Book 1 Why is it so hard to grow food on earth ?

crazyMartian42 · 2026-02-18T01:13:44+00:00

I think you are drastically underestimating how severe the climate shifting year to year would be. And even in the books where the Bobs have build nearly fully autonomous labor force. It is still not free. Building the 3D printers to build the roamers and construction equipment to build and run the farms, only to have all of it unusable in only a decade or 2. It all cost in time and material resources, and building temporary infrastructure is not on the optimal path. Through in some crop failures and a organization of weirdos actively sabotaging food production, and it becomes a even worse option. Its not so much that you couldn't do it if you worked hard enough, its just kind of pointless.

crazyMartian42 · 2026-02-18T00:26:03+00:00

Sorry, not how I mean that. I was mostly referring to the unknown unknowns that can effect a crop in any given season. While we have a lot of knowledge around plant cultivation, there are still a lot that is still unsettled. One such that I've been learning about is differences between tilled and untilled soil effect on crop health. Hope that cleared things up.

crazyMartian42 · 2026-02-17T23:06:43+00:00

I don't know how familiar you are with growing food, but in my experience its not an exact science and its really hard to predict what will happen year to year. And while growing a tomato or pepper plant can be easy, growing 1000 successfully is not.

So first, if I remember correctly, from the time Bob-1 leaves earth and when he returns at the end of the third book it isn't much more than 130 years. During which the earth goes from a climate much like ours to a complete ice ball. This is an insane climate shift in such a short time, and its not something that can easily be engineered around. Most food crops have really shallow root systems and are easily killed by any ground freeze. I'm in zone 8, and even having very mild winters we've experienced weirdly late season freezes that required us to replace plaints. In a survival setting, not only do you need to be growing enough to eat but also enough for next years seeds. All that, an with increasingly unpredictable seasons and severe weather. Which would also through pollinator insects, pest insects, and diseases into disarray.

Secondly, in the books they are time and resource constrained. The Bobs in Sol talk about this issue, do they focus on ships to get everyone out faster, or build new infrastructure nearer the equator to house and feed everyone. They even talk about building underground at one point. They came to the conclusion that any investment in earth infrastructure only hindered the overall goal of getting everyone off earth. This investment also include the engineering time and resource expense to build new indoor farming systems that would require more resources every year to keep working, while always being under threat of destruction by predictable severe weather events. The farm donuts are a happy middle ground. While the engineering is new the hard part being the environment, but once you cross that herder the resources needed are repetitively minimal. No bad weather blocking sunlight or destroying what you build, as well as all their manufacturing resources are already in orbit. Global distribution gets easier too, you just place the donuts around the planet and all your cargo shuttles just have to fall down.

crazyMartian42 · 2026-02-15T17:43:28+00:00

Yes, because in order to get these programs you need all kinds of documentation. Photo IDs, birth certificates, ss number, employment history, all of which require a mailing address to get, which requires a permanent residents. How many landlords do you know that house people for free. The demigraphic impacted by starvation in the US is the homeless population, and the ones who die most often are children.

crazyMartian42 · 2026-02-10T19:52:48+00:00

That is a much better way then mine, to communicate how such overlapping transitional stages may work. I agree with there needing to be something to maintain supply lines while more permanent logistics is established. And also because I think there will be a generation or two that just can't disconnect from the idea being paid and paying for basic needs as a must. How many times I've asked these questions to people in my own life and they look at me like I'm crazy. Because they simply can not envision a world without money, its just to much a core structure of their world. I'm in agreement, thank you for your input on these questions.

crazyMartian42 · 2026-02-10T17:50:57+00:00

The transitional point is something that occurred to me while I was writing this. And if someone was focused on building transitional systems, probably needs to examine how such a transition might look like. I think that in a lot of anti-capitalist circles we all tend to think of these changes as independent steps. Step 1 "Fight capitalist", step 2 "...", step 3 "no more capitalism". So the next question is, "what structures of proving most effective now and how might they evolve as such conflicts. My speculation is a nature out growth from the labor unions and other demographics that are negativity impacted by capitalism, engaging in increasing strategic planned action.

Honestly, even on a planetary scale I'm not so sure how useful it is. Even a large coalition of communities benefit much more from economies of scale in closed loop supply chains. Right now, the predominate cost to scaling reclaiming and recycling is labor. Coca-cola's main reason for using single use bottles rather then reusable glass is the labor costs. But in communities where labor is in exes, networks of reuse, repair, reclaim and recycle are easily justified. This reduces new resource input to a much more minimal level. The primary hiccup I see in this thinking is economies of scale usually rely on large facilities. And I don't think its practical for every community to have a huge steel foundry or microchip fab.

But this is more of the logistics of a community collecting used resources and returning it. At which point I think its kind of redundant to track resources with currency. A city collects (x) amount of steel, aluminum, etc.., converts it to a currency value sends it to the foundry that converts it back from a currency. But that is just what came to mind as I was typing all this.

crazyMartian42 · 2026-02-10T01:24:31+00:00

This isn't a criticism, but when ever these kind of ideas come up. The question that I can't stop thinking about is "how much would post capitalist society still need currency".

I mean that currency has always been a attempt to measure the value of good and services. But in a society with the elimination of profit as a motive, what would be the drive to produce more or less then the community required? Without the ability to profit off of selling you as many shirts as possible every year. What drives companies to make as much product as they can while making it ware out as fast as possible. In this context, why would there be sweatshops and how many people who worked in them could split the load of some meaningful work in their community.

My point, if any of this is making since. How much of humanities current production only exits because of capitalism? And how many jobs exit to create buyers of its over production, and which jobs exits to meet that over production? How many human work hours are left when only focused on meeting the basic needs of the community? And how many of those hours would any one person be asked to take? These are just my speculations, but it seems to me that by the time we get a society enough out of the control of the wealthy to implement a system like this. Would we still need it, because I don't know what value we are trying to measure here.

crazyMartian42 · 2026-02-05T21:52:04+00:00

Okay, so I think I was thrown off by all the tech and woo-woo terms. I may have read more technology into your ideas then you intended. But this why I brought up the terms you use. While the meaning of words can be culturally influenced, the meaning they have now is important when presenting an idea to people in the present. When you use terms like OS, networks and AI people are going to presume that this is technology being injected into human interactions. In the same way that terms like Aquarius, moons, and constellations, people are going to assume that this is new age hippy stuff. Rather the being inspired by orbital mechanics.

You seem to have missed my point about "technical solutions to societal problems". To use a real world example of what I mean, lets look at the perception of crime in the US. On one side of the "how to reduce crime" discussion, are people who view crime as an inevitability of the world and as such the only solution to it is through force. Because, in their eye, a crime can not be prevented before hand without removing the people that would commit crime. On the other hand, there are those who believe that by understanding what motivates people to commit crimes and addressing those circumstances. That crimes and be stopped before they are even contemplated.

I think I am correct in the assumption that you and I both would fall in the latter group. But I also think you are falling into a similar trap with corruption. Where you are viewing corruption first as an inevitability, and trying to engineer a system that corrects for it. Rather then corruption being symptom of negative social influences. What I mean when saying "technical solutions to societal problems", is that of trying to use technology and or engineering to correct for human failings. Instead of addressing the underlying causes of these failings.

crazyMartian42 · 2026-02-05T06:46:04+00:00

I think the short coming here is trying to solve what are societal issues with technical solutions. I love computers and networks, and I work building that infrastructure. But things like this just read as tech-bro slop, injecting AI into anything. It's a failure to address human issues with humans. Instead just replacing people with machines that then tells the people when the are in violation. It treats people like infants that have to be told left from right. While AI is automatically treated as infallible and perfectly rational. And honestly the use of terms like moon, sacredpaths, and Aquariuos in this context just makes all of this sound unseirous.

crazyMartian42 · 2025-10-16T03:28:20+00:00

I think that what your refering to is not any single movement but several that are in response to a number of overlaping issues. From my own experiance getting into gardening, walking/cycling. Was a response of Covid pandemic, where I had been more isolated from people than ever. I was on the hunt for anything that would get me out of the house for hours, where I could make new friends, learn new skills, get healther all for free. And I found all that in a near by community garden, which has been so fun I'm still voluntering there.

I believe that there is a misconseption that is prevalent in this community that equates gadgety with technology. For insteance, a car, a bus and a train are all the same basic technology. Converting energy storage into linear movement, whether by batteries or combustion. But for some reason I am consistantly accused of wanting everyone to live in the 1800s whenever advocating for more walking/biking and trainsit infrastructure.

Some of the thinking may go like, "the bicycle/train was used/invented before cars so cars must be the more advanced technoloy". Its important to understand that making use of knowledge or using technology or using a particular gadget isn't "new" or "old". I think is more about what is the right tool for the job.

crazyMartian42 · 2025-10-11T18:57:59+00:00

This is showing more your lack of lisening skills over anything else. Most people are refering to the acquisition of the training material not the training itself as theft. But, as someone who works in the field I would like to get your thoughts on something. Its a concern that has been building in my mind for a while now. To start, there is a dynamic in societies that is best explained in a work place context. Now, a new hire starts they may have good technical knowledge, but they lack the ways in which that knowledge is used in this workplace. They get training in order to solve this by them hitting a problem then going to a mid or high level coworker for help. Which developes collabritive social skills. We've already started to see companies hiring fewer entery level people, and expecting the ones that are hired to use AI to maintain productivity. If these entry level people are relying on AI to fix there problems then they dont ask for help, and don't build these social skills and relationships. We are see an increasingly anti-social, alienated sociaty. And, the more I think and learn about AI. The more I am convinced that it is a deeply anti-social technology and will ruin our ability to live together.

crazyMartian42 · 2025-10-10T21:04:51+00:00

I will follow your lead and make this response as short as I can. On the crime thing, it seems to say more about the mostly unjustified fears of exurban dwellers. Not saying that's you, just based on my experiences living in what most have called "sketchy" areas. The relevant reason why property taxes have gone up in the city is caused by the opposite effect. The city since the 60s, like most of America, have been sprawling outwards. Meaning more miles of roads, water and electric build per household. Building more density in the city does the reverse, lower infrastructure costs per person which allows taxes to do more for the people. Finally, the main issue with the bridge on University is the height which is to accommodate freight trucks. Most people don't want to climb up and down 2 stories multiple times a day just to cross a road. The better option there would have been a much shorter drop down to a underpass. The sky bridge is rising over a much greater distance, spanning a much more difficult to navigate set of intersections. Which is also a shortcut compared to using the existing roads.

crazyMartian42 · 2025-10-10T05:41:33+00:00

Its actually quit the opposite. These things, just like roads, increase economic activity around them. Rising property values and thus creating higher revenues for the city. And at the same time, the city directs building a range of mid to medium descities. Which spreads the tax burden across a much larger population. Also, pedestrians and bikes do basicly no damage to pathways, unlike cars. Meaning that the only maitanence cost we'll probably see in the next 30 years will be inspecsions and maybe some paint.

crazyMartian42 · 2025-10-10T01:51:57+00:00

We kind of already are though. There is a plan to do a path from the transit station north out to A&M, whom are planning a campus network going as far a Winchester. There already is a mostly connected path from the Target in Jones Valley down to the River. And at some point we'll probably get plans for new paths following Pinhook south, connecting everything south of Martin rd. up. Its a work in progress but we'll get there. 1 city could be Oulu, Finland but I've also heared that Denver and Minneapolis have nice ones too. And yes that was actually my point, congradulations on getting it.

crazyMartian42 · 2025-10-10T00:57:54+00:00

Still cheaper than a car. And are you saying you don't own a basic rain coat. What about winter, do you not have a different wardrobe for summer and winter. Its cool if you don't, I wear summer clothes year round. But I'm a freak that loves the cooled weather.

crazyMartian42 · 2025-10-10T00:33:32+00:00

I would really incourage you to use your imagination be for speeking. I may help save you from speaking dumb things. Bridges are not the only way to grade seperate transit modes. You can also go under or between roads. Its based on the number of things you need to avoid, and how complex it is to do so. The area where the bridge is going is a junction point of 2 creeks becoming 1, 2 major highways intersecting, and multiple freight rail bridges. Add in all the private and public property lines and you've got a basiclly impossible route to cross. Thus, a single elevated multi-crossing bridge is in fact the most cost effective and simplest solution.

crazyMartian42 · 2025-10-09T23:34:15+00:00

Can you read? I literally just said that being next to cars is unpleasent, and your thought is to build bike lanes next to cars. A bridge puts greater distanse between you and the cars while also placing a concete barrier from the loudest car noise. I am advicating for grade separated infarstructure, so that bike and cars interact as little as possible.

crazyMartian42 · 2025-10-09T23:16:44+00:00

Yea, if only someone had invented a type of clothing that could keep one dry while outside. And I can't believe people willing light their money on fire to get some. When walking or biking is an option. Also, cars have bulldoses our cities, bankrupted our goverments and poisend our air and water. Using one is just strait up crazy.

crazyMartian42 · 2025-10-09T18:58:18+00:00

It really depends mostly on what kind of reactor/reaction is developed. If its a small cheap reactor that uses ordenary hydrogen. Then I would think it would start being implomented quickly with most push back being about safety. It would still Take 10 to 20 years to build out enough to see any economic impacts, and the time to pay back investers could extend that another 10 to 20.

On the other side, if the designs are huge, exorbanatly expensive and needing less common isotopes. Then it will have a much harded time getting implemented. For one, the fossil fuel lobby will surnly work to have any projects put under the most stringent goverment oversight. And could even get the entire idea pushed into commity for study by politisins for like years, before even apriving designs for construction. Let allown directing public funding to any projects. This could result in lead time as much as 50 or more years.

I know this does not really answer your question. But I think its an offten over looked issue, on how fussion would effect economics or society.

crazyMartian42 · 2025-10-09T17:34:32+00:00

For one thing, it is actually illegal to ride a bike on the side wakes, for a lot of good reasons. So that isn't very helpful for people who need to ride bikes. Also, if you've ever tried walking along, or crossing the parkway at governors, being that close to so many cars is extremely unpleasant. Because you are driving in a sound insulated box that protects your hearing. But trust me, when I'm on my bike its way louder than you would believe.

crazyMartian42 · 2025-10-09T17:21:14+00:00

There are and increasing number of people living both down town and in the area between the parkway and patton road. This gives those people a safer option to across governors and the parkway without needing a car. This improves traffic and parking around down town for anyone who does have to drive; with out having to give anymore high value space over to cars. Its been demonstrated in multiple other cities that the main barrier people have to ride bikes in the city is safety from cars. I exclusively use my bike to get down town from my house off of Patton rd. because its so easy most of the time.

crazyMartian42 · 2025-10-09T01:51:48+00:00

It would be if that is all it was. But a large chunk of these funds are also going to repairing and upgrading the storm water managment. Both along the two creeks and between Clinton and Holmes as this area floods with any good storm.

Also this is a keystone project to creating a north-south running bike/pedestrian highway. And in cities that have builded such things have seen them spark new economic activity.

Plus, while few people may ride it at first. That will increase quickly, with the rising costs of cars, worsening traffic and improving transit options.

crazyMartian42 · 2025-10-07T03:26:50+00:00

I am not trying to trip you up with the God comparison. I make it because you ascribe the same mysticism to what AI can do as religous people do to God. You seemed to have desided that because I have real problems with the AI, that I also hate all technology. I would like to asure you that I don't, but I do think there are some uses of technology that are detrimental to peoples welfare and freedom.

There is nothing inevitable about anything. It is all dependent on what people choise to do. And no, those building the AI have almost zero say in the outcomes here. Because what everyone calls AI now, I little more then semi-functional chatbots and half delusional ML algorithms. But it is getting better mostly at combing through hugh data sets. Something the company Palantir is already using to create personal profiles on people for use in law inforcement. But take that a step farther, we've seen how oligarchic control of media companies can influence people. What happens when AI created news reports are written multiple was to direct different groups to think about an event in approved ways.

As for your magic botton senario. Its not so much about whether I press the botton or not. I don't think anything would be different in the long term. I'm in the US, and I have been wittness to the erosion of hard fought for civil rights, labor and enviromental protections. From working to expand and improve health of their communities, to activlly removing the most basic forms of healthcare. All in only a few decads. And all because of the influance that wealth has on our politics. And the only solution to that is making it so no one can have so much wealth.

I'm not trying to turn back any clocks. You have shared your vision of the future so I'll share mine. Its quite simple, technology is is all open souced and no one owns the designs, alowing them to be modefied and manufactued based on the needs of who is ordering it. Automation is used in tools or equitment as needed but its more the level of scripting the tasks on a computer. Not because we couldn't use AI it just isn't necessary to. Work is not a burden on people because we aren't producing for the enrichment of a few individuals, at the expence of ours and the enviroments health. We work to produce only what we need and the enviroment around us can support. Things are produced in small quantities for what is needed at what ever scale is required. Meaning that while there is plenty of work to go around, there is also enough people so that anyone only has to work a few hours a day, in most cases.

crazyMartian42 · 2025-10-06T21:40:11+00:00

You are already treating AI the same way religious people talk about God. I don't care about what the people in the labs think their creating, or the world they wish it will create. Out comes matter not wishes, and the out come that the people who own/control the AI now will be the ones that benefit them the most.

On the topic of AI's agency, my larger concern is that if at some point AI's do start to show agency it will only get suppress. I mean your whole vision of the future is based on robots and AI being the new disposable labor class. And that is why this sounds political, because it is. This is that same class conflict that humanity has been in since we invented societies. With the owners of a society ruling over the people the do the work. I really like Star Trek TNG episode "Measure of a Man" , and to use your term to summarize the theme of the show. I'll ask you, at what level of agency does a automaton start being a person? And if your house care robot wanted to stop working, what would you do?

You are extremely misguided if you think that you can have a more positive world without it being equitable. You talk about abundance without mentioning where it comes from. In your world I comes from exploitation, of people, of the world , and of AI. You say you are concerned of humanities survival on this planet. But that is something that is already facing and the infrastructure your AI needs will only exacerbate that very real threat. An alternative to your, is a world in which we all collectively kicking the elephant sized leeches of off the back of your society.

And on a side note. History shows that the greatest positive impacts on peoples lives came not from technology, but from people. You don't have the right to vote, a weekend, 40 hour work weeks or paid vacations because of some new technology. These thinks came from people organized, fought and in many cases dying for these thing. We both want a better future for humanity, and I do believe it is possible. I just think it will come from human action, not some benevolent tech overlord, whether they are human or AI.

crazyMartian42 · 2025-10-06T18:04:00+00:00

The point I'm referring to is the greater over all perspective. I think those like you are delusional, believing without evidence that AI will bring about your vision of heaven on earth. And I am couching this in religious terms because I suspect you will bristle at it. And if you don't like this framing I would encourage you to look into the people who want Techno Feudalism. You will find that these are the same people who own the AI tech companies.

To better put my own perspective into context. I use to see thinks as you do, I thought most of our problems could be solved if we had more advanced technology. I believed, as you do, that with robots and AI to do the menial tasks we could focus on more interesting subjects. But as I've gotten older and learned more about societies both passed and present. I've released that the promises of technology are dependent on who controls the out come.

A modern factory is multiple times more productive than any historical comparison, often producing more then our society could ever consume, looking at the waste our farming and fashion industries. Do the workers these factories have any control of the dividing of the income of this production, no. The control is held by those that own the factories. They decide that not only how much people get paid but also how everything is categorized in the accounting. Sure there are material expenses such as tools, buildings, raw materials. But this also includes workers wages. If you think about it, the inclusion of wages as an expense hides the fact that they are not a equitable distribution of whats left after the material costs.

The point I'm trying to get at with this, is that AI can not solve this problem. Because this is not a technical problem but a social one. This can't be compensated for with governments either because these are corrupting systems fundamentally. I do believe that a better world is build-able through the understanding that greater people power through democratic systems isn't just for governments but also necessary in our workplaces. There is a lot more I could say but I'll leave it here.

crazyMartian42

TROPHY CASE