Humans aren’t superintelligent, and are still able to design macroscale technology that can wipe out biospheres and that can be deployed and propagated with less intelligence than it took to design. I’m not taking the bet that you can’t shrink down the scale of the technology and the amount of intelligence needed to deploy it while keeping around the at least human level designer. That sounds too much like the “I can’t think of a way to do this right now, so it’s obviously impossible” play.
It seems that very few people considered the bad nanotech scenario obviously impossible, merely less likely to cause a near extinction event than uFAI.
In addition, to my best knowledge, trained scientists believe it impossible to turn the sky green and have all humans sprout spider legs. Mostly, they believe these things are impossible because they’re impossible, not because scientists merely lack the leap of superintelligence or superdetermination necessary to kick logic out and do the impossible.
If I wanted to turn the sky green for some reason (and had an infinite budget to work with), then one way to do it would be to release a fine, translucent green powder in the upper atmosphere in large quantities. (This might cause problems when it began to drift down far enough that it can be breathed in, of course). Alternatively, I could encase the planet Earth in a solid shell of green glass.
Please explain, then, without using the word ‘sky’, what exactly you mean by “turning the sky green”.
I had parsed that as “ensuring that a person, looking upwards during the daytime and not seeing an intervening obstacle (such as a ceiling, an aeroplane, or a cloud) would honestly identify the colour that he sees as ‘green’.” It is now evident that this is not what you had meant by the phrase.
The only reason I see blue when I look up during the daytime at something higher than a ceiling, an airplane, or a cloud, is because the atmosphere is composed of reflective blue material (air) intervening between me and the darkness of space. I would still like an explanation from the great-great-grandparent as to what constitutes ‘turning the sky green’.
Humans aren’t superintelligent, and are still able to design macroscale technology that can wipe out biospheres and that can be deployed and propagated with less intelligence than it took to design. I’m not taking the bet that you can’t shrink down the scale of the technology and the amount of intelligence needed to deploy it while keeping around the at least human level designer. That sounds too much like the “I can’t think of a way to do this right now, so it’s obviously impossible” play.
It seems that very few people considered the bad nanotech scenario obviously impossible, merely less likely to cause a near extinction event than uFAI.
In addition, to my best knowledge, trained scientists believe it impossible to turn the sky green and have all humans sprout spider legs. Mostly, they believe these things are impossible because they’re impossible, not because scientists merely lack the leap of superintelligence or superdetermination necessary to kick logic out and do the impossible.
If I wanted to turn the sky green for some reason (and had an infinite budget to work with), then one way to do it would be to release a fine, translucent green powder in the upper atmosphere in large quantities. (This might cause problems when it began to drift down far enough that it can be breathed in, of course). Alternatively, I could encase the planet Earth in a solid shell of green glass.
In which case you have merely placed reflective green material in the atmosphere. You have not actually turned the sky green.
Please explain, then, without using the word ‘sky’, what exactly you mean by “turning the sky green”.
I had parsed that as “ensuring that a person, looking upwards during the daytime and not seeing an intervening obstacle (such as a ceiling, an aeroplane, or a cloud) would honestly identify the colour that he sees as ‘green’.” It is now evident that this is not what you had meant by the phrase.
That would depend on whether a green shell of glass or a green particle counts as an intervening obstacle.
Do you know, I hadn’t even thought of that?
You are perfectly correct, and I thank you for raising the question.
The only reason I see blue when I look up during the daytime at something higher than a ceiling, an airplane, or a cloud, is because the atmosphere is composed of reflective blue material (air) intervening between me and the darkness of space. I would still like an explanation from the great-great-grandparent as to what constitutes ‘turning the sky green’.