I just had an argument/discussion about what would happen if someone invented an unlimited power source that was easy to duplicate. He said the world would destroy itself. That we would build weapons. I said that there would be no point because there would be nothing to fight over. Yes, there are crazy people in this world, but with unlimited power why would anyone help them build weapons? You'd have to be very unlucky to have a sudden gathering of people hell bent on destruction. What do you think?
It would solve a lot of the world's problems. Energy and water are two of the things that seem most likely to cause wars this century. But there'd still be stuff to fight over - raw materials for example.
What do you mean by unlimited power? Do you mean the amount of watts this device can supply is unlimited? In which case who cares if it's easy to duplicate, as the whole country, or if we shared it the whole world would only need one Or do you mean unlimited as in some sort of perpetual motion generator? Well it doesn't matter if it outputs 1KW, 1MW, 1GW, etc, it wouldn't change much in the world, not now anyway. It's not like we don't still have heaps of cheap natural resources to burn atm. When things actually start running out, then countries will be forced to pay a premium for one of these perpetual motion generators. If it is really easy to duplicate, as in low cost, then there will be no more wars for oil, but a mega collapse of oil companies, which was gonna happen anyway. Maybe we'll start having wars for gold, silver, diamond, trees instead Well, that might happen anyway when the oil runs out. If we don't go to war over natural resources, then we can fight over where our nation's borders are, have another war on terrorism, heaps of reasons for war No matter what we discover, i doubt the human race could mess up the planet at a greater rate than we are currently doing so.
Well we wouldn't fight over energy sources and they couldn't be used as a political tool but theres always water and food.
Perpetual motion already exists, Orbit. We just need some crazy-ass idea that the americans will fund to harness it.
Not really. Only 3% of the world's water is fresh, of this, the vast majority is tied up in the Arctic and Antarctic. However, with unlimited power we could simply desalinate as much water as we needed. Desalination plants are relatively expensive to build, but the main problem with them is that they require huge amounts of power to run. This is partially the reason I'm such a strong advocate of nuclear fission. It may have it's problems, but I honestly think, at least in the second half of the 21st century, that water is going to become a far bigger problem for nations than oil or gas are now. So I feel that we should invest heavily in nuclear technology so that, when it comes to it, we can hopefully desalinate as much water as we require - at least in some places.
Sure, we'll just build the bottom half of a space elevator and start generating power from the solar magnetic field... (and slow the rotation of the earth, but hey, nothing's free. The day the sun goes giant and destroys the earth would be about 13 seconds longer than today.)
If you invented a unlimited power machine, you'd better find a really good place to hide 'cos those energy companies and oil producing countries will have you on the top their hit list. Free and freely avaiilable energy is not in the best interest of those making vast amounts of money from energy. There again, how do we know that it's not already been invented and they got there first.
Pretty much all of this, the thing is there's so much self-interest groups that once it's proposed it'll be struck down. Of course, if we did, we'd have a war, on the war, on the war on the battle of the war on terror. Also, how does one go about fighting terror? That's always perplexed me when Bush made his speech.
Surely if we had unlimited power we could just make mini suns to produce any element we needed more of? I think if we did have unlimited power a star trek style utopia wouldn't be completely infeasible, sure we wouldn't throw a switch and everyone starts prancing around singing but if we have unlimited energy and therefore unlimited raw materials then humans wouldn't have a whole lot to fight over for, or do for that matter. It would be a bit odd, most menial jobs could be automated so most things could be mechanically produced without too much human input. The only thing humans would do is the creative bits, design, the arts, etc. That means the majority of the population would not really be needed and a tiny minority would work. That tiny minority would have to be paid somehow, but since everybody is unemployed, pretty much everything would be free, so I guess their reward would be immense respect and they'd be treated almost like royalty. This is probably the most ludicrous crackpot idea I've come up with and would have many major flaws but I'm too tired to make sense right now and I have to be up early for airsoft so this will have to do
You can't, which i feel is the main point. there's as much chance of winning that 'war' as winning a war on thursdays
If someone invented a perpetual power-generating machine, I'm sure a handful of companies would end up owning the rights to the technology due to the extreme diligence of a patent lawyer. The companies would then work together to fix prices within a certain dollar amount of each other in an effort to convince the general public that we have free choice when it comes to which power company we want to provide us with electricity. Over the generations the prices will steadily increase - just enough to continue providing windfall profits, but not enough to make it too uncomfortable. The rest of the world would get the same technology for free. -monkey
There would undoubtedly be a war, but it would be over who controlled the unlimited power source and denial of duplication. The most resource hungry nations would fight the hardest, and they'd probably cloak it in a war on terror to stop the power source falling into the hands of extremists and being used for evil purposes... ...it all sound a bit familiar really.
superconductors too- if they could make superconductors and figure out fusion someday.. things would become very nice doubt it would be free.. you'd still have people maintaining it- but it would get the oil rich one pump chumps looking for more ways to pimp their only income.. oil would become cheap as demand died down probably why you'd see more places like dubai pop up if it did happen.. they would need an alternative source of income- cars would probably go all electric, don't see things changing that drastically unless it is somehow made very portable
If I had never ending power I'd probably have a few more cups of coffee a day and perhaps leave a light on in a room when no-one is there. I'd also be able to use my maniacal laugh I've been practicing for years. Hem-hem.. Moohahahaa.
