Irayo :)

Yeah, a couple of decades, I'd guess.

The same way as any other data. It doesn't matter what the data is when it's being transmitted as a binary stream, as you just need the right software for the format.

He's showing what's possible, not an absolute.

As for the practicality of a tail, yeah, you'd have to have clothes modified for it, but things like sitting wouldn't be as much if a problem - you could just sit slightly forward and curl your tail around.

I'll be first on the list for one :D

I was just making a joke out of your wording, since I knew that you meant the quality of the surgery itself, rather than aesthetics.

Proper feline features always look good. Then again it has been quite the while since I watched Avatar, so my memory might not be up to date on the big picture. I think it was February last year.

Yeah I know, but it's just fun to fool around with words one way or another.

Good point; I've never been one for computer science. I'm pretty tech-savvy, but binary blows my mind :P

I suppose that's true - it would really just be clothes that need changing.

You'll have to beat me to it :)

Ah, okay.

That's so true.

Hey, our dogs can sit pretty comfy on their tails :D XD - they'r not like sticking out in a right angle to the backside, but are a continuation of the spine after all.
But yeah - I wonder why humans have lost them. Must have something to do with that humans are runners...

I'd think a tail is an advantage whether on two or four legs as it assists with balance, although there is always the possibility of specific environmental conditions. It's likely that most precursor species did have tails, while the closest living species to humans also lack tails, so it would have been lost in a common ancestor at a point of divergence.

I agree with HumanNoMore; maybe genetic engineering can solve this in the future :)

But genetic engineering doesn't work (easily) on pre-existing creatures. :(

Not to mention expenses...

There are quite many neat things in the world, but they are not affordable for most.

@Clarke: I know; genetic engineering would need to be implemented in vitro for a macroscopic effect. To get the same effect later in life would require a combination of genetic engineering and surgery.

@Aquaplant: That is somewhat true. Genetic engineering coupled with surgery could get to be on the order of $100,000.

It's possible - it just won't cause a tail by itself without EXTREME modification (re-engineering the entire metabolism - lost limbs don't grow back, and the ability to regrow tails is limited to certain reptiles on Earth), but it could easily assist in the implantation of a synthetic biological one to assist in it taking.

Pandora itself as a planet is certainly more functional and beautiful than Earth, but we as a species obviously have much more technological advancement than na'vi ;)

Only a fool or a rather crafty individual goes anywhere without a decent set of useful tools. Seeing as we are not all MacGyvers, we tend to need convenient things to get stuff done, but one must also take into consideration that many of the things we need to get done are quite redundant, but it's all a rather huge mess of things that I'd rather not delve into right now.

I completely disagree. I think it's probably easier for me to address each of those separately:

Antibiotics: Why couldn't we have antibiotics on Pandora? In fact, why couldn't we make antibiotics on Pandora, given the right lab equipment and raw materials? The answer is that there is no reason why we could not do so; antibiotics are completely portable to an alien world.

Physicians: Again, why couldn't we have physicians on Pandora? Hey, I myself want to go through med school, and I see no reason why if Pandora was found to exist I couldn't go practice medicine there.

Air conditioning: Why would you need air conditioning with all that water to cool you down?

Hot showers: That's just silly - that is not a necessity. There's no reason why you can't bathe in a stream.

Flush toilets: I'll give you this one; this would be hard to give up. I wouldn't like living without them, but I could get over it.

Concrete sidewalks: Why would you need concrete?

The Internet: With some development, the Internet could be ported to space, though there would be massive delays. There is already a protocol in the making that doesn't deteriorate over such massive distances called InterPlaNet. You can read more here.

I'm not pretending; I would fit there given the conditions mentioned above.

I couldn't agree more - take my example of the redundancy of hot showers mentioned above in the situation of living on Pandora, for example.

I think the implication is that the Na'vi don't have the technology to do any of that, and to have the technology, you need the infrastructure, and ATM, that infrastructure would get Eywa very annoyed. :P

I wouldn't mind not having flush toilets at all. What I would mind most would be no toilet paper. I mean Taking a dump in the woods and wiping with leaves might be funny the first time or two. But I was at a point where it was happening everyday. And it is not fun. There aren't that many leaves within arms reach. Your feet go numb after squatting for awhile. Leaves tend to rip much easier than toilet paper, and they're not nearly as smooth. However, it would appear Pandora has more, bigger, thicker, and fleshier leaves than Earth, so perhaps it wouldn't be as bad as it is here.

IIRC Eywa develops antibiotics and the like, so the Na'vi never really get sick. Or that might be from 880. Not quite sure, but if it is I assume it would be almost the same for the Na'vi. As for doctors, they seem hardy (CFC bones and the like), plus because of the denser air/lower gravity, there's not really as much of a fall risk. Maybe being hurt from hunting? I'm sure the Na'vi have natural medicines, and if they are hurt beyond help, they just accept it as Eywa's way.

Everything else about AC/showers/other creature comforts, I agree.

However, that's for those who want to be full-blown Na'vi. For Avatars I can see using medicines and doctors to keep the body in shape while the drivers learn to use it, and to maybe compensate for any "incompatibilities" with the environment that may arise.

As for humans, I'm sure all that stuff could be put into Hell's Gate, if it's not already there.

I suppose that's true - I wonder if Eywa would mind a few small, unnoticeable thing like a couple underground wires, so long as nothing was damaged or disturbed.

Very true, but I bet you're right - Pandoran leaves would be better.

Antibiotics, yes. In fact, a lot of the antibiotics from modern medicine are derived from plants. But what about antivirals? It's really, really hard to kill a virus, and if it mutates, any previous immunity is gone. I'd think that would require artificial treatment...

I suppose that's true, but what if it was an accident that wasn't part of Eywa's plan? Or what's to say that modern medicine isn't part of her plan? That's definitely food for thought...

That's very, very true, and something I think is really important to note. All I would add to that statement is that it could also apply to those who became permanent Na'vi but did not want to integrate entirely. Science and medicine are very much needed, especially because procedures to make people Na'vi would not be perfect and would require alterations/responses to side effects.

That really depends on what the procedure entails. If it constitutes, "grow an Avatar, mind-transfer the owner over," than I can't really see how that would require post-op care.

Why i would be a Na'vi on Pandora... Hell.. The chance to explore, to see new places and wonders - and some new food stuff of course too :D

It would be a damn awesome Journey :)

On the contrary, it would. First of all, it would require physiotherapy to facilitate the patient becoming accustomed to the new Avatar. However, in addition to this, diagnostic procedures would need to be performed to ensure success, and small glitches or problems previously overlooked might need to be fixed down the line.

I don't know about that one, water is quite cold in nature, especially in the winter, and that is when it's not frozen. Still, I don't really recall what was the ambient temperature of Pandora. Then again we are working with so many "ifs" here that I can't keep up.

As for flush toilets, those are probably the stupidest thing we've ever invented. We use perfectly good and clean drinking water for flushing toilets, and the amount we use is just ridonculous. Not to mention we have to clean that water afterwards... Sure it's "convenient", but it's really stupid no matter how you look at it. Now toilet paper is something that is quite useful, but those two things are not in any way dependant of one another.

Though living in the wild (or close to it) on Pandora would be significantly easier going than living in the wild on Earth, that's not the type of life I've ever wanted to pursue. I'm afraid I'd get bored very quickly (within maybe two years).

Probably the same situation. If Eywa has the ability to manipulate the environment to create antibiotics, she probably has the ability to develop antivirals, as well. Probably even more efficiently than humans, because she is planet wide, and would be able to nearly instantaneously identify Patient Zero (as soon as they tsaheylu, or even by analyzing droppings), and can create an antigen as soon as the virus is detected. Or maybe not even that, she may just need to kill the Zero before spreading, or maybe manipulating the migratory patterns of animals to quarantine areas.

Eywa is extremely powerful like that.


1. THat's kinda bordering on philosophy. All accidents are part of Eywa's plan, and if people wish to fully integrate into Na'vi society, that's something people would likely need to accept.

2. Maybe. But the fact that the Na'vi rejected these things when the humans brought them provides a precedent to how she may feel about them.

This.

First thing I'd do is start lifting up stones to look for bugs, followed by dip-netting in ponds and streams for fish and things.

Jake seems fine enough after a few minutes.
...But now you've put me off with your mentioning of glitches in a mind transfer procedure. :P

Only if the Na'vi have interpreted Eywa's will perfectly and aren't inhibited by any cultural or religious memes. That's not a guarantee. (The fact that they have to "interpret" at all suggests a margin of error.)

Either way, I'm sure the Na'vi have ways of keeping clean without showers - they don't seem dirty :P

You have a very good point, and I'd tend to agree, actually. I didn't think of it that way before.

Even with an iPad, the device that gets better with every app? :D

I would be seriously impressed if Eywa could respond fast enough to provide antivirals for every new strain as they arrived.

True, but that doesn't mean that the Na'vi we might meet in the future when space travel is more mature won't have subtle differences (or maybe even big differences) from those in Avatar.

There will of course be glitches. Most of them, at least the serious ones, can be ironed out during simulations and experiments. However, in the first-in-man trial, there might be a few tiny things wrong, which can be fixed as we go. I'm sure it wouldn't be anything to be exceptionally worried about.

I did get involved in a more scathing discussion about Avatar a while ago, and they were wondering how the Na'vi don't have **** all over them.

No Wi-Fi. :(

You're messing around with what makes me, "me!" I want you to get it right! (Though if you've cracked the neurology to do it at all, getting it right shouldn't be that hard.)

Could you post the link?

Unless you use a long-range Internet connection. Have you seen my post on that?

Again, we're not talking about major things. I meant minor things like a twitchy muscle in your hand, or something along those lines. But I'm sure it could be perfected after the first few procedures.

I think it was in a email conversation, unfortunately. It was basically comparing the idea of dirt-covered medieval peasants to the Na'vi, and how nobody washed extensively, both because nobody had any concept of germ theory, and water was comparatively valuable.

Your 126,000,000,000ms latency might be a little bit of a problem, unless you can somehow connect a wireless transceiver into Eywa.

Ah, right.

Yep, it is a problem. However, what about quantum networking? Using physical properties derived from quantum mechanics, namely quantum entanglement, networking over long distances might be possible.

Nope. Nobody ever needed any of that :P
That's the entire reason avatars have 5 fingers and toes and a different muscle structure.


No. It's not a 'plan' - there's no direct remote control of animals or something. Intervention in the case of some extreme circumstance, yes, but not micromanagement.

The Na'vi have a far more advanced immune system than humans, while most bacteria are mutualistic rather than pathogenic.

1. There's no 'plan'.
2. There's no need. It's nothing to do with humanity, any more than humans need help from aliens to reproduce or communicate :P.


That's in the survival guide. The bitrate is low, but you can use delay tolerant networking to heave near-unlimited bandwidth with 4.4y latency isntead.

(The genetic engineering involved in that is something else entirely. It'd probably be easier just to leave it to the brain's nueroplasticity to sort out. :P)

I absolutely wouldn't get bored if I didn't have to suffer the loss of all modern Earth technology and knowledge in general :P

http://images.wikia.com/james-camero.../Omaticaya.jpg

http://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1...99/ikran10.jpg

http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__...x-Pandora8.jpg


or

http://www.examiner.com/images/blog/...heinternet.jpg


http://www.finewallpaper.net/wp-cont...-Corolla-3.jpg

http://www.mccullagh.org/db9/1ds-14/...ding-brick.jpg


The only thing I would truly miss is indoor plumbing. And certain foods. One thing I learned when I used to go on vacation prior to the existence of smartphones (back when they were just cellphones), you miss the internet for a few days, until you realize how much you're enjoying yourself without it.

You had to pick a corolla, that's gotta be one of the most boring cars! Sure aren't making Earth look very good.

No, but besides family/friends obviously, and toilet paper (unless they have something similar) driving cars might be the only thing I'd miss. But I wouldn't miss a corolla, that's for sure :)

Well, I was originally going to go with a Lamborghini, but how many people actually have those? So I thought of what is a common car, and I went with a Toyota Corolla. As for the other pictures, I looked up "apartment building" on google images and went with the most stereotypical looking "apartment building" looking apartment building. It's supposedly an apartment building from Greenwich Village, meaning you're looking at probably $2,500-5 large per month for one of those apartments.

I didn't say I'd miss the internet or smartphones, I said I would miss the advancement of technology and knowledge in general as a whole, and how accessible they were.

This is why I need internet access. One summer I was two months or so without internet, and it was extremely annoying. Even after a few days I started to feel pretty awful, when I realized that my main source of sanity was unavailable.

While I have a somewhat similar attitude towards information and knowledge, what good is knowledge alone if you can't apply it to anything? If life would be easy and pleasant enough without technology, then why would one need to advance it? Then again all of this is simply impossibility on my part, seeing how dependant I am of machinery of all kinds.