither the man or the dog is needed anymore. Once you start adding in telepresence and automation even factory jobs can be done remotely. The factory of the future just becomes an unlight black box with robots making stuff. Set on the cheapest piece of land that allows you good transportation and logistics. The future factory worker is still sitting in a Starbucks either monitoring equipment or controlling a robot remotely to make repairs.

Future prediction: a lot more Starbucks with good WiFi. Just kidding everyone is just going to get 5G while they sit in Starbucks.

Disclosure: I will use Amazon Affiliate links in where the content makes it reasonable. I will receive a commision if you click and make a purchase. However I only add links when it makes sense in the content. Content is not added just to add links.