@KostChristian@mrillig Host-associated ecosystems like the gut microbiome were the arguable examples I could think of for agentic behavior. Due to 1) selection by the host for teleological function and 2) a physical partition for the ecosystem that allows for a boundary of self.
@KostChristian@mrillig That said, I think I largely agree with you that ecosystems don't behave coherently in the same way individuals might. But I think agentic-like properties might transiently emerge at the ecosystem level when it's viewed as a subcomponent in other preexisting agentic systems.
@bob_smith@Ayylmao63963350 There's probably a couple old engines entombed in concrete somewhere in NM. Or we could resurrect ORNL's aircraft reactor division.
@Ayylmao63963350@bob_smith Yeah. And I can only imagine how much of an expensive pain in the ass it would be to test and maintain an exotic, small batch propulsion system that supposedly underwrites your security.
It's a shame. Nuclear turbojets ought to be ripping around Jupiter's upper atmosphere.
@bob_smith@Ayylmao63963350 It's likely going to be a high-low mix. Delta-V is still pricey compared to quadcopter spam if you want to move things vast distances in reasonable amounts of time. The revolutions in processing power and sensing/mapping are also lowering the barrier to entry for swank.
@bob_smith@Ayylmao63963350 This and their nuclear-powered torpedo seem like their primary value would be in threatening enemy fleets. But again, they have many existing conventionally-powered nuclear weapons that can already service those targets. Feels more like posturing than real doctrinal shift.
@bob_smith@Ayylmao63963350 It sounds similar to Project Pluto. As a strategic weapon, it doesn't really give any capabilities that aren't already covered by ballistic missiles. As a tactical weapon, it's basically a standoff range nuclear cruise missile with an eye watering price tag.
@CJHandmer@grok "If the ocean were made of sodium, some damn fool of an engineer would propose a water-cooled reactor."
Rickover's life mission was nuclear marine propulsion. Weinberg led ORNL's design of Nautilus' reactor. He certainly had different ideas what terrestrial reactors should be.
@ww_dasilva@bob_smith You didn't miss out on much. They were an acceptably irreverent form of critique for people who were superficially into politics.
They were obsoleted after the left won the culture war and Millennials made the mistake of turning politics into a common hobby.
When a crystal is placed near a magnet, its electrons can only have certain amounts of energy. When this phenomenon is graphed, fractal patterns called Cantor sets emerge. https://t.co/wZ6KDc2bU5
🚨🚨New paper out!!!
Come for the first large-scale analysis of plasmid copy number across species,
stay for one of the most intriguing results of my lab: universal scaling laws in plasmid biology! 📈🧬
👉https://t.co/PXcg5l8oNC