What if the Moon were a giant computer?

I got to thinking the other day of the question of planet-sized computers and naturally to how much computing power would the moon have it were a computer?
First, what would the benefits be of having a moon-computer?  First, it would act as a backup of all of human knowledge in case the Earth gets wiped out for whatever reason such as an asteroid strike.  Obviously it would also act as relay points for the Interplanetary Internet.   Making other moons in the solar system computers for internet storage (and additional human knowledge backups) would also decrease latency for non-synchonous internet activities.  If I'm on Mars, I don't want to wait a half hour for my funny internet cat videos to download!  :)
Nerd_on/
Now some totally SWAG Rough Order Calculations: 
The mass of the moon is 7.34X10^22 kg and assuming a chip can execute at 3Ghz with nominal area and volume of a chip and support pad as 400mm^2 x 2mm= Volume 800mm^3 per chip.  Also further assuming that 96% of the moon mass would be support structure including memory supporting 4% mass that is turned into computer chips, the number of 3GHz chips would be on order of 1.43X10^24 chips (assuming a mass density of 2.57gram/cc).   If this were made to be perfectly but massively parallel system, it would result in a 4.28x10^24 GHz performance which roughly equates to 1.71x10^16 ExaFLOPs.  It has been said that to simulate a human brain it would take about 37PetaFLOPs of computational power, though how a brain works is totally different so comparing the 2 is rather moot.  Comparing the 2 numbers, one can simulate 4.66x10^17 human brains if the entire moon were a giant computer. 
 Nerd_off/
That is a LOT of computer power. That is assuming one can get enough power into the giant moon computer (I'll leave that for another post). But assuming one can get enough power via solar or nuclear (He-3!) for even a fraction of that computing power, the applications are unimaginable such as a rather good simulation of reality...  :)

Interstellar Trade

I came across interesting paper done by the well-known Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman in his early career.  The paper explores implications of interstellar trade.  It comes to the conclusion that interest rates would reach parity (on 2 planets in same inertial frame) even with relativistic effects and distances involved.  Several assumptions are made to simplify the problem.  What is not addressed may be the differential characteristics of the counter-parties in the trade.  In conducting trade with an alien civilization some challenges would need to be overcome regarding these characteristics even setting aside problems of communications. 

First, the fundamental moral or ethical values of the counter-party could quite different stemming from totally different perspective on hierarchy of needs (i.e. Maslow's hierarchy).  The needs of individuals of an alien species could be vastly different than the traditional human hierarchy if indeed they would be considered "individuals."  An alien species could be a hivemind type of civilizations in which individuals don't serve their own self-interests but that of the collective.  One wonders how one would conduct trade with intelligent bees or the Borg of Star Trek.  Thus human need of self-actualization would have a counterpart of self-subsumation (total melding of individual into the collective mind) in such an alien society.  The need of the aliens could be different such as need for basics like water or food.  

Secondly in regard to interest rates and time, the alien civilization could be working on a whole different time sense.  Lifespan, sense of passage of time and speed of thought could be expected to be different than humans.  Difference in speed of thought and communications speed could make a difference in expectations for interest rates between human-alien trade.  As an extreme example, if humans encountered an intelligent species of tree-like aliens with very slow thought and comms speed and longer lifespans into the hundreds or thousands of years, the interest rate and term lengths expected by the trees would   most likely be lower and much longer (a thousand year mortgage anyone?).  Besides the excruciating process of communicating so slowly with them, how would humans trade with them?  Similarly, a race of super intelligent machines working at very fast speeds would also be challenging.  However, these differences could be arbitraged, at least by the first ones to make the trade.  Financial engineers would most likely come up with financial instruments to correct for these inter-species differences which would close any arbitrage gaps. Maybe this could be a "third theorem of interstellar trade", that inter-species financial differences would eventually reach parity by intermediaries arbitraging those differences.   Another subject of interest (pun intended) would be currency trading of human currencies and alien ones with these differences in mind.

References:
http://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/interstellar.pdf
Theory of Interstellar trade, by Paul Krugman 
 

Space Invading is Hard

Assuming an interstellar war between 2 Earth-sized civilizations, a question could be asked, “How many troops would I need to invade another world in another star system?” 

To answer this question would need several assumptions.  Just considering raw troop-numbers needed to invade that world one can arrive at a needed effectiveness ratio of said troop against an enemy defender.  Technology disparities between the antagonists would obviously be needed to reach a match between the invaders numbers vs. home world troop numbers as it can be conceived that home world defenders would vastly out-number invaders.  Thus invaders would need to make up the difference in technology superiority as well as better strategy.  An example may illustrate the thought experiment. 

Assuming Earth would invade another world of similar size and population in Alpha Centauri, how many operators would it need to do so?  Assuming number of operators would be 0.01% (according to 1^st Law of Interstellar Warfare) of current world active duty personnel would yield approximately ~2000 “shooters” that would go invade Centaurian home world.  On the flip-side, Centaurians would use all available combat power to defend themselves.  More or less all military able population between ages of 15 to 49 years of age.  Again only 10% would be combat troops while remaining 90% would make up logistical tail including manufacturing of war materiel to carry on the fight.  If A-C has a similar population to Earth of 7B people that yields about 350M combat troops to defeat in order to subjugate the Centaurian home world.  So a combat effectiveness of a Terran space marine would in fact need to be ~200k times a Centaurian warrior for rough tactical combat parity between defender and invader.  But in general, defenders always have an advantage, sometimes up to 3 to 1, so the effectiveness may well need to be much more.  So from a technology point-of-view, Earth technology would need to be on same order of betterness or 200k times more advanced than Centaurian.  Flipping it around with Centaurians invading Earth, they would need to be 200k more advanced technologically than Earth.  And that would just be for tactical parity which does not guarantee victory.  That comes to another consideration of strategy.    

To invade Centaurian home world, Earth would need superior technology (200k) plus superior strategic thought.  To make sure of victory strategies would need to be 10X better at least.  But why not just send robots to do it?  Right now, our computers can win at chess, but still even have a hard time with Go and those are games with known rules and no hidden information.  Artificial Intelligence would need to advance a fair amount to be able to compete in messy strategic conundrums such as warfare, let alone interstellar war.  And we sure don’t want to commit the Ludic Fallacy (hat tip Dr. Taleb) confusing games with Black Swanny real-life.   So in light of this, it could be thought that these 2,000 troops would be superior strategic thinkers (My name is KHAN!) who would be the generals-admirals directing fleets of robotic soldiers who could manage for themselves on a tactical-level. 

Concluding this thought experiment, one reason we haven’t been invaded by aliens is that being the invader would be ‘ahem’ challenging.  One’s civilization has to be advanced technologically which may take millions of years, while at the same time needing to span the gulf of space to get here.  One may conclude the best route strategically is not to fight and just look for uninhabited planets to colonize while avoiding any inhabited ones.  Of course, none of the above considers interstellar politics and rationales of why one would want to invade another star system. 

Space Pirates!

Currently under US Constitution, Congress can still issue Letters of Marque.  These letters authorized private merchant ships to pirate enemy ships during times of war.  These privateers were used by many powers in the 1600s through 1800s.  The practice largely ended with the Crimean War when the Great Powers in Europe signed the Paris Declaration Respecting Maritime Law.  The US never signed the declaration but has nevertheless abided by its terms.  It would not be clear if the US could effectively agree since letters of marque are in the Constitution so in theory any treaty that goes against the Constitution would be null as far as US law is concerned.  But as an aside, many regulators try this type of policy laundering to impose international rules onto US law.  Anyways, that is for the lawyers to argue. 

The same principle can be seen in future space warfare.  Treaties for use of Outer Space have been signed restricting nation-states to use of space for "peaceful purposes."  Each nation-state is responsible for "activities of non-governmental entities in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies..."  But there may be room for a loophole so-to-speak.  The government is responsible for the activities of its private citizens' activities but the nation-state itself (i.e. government) can only use space for peaceful purposes.  However, it may be that a nation-state could authorize space privateers by Letters of Marque to fight on behalf of that nation-state in a space war.  In such way, that government would be responsible via "authorization and continuing supervision by the appropriate State Party to the Treaty."  But that government itself would be using space for peaceful purposes, wink wink smile :).  So one day we may have space privateers and mercenaries fighting proxy wars in space as part of on-Earth conflicts.  In a farther future, privateers could be authorized (I use this term loosely) to take over asteroids being mined by enemy-flagged mining rigs or privateers invading and taking over whole colonies.  A nation-state could very well exercise 'responsible supervision' by telling its own space mercs to bomb enemy space installations.  In a war between 2 space-faring nations, these loophole violations of the Treaty would most likely be conveniently ignored.   In the case of an Earth nation conflict against an independent or break-away space-colony "nation" (presumably not a willing party to the Treaty), such violations would certainly be ignored as space (interplanetary) warfare would be the primary way in which such a war would be prosecuted.   

1st Law of Space Warfare

It's been stated as a rule-of-thumb and a pretty good one, that warfare is 90% logistics.  As far as space warfare is concerned, I would posit a law (and by law I mean a total S.W.A.G. unproven theory on my part)  that war in or from orbit is 99% logistics.  Interplanetary warfare would be 99.9% logistics and interstellar warfare would be 99.99% or more logistics.  It could be off by several factors but the main argument is that space warfare would be almost entirely mostly fighting for survival against the environment and not an 'enemy.'  Thus surviving longer than one's enemy is 'winning.'  This theory also has other implications politically concerning space colonization and eventual weaponization.   As the "logistics" part of space warfare would pretty much look exactly like its civilian use-of-space logistics, then space colonization IS space weaponization or close enough to make weaponization inevitable.  

  

High Frequency Trading across the 'Verse

Just read story about Michael Lewis' expose of HFT in his new book Flash Boys.  Interesting how times change but some things remain the same.  Such as stock brokers gaming investors for their own gain via front-running or in this case high frequency trading.  From what I can gather on the subject, traders use very fast computers to trade thousands of trade per second to reap a fraction of cents on each trade.  The brokerages even put their computers as close to the exchange as possible to gain and edge.  They even try to get the fastest methods to communicate futures prices from Chicago exchanges to the New York exchanges via line-of-sight microwave relays.  Not that it is all bad.  It can be argued that HFT creates liquidity and thereby keeps bid-ask spreads small.

But what of trading across the planets?

I'm sure in some future colony on Mars, there will be brokers there trying the same things.  But arbitraging price differences across the minutes it would take for interplanetary comms would almost certainly be impossible in context of high frequency trading.  But trading houses could take advantage by having outposts in the middle between the two planets.  Brokerages with outposts closer would have information before other brokers without outposts.  So in theory one would place the exchange itself in the middle to mediate trade of paper instruments, though these days of course these paper instruments are only 1 and 0s recorded in ledgers in the Cloud.  It would be in the middle or close to it (Lagrange points) as no doubt brokers would game interplanetary distance differences from both Earth-side and Mars-side.  So traders would put in orders which would route through relays on the Interplanetary Internet.   I suppose future space brokers would find some creative ways to fleece future colonists out of their hard-earned Marscoin. 

Où suis-je?

“Où suis-je?”  thought the patient.                                                                         

"Sure went sideways didn't it?" replied the General.

“Where is Marie?” 

“She got out on the latest ship, she is still in stasis and will be for another few days.  We got the printer working again.  It’s hard to get the right materials in this backwater. “ 

 “How long have I been out?”

“About one local orbit, or ‘year’ as these locals call it.” 

“So what went wrong exactly?” the patient asked.

“Well, the social scientists are working on it.  Consensus is that local technology development has shifted the ability of our Psy Ops to control the locals.  Their ability to get information to wider audiences has greatly improved these last couple hundred years.”

“You got that right!” 

“Well, in this case, these new ideas being spread around got a little ahead of us.  We are still assessing the consequences.”  the General stated.

“Has this been reported to High Command?” the patient intoned.   

“Yes, but as you know, the signal won’t reach them for another hundred years.  And then we won’t hear the response for another hundred after that.  That’s why High Command commissioned this study in the first place a decllenium ago.  We have to learn as we go along.  The paradigm was working for quite awhile now, but now there is something interesting happening here.  From this experiment, High Command hopes to learn better ways to administer the Dominion.” 

“So what now?”

“No need to worry,  Psy Ops is coming  up with something.  The admiral running that outfit has some clever ideas.  She has a theory that instead of fighting the technological development of the locals, we should co-opt it and seek to control that way and other ways.  She thinks we can play one nation off another but on a massive scale.  We will control critical thought by creating fear of an outsider bogeyman in order to maintain our infiltrated leadership cadres.  A clever fellow under her, an economist, I believe, has a few other ideas to try.  Something about replacing silver coins with paper currency and thereby creating unwitting debt-serfs.”

“Is that what happened to me?  There was no outside bogeyman to pin the blame on for the population’s anger?” the patient inquired.

“More or less.  Good thing we got there in time to recover your remains.  Otherwise, you may have wound up pickled in a jar somewhere.  That information-theoretic death is no joke.   We had to get you in stasis quick.  Finding the right materials took time which is why we had you in stasis for so long.”  

“Sure could use a glass of wine right about now.  I miss that, it was the best down there.” the patient wondered.

“Soon enough, but you have to wait a few more days.  The medics are still printing out your new body as we speak.  Once we reattach your head, then we can have a drink.” 

“Yeah, I hate having to go through the process.  It is so ‘incorporeal’ if you may pardon the pun.  Being awake for these pre-surgery diagnostics is just plain weird.”

“Well, we all go through it.  It’s just part of life.”

"Do I have a new assignment yet?”

 “Yes, that is all being worked out.  You’ll be good as new in a few days.  But rest a bit before we get into details.  You’ll need to get a new language implant, English, I believe.   You will test this new theory by ‘fighting’ against our agent already in place.  A good fellow, name is Napoleon” the General said. 

“I’ll have the medics call you when I’m ready for that drink.  Thanks for getting me outta there.  It was my first decapitation.  I don’t think I want to go through that again.” said the patient.

“Yeah, had a couple of those myself going back a couple hundred years.  Back in my operator days.    Definitely an unforgettable experience.  Lou,  by the way, how was Versailles?”

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