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SoylentNews Book Club - Discuss: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Start Reading: Fiasco

posted by martyb on Wednesday February 13 2019, @01:22AM   
from the cell-ular-automaton dept.

takyon writes:

March: We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse #1) by Dennis Taylor

Discuss The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein in the comments below.

Fiasco was translated into English in 1988 by Michael Kandel:

Fiasco (Polish: Fiasko) is a science fiction novel by Polish author Stanisław Lem, first published in a German translation in 1986. The book, published in Poland the following year, is a further elaboration of Lem's skepticism: in Lem's opinion, the difficulty in communication with alien civilizations is cultural disparity rather than spatial distance. The failure to communicate with an alien civilization is the main theme of the book.

Previously: Announcement post • Mars, Ho! • Foundation • The Three-Body Problem • Snow Crash

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Original Submission

• Re:It's well written and... Re:It's well written and... (Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday February 13 2019, @05:51PM (1 child)

  by HiThere (866) on Wednesday February 13 2019, @05:51PM (#800670) Journal

  I don't think you realize the degree of the problem. Even when everything is carefully maintained with current technology you get leaks to a degree that is nearly intolerable. You're going to need something a lot better than just bubbles and self-sealing tires. You're, at minimum, going to need an energy efficient pump that can pump from near vacuum into higher pressure. (That would let you get away with that "self-sealing goop" if use used multiple layers of enclosure. (Two might work, but the fewer layers, the better your pumps need to be.)

  Now imagine an anarchist system where the public enclosure gets that kind of maintenance. Building code enforcement? He talked about rationing air, and air payment taxes, but he didn't talk about how cheaters are detected. (He did mention expelling into vacuum those accused by a mob ... and he presumed that they accusation was correct.)

  --
  Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.

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• Re:It's well written and... (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday February 13 2019, @07:38PM

  by NotSanguine (285) <{NotSanguine} {at} {SoylentNews.Org}> on Wednesday February 13 2019, @07:38PM (#800707) Homepage Journal

  I don't think you realize the degree of the problem. Even when everything is carefully maintained with current technology you get leaks to a degree that is nearly intolerable. You're going to need something a lot better than just bubbles and self-sealing tires. You're, at minimum, going to need an energy efficient pump that can pump from near vacuum into higher pressure. (That would let you get away with that "self-sealing goop" if use used multiple layers of enclosure. (Two might work, but the fewer layers, the better your pumps need to be.)

  Now imagine an anarchist system where the public enclosure gets that kind of maintenance. Building code enforcement? He talked about rationing air, and air payment taxes, but he didn't talk about how cheaters are detected. (He did mention expelling into vacuum those accused by a mob ... and he presumed that they accusation was correct.)

  I'm really sorry that a dead guy's writing doesn't meet your engineering or political standards. That must be a really difficult cross to bear.

  Would you like a hug? Although I imagine that another mechanism [wikipedia.org] would work better for you in this circumstance.

  --
  No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr

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