DISCUSSION THREAD -- JUNE 2023 -- 75 Word Writing Challenge

[BigJ]

That bad? I though it was cautiously optimistic. Human civilisation without tech. It worked OK for thousands of years. IMHO it's absolutely inevitable: cheap energy and with it our techno-industrial civilisation is kaput once oil, coal, natural gas and uranium run out sometime this century. Renewable energy requires a huge infrastructure, notably vast battery arrays, that will require way too much effort to maintain. But that's off-topic. Sorry.

Well, any regression back to a society without modern technology will automatically appear bleak to most people with a comparatively high standard of living right now. I mean, for thousands of years, 50% of children died; nobody wants to go back to that. Also, I don't have the numbers to back it up, but I'm fairly confident in saying we can't feed the number of people on the planet right now without modern technology. I guess a peaceful regression is optimistic compared to the possibility of worldwide strife and war over dwindling/insufficient food supplies.

I also thought there were coal reserves to last more than a hundred years, but coal is widely disliked (for obvious reasons). The conversation about what is "economically feasible" or "too much effort" in terms of fossil fuel reserves or renewable energy infrastructure may have to take a back seat at some point to what is deemed necessary to preserve a functioning modern society, and what that society has to look like to be sustainable.

But, yes, wildly off-topic. Lots of good stories in already; I was dubious of the triple theme when I first saw it, but wow was I wrong.

 

[Parson]

That bad? I though it was cautiously optimistic. Human civilisation without tech. It worked OK for thousands of years. IMHO it's absolutely inevitable: cheap energy and with it our techno-industrial civilisation is kaput once oil, coal, natural gas and uranium run out sometime this century. Renewable energy requires a huge infrastructure, notably vast battery arrays, that will require way too much effort to maintain. But that's off-topic. Sorry.

It depends on what you mean by "that bad." I see what your story describes as a horrific result (billions dying of starvation, millions of deaths by all kinds of diseases, which are now mainly aggravations, almost universal loss of hope for a better future, etc.) but it's not the worst of all outcomes. The slide backwards would at the very least be the worst thing humanity has ever experienced, but not the worst possible result. Unfortunately, I'd expect that if the slide backwards would get precipitous, that human survival while still the most likely result, would be in very serious question.

 

[Parson]

@Cat's Cradle .... Bad Times to Be Homeless .... C. C. writes us a story that sounds like an episode in the book of Judges.

@Daysman .... Entitlement .... Daysman writes us a story which for me makes me rethink the title of this story.
(As a 72 year old this is a scary kind of story for me.)

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

BardyardBardard constructs a tale of new beginnings.

 

[Justin Swanton]

I also thought there were coal reserves to last more than a hundred years, but coal is widely disliked (for obvious reasons). The conversation about what is "economically feasible" or "too much effort" in terms of fossil fuel reserves or renewable energy infrastructure may have to take a back seat at some point to what is deemed necessary to preserve a functioning modern society, and what that society has to look like to be sustainable.

Oil and natural gas run out in about 50 years. That will triple - ballpark - the demand for coal, which will exhaust it well short the 114 years it now has. And now let me shut up. Back to doom, gloom and bloom.

 

[BigJ]

Oil and natural gas run out in about 50 years. That will triple - ballpark - the demand for coal, which will exhaust it well short the 114 years it now has. And now let me shut up. Back to doom, gloom and bloom.

It's only doom and gloom if you don't think we can, and will, figure out something better in that time frame (I also have a hard time believing the court of public opinion will stomach a tripling of coal power output in ~50 years time). I did a small project in university about converting orphaned/abandoned oil and gas wells into geothermal power plants, which has its own complications (particularly if the geological area you're in doesn't have high downhole temperatures, or the wells just aren't deep enough, or they're highly contaminated, . . . ), and while I'm fond of the idea of geothermal it's certainly not feasible everywhere. Or we set up a grid of geostationary solar power generating satellites that beam the energy back down to the surface, and hope bad actors don't turn them into weapons.

We could shut up about it, but I'm justifying it by telling myself maybe we're giving people story ideas . . .

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

StilLearning constructs a tale of what goes around, comes around.

 

[Parson]

* Hey guys I think the discuss is good.

---------

@BardyardBardard .... Getting Out of the ColdGetting Out of the Cold .... Bardyard tells us a story of the flicker of hope intelligence has in the face of calamity.

@StilLearning .... Wars of construction .... StilLearning spins a yarn which explores how what different really reflects what is the same.

 

[Bowler1]

A 75 word discussion not on 75 words!!!

We keep on finding more reserves of fossil fuels so I doubt the limit on fossil use is 50 years or so, but it would get increasingly more difficult and expensive to extract this source of energy if we keep on going as we are. But we're not stuck with fossil fuel and renewables is growing and it makes sense to use renewable energy where we can do so. All fossil fuel energy is a one time deal, use it and it's gone while the wind still blows and the sun keeps on shining, so why not use renewable energy as well. This mix will extend the life time of fossil fuels, which I think we'll still need for some time to come to maybe 100+ years from now. That's a long time for more technology to develop, such as fusion, so who knows what might happen. In the UK 43% of electricity was renewable and this will grow, which means coal is dead for electricity and no doubt something similar could happen to oil in the near future - so don't panic, I think we'll be ok.

I'm off to build a fusion reactor, all I need is some Lego and super glue and it will be up and running in no time.

 

[JS Wiig]

To be overly pedantic, all energy is “renewable”. For example, coal is the remains of ancient plants that when burned releases CO2 into the atmosphere which is taken up by living plants which will die and be buried and after millennia of heat and pressure become coal which when burned will release CO2 into the atmosphere . . .

 

[Astro Pen]

To be overly pedantic, all energy is “renewable”. For example, coal is the remains of ancient plants that when burned releases CO2 into the atmosphere which is taken up by living plants which will die and be buried and after millennia of heat and pressure become coal which when burned will release CO2 into the atmosphere . . .

Coal will never renew because, and this is interesting, those deposits were laid down before fungi that could decay fallen timber had evolved.
Now coal formation is nearly impossible.

Mushrooms may have stopped coal from forming 300 million years ago - and discovery could be key to creating new biofuels

This fuel is actually the fossilized remains of plants that lived from around 360 to 300 million years ago, and Clark University biologists believe that the arrival of fungi may have stopped the plants forming coal.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Phyrebrat constructs a tale of allegory.

 

[BigJ]

@Phyrebrat Reading your story I can't help but wonder what Death Metal is up to in this scene . . .

I'm off to build a fusion reactor, all I need is some Lego and super glue and it will be up and running in no time.

Never thought I'd see the day you'd trade in the ray guns and pitchforks for Lego.

To be overly pedantic, all energy is “renewable”.

Well, to be pedantic, I could say that "renewable energy" as a term in common use is more exclusive than a reference to any energy source which could be deemed technically or theoretically "renewable" (which would be all of them, given you can't create or destroy energy). But I'm being cheeky.

Coal will never renew because, and this is interesting, those deposits were laid down before fungi that could decay fallen timber had evolved.
Now coal formation is nearly impossible.

Mushrooms may have stopped coal from forming 300 million years ago - and discovery could be key to creating new biofuels

This fuel is actually the fossilized remains of plants that lived from around 360 to 300 million years ago, and Clark University biologists believe that the arrival of fungi may have stopped the plants forming coal.

www.dailymail.co.uk

That's interesting, I didn't know that. I also did some quick googling and apparently synthetic creation of coal is difficult and expensive to the point that, at scale, it takes way more energy to create the coal than you would get out of it.

On another note, I was reading about the concept of mining the asteroid belt (and totally didn't start watching The Expanse recently); could use Mars as a staging area and set up a space elevator using Phobos (which I didn't realize is tidally locked to Mars) to help accelerate craft out to the belt; somebody at NASA wrote a brief paper about it 20 years ago. Besides the minerals/metals in the asteroids, any frozen water can be broken down into hydrogen for fuel and oxygen for, y'know, breathing in space and stuff.

Wonder if we don't blow ourselves up before we find a way to make that sort of space travel (or any sort of frequent, far-flung space travel) a little more realistic.

 

[JS Wiig]

Wonder if we don't blow ourselves up before we find a way to make that sort of space travel (or any sort of frequent, far-flung space travel) a little more realistic.

The parasitic cynic growing inside my brain says there’s a better chance of the former than the latter. In mathematically thematic terms: human aptitude for destruction > human budget for construction. But I really do try to not listen to the pestering little mind worm.

 

[Bowler1]

I've got Lego stuck where Lego was never meant to go... it's making my eyes water.

 

[Parson]

@Phyrebrat .... The Eternal Lament of Music .... Phyrebrat sings a song of music with a genre war.
*You've sent me to Google again. I did not know the word crotchets.

 

[Phyrebrat]

I just had a look too and didn’t realise people from the States called them something different

 

[THX1138]

Alway learning something new from your stories @Phyrebrat !

 

[BigJ]

The parasitic cynic growing inside my brain says there’s a better chance of the former than the latter. In mathematically thematic terms: human aptitude for destruction > human budget for construction. But I really do try to not listen to the pestering little mind worm.

Well, sometimes it is just more fun to build weapons than it is targets. Or maybe it's just that, as a general galactic rule, the technology required to meaningfully escape your home planet is always subsequent to the technology that gives a species the power to destroy themselves (one version/variation of the Great Filter idea).

While I can't speak for your mind worm, if it wasn't for mine I'd never write any stories worth reading (lifetime challenge vote count notwithstanding).

 

[Parson]

@AnRoinnUltra .... The eternally practical literary analysis of AI Metacritic Sub Process BZF3158 .... works to remind us that not all creation is created equal.

@Yozh .... All in all... .... a story that makes me question if construction is being done by some other means than the obvious one.