Centrist, progressive, radical optimist. Geophysicist, R&D, Planetary Scientist and general nerd in Winnipeg, Canada.

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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • This is a real phenomenon. Men are more attractive when they’re already in a relationship.

    There are similar psychological effects that exist elsewhere. A job applicant is more attractive if they currently have a job. A scholarship application is more attractive if you list your existing scholarships. The effect is basically: someone else found you desirable, and therefore I must also.

    The effect is so strong that it encourages people to fake it to gain the benefits.











  • Things like platinum notwithstanding, It will almost always be more expensive to go get things in space than on earth.

    Hell, even on earth it is often too expensive to get metals like iron if there isn’t rail or a port nearby. Imagine having to fly iron ingots around and the associated aviation fuel cost. Whatever crazy fuel bill you’re imagining, multiply by a hundred or more if you’re imagining getting it from space.

    No, all of those metals in space are best used to build some future version of our civilization _in situ. _



  • That alternative material is aluminum. It’s like a top four abundance material in the crust. It’s just super fucking hard to refine from minerals that don’t like to give it up without oodles of energy. Like, turn minerals into plasma levels of energy. So the irony is, to grow our energy economy past the need for copper, we will first need to grow our energy economy.

    Should fusion ever actually meet its promise, then this is one of the likely things we could do with this level of energy.

    If we ever become a spacefaring civilization, it’ll almost certainly be necessary during the colonization of other planets/moons/asteroids, since the geological processes that concentrate copper on the earth are not present in those places. Whereas aluminum is plentiful any place rocky.