Moontanman

Another this is that on the Earth pseudo intelligence has evolved many times in many types of animals. Maybe we are the outlier and on most planets of of the hive organisms eventually dominates the planet. On Earth even a species of vertebrate appears to be going down the path of a queen that controls the rest of the Naked Mole Rats via hormonal suppression of mating and having babies. The "sterile" sisters forage for food and take care of the queens young. For this behavior to arise in vertebrates is suggestive that super organisms may rule the cosmos...

I'm going to be the devil's advocate here, some birds, quite possibly a great many, are very intelligent, some actually talk, others even use tools. Fish called mormyrids have a bigger brain to body mass than humans and they use electrical fields as a form of echolocation and at least appear to be quite intelligent. I think that the human body plan contributed at least much as large brains to our exceptional use of tools. Not sure if any arthropods show much in the way of intelligence but certain spiders can be shown to plan ahead and change their plans in mid execution if the prey they are trying to catch change the circumstances. This is especially impressive considering they can lose sight of their prey, in this case other spiders, yet they remember the plan with almost no real brain... I think that soon what constitutes intelligence will be seen as human centric as a IQ test that caters to only a certain group. We humans are definitely not the only species can have a negative impact on the environment but we seem to be the only one who knows it and still does it anyway...

I remember a few years back my grandfather, 83 years old, took a trek into the back country of WV. He was planning to live for a few days in an old log cabin he grew up in. He got there and found the cabin had fallen down due to disrepair. A ice storm followed by heavy snow had started just after he left. He started back home but the snow and ice became too deep to travel. He backed up a against a cliff face, built a huge fire and survived five days with him and his dogs in what was later called a blizzard. He was surprised anyone had been worried, just a little snow was his off hand remark. Modern people are tougher than we think, I am confident that under similar conditions I could have survived as well. His dogs killed and brought a couple rabbits rabbits into camp which he cooked before the fire and shared with his dogs. They kept warm in a pile against the cliff and in front of the fire. Attitude has a lot to do with survival, being prepared at least minimally is a bit of an obsession to me and many of my relatives. Nearly all of us carry, fire, a decent knife, and an attitude of being will to make a decision that allows us to do what is necessary rather than what everyone else thinks you should. Of course where he was at lacked ay dangerous animals but the presence of fire and dogs would have helped with that.

I think this phenomena could be the next step in super colonies becoming mega super colonies. http://ants.com/5-ant-supercolonies-worlds-largest-ant-colonies/ Eventually such colonies could take over planet paving the way for further advancement in the face of competition. The point at which biological evolution would be capable of extending past what we would consider it's limits is debatable even for it's existence but it still mirrors human civilization, technology and domination...

Another thought I have on this. Social animals would only be limited by what biological evolution can accomplish, in my fire example above i can see how mindless processes could bring about this. It's almost as natural as the gardens, livestock, complex above and below ground cities, but a natural yet mindless path to other technology is difficult to see. Possibly such organisms wouldn't recognise our path to technology either assuming they would eventually get the ability to ponder this. An outrageous assertion: Possibly AI could evolve this way, AI in this case being an actual mind being built by either the biological components of the superorganism or technology developed by the superorganism. The more I think about this the less certain I am that super organisms could not develop technology... Imagine a civilization of ant like creatures exploiting the resources of outer planetary system and interstellar space to build and or grow habitats but we would be unaware of each other...

if it was quite large, several kilometers across it might not be too strange but a torus would be easier to support as an endless suspension bridge type deal..

Try to walk under deck on an old sailing ship, those guys were short! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height

Height in modern humans compared to humans from a few hundred years ago is nothing more than nutrition. Ancient hominids, Homo erectus, I think, were on average taller than modern humans, averaging something like 6 feet.

Looks like it might be more than a bit weird!

While I agree with you you must admit that chimps do not grow crops or domesticate animals. Nor do they keep slaves or build massive structures, all of which super organisms do quite well... I think it's plausible to think of ants or termites using the equivalent of fire as well, we have never seen it but I can see how a termite species might use a slow smoldering fire to heat their towers during a winter. Such a fire could possibly spring into being spontaneously deep in a mound and the natural ventilation methods used by these insects could be used to control the smoldering reaction. Difficult to imagine where they could go from there with it... Have you ever read "West of Eden" ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_of_Eden

I keep coming back to the fermi paradox and I wonder if beings we could understand simply do not exist due to evolution not having a goal and the direction toward intelligence as we see it is simply so rare as to have an almost zero chance of existing. I use the term hive mind to suggest civilizations like insects not a real hive mind. Such hives or cooperatives are not unusual on Earth, they mimic quite a bit of what we seem to do as thinking beings. Across the universe such "hives" could be the standard and none of them would be interested in us as anything but a possible threat or a source of raw materials. But could a mindless collective Hive develop technology? We see intelligence in places like our oceans but no matter how smart them become certain technologies would simply not be possible for them. Is there any reason to assume the save about super organisms like crustacean, insect, other non thinking beings "hives"?

I think the idea was to use thorium instead of uranium but point taken..

Thanks guys, this makes for some interesting possibilities... Would the observer feel lighter at the center of a face than at the corners as well?

I was trying to look at it from the standpoint of water, in a torus the water would look like a long lake or stream. My intuition tells me that water would pool up in the corners of a spinning cube but I am not sure.

In a spinning torus a reasonable imitation of gravity can be produced, even though from the outside is is obviously not flat but curved. But... What if you spun a cube? Even though the sides are flat from an outside observer would an interior observer feel like he was walking up hill and down as he progressed around the inside of the spinning cube?

Well you may be right! I may be crazy! (enough song lyrics...) Seriously, all I can do is parrot what experts in the field say, In many places I see the people who are supposed to know say that these things are not a big problem. Many of them are not explicitly or obviously defending a position emotionally or for financial gain. But I do enjoy taking in the information...

To discuss something we have to agree on the usage of the word in question. We can call anything... anything, as long as we both understand how the word is being used....

The issue with the tritium is addressed in the video. I would love to discuss this in detail but as you know it is beyond me and all I can do is parrot what the experts say. Thanks for the link. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor Not obvious, they would still be contained as they do not explode or operate under high pressure... Bad chemistry is a subjective term. Bad in comparison with what?

Citation? the info I've seen, admittedly dumbed down, says there is no possibility of a core breach in the ways it currently occurs and such a breach would be a local non explosive event because of the low pressure environment of the reactor and the coolant. No mention of any bad chemistry going on in the coolant but the purveyors of this system would appear to be a little less than neutral IMHO. A new one...

The main reason it wasn't pursued had to do with nuclear weapons production. Molten salt reactors aren't as conducive to making things like plutonium or Uranium 235. Several relevant U tube videos are available...

Trump is not a dictator, he is a child rapist, over a dozen women have come forward, two of them were raped at the same time by Trump when they were 12 and 13 years old. Trump has admitted... no actually bragged about sexual assault, but he claims they are all lies, the king of lies says they are lies... Anyone who still supports Trump is a sack of steaming monkey shit, then there are the tax scandals and the political scandals which amount to no less than treason. Troll on, maybe you will set the record for neg rep but I'd be ashamed of pretending to be so stupid...

Helium Three fusing with Helium Three amongst other things. "Aneutronic fusion"

There are reaction that release no neutrons, Helium three fusion comes to mind. So far all we do is capture heat, no difference in that respect between burning fossil fuels and fission. A Helium three reactor could, hypothetically, capture photons and make electricity directly, bypassing the middle man but it still wouldn't be 100% efficient. Then there is the thorium molten salt reactor, much safer but more difficult to make fission bombs from the products...

Are we discussing whether the events happened, what would have had to be true if they happened, or what was originally claimed about the events?