16
votes
Accepted
Can a device that causes memory loss be created with near-modern technology?
You could go with a technique called Trans-cranial Magnetic Stimulation or TMS. But you'd also have to 'play around' with the science a bit and assume a couple of breakthroughs in neuroscience that ...
- 15.5k
15
votes
How heavy does a "city" for two thousand people need to be?
Let's establish some upper and lower bounds.
The ISS is a self-contained ultra-lightweight city for 7 people. Wikipedia tells me it weighs 450 tonnes. So for 2000 on a super-ISS we can extrapolate to ...
- 7,237
14
votes
How heavy does a "city" for two thousand people need to be?
200,000 tons.
Can be reduced to ~25,000 tons for a traditional Japanese town with minimal facilities.
Good news: your question is actually answerable scientifically! When building cities today, one ...
12
votes
Can a device that causes memory loss be created with near-modern technology?
This is unanswerable
I mean this in a technical sense - we do not know how Memory works, how it is stored etc.
And as such, we do not know what is needed to impact it.
What do I mean by this:
Go back ...
- 18.5k
9
votes
Can a device that causes memory loss be created with near-modern technology?
We have this device. Its aanesthetic. Many are not aware, but the medicamentation cocktail you receive, constantly monitored on the operating table is composed of substances with different effects.
...
- 1,428
7
votes
How heavy does a "city" for two thousand people need to be?
Cloud Nine is the name Buckminster Fuller gave to his proposed airborne habitats created from giant geodesic spheres, which might be made to levitate by slightly heating the air inside above the ...
- 29.6k
6
votes
Can a device that causes memory loss be created with near-modern technology?
Sure, why not?
We currently have the technology to cause anterograde amnesia: specifically, drugs that basically prevent the transfer of short-term memories into long-term storage. Outside certain ...
- 21.1k
5
votes
How heavy does a "city" for two thousand people need to be?
I remembered an older question where the OP asked for the energy output of a city falling from 10km. To answer that, I found an estimate of the mass of New York City. With the estimate I also found ...
- 136k
4
votes
Accepted
How far can a limited group of people advance in technology?
Extremely difficult
There are many difficulties with creating technology from scratch. In theory, given infinite time, it is possible, but it is not realistic in many ways. Even if you assume these ...
- 412
4
votes
Accepted
What parts of the human brain can a truth serum modify to prevent lying?
I'm going to shift from science-based to science-fiction. This will make sense as you read the answer.
Lying is a choice
Current thinking about the psychological processes involved in deception holds ...
- 117k
4
votes
What parts of the human brain can a truth serum modify to prevent lying?
If I understand the way that real-world 'truth drugs' work correctly, they appear to work by impairing higher brain cognitive functions, that reduce the subject's ability to consider the consequences ...
- 55.9k
3
votes
Can a device that causes memory loss be created with near-modern technology?
Practically, No.
A neuralyser as shown in Men in Black is a cigar-sized object that removes a selectable period of the most recent memories with a flash.
Firstly, memory doesn't work that way. While ...
- 55.9k
3
votes
Can a device that causes memory loss be created with near-modern technology?
We may not know much about how the brain works at the microscopic or macroscopic level. But we do know a few things.
The brain is composed of brain cells connected to many other brain cells. One brain ...
- 7,058
2
votes
Can a device that causes memory loss be created with near-modern technology?
Some users have already pointed out that some drugs will do it. Dragongeek mentioned date rape drugs, those are the most classic examples.
I'll add something else: sleep deprivation. From Harvard ...
- 136k
2
votes
How far can a limited group of people advance in technology?
Their organic technologies can flourish to levels well beyond our wildest imagination. Being immortal, your settlers have all the time to figure out the new world's ecology; being few, their overall ...
- 3,760
2
votes
How heavy does a "city" for two thousand people need to be?
5000 tons
A lot of the questions assume just taking either a land-based city or an ocean-going ship and lifting it in the air. However, literally nobody would do that unless they had a way to lift ...
- 250
2
votes
Can a device that causes memory loss be created with near-modern technology?
You would need a two step process:
Imaging and cognitive stimuli.
Use fMRI to map blood flow to active areas of the brain. Use pictures and sounds to locate the areas of the brain associated with ...
- 2,421
1
vote
Can a device that causes memory loss be created with near-modern technology?
Lobotomy
Knowing as much as in the 1940s and 1950s, medical professionals repeatedly and very targeted destroyed parts of the brain of the patient to alter behavior or skills. With the knowledge we ...
- 15.9k
1
vote
How far can a limited group of people advance in technology?
As easy or as difficult as You/The Higher Power that transported them there needs it to be
This is world building - they are literally on a new Planet. There is no reason why there couldn't be rivers ...
- 18.5k
1
vote
How far can a limited group of people advance in technology?
The making of tools and metals is very hard. I want to make a pair of tongs, a hammer and an anvil. but first I need to smelt iron, for which I need a furnace and fuel for that furnace. Maybe I can ...
- 2,559
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible