Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: existential risks – Page 128

Texans can breathe easier: the radioactive waste Halliburton fracking surveyors lost last month has finally been found.

The United Arab Emirates-based oil services company told reporters this weekend that an oilfield worker found the rod of americium-241/beryllium alongside a highway near Pecos, Texas.

Halliburton reported it missing on September 11, and members of the Texas National Guard were ultimately called up to aid their search. Halliburton said it even deployed vehicles fitted with radiation detection equipment, but found nothing on three sweeps of the area.

Americium-241/beryllium is used for a variety of industrial and medical purposes, and in this case was needed for equipment used to identify potential sites for natural gas drilling. It is a “Category 3” radioactive substance, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

“Category 3 sources, if not safely managed or securely protected, could cause permanent injury to a person who handled them, or were otherwise in contact with them, for some hours,” the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) explained. “It could possibly — although it is unlikely — be fatal to be close to this amount of unshielded radioactive material for a period of days to weeks.”

Continuing Reading “Halliburton’s missing nuclear waste found alongside Texas highway”

The shift that has happened in 40 years which mainly has to do with climate change. Forty years ago, I could say in the Whole Earth Catalog, “we are as gods, we might as well get good at it”. Photographs of earth from space had that god-like perspective.

What I’m saying now is we are as gods and have to get good at it. Necessity comes from climate change, potentially disastrous for civilization. The planet will be okay, life will be okay. We will lose vast quantities of species, probably lose the rain forests if the climate keeps heating up. So it’s a global issue, a global phenomenon. It doesn’t happen in just one area. The planetary perspective now is not just aesthetic. It’s not just perspective. It’s actually a world-sized problem that will take world sized solutions that involves forms of governance we don’t have yet. It involves technologies we are just glimpsing. It involves what ecologists call ecosystem engineering. Beavers do it, earthworms do it. They don’t usually do it at a planetary scale. We have to do it at a planetary scale. A lot of sentiments and aesthetics of the environmental movement stand in the way of that.

Continue reading “We are as Gods…” and watch the video interview

The Ontological Einstein – One to Four

Otto E. Rossler and Dieter Fröhlich, Faculty of Science, University of Tübingen, Auf der Morgenstelle 8, 72076 Tubingen, Germany

One: Ontological clock slow-down downstairs in gravity

Two: Ontological rest-mass decrease downstairs in gravity

Three: Ontological size increase downstairs in gravity

Four: Ontological charge decrease downstairs in gravity

(1): Assume an upstairs and a downstairs floor to be equally strongly accelerating in gravity for simplicity. Then the situation can be transposed to a constant-acceleration rocketship of equal height in outer space that by definition is governed by the rules of special relativity alone. Here one finds that whenever a light ray from the rear end arrives upstairs at the tip, the point of arrival has, during the flight time of the photon, picked up additional speed. Hence the emitted light arrives upstairs redshifted. The normal-ticking CLOCKS and atoms present downstairs therefore appear slowed down from the point of view of upstairs owing to a receding motion of constant speed (without falling back) performed by them. This 1907 result can be called “ontological” because an upper-level clock that is brought down and then back up again predictably presents an ontological (undeniably present) deficit in the number of ticks performed in the meantime, on its being re-united with its waiting twin. Einstein always called the “equivalence principle” between gravity and ordinary acceleration (that allowed him to solve everything from within the fold of special relativity and hence intuitively) “the happiest thought of my life.” It is indeed miraculous because it derives an asymmetry from the symmetry of special relativity. (So many perspective changes were never made before in a single mind according to anthropologist George Herbert Mead.) Three corollaries are implicit: points 2–4.

(2): Since the red-shifted photons arriving from below are non-redshifted on emission, they are inter-transformable into material particles and vice versa (as in positronium creation and annihilation) down there. Hence all locally-at-rest MASSES downstairs are ontologically reduced by the redshift factor relative to upstairs.

(3): Since the wavelengths of all locally emitted photons are increased downstairs by point (1), and simultaneously all masses locally at rest downstairs are reduced by point (2), it follows logically as well as independently from quantum mechanics that all the locally normal-appearing LENGTHS downstairs are ontologically increased by the redshift factor compared to upstairs.

(4): Since all masses that are locally at rest are reduced downstairs via (2), and the charge/mass ratio is locally conserved via Einstein’s principle of general covariance, the CHARGES of all local electrons and positrons (etc.) are ontologically reduced downstairs by the redshift factor compared to upstairs. (Q.e.d.)

Remark: Ulysses’ son Telemach helps one to remember all 4 ontological changes (Time, Length, Mass and Charge). Let us add that the “Einstein dilation” (3) does not show up in the transverse direction from above in spite the locally maintained isotropy – just as the Lorentz contraction does not show up in the transverse direction despite the likewise locally maintained isotropy.

Historical note: Points number 2 and 3 have been found many times individually (and several times in combination) by specialists and aficionados. Number 4 first appeared in a conference paper in mid-2008 (and under the name “Telemach theorem” on the Internet in early 2011 and in a refereed journal in early 2012, see http://www.academicjournals.org/ajmcsr/PDF/pdf2012/Feb/9%20Feb/Rossler.pdf ).

Acknowledgments: O.E.R. thanks Burton Voorhees and Ali Sanayei for a discussion. For J.O.R.

The Ontological Einstein: “Vertical Twin-clocks Paradox Implies reversible Change of Size, Rest-mass and Charge”

by Professor Otto E. Rossler, Chaos Researcher, University of Tubingen, Germany

Minipaper

The ordinary (horizontal) twin-clocks paradox described by Einstein in 1905 objectively transports a younger twin into the future as is well known. This is a tangible miracle.

Poincaré, who had been almost everywhere before Einstein in special relativity (except for the transversal Doppler effect), had not seen this most astounding implication of the observer-specific absolute constancy of the speed of light, c. I call it an “ontological” effect. As such it stands not alone. It possesses a much less well-known sibling of equal rank and even stronger power as it turns out, the “vertical twin clocks paradox.” It applies in gravity when the sibling is reversibly lowered to stay for a while in a redshifted region down there. The second twin paradox’s long history has yet to be written; it not only makes the twin younger: It also implies a transitory change in size, mass and charge of the lowered twin and — via the first of these three effects — amazingly re-establishes global constancy of the speed of light c in general relativity (Telemach theorem).

No colleague objects but the crowd (exempting my friends) fumes behind closed doors. There is much money involved. CERN – despite the black-hole danger revealed to the eye by Telemach – refuses to update its 4 years old “safety report” and openly ignores a court’s kind request to admit a “safety conference.” The world’s media strangely comply by the suitors (to stay in the picture of Einstein-Ulysses) while the prospect of the planet being shrunk to 2 cm in a few years’ time with a non-small probability is being tacitly embraced globally. Ithaka is at risk.

There never was a bigger scandal, so it appears to me. Love is the unique invention of humankind – ultraperspective: to see with the eyes of the other and let this be known to her or him. I dare officially ask Israel again (and Iran for the first time) to bring the matter up in public. The fact that the Security Council objects out of solidarity with its sister organization (CERN) is not acceptable. Every citizen of the planet hopes that the threshold toward a first mini-black hole having been implanted into our planet to grow there exponentially, has not yet been overstepped by CERN’s ongoing attempt to produce black holes even though its sensors cannot even detect them owing to T.O.E.

“Lampsacus Hometown of Humankind on the Internet” deserves to be implemented at long last by Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran and CERN in an attempt at recompense, combined with world-wide prayers, for “this is what humankind was meant for” as I learned 15 years ago in Israel. Bless you all.

EOH events are events that cause the irreversible termination of humanity. They are not events that start the physical destruction of humanity (that would be too late), but fundamental, non-threatening and inconspicuous events that eventually lead to the irreversible physical destruction of humanity. Using nations and civilizations I explain how.

(1) Fundamental: These events have to be fundamental to the survival of the human species or else they cannot negatively impact the foundation of humanity’s existence.

On a much smaller scale drought and war can and have destroyed nations and civilizations. However, that is not always the case. For example, it is still not know what caused the demise of the Mayan civilization.

The act of war can lead to the irreversible destruction of a nation or civilization, but the equivalent EOH event lay further back in history, and can only be answered by the questions who and why.

For example, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria is the EOH event that triggered a domino effect which started with Austria-Hungary’s declaration of war against Serbia, and Central Powers (including Germany and Austria-Hungary) and the Allies of World War I (countries allied with Serbia) to declare war on each other, starting World War I.

In this case Europe was not destroyed as it still had the capability to rebuild, but it led to massive loss of human lives.

Lesson: This illustrates that an EOH event acts like a trigger. Therefore, EOH events must have the capability to trigger destruction in such a manner as to annihilate the capability to rebuild, too.

(2) Non-Threatening: They have to be non-threatening or else these types of events cannot take hold and become main stream.

The Hindu numeral system designed for positional notation in a decimal system, invented (trigger event) in India, was transmitted via the Arab traders to Europe where it took root, and bloomed into the counting and mathematical systems we now accept universally.

Note, the Roman Empire, essentially Southern Europe, Mediterranean and parts of the Middle East, used a comparatively awkward system, by contrast, and this has not survived into general usage today.

The development of mathematics in a Europe, hungry not to be left behind, led to the development of the sciences and engineering not envisioned by India. And several hundred years later came back to India in the form of the British Raj, and changed how Indians live.

Lesson: This illustrates that for an EOH event to prosper it requires a conducive environment – in this case a Europe hungry not to be left behind.

(3) Inconspicuous: They have to be inconspicuous to facilitate the chain reaction of irreversible events. If these events were visible to the majority of humanity when they occur, people could intervene and prevent these chain reactions to irreversible destruction of humanity.

The 9/11 attacks on the Twin World Trade Towers was inconspicuous simply because no one believed that commercial airplanes could be used as weapons of destruction. The subsequent chain reaction, the sequential collapse of building floors, lend to destruction and major loss of lives.

Lesson: Inconspicuous does not necessarily mean ‘cannot be seen’ as the 9/11 example illustrates that it would also encompass ‘cannot be believed’.

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In summary an EOH event is a non-threatening inconspicuous trigger in a conducive environment, that chain reacts into irreversible physical destruction of the foundations of humanity in a manner that prevents rebuilding.

By this definition there are two EOH events within our comprehension.

The first that comes to mind is the irreversible expansion of our Sun into a red giant will lead to the total destruction of humanity with the inability to rebuild if we remain on Earth, and is triggered by the inconspicuous exhaustion of hydrogen in the Sun’s core which switches to the thermonuclear fusion chain reaction of hydrogen.

Therefore, the EOH event is the exhaustion of hydrogen.

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The second are experiments in small black hole production. The hypothesis that small black holes can be used for interstellar propulsion (https://lifeboat.com/blog/2012/09/debunking-the-black-hole-interstellar-drive) lends a conducive environment to trigger the funding for such experiments. The realization of small black holes without experimentally proven controls will lead to the irreversible chain reaction of black hole growth as it consumes matter around it at increasingly faster rates. This will result in the complete destruction of humanity and everything within our reach, in manner we cannot rebuild.

Therefore, the EOH event is the approval of funding into small black hole experimental research. And with CERN we have achieved an EOH event.

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Benjamin T Solomon is the author & principal investigator of the 12-year study into the theoretical & technological feasibility of gravitation modification, titled An Introduction to Gravity Modification, to achieve interstellar travel in our lifetimes. For more information visit iSETI LLC, Interstellar Space Exploration Technology Initiative.

Solomon is inviting all serious participants to his LinkedIn Group Interstellar Travel & Gravity Modification.


Technology is as Human Does
When one of the U.S. Air Force’s top future strategy guys starts dorking out on how we’ve gotta at least begin considering what to do when a progressively decaying yet apocalyptically belligerent sun begins BBQing the earth, attention is payed. See, none of the proposed solutions involve marinade or species-level acquiescence, they involve practical discussion on the necessity for super awesome technology on par with a Kardeshev Type II civilization (one that’s harnessed the energy of an entire solar system).

Because Not if, but WHEN the Earth Dies, What’s Next for Us?
Head over to Kurzweil AI and have a read of Lt. Col. Peter Garretson’s guest piece. There’s perpetuation of the species stuff, singularity stuff, transhumanism stuff, space stuff, Mind Children stuff, and plenty else to occupy those of us with borderline pathological tech obsessions.

[BILLION YEAR PLAN — KURZWEIL AI]
[U.S. AIR FORCE BLUE HORIZONS FUTURE STUFF PROJECT]

The profile of the most powerful man on earth is rising. I cordially ask him to support the necessity of a black-hole conference. If the new constant-c interpretation of general relativity is correct as no one publicly denies, CERN is each day trying to produce black holes that its detectors are blind to and that with a sizable probability will shrink the planet to 2 cm within a short time (5 percent?, ten years?).

A decision not to check on an extant proof of danger is one of the few acts taken by an individual or a group that is never justified. I ask the General Secretary of the United Nations to tell the planet why he backs the stance of the Security Council of the United Nations not to request clarification.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart, dear revered Secretary General,

Professor Otto E. Rossler, Chaos Researcher, University of Tubingen, Germany

It is with great bewilderment that I read the precautions that NASA rovers are sterilized to, to ensure that Life does not infect the Martian environment. I understand NASA want to explore Mars for signs of Martian life — but which is more important — to explore whether Life almost evolved on Mars, or to induce the whole process and allow it to occur?

We can get caught up in the concept that preservation of Human Life as the ultimate goal, in how do we colonize other worlds as soon as possible — but perhaps the most honorable pursuit is the propagation of Life itself — we should be introducing bacteria or simple xerophytic plants to Mars, algae to Europa and such worlds, in the anticipation that if a foothold can be taken, evolution could take hold — and we may not live to see it — but we have then passed on the gift of life to another world.

Whimsical Notions or Planning With Foresight? Unless we cause our own demise by inadvertently engineering our downfall, as often discussed here, or are struck by a statistically unfortunate large asteroid impact, Life is here on Earth for the long haul — it has been durable for billions of years, albeit with significant setbacks, and one can expect it will be here for billions more to come. We may well have time on our hands.

If we sow the seeds now, we may have other worlds to move to in a few million years — long before we may need it — such as in five billion years when the Sun has expired into a Red Giant. It is quite reasonable to expect that if we seed Mars with our bacteria now, and other basic forms of life at the bottom of the food chain — in some million years from now Mars may be flourishing with vegetation — evolved to suit the terrain — that a colony there could live off.

It has been considered, that Life on Earth started by a similar process, that a comet or asteroid carrying bacteria inseminated our planet with the seeds of life. So let’s pass on the gift and stop being so prudent. Lets start at the basics, and create lifeboats of Life around our solar system. Perhaps one day our descendants will thank us for nurturing such habitats.

Dear CERN:

I love you as only a scientist can love the biggest scientific institution on earth. My proposal how to stabilize the ITER (a still larger big-science experiment than your LHC) so it can produce unlimited usable energy for the planet, just got published. I very much cherish high tech whenever it serves humankind.

This attitude of mine notwithstanding, I have been asking you in public for 4 ½ years to, please, falsify some other results which prove that your LHC experiment is jeopardizing the planet on a maximally short term basis. Specifically, I showed in mounting detail that the black holes that you are trying to produce in the LHC, (i) arise much more readily than hoped for, (ii) are invisible to your superb detectors, and (iii) are going to grow exponentially once gotten stuck inside matter (so as to shrink the earth to two centimeters in perhaps ten years’ time).

As you know, I dearly hope that the result can be shown to be false at a critical junction. Anyone who succeeds in doing so is your closest ally. However, as long as this aim is waiting to be achieved, I continue being your only ally. All other apparent allies who support your strategy of non-updating your 4 ½ years old safety report are your worst enemies. They have good reason never to show their face in public. Anyone who is opposed to the danger being disproved is obviously not your friend.

Forgive me, dear CERN, that I am so much on your side as to give you the “order” to immediately halt the LHC experiment until the proof of danger has been dismantled.

I know I have no right to give you any orders. I am not the police nor the CERN Council nor the Security Council of your sister organization, the United Nations. As long as these institutions all violate their duty of requesting an update on your 4 ½ years old safety report before letting you continue, I have the right and the duty to speak in their name to you.

The planet will never forget it to you if you heed the friendly order given to you by someone who deeply admires all your great achievements but, at the same time, insists on the worst safely gap of history to be plugged immediately.

Take care,
Sincerely yours,

Otto E. Rossler, chaos researcher

I do not regret voting for this President and I would and will do it again. However.……I am not happy about our space program. Not at all. One would think there would be more resistance concerning the privatization of space and the inferior launch vehicles being tested or proposed. Indeed there would be objections except for a great deception being perpetrated on a nation ignorant of the basic facts about space flight. The private space gang has dominated public discourse with very little answering criticism of their promises and plans.
This writer is very critical of the flexible path.

It is a path to nowhere.

Compared to the accomplishments of NASA’s glory days, there is little to recommend the players in the commercial crew game. The most fabulous is Space X, fielding a cheap rocket promising cheap lift. There is so little transparency concerning the true cost of their launches that one space-faring nation has called the bluff and stated SpaceX launch prices are impossible. The Falcon 9, contrary to stellar advertising, is a poor design in so many ways it is difficult to know where to begin the list. The engines are too small and too many, the kerosene propellant is inferior to hydrogen in the upper stage, and promising to reuse spent hardware verges on the ridiculous. Whenever the truth about the flexible path is revealed, the sycophants begin to wail and gnash their teeth.

The latest craze is the Falcon “heavy.” The space shuttle hardware lifted far more, though most of the lift was wasted on the orbiter. With 27 engines the faux heavy is a throwback to half a century ago when clusters of small engines were required due to nothing larger being available. The true heavy rocket of the last century had five engines and the number of Falcon engines it would take to match the Saturn V proves just how far the mighty have fallen.

Long, long posts, doubling as SpaceX advertisements, swamp any forum where the deception is exposed. The most popular and endlessly repeated dogma concerns fuel depots. Refueling in space is hyped as the answer to all problems. Unfortunately the chances of making it work with the selected propellant- liquid hydrogen- are not good. This kind of blasphemy is sure to bring howls of protest on any forum where it appears. The sad truth is the American people are being conned into throwing away the Heavy Lift Infrastructure that is the only path to Beyond Earth Orbit Human Space Flight. SpaceX is more of an exploitation company to charge the taxpayer twice than aerospace company. Everything they are pushing- from the engine design to friction stir welded stages, to the heat shield on the capsule has all been developed by NASA on the taxpayers dime. They use NASA labs and engineers for token payment and then advertise low prices. It is a scam. Worse than a scam, it is a distraction from and drain on funds from the only real possibility for space travel on the horizon; the Space Launch System (SLS).

LEO is not space exploration. It is not space travel. It may have qualified as space flight at one time but not anymore. It is endless circles at very high altitude. If any achievement deserves the “been there” scoff it is Low Earth Orbit.

Human beings left Earth at 24,200 mph (38,938 km/hr) in December of 1968. In December of 1972 we returned and have not gone back. We did continue Heavy Lift launches after Apollo with the Space Shuttle- but the STS did not launch humans beyond earth orbit. Due to lack of funding the Shuttle regrettably launched a hundred tons of wings, landing gear, and never full cargo bay over one hundred times so they could come right back. What little stayed up there at very high altitude going in circles is that higher price tag people cry about.

To expand the human race into the solar system requires nuclear energy. We will not be assembling, testing, and lighting off any nuclear systems in LEO. We do however have a human rated capsule with a powerful escape system almost ready that is suitable for transporting fissionables directly to the Moon- where we can assemble, test, and light off nukes. To send that capsule directly to the moon, and the human beings to construct a base that can support a nuclear mission, we need an HLV with hydrogen upper stages. The hydrogen upper stages are what made Apollo successful by making a heavy payload go fast. That vehicle is a few years away and sooner with more money. The DOD has vast resources it expends on weapons that do not protect us from two clear and present dangers; impacts and plagues. I often give examples on this site of “cold war toys” that are “hideously expensive” and do not seem to work right or do anything magical. That big rocket is the magic that will open the solar system to human colonization. Private space efforts are not capable of making any of it happen. This is why I consider the whole “new space” movement as being essentially rich hobbyists selling tourist trips. My thoughts on this “narrow and inflexible path” are based largely on the work of Freeman Dyson and Eugene Parker- and the discovery of millions of tons of water on the Moon.

Despite having “been there,” the Moon is the next step in opening up the solar system to human exploration and colonization. Low Earth Orbit is being sold as space travel even though to travel, you have to go somewhere. The battle cry of “cheap lift” is promoting the equivalent of the “liar loans” that wrecked the housing market. Falling for this something for nothing too good to be true rip-off will leave the U.S. trapped. Decades more of nothing but more endless circles at very high altitude. Mars is used as a marketing gimmick but is really just a rock with a deep gravity well. Everyone seems to think it is “just close enough” for chemical propulsion. It is not. If you are going to build the necessary Atomic Spaceship (and we would have to have a moonbase to launch a nuclear mission) you might as well go someplace really interesting.

All those places are in the outer solar system.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120628190006.htm
To establish a moonbase requires the Space Launch System to be put into service. There is no substitute for a Heavy Lift Vehicle with hydrogen upper stages.

The 130 ton lift of the proposed SLS is also at this time slated to be used as a crew vehicle. This was one of the worst mistakes of the shuttle program. The crew capsules being tested and built by SpaceX and Boeing pack seven astronauts into a vehicle without a proper escape system and, in the case of SpaceX, doubling as a cargo vehicle. Both of these vehicles have an escape-system-that-is-not-an-escape-system. These underpowered hypergolic systems are not very good at saving a crew but will work great raising the orbit of tourist space stations. This is another one of those worst mistakes being repeated.

Infomercial hype aside, the falcon “heavy” and Delta IV are not HLV’s. This misinformation deceives the public and makes the average citizen think the SpaceX hobby rocket is a Saturn V. At a thrust of around 100,000 pounds each it would take 72 merlins to equal the thrust of the SRB’s on SLS, not counting what the 4 liquid hydrogen engines also produce- with much greater efficiency than Kerosene.

The real problem with the U.S. space program is obvious to anyone looking at how much money is spent by the DOD. It is always interesting to hear sermons about how critical surveillance satellites are to fighting illiterate mountain tribesman. Any DOD contractor hearing complaints about NASA wasting money breaks down in maniacal laughter. One of my favorite talking points is that we can train our young people to clear buildings with automatic weapons or we can train them to build spaceships; either way the money will get spent.

Take a look at military spending increases and it is obvious funding for spaceflight can go up. And there IS a valid DOD mission BEO and BELO (Beyond Earth and Lunar Orbit). The valid military mission is impact defense and establishing outposts in the outer system- but this is hard money the aerospace industry wants nothing to do with. Unlike so many easy money weapon systems, spaceships have to actually work.