214
votes
Accepted
Why zero tolerance on nudity in space?
Housecleaning in Zero-G
Think through the amount of body hair and skin flakes a human sheds each week. On Earth, you take a vacuum cleaner or a mop. Still, fluff collects in hard-to-reach places. No ...
- 119k
124
votes
Accepted
Ugh, I'm stuck in an orbital spaceport. But why?
Someone detected an asteroid
There are lots of small asteroids. Even in 2100, when the solar system is well mapped, carbonaceous asteroids with low albedo will be very hard to detect passively. ...
- 85.7k
122
votes
Accepted
Is it possible to kill all life on Earth?
Not with the time constraint given.
Let's start with the most destructive thing we've got: nukes. There are about 15,000 nukes worldwide, of varying yields. Sources:
World Nuclear Weapon Stockpile, ...
- 142k
117
votes
Accepted
Is it worth sending a manned mission to a black hole?
What could be learned?
There are so many things you could study by looking at a black hole. There are lots of open or partially unsolved problems that surround them:
Does Hawking radiation exist? ...
- 102k
109
votes
How much damage to the US would a Yellowstone eruption cause?
EDIT: damn, this got me my first gold badge
Here is a useful source, which is itself based off of this. Here is an ancillary source.
WTL;DR: all the damage
TL;DR:
everything within 80 kilometers ...
- 13.1k
100
votes
Accepted
Why buy tech from the future?
Yes, 100% Yes
Just because the stranger doesn't know how to build it or how it was manufactured doesn't mean that you can't reverse engineer it. With 10 devices, you even have some spares so you can ...
- 15.3k
90
votes
Accepted
How to monetize uploaded consciousness?
We give the minds some hobbies to do
We have lots of people who have literally nothing else to do than think. That will probably be boring for quite a few of them. Why don't we put them to us-... I ...
- 17.7k
87
votes
Accepted
Is the concept of a biometric smart gun that will detonate when anyone besides its owner touches the weapon unrealistic?
A smart gun which only fires in the hands of an authorised individual -- which may include any soldier in your army -- is a useful and practical concept. It may have issues when transferring weapons ...
- 11.9k
86
votes
What would be the ideal power source for a cybernetic eye?
Batteries can be made quite small today, and batteries can be recharged wirelessly by magnetic resonance. So feasibly, the battery could be implanted in the temple near the eye and be recharged by ...
- 16.4k
83
votes
Accepted
Will social networking sites create fake people using AI?
Its already happening
Hello dear,
I can see you logged to this site and I want to tell you, that I am 18 year old girl and totally not experienced in Worldbuilding, giggles
I am searching ...
- 45.5k
75
votes
How would fembots change society?
The economy of the world would collapse as business owners everywhere discover that they can fill most of their untrained labor needs for a one time fee of $3000. Those fortunate few who still have ...
- 69.3k
74
votes
How would travel classes be delimited in a world where teleportation is omnipresent?
A private network
When it comes to flying, the truly rich do not fly first-class. That's incredibly inconvenient for them. The truly rich fly on their own personal jet to wherever they feel like going....
- 40.4k
72
votes
How to monetize uploaded consciousness?
Crowley [a demon] had been extremely impressed with the warranties offered by the computer industry, and had in fact sent a bundle Below [to hell] to the department that drew up the Immortal Soul ...
- 142k
67
votes
Ugh, I'm stuck in an orbital spaceport. But why?
People aren't there to transport
Perhaps this space line has an agreement that it won't leave until all the customers have arrived. Given the time between each flight, this might be reasonable ...
- 52.8k
67
votes
Is it possible to kill all life on Earth?
No.
Most of the preceding responses have overlooked one relatively-recently identified home for life on the planet; within the crust itself. Researchers have found bacteria up to 4 kilometers down in ...
- 21.5k
64
votes
Why would a scientifically advanced future community believe in multiple gods?
Why does Hinduism not meet your requirements?
From Hinduism.SE, neither the monotheistic nor polytheistic labels properly fit Hinduism. You can read the various answers yourself; some answers say it ...
- 85.7k
64
votes
Advantages of "Spider Mechs" over Tanks?
Okay, so a did a bunch of research into legged robots for my thesis and they aren't going to replace armored vehicles any time soon. The most basic reason, they aren't as efficient in doing what ...
- 15.3k
64
votes
Accepted
Is it practical to make English the global language?
The Russians did it: the Russian Empire, and its successors the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation established Russian as the language for official and inter-ethnic communication. It worked. ...
- 94.5k
62
votes
Why would a scientifically advanced future community believe in multiple gods?
Because God or Gods are actually real.
Just because some people assume in our modern world that objective proof is lacking, does not prove (or dis-prove) the existence, or lack thereof, of a God or ...
- 4,388
62
votes
The world has converted to eating cheap vat-grown meat, what do we do with our current livestock?
There wouldn't be a huge stock left over as we transition unless the transition was extraordinarily fast. Instead, the transition would gradually replace livestock.
In the beginning, carniculture (...
- 25.3k
62
votes
Could an astronaut in a near-future space ship survive transit through our asteroid belt?
Yes they could. Very Easily.
Contrary to myth, the asteroid belt is very nearly empty. (See https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/26712/what-is-the-average-distance-between-objects-in-our-...
- 14.3k
62
votes
Why would an advanced civilization even want slaves?
One of the ultimate signs of wealth is being able to command services from other humans at your whim. The ultra wealthy have maids, pilots, cooks, drivers, guards, etc. and even if these jobs could be ...
- 23.8k
59
votes
Accepted
Is there a hypothetical scenario that would make Earth uninhabitable for humans, but not for (the majority of) other animals?
Most disease suffered by humanity does not affect any other creature
And the really cool thing about a plague that threatens to kill everybody if we don't get somebody off the planet (if the words "...
- 129k
58
votes
Accepted
What would be the ideal power source for a cybernetic eye?
Although I like the classic cyberpunk concept that states that nanomachines build a small turbine generator in one of your biggest veins (like the inferior vena cava), I understand you want something ...
- 2,611
55
votes
Why zero tolerance on nudity in space?
1 - We're icky
There is a hygienic dimension to clothing. As mammals, especially placental mammals, we're always secreting and shedding something -- sweat, oil, hair, dead skin, and many other ...
- 1,280
54
votes
How does a self-cleaning kitchen put away the dishes?
One possibility is to avoid the problem entirely by making the place you store the dishes also be dishwashers. So you put dirty silverware in the silverware drawer, and clean silverware comes out. ...
- 3,775
54
votes
Why would a colony need to relocate?
This isn't our land anymore, kiddo.
There was a time in the past your old grampa here would oversee all of those mining operations, from the Red Hills all the way to the Prima City. It was such a ...
- 9,115
54
votes
Why zero tolerance on nudity in space?
Spacesuits are compulsory
The human body is ill suited for leaving the confines of Earth. Spacesuits serve a variety of necessary functions in order for humans to operate in space like temperature ...
- 8,709
53
votes
Tactics and strategy an army can use to counter Human Wave attacks?
Machine guns have made human wave attacks ineffective.
Where human waves prevailed against modern firepower, it was always that defendants were unprepared for it, due to lack of properly dug-in ...
- 42.3k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible