Mona Clark ⚧ @mona@computerfairi.es

@memnus I *would* be interested, but unfortunately tonight I have other plans already. :( But if there are future such events, I'm interested *tailswishes*

#noosphere

I have a silly idea that one could derive what we think of as "sociology" from a model of individual human psychology after the fashion of statistical mechanics. Derived laws about behavior in bulk by analysing the distribution of individual behavior.

@whitequark Helium will be very difficult to live without, which is why I think a canny corporate space explorer might see a chance for himself here

@whitequark one could play the long game here. trade speed for time

@whitequark I'm thinking of that. My guess is that, for the idea to be feasible, the expedition would have to collect a very large amount of helium and bring it back all at once.

@whitequark Still, I think you appreciate my point: given the Earth's limited supply of helium (it is essentially a by-product of natural gas mining) someone who established a mining output on Jupiter could control the world's supply of helium, at least for a time. There are of course other options but they would take longer to exploit...good for interjecting a note of competition into the tale, in fact.

@whitequark is collecting helium that way feasible?

@Angle@octodon.social I would like to see more creativity, true creativity. I am hoping to do more work with my hands--woodworking, fashioning decorative articles, that sort of thing.

@whitequark yes, and the Hunt Brothers silver scheme. This would be a bit different though, because whoever seized Jupiter's mining rights would be sitting on literally the only inexhaustible supply of helium within human scope

@memnus weed and legos?

@whitequark I'd like this villain to be a big player in private space exploration, launching a much-publicised corporate-funded scientific expedition to Jupiter that is actually a move in a scheme to corner the world market in helium

@whitequark I've been considering for the first time in my life writing a science-fiction story intersecting with chemical industry...I have certain ambitions about writing an Elon Musk-style corporate villain

@whitequark *jaw drops* I had no idea of these films' existence! I have a perhaps somewhat unhealthy fascination with accounts of industrial accidents...

@whitequark Oh my GOD. I never knew that there was a mass phosgene leak (I once invented one for a fictional setting...I reasoned that phosgene used in plastics manufacture might conceivably happen into the modern day.)

@whitequark hm. well. I assume Australia will be growing steadily less and less habitable...

@whitequark I once spent an idle afternoon trying to discover how many azides someone had managed to fit around a central atom, any atom. Hexaazidometallates are known, for example; Si(N3)6(2-) is a known thing. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja0273187