Are we now more smart or just more sissies compared to ppl centuries ago?

[Aeson]

There are some variables we can't predict in regards to technology, lifespans, and consumption. We may very well have to source off-Earth materials at some point, especially if lifespans become significantly longer ... but there are other possibilities. Virtual reality, political/social breeding restrictions, and/or some reason why there is a hard limit on lifespans could potentially negate the need to ever leave Earth for raw materials. (We would probably have to eventually leave because of the Sun)

[Proteus_MST]

There are some variables we can't predict in regards to technology, lifespans, and consumption. We may very well have to source off-Earth materials at some point, especially if lifespans become significantly longer ... but there are other possibilities. Virtual reality, political/social breeding restrictions, and/or some reason why there is a hard limit on lifespans could potentially negate the need to ever leave Earth for raw materials. (We would probably have to eventually leave because of the Sun)

Hm, the big question IMHO is, the living standards in the 3rd world countries will change.
At the moment we have the fortune, that the majority of the world population doesn't have the same living standard as the european and american countries (with its hunger for resources)
If this changes (and the 3rd world countries attain a living standard similar to our countries) this may change ... and the demand for resources may rise, perhaps to the 3-5 fold. Likewise (and that could doom us) CO2 emissions may rise to levels way over our worst estimates (unless, maybe, the western world already is developed enough, that elecrical car have replaced almost all other cars ...and we help the 3rd world countries to skip the 20th century-technology step and immediately jump to the clean energy step)

[Elok]

Strapping an engine onto an asteroid entails moving the entire engine out to the asteroid, or else enough gadgets to construct one on-site--with whatever fuel or apparatus is required to control it. Both are very expensive and complicated operations. Railguns, etc. entail still further innovation and heavy space-based infrastructure. They sound glam and cool and high-tech, but it doesn't make sense to invest that much energy into (quite literally) moving mountains when all the stuff we need is right here. The trick would be getting enough energy to return them to a usable form . . . but if it comes to that, there's a whooooole lot of deuterium and tritium in the oceans.

EDIT: I just realized this was one hell of an Xpost. Started typing it hours before I had a chance to hit submit. Oh well, that's parenting for you.

[Aeson]

Hm, the big question IMHO is, the living standards in the 3rd world countries will change.
At the moment we have the fortune, that the majority of the world population doesn't have the same living standard as the european and american countries (with its hunger for resources)
If this changes (and the 3rd world countries attain a living standard similar to our countries) this may change ... and the demand for resources may rise, perhaps to the 3-5 fold. Likewise (and that could doom us) CO2 emissions may rise to levels way over our worst estimates (unless, maybe, the western world already is developed enough, that elecrical car have replaced almost all other cars ...and we help the 3rd world countries to skip the 20th century-technology step and immediately jump to the clean energy step)

It is a problem, but one that is completely self-inflicted for reasons disassociated with environmental protection. There is actually a huge ecological problem involved in keeping people poor.

We have the technology/knowledge required to have 7 billion (or more) have first world standards of living while simultaneously improving the environment (air, water, land), the only question is if we're too short-sighted to use it.

[Ben Kenobi]

Mass of Ceres:

9.39x10^20 kilos.

The earth is moving at 30km/s around the sun, Ceres a bit slower, around 17 km/s or 17000 m/s

angular momentum would be the orbital radii, so you've got, 2,767 AUs, which would be 1.49x10^11.

That gives us:

23.78x10^35 kg m/s

To move it to earth's orbit would take a ludicrous amount of energy, at the ideal with no losses due to energy consumption of imparting a torque of around 10^35 Joules.

1 kilo of coal is 2.9x10^7 joules.

Even if we converted all of Ceres into energy, we would not have enough to move Ceres into earth orbit.

Beaming power is the solution. Mine the asteroid. Burn the fuel on the asteroid, convert it to light and power a laser to beam power from space to an orbital satellite collector around the earth.

There's no atmosphere, and even at a distance of a couple AUs the beam would not spread out that far.

We already use that to fire lasers to the moon.

[Ben Kenobi]

Hmm. Ceres is too far to do the beam trick. Your best bet then would be to have big cube cargo ships, shuttling back and forth. But the energy expenditure would only be about twice that of a Saturn V launch from earth to reach Ceres. Saturn V puts about 4 percent of mass, while, a Moon to Ceres mission would put about 50.

So for your Ceres shuttle to make money, it would have to bring back about 4x what it burns up. Bonus is that it could refuel at Ceres, and not need to carry fuel when departing for the return.

[Proteus_MST]

Ceres actually is a dwarf planet. Of course sane people wouldn't want to move it, especially considering that it is the largest object in the whole asteorid belt

The majoritxy of the Asteroids is much much much smaller than Ceres
And I guess, if we would want to do Asteroid mining/moving, the most interesting asteroids would be of the M-Type (i.e. metallic asteroids) ... and ideally those who already have orbits that have an aphel that is close to earths orbit, so that ideally the dV that needs to be applied in order to move them into an orbit where they are caught by earths gravityx is minimized

[kentonio]

They sound glam and cool and high-tech, but it doesn't make sense to invest that much energy into (quite literally) moving mountains when all the stuff we need is right here.

All the stuff we're going to need isn't right here, that's the entire point. You're presupposing that we have enough of every mineral to meet the needs of every person on a future version of Earth, and that simply isn't the case, even including quantities that have already been used and dumped.

[Elok]

All the stuff we're going to need isn't right here, that's the entire point. You're presupposing that we have enough of every mineral to meet the needs of every person on a future version of Earth, and that simply isn't the case, even including quantities that have already been used and dumped.

Where the entire Earth's supply of the material in question, or close to it, is continuously tied up in functioning devices? If population and standard of living increase that much in tandem, an insufficient supply of rare earths for smartphones is really not going to be anywhere near the top of our worries list. We'll be too busy trying to find food. Or non-terrifying geoengineering methods to drop the global temp six degrees.

[kentonio]

Where the entire Earth's supply of the material in question, or close to it, is continuously tied up in functioning devices? If population and standard of living increase that much in tandem, an insufficient supply of rare earths for smartphones is really not going to be anywhere near the top of our worries list. We'll be too busy trying to find food. Or non-terrifying geoengineering methods to drop the global temp six degrees.

The population doesn't need to rise that much, just the standard of living of the people that comprise 95% of the worlds population yet who current hold about 5% of the wealth (figures pulled out of my ass, but not that far off).

[Elok]

Even so, the important limiting factor is unlikely to be mineral. Rare minerals are used (IIUC) most extensively for consumer electronics; things like smart phones need small quantities of lots of weird little elements to work right. Multiplied over hundreds of thousands of units, that's a lot of rare elements. However, that's not that impressive compared to the really extravagant demands put on resources by first-world lifestyles: food and energy consumption. The energy part could by solved if we worked out fusion and clean energy, etc. But there simply isn't grazing room on earth for all the cows we'd need for everyone to eat steaks and burgers at the rate we do. And food production is only going to become more problematic as climate change causes erratic droughts and storms and changes where things can be grown. The war in Syria is said to be rooted partially in climate change. As the sea rises, we're going to see a sharp rise in the numbers of poor and desperate. They're not going to be much concerned about having electronics when they're drifting around looking for a place to live and something to eat.

[kentonio]

We'll have to just agree to disagree.

[Elok]

Is it possible to disagree to agree? Or disagree to disagree? Agreeing to agree seems relatively straightforward.

[Aeson]

Digital consumption can scale very well and are becoming an ever increasing % of consumption. True virtual reality may be the answer to most consumption problems and is approaching fast.

Raw materials can be hard limited, but increasing affluence doesn't necessarily equate to a similar increase in raw material usage, and in some cases can even drop raw material use.

Poorly manufactured items tend to be cheap and break... using just as much and sometimes more raw materials to make each item and needing to be replaced more often than high quality analogs. Packaging as a % of materials used is higher in small portions than in bulk. The person who can afford to buy in bulk can thus be more efficient at the same amount of consumption of material goods. Recycling happens more often in affluent areas as does the incidence of reuseable packaging. More sustainable agriculture is only possible at higher price points and agriculture tends to be more efficient (in every way but labor costs) in richer countries. Manufacturing following cheap labor results in greatly increased use of transport, so eliminating cheap labor pools (by making them affluent) makes almost all production more efficient. True off-grid sustainable living, with a high standard of living, is only possible for the very affluent.

So it's not as simple as increased affluence moving in lockstep with increased raw material demands.

[Lorizael]

Is it possible to disagree to agree? Or disagree to disagree? Agreeing to agree seems relatively straightforward.

Back when I was more of an *******, I used to disagree to disagree all the time. I just couldn't understand why I couldn't get people to understand my point of view, so I would keep arguing with them until they... stopped talking to me.