Tech levels and the end of the universe

[howandwhy99]

Kardeshev is being very abstract. Tech grows like a tree. It has roots from something that came before. And exploring that tree isn't just how long the branches are and how they are positioned in reference to each other. That exploration also encompasses ancestor tech. I might care less about how my Iphone came to be and only want to know what it does now. But part of that answer lies in everything that occurred in the past that led up to it.

 

[Alzrius]

I'm not sure how much this helps, but the Doomsday Argument might be worth considering.

Basically, it uses statistical sampling to take a subset of a group and use it to find out how large the entire group is. By applying that to humans (e.g. "all humans who've ever lived up until now" being the subset, and "all humans who are living, have ever lived, or will ever live" being the total), you can then - presuming a baseline regarding the average lifespan and total number of people existing resources can support (e.g. capping the total number that can be alive at a given time) - chart out a rough figure for how long humans have before we go extinct.

Obviously this will shift depending on how you calculate things like the total number of humans who've lived so far, what the average life expectancy will be, and how many humans the planet can support at once, but the numbers generated don't seem to vary that widely. The baseline prediction given in the article (which, using the math given there, is listed as only 95% likely to be accurate) is that we'll last just over 9,100 years.

This might be useful if you want to figure out how long a civilization lasts - that is, instead of trying to figure if something brings a species to an end, and then trying to determine what, this will let you figure out a date for when an extinction event occurs, and then you can work backwards to determine how their end came about.

 

[tomBitonti]

I'm not sure how much this helps, but the Doomsday Argument might be worth considering.

With at quite charitable outlook, that argument seems -- faulty.

Thx!

TomB

 

[Morrus]

Kardeshev is being very abstract. Tech grows like a tree. It has roots from something that came before. And exploring that tree isn't just how long the branches are and how they are positioned in reference to each other. That exploration also encompasses ancestor tech. I might care less about how my Iphone came to be and only want to know what it does now. But part of that answer lies in everything that occurred in the past that led up to it.

Well, bear in mind the RPG just needs to answer "can I buy a type 14 pulse rifle from this planet?"

 

[Janx]

Well, bear in mind the RPG just needs to answer "can I buy a type 14 pulse rifle from this planet?"

That seems suitable for items as obvious as "weapon that fires projectile at target"

How about a DeChronulator Pox virus that identifies your DNA and removes the target and its ancestors from reality?

Where on the scale is that?

 

[Morrus]

That seems suitable for items as obvious as "weapon that fires projectile at target"

How about a DeChronulator Pox virus that identifies your DNA and removes the target and its ancestors from reality?

Where on the scale is that?

Where do you want it to be?

I mean, I peg these things by feel. Game design has to be half art. That feels Doctor Who-like to me. 13 or so?

(Oh, and do you mind if I yoink? That's AWESOME!)

 

[Alzrius]

With at quite charitable outlook, that argument seems -- faulty.

How so? It's been independently discovered more than once, and the same math was used in the famous "German Tank Problem" to correctly predict the number of tanks Germany had in World War II. It seems pretty well-substantiated (notwithstanding tweaking the base assumptions, as the article notes).

If you're referencing one of the rebuttals listed on the page, it'd be helpful if you mentioned which one.

 

[Janx]

Where do you want it to be?

I mean, I peg these things by feel. Game design has to be half art. That feels Doctor Who-like to me. 13 or so?

(Oh, and do you mind if I yoink? That's AWESOME!)

Go right ahead.

I can live with the GM having to guesstimate where to rank tech ideas, especially ones that don't fall into a specific bucket like "that's a gun", "that's a car"

How about a DarkSpace Winch? It latches onto reality between 2 points in space and re-compresses the dark space between them. Designed to counter-act the effects of universal expansion due to the nature of space expanding that Umbran or somebody explained and I probably still didn't get it.

 

[tomBitonti]

How so? It's been independently discovered more than once, and the same math was used in the famous "German Tank Problem" to correctly predict the number of tanks Germany had in World War II. It seems pretty well-substantiated (notwithstanding tweaking the base assumptions, as the article notes).

If you're referencing one of the rebuttals listed on the page, it'd be helpful if you mentioned which one.

The question of how many tanks Germany had is WWII seems quite different than the question of how many people will ever exist. I'd need a lot more detail to morph those into similar questions. As well, a technique can get the right answer for the wrong reasons. A detailed analysis is still necessary to determine if a technique is valid.

For these sorts of problems, the question must be very precise to even begin to reach an answer. None of what is on the WIKI or has been mentioned here is even close to the necessary precision.

The WIKI page throws out a number of formulas, but also throws out a huge number of assumptions. Maybe the math is correct. But it is all meaningless without a hard look at the assumptions, and without a clearer tie between them and the math.

As it stands, the WIKI page provides an amusing question. I wouldn't base any conclusions on it.

Thx!

TomB

 

[Morrus]

Go right ahead.

I can live with the GM having to guesstimate where to rank tech ideas, especially ones that don't fall into a specific bucket like "that's a gun", "that's a car"

How about a DarkSpace Winch? It latches onto reality between 2 points in space and re-compresses the dark space between them. Designed to counter-act the effects of universal expansion due to the nature of space expanding that Umbran or somebody explained and I probably still didn't get it.

I love the idea that we can saying things like "latching onto reality between two points" and nobody blinks an eye! But yeah, conceptually that's up in the 14-ish level.

I was reading Starplex recently, by Robert J Sawyer. There, humans from trillions of years in the future sent stars back in time, enabling them to effectively "create mass" in the present by doubling up stars, and halt the expansion of the universe. It was an odd concept, but kinda groovy.