The RDA can't do physics

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by Clarke

But the encoding process was already established as being magnetic field messing around. That doesn't cost anything, once the hardware's there.

So now you're questioning actual canon? It's $7500 - i's not stated exactly why, but for that reason, there's no way to show it does not without building a working one for less.

There's no possible way for it to be $7500/bit, regardless of what the sources say.

Early computing was more expensive - FTL communication doesn't even exist yet.

...it's a completely human-designed and -manufactured device, and we are good at mass-manufacturing of small things.

So by your logic, nothing at all should cost more than maybe a few hundred?
Wow.

The FTL communicator isn't plausible as a real-world object; it's a plot device on a stick. It's like the Doctor's sonic screwdriver, except we're supposed to believe it works on something resembling real world science, not the "timey-wimey spacey-wacey" science Dr. Who presents.

Admittedly, I don't watch doctor who at all so may be completely on the wrong track here, but if it works via sound, then isn't that a mechanism right there? - to expand that into a real point, if there is a mechanism by which something works provided, then doesn't that allow assumptions?
The FTL communications are completely unnecessary as far as plot goes - they were included most likely in an attempt to avoid complaints from people like you who wanted to see their specific favourite technology there. If it wasn't there, you'd be going 'BAAWWW NO FTL COMM'. Until fairly recently, you were pointing out possible mechanisms for one, even.

Then you pre-agree on what each transmitter means at specific times.

Then, as I mentioned many posts ago now, you're limited to parallel-only and can only send or receive at one time.

If I'm completely stupid in this context and send my message in triplicate, then once two copies of the message come in and agree, I don't have to wait for the third one; its data is irrelevant.

I thought we were discussing the bandwidth issue? Tripling the amount of data required will not speed up the latency at all, and will triple the bandwidth requirement. Sending it three times has noting at all to do with error correction, stop trying to Gish Gallop me or I will stop responding.

Not to the letter, rigidly, consistently.

...and that's part of its program. What would happen if you behaved in a wholly unexpected way around it and not just inconsistently within the margin it was developed for?

"Not within its parameters?" What do you think it is, a COBOL batch script? It's a predictive AI, it can deal with the unexpected. Possibly with more organization than a human, since it can't panic.

It can't deal with every single eventuality, simply because it is not AI. A human needs to establish what the potential procedures are.

And you have less trust in the computer than say, Wainfleet, ...why? You know exactly what the computer has been instructed to do, and you know it'll execute those instructions absolutely rigidly, unlike Wainfleet, who is human. Humans have these annoyingly unpredictable things called "unconscious impulses" and "emotions." Both of these often come to the fore when the human is under stress, and one major cause of stress is mortal danger...

Building an entirely new system that does not exist at all is a good idea... why?
Your original argument said there should be no human oversight at all, and now you're attacking a rebuttal of that point from an entirely different position.

Well then yes, use radio. You said earlier that radio doesn't work well enough, which is what the alternate solutions were for.[/quote]
I said not well enough for a 4.4ly distance with a 4.4 year latency. That's a big difference from communicating with someone near- adjacent.

Because fossil fuels and fission work well enough.

So you somehow, almost religiously, believe that if fusion was needed, it would spontaneously materialise in human knowledge?
Well, it's not only under research right now but anyone with any knowledge of energy knows that there is an impending world energy crisis as the required capacity is not available due to underinvestment in fission, but fusion has not yet magically and instantly succeeded as you believe it would.

...And? So what if it takes decades? It takes 20+ years to make any return on unobtanium. No business can accurately predict technology 20 years in the future, so no business would take the risk.

What I mean is that your pet ideas are themselves based on technologies that may well still only be under development in the future.
There are plenty of stories about such things, I do not understand why you bash Avatar for not having things you wanted to see.

It completely matters what resources are there when you're shipping them back to Earth for profit. The RDA aren't in the philanthropic "expand humanity" business.

No, but they would for profit when contracts came along. If the local resources in a properly habitable world were not profitable enough to be brought to Earth, they can still be utilised locally.

"Separate star system" is not easier to deal with, by (at a guess) 5 or 6 orders of magnitude.

Are you doing this intentionally? This particular thread of the argument was about the asteroid belt in Earth's solar system. What I said is that the asteroids that ARE usable will be - the smaller and less reachable ones will not unless demand outstrips supply by enough at some point in the future.

The energy you use to get one ship, one way, to Pandora could be used to build and maintain an O'Neil cylinder, as an example. Or mine the entirety of the asteroid belt for conventional minerals. 49kgc^2/kg (ignore the odd unit) is expensive.

...then what makes you think it hasn't been done?
PS. you can not build anything out of energy. It isn't a substance like the swords made 'out of energy' you might find in bad scifi.

And so nobody's tried to mine the asteroids, despite the multi-trillion dollars they're worth.

...and in 143 years?

(Why would you need samples? You know what you're trying to build, right? )

Not if you've never been there so don't even now what you're trying to produce, not to mention a detailed analysis of its composition and structure (even probes within the solar system are remarkably basic due to the hostile environment they need to survive years in, many even lack colour photography - a simple test of properties is likely all it managed)

As I said earlier, you can't possibly get unobtanium from Pandora for a profit, unless you have dictator-like control over vast portions of Earth's entire power output. You need ~100,000 1GW generators to fuel your tiny 50-ton ship in anything approaching a reasonable amount of time.

Yet again - there is no reason Earth's power output isn't higher. You're saying it's unrealistic with current rates, but that does not make it impossible. you also called it 'inconsistent' several times before I pointed out that is is anything but as there is never ANY figure given for Earth's energy production. Later, you then diverged onto building space megastructures which would be capable of producing exactly the same power you concurrnetyluy bash as impossible ("why don't they build an O'neil Cylinder?" and "they can't build a Dyson shell" do not resemble portions of the same argument).

We've got 97T, we're trying for 100 right now.

Emphasis on stable. I was just providing it as an aside to illustrate the actual strength of 100T - it is not something reachable so easily. In retropspect, a better one that wouldn't have let you off would have been stating that Earth's field is 3x10^-5T.

AFAIK, high magnetic fields behave like high temperatures, so if Unobtanium's critical temperature is only just above room temp, you won't be able to put a lot of power through it.

1. That's a huge assumption to make.
2. They behave like it in limiting superconductivity, yes, but 100T is NOT at all equal to even a low temperature.

Your original statement was that your savings increase exponentially. That's only true if you continually reinvest your savings, which eventually falls apart. (because there is no more unobtanium to gather.)

Yes, but that's a long time in the future. Unobtainium-related profit may well be funding your research fantasy.