I think we’re all a little soft that we think that this is a major stumbling block. Your body has stores of energy other than the food sitting in your stomach. Sure, it’s nice to have a lunch break, but people will deal with it. People regularly work under much harsher conditions than being hungry. And when you know it’s going to happen and you know your meal is waiting for you on the other side, it’s not going to be a big issue.
I think this is a great thread; it’s quintessential SDMB. I thought this thing would go to 40 pages. I suppose this is a bump. IMO we’ve spent so much time discussing the hypothetical and its rules that we haven’t moved far along the line to getting on the internet.
I wonder if there is a sort of shortcut that could be used where a device/system is researched and designed with the sole purpose of “connecting to the internet” instead of trying to rebuild an internet device as we understand them today, e.g. an iPhone or iPad.
I don’t know if that is “fighting the hypothetical”, hence breaking the rules, because the OP maybe wants the internet connection to be fully functioning instead of the simplest method of “connecting to the internet” that just sends a ping.
There’s some other potential “fighting the hypothetical” issue I’m curious about too. Like playing TV broadcasts and video through the portal so those on Earth II can see it. Or shooting a laser through to cut lumber and rocks, etc.
We need someone to lay down the law on what’s jake.
I’m disappointed it slowed too!
I think we should define “connected to the internet” as being an electronic or mechanical device that can send routable packets via EM radiation. That doesn’t mean it has to be WiFi, but technically, someone with the TCP spec and a laser pointer could morse-code out some data to be read by a sensor on the Earth I side and send out to the internet, and someone could walk or blink over the response. I think the interesting question is how long before you can build a communications machine on Earth II.
My answer is decades. I’m leaning toward 20 or 30, but certainly less than 100 years.
I could see some sort of steampunk device on the far side, right up against the portal, that had sets of mirrors that redirected lasers based on various settings, with the lasers and all computational /interpretative power being on our side also right up against the portal. So you could set up calculations on the far side , or set up text searches, with a dial setup like an analytical engine, or maybe just punchcards, and have the response be burned on a piece of wood or something, that pops out of a slot. Have that take up 5m on one side of the portal, and the other 5 m is still usable for transport.
With the laser, we could even set up a primitive publishing industry on the other side - just laser-etch diagrams, technical specs, medicine recipes. Even actual laser-cutting of parts would be possible, just optimise it for the kind of materials you could reasonable expect to produce relatively quickly, like not-100%-flat-planed wood.
I’m not sure who is fighting the hypothetical. It simply seem extremely difficult within the parameter of the hypothetical to achieve the stated goal. I can’t see how you can have computers without a very large and modern industrial base, I don’t see how you could have this large and modern industrial base without a large population, and I don’t see how you could have a large population without agriculture, hunting bisons and colecting berries will only get you so far. And how long would it takes to selectively breed the equivalent of modern edible plants? Hundreds of years?
Like many other posters, I can only see very peculiar people going to live in this place, with part of them probably having an agenda of not develloping a modern industrialized society there, along with scientists and the support system for a probably thriving tourism industry.
What kind of planted food? 5 mm large wild strawberries? Teosinte with its ten micro-sized kernels?
That’s not how things work. You don’t wash the dishes in a restaurant until you’ve done enough work to get a meal, and you don’t hire your own cook and send him to the restaurant to prepare it, either.
People would set up companies, and would take care of the organization, the hiring, the work, and tourists would just pay them on this side, as you would do for your regular vacations on Earth 1.
We’re talking about humans, here, so my best guess would be that it’s the first well organized group who enters with the deliberate intent to take control of the other side of the portal and run things. In practice, most likely acting on the orders of the government of the country where this portal is situated.
It would eventually become independant because there’s no real way to control it from the outside once there’s any sizable population out there, at which point, history tells me it would be mafia bosses/warlords/presidents for life and such.
I’m not sure about that. As long as it lags technologically behind us, there are HUGE incentives for people on that side to remain in our good graces… namely the fact that the portal provides health care and education and opportunity for them and their children.
But that depends on the extent to which permanent settlements and societies start to form over there. It’s certainly something to keep an eye out for.
Back to the question of technological development, I’m not an expert here, but I feel like there’s a massive barrier somewhere around 19th century technology, where a hobbyist with a lot of knowledge and the resources of a small village can no longer make progress. Flint tools->kiln->furnace->blacksmith->primitive firearms? Sure, I can see that happening relatively quickly. But when you start talking about things like internal combustion engines for airplanes, or ocean-going vessels, you start running into at least two issues:
(1) Need some special raw materials that aren’t found just sitting around, and may not be found on this side of the world at all
(2) Need an increasingly large industrial base with specialized and complicated manufacturing capabilities. And the more of that you need, the harder it is to have it all within a quick half-hour walk of the portal. Maybe that’s a logistically solvable problem, put the portal in the middle of a nice flat area and come up with some schedule where you start with a blacksmith and a wagonmaker within walking distance, and then you start building more and more advanced industrial facilities, which let you bootstrap even more advanced ones, all within what would be 25 square blocks of a modern city, yada yada. I’m skeptical, but the fact that people can still all just portal home at the end of the workday continues to work in your favor.
The agriculture may be a lot faster than some of you are apparently thinking; I can’t find the cite for this (it was a BBC documentary on plants) but this stuck in my mind; a few years back someone tried to re-select parsnips from the wild ancestor, which is a skinny barely edible root and it took only 7 seasons before they were getting roots of comparable size to modern commercial plants.
Not everything is going to be so fast, but ancient humans weren’t growing them because they hoped there’d be a crop in a couple of centuries. With appropriate selection techniques Earth 2 could have just about usable size grains in just a few years, and actually decent ones within a decade or so. Also, the knowledge of which ancestor plants to cross could be a real cheat code, many of the crops we grow had a sudden size increase when they were hybridised. Yes, that will mean getting seeds from different areas, but that is the sort of quest the survivalist guys would love.
If the goal is just to get a device which can connect to the Internet, I can make that for you, starting from scratch, inside of a day. All I need to make is a couple of flags, and then I stand in front of the portal and send semaphore code.
But I don’t think that’s actually what we’re looking for, here.
Watch out. I said the same thing last page and XT went off on me. Lol.
I still don’t think Earth II can effectively defend itself against takeover by Earth I at a lower level of technology. Laser weapons mean that Earth II can’t hold the area around the portal, and population differences mean that Earth I will have vastly more troops to deploy if they want it.
I agree that it ends up controlled by whatever country controls the Earth I side of the portal for a long time.
Laser weapons are only line-of-sight, and only forward of the portal. And if Earth-1 sends masses of troops through, they’re going to arrive on the other side unarmed, versus a wide variety of primitive weaponry. The Earth-2 defenders could use earthen berms, deadfalls, punji sticks, and a wide variety of other static defenses, plus defenders with spears, atlatls, and/or bows, to fight them off.
If Earth-2 isn’t yet economically independent of Earth-1, then Earth-1’s best tactic is to just starve them into submission. And if they are economically independent of Earth-1, then they can just bury the portal under a bunch of solid rock and forget about it. Yes, lasers could gradually cut away the rock, but not nearly as fast as the 2-ers can replenish it.
The Earth-1 guys would be charging through the portal with armour, spears and axes made from human bone. Maybe some slingshots made of sinew. Earth-1, hell yeah!
Y’know what OP, looking at some of these responses, I have a suggestion for where to move the portal; the bottom of Challenger Deep.
I did not realise how ‘easy’ it is to make iron: Primitive Skills: Iron - YouTube
I am astonished by the high yield such a simple contraption provides.
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I still think about this topic from time to time. I asked Deepseek to answer and this is what it came up with:
Developing a society on Earth2 to the point where it can connect to the internet is a monumental task that involves recreating the entire technological and industrial infrastructure from scratch. Here’s a detailed step-by-step speculation on how this could be achieved:
Phase 1: Initial Exploration and Survival
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Initial Exploration:
- Human Resources: Send small groups of highly skilled individuals (e.g., survivalists, engineers, biologists) through the portal to explore and assess the environment.
- Basic Survival: Establish basic survival protocols, including finding sources of food, water, and shelter. Since there are no domesticated animals, early food sources would likely be foraging and hunting wild animals.
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Knowledge Transfer:
- Oral Communication: Use oral communication to transfer essential knowledge from Earth1 experts. This includes survival techniques, basic tool-making, and initial resource identification.
- Memory Aids: Develop mnemonic devices and oral traditions to preserve complex information until written records can be established.
Phase 2: Establishing Basic Infrastructure
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Tool Making:
- Stone Tools: Begin with the creation of simple stone tools, which can be made from naturally occurring materials.
- Fire: Learn to create and control fire using natural materials, which is crucial for warmth, protection, and food preparation.
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Shelter and Agriculture:
- Shelter Construction: Build basic shelters using natural materials like wood, stone, and mud.
- Agriculture: Start cultivating wild plants and domesticating them. This would require significant trial and error but is essential for long-term sustainability.
Phase 3: Developing Advanced Tools and Techniques
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Metallurgy:
- Metal Extraction: Identify and extract metals from ores. This would start with simpler metals like copper and eventually progress to iron.
- Tool and Weapon Making: Develop more advanced tools and weapons using metals, which will significantly boost productivity and defense capabilities.
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Textiles and Clothing:
- Fiber Production: Harvest and process natural fibers to create textiles. This would allow for the creation of clothing, which is essential for protection and social development.
- Weaving and Sewing: Develop weaving and sewing techniques to produce clothing and other textile products.
Phase 4: Industrial Revolution
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Mechanization:
- Simple Machines: Develop simple machines like levers, pulleys, and wheels to aid in construction and transportation.
- Water and Wind Power: Harness natural energy sources like water and wind to power basic machinery.
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Manufacturing:
- Workshops: Establish workshops for the production of tools, weapons, and other essential items.
- Mass Production: Develop techniques for mass production to increase efficiency and output.
Phase 5: Technological Advancement
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Electricity:
- Basic Electricity: Discover and harness electricity, starting with simple batteries and progressing to more complex electrical systems.
- Power Generation: Develop methods for generating electricity on a larger scale, such as hydroelectric, wind, and eventually fossil fuels.
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Communication:
- Telegraph and Radio: Develop basic communication technologies like the telegraph and radio, which are crucial for long-distance communication and coordination.
Phase 6: Information Age
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Electronics:
- Basic Electronics: Develop basic electronic components like resistors, capacitors, and transistors.
- Circuitry: Create simple circuits and gradually progress to more complex electronic systems.
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Computing:
- Early Computers: Build early computing devices using available materials and knowledge. This would start with mechanical computers and progress to electronic ones.
- Software Development: Develop basic software to run on these computers, starting with simple programs and gradually increasing in complexity.
Phase 7: Internet Connectivity
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Networking:
- Local Networks: Establish local area networks (LANs) to connect computers within a limited area.
- Wide Area Networks: Develop wide area networks (WANs) to connect different regions.
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Internet Infrastructure:
- Routers and Servers: Build and deploy routers and servers to manage internet traffic.
- Protocols: Develop and implement internet protocols to ensure reliable communication between devices.
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Connection to Earth1:
- WiFi Router: Once the basic internet infrastructure is in place, create a WiFi router near the portal on Earth2.
- Connection: Connect the Earth2 network to the Earth1 internet via the portal, allowing for seamless communication and data transfer between the two worlds.
Conclusion
This process would take decades, if not centuries, and would require the coordinated effort of many individuals with diverse skills and knowledge. The ability to import knowledge and experts from Earth1 would significantly accelerate progress, but the lack of initial tools and infrastructure presents a formidable challenge. Nonetheless, with determination and ingenuity, it is theoretically possible to develop Earth2 to the point where it can connect to the internet.
Some things it missed horribly, there. Like, there’d never be a need for an oral tradition on Earth-2, because people there can still come back home to Earth-1 to read books and otherwise get educated.