Here's the topic for today - please share your thoughts in a comment!



Just like the invention of the Bessemer process made steel widely available, we are now developing the means to make graphene commercially viable. Like steel, graphene is extremely strong and is useful for more than its strength; I expect that it will change how we operate society in ways similar to how the advent of easy access to steel did. It's also very likely that other forms of two-dimensional materials (like graphene is) will prove useful in the future once we properly both discover and learn how to commercially produce it.

I don't think there's a correlation…
Steel had already been available for almost 2000 years before the process was popularised and so it was quite ingrained in our society as a useful material already. Of course it exploded once cheaper, better steel processes were developed.

But with Graphine weren't not even at the level they were with steel at the end of the bronze age. It's basically not produced at all or used for anything yet.
Cheap commercial mass-production is a very long way off. We haven't even reached useful small scale production yet- as far as I know.

No radical changes, just fancier tools and building materials. We're at least fifty years away from it being mass produced so 2118 might be like the 1880s was with bessemer steel. They'll be going crazy with it like they did nylon and plastic in the 1950s.

It is crazy how we're so inundated with technological breakthroughs that we're instantly used to them, as if we've been using them our whole lives. Cell Phones! So much power in the palm of our hands, unthinkable just a few short years ago, now totally taken for granted!!

Graphene is fascinating, but I agree that it will likely be accepted in stride once it goes into full public mode. I do wonder what the world's junkyards and trash heaps might look like as we keep making all these nigh-indestructible materials…

Nigh-indestructible could mean infinitely recyclable. It could get to the point where there is no need to manufacture any raw materials, just reuse what already exists. That could make for a salvage and junk mans paradise. An idea I'm already playing with for the next Belle's Best feature.

But with Graphene weren't not even at the level they were with steel at the end of the bronze age. It's basically not produced at all or used for anything yet. Cheap commercial mass-production is a very long way off. We haven't even reached useful small scale production yet- as far as I know.

No radical changes, just fancier tools and building materials. We're at least fifty years away from it being mass produced so 2118 might be like the 1880s was with bessemer steel. They'll be going crazy with it like they did nylon and plastic in the 1950s.

https://www.techradar.com/news/mass-produced-graphene-mit-may-have-cracked-it

If I had to guess, I would say we're definitely closer than fifty years away.

It is crazy how we're so inundated with technological breakthroughs that we're instantly used to them, as if we've been using them our whole lives. Cell Phones! So much power in the palm of our hands, unthinkable just a few short years ago, now totally taken for granted!!

Oh, I know. We now take progress for granted, when two hundred years ago life never really changed, and five hundred years ago it effectively didn't. You know what, though? I prefer life now, and all troubles understood, it's likely going to improve further.

Graphene is fascinating, but I agree that it will likely be accepted in stride once it goes into full public mode. I do wonder what the world's junkyards and trash heaps might look like as we keep making all these nigh-indestructible materials…

Nigh-indestructible could mean infinitely recyclable. It could get to the point where there is no need to manufacture any raw materials, just reuse what already exists. That could make for a salvage and junk mans paradise. An idea I'm already playing with for the next Belle's Best feature.

Graphene should be pretty recyclable. It's just carbon. Just break it down and then re-press it into rolls. I think this should be doable.

sunseeker25 wrote:
…Graphene should be pretty recyclable. It's just carbon. Just break it down and then re-press it into rolls. I think this should be doable.

Alright then, bring it on!!

Stronger materials could revolutionize the world in a number of important ways. First, there are structures we can currently envision, but lack the materials to build in any practical way, like space elevators or skyhooks that can cheaply take us into space without relying on rockets. Also, very strong materials are needed in order to build large rotating space colonies strong enough to sustain the centrifugal strain caused by spinning to generate artificial gravity. We do currently possess some materials (or composites thereof) capable of building these things, but we could build them much bigger, and even consider some insanely ambitious projects, like converting minor planets like Ceres into giant hollow worlds with livable interiors.

Also, stronger materials may enable us to finally do fusion energy in an economical way, which would open the pathway for hundreds of billions of years' worth of cheap, clean energy for humanity, just utilizing our own solar system's resources. There are also weapons technologies, like rail guns, which would become much more feasible if we could find materials capable of sustaining the immense forces these weapons generate.

the 20s

increased digital censorship, propaganda, social credit system

more biological terrorism, robots killing humans, EMP bombs

chaos, starvation, caste system, techno-feudalism


the 30s

The Dark Age 2.0 begins

lothar wrote:
the 20s

increased digital censorship, propaganda, social credit system

more biological terrorism, robots killing humans, EMP bombs

chaos, starvation, caste system, techno-feudalism


the 30s

The Dark Age 2.0 begins

Hmmm…. all good fun then . Glad I'm into my '70s.
I think I had the best of the world - all down hill from here then B-)