this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Tech needs electricity and fire is not universal. That is what we use.

Our brain is lot more complicated and efficient than the computers we make and it uses ions, in liquid media. So something that lives in water could definitely be able to make something that would be able to use similar things to do processing. Water is also really good with doing things, it's flexible but doesn't compress/expand like air does. Think about hydraulic systems. You can make them smaller and smaller as your tech progresses. Mechanical things using metals and such would work in water as well. Think about gold and such that can be used for electricity as well, we don't use it because it's valuable, but an alien world could have abundance of gold for them to use.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Fire as base is needed. To make hydraulic or other tech, you need metal, and to work with metal, you need fire to melt and form it. An aquatic species can evolve to an advanced intelligence, but it can't evolved to an advanced tecnology. Dolphinse have a great intelligence, not far from the humans, but they never can be a tecnologic advanced species, they don't have even hands to manipulate tools. They use tools in a basic way, they even use old fishernets they found on the ground to hunt fishes (observed in the Mediterraneo). But manufactoring it is other thing.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Again, that's because you are human, and you think your way is the only way.

To make hydraulics you need metal

How does your arm work? How does octopus move? You think you can't make an structure like human arm, or octopus tentacles without metal, and then have a tube going through it in a way the water in it can move them. Look up soft robots. There isn't just one way to tap into mechanical energy and move things. We did what we found first, improved on it. But thinking that's the only way just shows narrow mindedness.

You need to heat metal

You don't. You know aluminum used to be so expensive because you couldn't really extract it from the ores like iron. Wasn't found in pure form like gold. Then someone found you can use electrolysis to get aluminum from its ore. Then it became so cheap.

You don't just heat metal and put it in mold for every type of metal work. In micro scale there are 3d printing methods similar to electroplating, it's very precise.

And even if there is a need of heat, how can you say ocean doesn't have it. A species could find out a way to tap into volcanic vents. Similarly how we use groundwater and rivers. They could use volcanos and geothermal energy. We do many many manufacturing processes under water in a tank containing water. They could make air tank and do things there too.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

if you looked up temperatures needed for aluminum electrolysis,

and then you have to deliver electricity to it, keep it isolated electrically, thermally, chemically (kept sealed), and how do you even make plastics without steel reactors

electrowinning is a process but it won't work for aluminium. also you all completely ignore glass as a material and ceramics generally

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Yes, you can all do this, having the machines to do so, and these are made mostly of metal, advanced tech also need electricity with high voltages, not so healthy in the water. Electric eals, maybe conected to a computer? Yes, in vulcanes you have fire, but not controllable, metallurgy requires exact temperatures depending on the metal and the use. No, not so easy possible a high tech society in a waterworld.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Don't care how smart you are, you ain't shit without metallurgy followed by electricity. No metallurgy, no electricity, no tech.

Ever read a science fiction novel where the aliens evolved underwater? The author has to twist the story in knots to try and explain how they gained anything advanced without fire.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It can be cristals and photons. Carbon is the basis of life because it's good for looooong molecules. But it's not like it's the only option. It may not even be the best option on planets with different temperatures or pressures.

Anyway life may not even need food or care about the passage of time.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

It can be crystals and photons.

How do you build actuators that react to light without electricity?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Magnets, heat, idk. A crystal could grow by fusing drifting material to itself. It could grow as big as a planet ober billions of years and fire lazors. Time or size don't need to fit our human perception. Then there's physics stuff we still don't know (subatomic, dark matter, including magnetism).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Does your glasses need electricity to function? Before electronics came and we started making everything need electricity do you think we were not advanced civilization because we only used mechanical power? If you had come that far and suppose had limitations like "can't use electricity coz I said so", the development would have stopped? They would have found other ways.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

I'm not an author, I'm a scientist. So I don't know what the through process of authors are. But I it probably would take long time to actually find alternative ways to do the things same as us but underwater. The civilization won't be like us, they would not have same technology, they wouldn't have same values. Authors are probably trying to capture general population's interests by making things they understand.

And do you think "hey I haven't heard anyone say something to me about earth rotating sun" would have been a good counter argument in the past.

Water is incredible, we don't know all the ways we can use it. Sometimes it takes hours to simulate what water does in seconds. Unlike other materials like metals, which are lot easier to predict. And if we're talking about aliens, don't even have to think water, it could be something else as flexible as water, while having properties that makes it easier to use.