Our world and dimensional travel

[Accelerator]

Ok, bear with me. This is some exposition.

One day, an alien ship crash lands on the planet, causing great property damage. No deaths, though. The night watchman was out drinking.

Anyway, after the big hullaboo, the aliens apologised... and revealed that she was, in fact, human. And then she wasn't from outer space. She was from an alternate reality.

Turns out that the reason we don't see aliens, is cause they all choose dimensional travel. Why move through the darkness of space... when you have ready made, alternate worlds for you to travel to right next door?

As an apology, and as compensation for the damages, she gives us tech. Tech that's useful, including fusion, antigravity, and energy storage. And most importantly of all, dimensional tech.

Dimensions and alternate worlds
The universe splits into branches, with humanity converging onto one branch. The 'closer' the branch, the more similar the world. At no point is there alternate versions of you. Worlds that humanity live on are mostly like ours, mostly temperate or tropical, with all 3 states of matter present.

Distances range from a voyage lasting for an hour to one month. The more the dissimilar the world is from our own, the earlier it branched, and the further it is. It ranges from places where humanity never existed, to times where the dinosaurs never went extinct. To worlds where the oxygen catastrophe never happened. Or worlds orbiting strange stars, with the only form of life being a strange organometallic shrub which uses temperature differentials between its 'roots' and its 'leaves' to generate energy. Or places where someone can mine rare earth metals by picking up rocks from the ground.

Teleportation.
This works, but its prohibitively expensive. The more mass, and the greater the distance, the more energy is needed. And the energy increases exponentially. Teleport jammers exist, and defense trumps offense. It works across dimensions, too.

Rules and laws:
Most laws don't touch us, since we're a sovereign nation. However, the standard for invasion is to 'begin bombardment' or 'teleport nukes into the offending person's house'. Invasion of any colony or home city brings the massive risk of reprisal. And the difference between earth and the other polities is like the difference between America's army and the Sentinelese.

We get the tech, and she blasts off, leaving us to figure out what to do.

What would this world look like?

[Yanagi]

The equivalent of the land race to colonize the world after 1492, plus the Cold War arms race's level of paranoia and skullduggery. These technologies are MacGuffins that came with few instructions and no larger cultural frame of how to "properly" use them, no cautionary tales. The result is going to be everybody that can afford to create the device sets will do so, as fast as possible, as a means of continuing existing objectives. Whoever gets there first gets the first shot at a closer-to-post-scarcity economy--by which I mean, suddenly a bunch of "expensive" stuff flattens in cost because there's a theoretical infinite supply of raw materials and energy--which, fitted with the limits of ideology and people being fundamentally irrational, will probably be used as leverage to gain more temporal power.

In other words, there will be an immediate attempt to harness the technology in a way that

(1) puts a tap on potentially-infinite resources
(2) regulates access in a manner that shores up existing power dynamics
(3) grants advantage to existing power structures rather than creating equality of opportunity
(4) toys with methods of depriving others actors of inter-dimensional potential

with the only caveat of:

(5) don't trigger retaliation from the existing trans-dimensional societies

Power justifies itself. Ideologues are going to see a massive lever with which to move the entire world, profiteers are going to see unclaimed dimensions as resources to capture and monopolize. Sorry, that's super cynical but it fits with the history of what humans do with radical expansions of potential: the New Thing is put in service of the powerful, and the status quo of the powerful, in ways that don't necessarily make sense relative to what "could" be achieved if everybody sat down and thought about the general welfare.

And to be perfectly clear, the intensity of this competition to control dimensional travel would relate precisely to how it could literally make everyone's life better. Scarcity dictates markets, markets dictate wealth, wealth dictates ability to actualize one's ideology as policy. Post-scarcity is the end of the market, and thus the end of capital as a power source. People like having power, whether they wield it arbitrarily and hedonistically or as a means to achieve their understanding of The Good.

They'll be the equivalent of the scientists who questioned nuclear proliferation at the get-go...men of conscience and thoughtfulness discussing the implications, begging those with power to find the scenario where everybody wins...or at least, nobody loses because another dimension teleports a neutron bomb or a rod from God...and the jerks will want more bling, more dakka...just endless gaping more.

"How expensive is expensive" sets the pace for how the world changes, though, because it dictates who has how much access how fast.

If the pricing (materials and labor) is at its most prohibitive--say, many trillions of dollars--then it's likely the governments will be the first to actualize dimensional travel. In the billions...then you're going to have a reverse clown car effect where government and corporations all rush the same tech.

Governments have the advantage of a nations security apparatus, that will immediately be used to try and regulate who gets to build any of the wundertech. If the blueprints are immediately accessible to everyone, the materials aren't, and critical components...fissile materials, manufacturing facilities...are things that a government can control with force. Governments also have some sanction to control the knowledge economy: even if the schematics are everywhere, having a legal structure by which one can contain people will the skills to make wundertech is an asset. As is having a monopoly on legitimate violence when you need to abduct or imprison such people.

But in the era of international corporate structures with GDPs bigger than most nations and a documented history of just buying the policy they want globally, I'm not sure governments are given that much of a head start by "use of force"...but I'm also not sure in this day and age that corporations and governments exist in a tension with one another as opposed to co-parasitism.

Either way, effort is going to be put into depriving others of dimensional access before dimensional travel technology is actualized. Deprivation as strategy would reflect geopolitical priorities that fall under "politics" in way that are against board rules to discuss, but the trends would reflect past situations in which there were global fights over a new power or new resource. The rarest raw materials for this wundertech are now the most valuable thing on the planet on an unprecedented scale, and the rush to monopolize those materials will start the minute the schematics drop.

I mean, consider the crap that's been pulled over gold mines, crude oil, and real estate.

(Oh...yeah...and teleportation would be the new nuclear arms race. Kinetic bombardment minus the need to launch things into orbit is an immediate "simple" application.)

(Also...there's a but unopened bag of nightmares that is..."what happens when someone tries to make this stuff and cuts corners." Because it 100% would happen.)

[Accelerator]

Tech? No special materials needed, except for the rare earth metals for the circuits.

Cost. Billions to hundreds of thousands.

[MoiMagnus]

Some questions and remarks:

1) Unless you have some in-dept knowledge of relativity, I don't think you want to take it into account (especially all that "absolute time doesn't exist, in particular events that happens too far away cannot always be said to occur before of after each others"). If you want to somewhat have a minimum of consistency with relativity, state that teleportation isn't instantaneous, but "travel at light speed" (people teleporting arrive instantaneously, they don't have to "wait").

2) Unless for some reason earth is the center of the universe, earth "move" trough space, which mean that as soon as you go too far on the "tree of universe", the earth will no longer be at the same position so you will end up floating in space when arriving.

3) How many "nearby universe" (so universe that are almost the same) exists? Few ones, decades, thousands, an infinity?

4) Did a similar trans-universe ship crashed into every other nearby branch? (because if not, that mean you have a big branching path in your tree here between universe that had a trans-universe ship crashing on it and universes that don't)

5) If I go into a pillage operation (dimensional travel, taking resources, going back), how much damages do I need to do to the "victim" to be economically interesting? Do I need to raze to the ground a big European country, or does pillaging some gold and diamond mines will be enough? From your previous answer, it seems that just some simple pillage is already economically interesting, especially if you attack universes that don't have mean to retaliate with dimensional travel.

6) When you say "give us the tech", who received the tech? Did they manage to keep it secret long enough to have a near monopoly on it? Or was it scholars that manage to publish enough paper about it before being stopped, so that everybody know how to use the tech?

[Accelerator]

Some questions and remarks:

1) Unless you have some in-dept knowledge of relativity, I don't think you want to take it into account (especially all that "absolute time doesn't exist, in particular events that happens too far away cannot always be said to occur before of after each others"). If you want to somewhat have a minimum of consistency with relativity, state that teleportation isn't instantaneous, but "travel at light speed" (people teleporting arrive instantaneously, they don't have to "wait").

2) Unless for some reason earth is the center of the universe, earth "move" trough space, which mean that as soon as you go too far on the "tree of universe", the earth will no longer be at the same position so you will end up floating in space when arriving.

3) How many "nearby universe" (so universe that are almost the same) exists? Few ones, decades, thousands, an infinity?

4) Did a similar trans-universe ship crashed into every other nearby branch? (because if not, that mean you have a big branching path in your tree here between universe that had a trans-universe ship crashing on it and universes that don't)

5) If I go into a pillage operation (dimensional travel, taking resources, going back), how much damages do I need to do to the "victim" to be economically interesting? Do I need to raze to the ground a big European country, or does pillaging some gold and diamond mines will be enough? From your previous answer, it seems that just some simple pillage is already economically interesting, especially if you attack universes that don't have mean to retaliate with dimensional travel.

6) When you say "give us the tech", who received the tech? Did they manage to keep it secret long enough to have a near monopoly on it? Or was it scholars that manage to publish enough paper about it before being stopped, so that everybody know how to use the tech?

Ignore 1 and 2

3) thousands. More are discovered every day

4)no. No alternate timelines.

5)not worth it. Think of todays warfare. We don't go to war for resources anymore. Not worth it.

6) start with the UN

[MoiMagnus]

4)no. No alternate timelines.

I fail to see the difference between "no asteroid destroyed the dinosaurs" and "no strangers came with a dimensional travel technology". I'm not talking about alternate timeline. I'm talking about the fact that it is very reasonable that such events would occur in a LOT of parallel dimension roughly at the same time.

5)not worth it. Think of todays warfare. We don't go to war for resources anymore. Not worth it.

It isn't worth it in modern time because we put corporation everywhere to drain resources in a mostly pacific way.

Assuming the other dimensions (in technological disadvantages) don't peacefully accept to have their resources drained from corporations of other dimension's (I'm thinking for example of draining oxygen from other dimensions and rejecting junk in exchange), there will be war.

And assuming some peoples manage to run away with this technology to build their own "dimensional device" (or stole one "dimensional device"), there will be piracy and pillage, because even the authorities manage to regulate few dimensions, thousand of parallel dimensions is largely enough to hide yourself from the authorities.

6) start with the UN

If the UN is as efficient as our UN, it probably tries to say to everyone that we should not exploit and invade other dimension for profits, but most meaningful decision are blocked by a veto.

However, you may want to state that your worlds achieved a greater level of wolrd-wide federalism than today's world, and hence manage to mostly regulate the use of those new technologies (at least much better than the UN currently regulate nuclear weapons). This would probably lead to a universe much more interesting, as it shift the focus from the real worlds conflicts and problems to the much more interesting conflicts trough dimensions.

[Anymage]

How populated are parallel dimensions, and how many of them have dimension hopping technology? If there are a fair number of worlds with dimensional travel, you're effectively creating a setting where we meet aliens and join whatever intergalactic federation, except instead of having aliens and handwaving some FTL travel you have alternate reality humans (plus a handful of other alternative evoltionary paths that became technological, for flavor), and dimension hopping becomes your stand in for space travel.

If your parallel dimensions are generally uninhabited (see Pratchett and Baxter's The Long Earth for a model like this), you've gained a bunch of bonus resources for earth prime and opened up a new frontier. After things have settled, earth prime and its nearest neighbors get along quite nicely while explorers on the dimensional fringes get to have all sorts of explorations.

There's also the question of just how fast the information spreads, and how much dimension hoppers can be cheapened enough for private use vs. how much they'll need to have their costs aggregated to be at all economical. (Consider the difference between a bike and an airplane. Very few of us outside of the super rich can afford private air travel, but economies of scale means that packing a lot of us together can make individual airplane seats individually affordable.) If the information gets leaked online and a particularly clever person could put one together in their garage (keeping in mind that clever people in the real world have put plenty of interesting things together in their own garages), that cements the frontier mentality a lot more than if you need to pay a lot and want to ship over a large crew each time.

[Accelerator]

How populated are parallel dimensions, and how many of them have dimension hopping technology? If there are a fair number of worlds with dimensional travel, you're effectively creating a setting where we meet aliens and join whatever intergalactic federation, except instead of having aliens and handwaving some FTL travel you have alternate reality humans (plus a handful of other alternative evoltionary paths that became technological, for flavor), and dimension hopping becomes your stand in for space travel.

Very populated. But due to the sheer number of dimensions present, you have only like 1 or 2 billion people per planet, until they feel its overcrowded and jump to another world.

There's also the question of just how fast the information spreads, and how much dimension hoppers can be cheapened enough for private use vs. how much they'll need to have their costs aggregated to be at all economical. (Consider the difference between a bike and an airplane. Very few of us outside of the super rich can afford private air travel, but economies of scale means that packing a lot of us together can make individual airplane seats individually affordable.) If the information gets leaked online and a particularly clever person could put one together in their garage (keeping in mind that clever people in the real world have put plenty of interesting things together in their own garages), that cements the frontier mentality a lot more than if you need to pay a lot and want to ship over a large crew each time.

Extremely unlikely. Think of the ships as, like, an ocean liner, a ship, or a plane.

Sure, you can try and jury rig a boat yourself. Or try and build your own plane. But you won't get very far, and nine times out of ten, you'll just die.

Author fiat: The ships and teleporters are expensive enough, that the only guys going to build this with any sort of plausability are governments and corporations

It isn't worth it in modern time because we put corporation everywhere to drain resources in a mostly pacific way.

Assuming the other dimensions (in technological disadvantages) don't peacefully accept to have their resources drained from corporations of other dimension's (I'm thinking for example of draining oxygen from other dimensions and rejecting junk in exchange), there will be war.

And assuming some peoples manage to run away with this technology to build their own "dimensional device" (or stole one "dimensional device"), there will be piracy and pillage, because even the authorities manage to regulate few dimensions, thousand of parallel dimensions is largely enough to hide yourself from the authorities.

True. That means I have to add several things

1. Attacking colonies, allies, or protectorates of other systems will lead to a curbstomp. And I mean it. And just because there are thousands of dimensions to hide in, doesn't mean that you don't leave a trail when teleporting or travelling

2. Other dimensions may not have those technological disadvantages. Ok. Fine. Maybe. But most don't

3. Ever watched Nanoha? Because the TSAB exists. And they do humanitarian missions. Including missions to fight off pirates and raiders

If the UN is as efficient as our UN, it probably tries to say to everyone that we should not exploit and invade other dimension for profits, but most meaningful decision are blocked by a veto.

However, you may want to state that your worlds achieved a greater level of wolrd-wide federalism than today's world, and hence manage to mostly regulate the use of those new technologies (at least much better than the UN currently regulate nuclear weapons). This would probably lead to a universe much more interesting, as it shift the focus from the real worlds conflicts and problems to the much more interesting conflicts trough dimensions.

I ain't sure.

On one hand, deregulation means a slew of nonstop conflicts, as powers try and take dimensions with strategic resources or just make sure the other side doesn't get an upper hand.

On the other hand, real world conflicts are nice.

[Tube Wizard]

I imagine there would be a minimum of resource scarcity within the decade, but it's a bit unrealistic to think we wouldn't find a reason to fight over them anyhow.

[Paleomancer]

Some thoughts:

• [ - ]How does long-distance communication work across realities? What about power sources?
  [ - ]Are you assuming otherwise standard modern technology and science? Or are supernatural elements a possibility in some worlds.
  [ - ]How common are other powerful civilizations? Have they developed any interdimensional law system? What are the actions that mark a civilization as an interdimensional pariah?
  [ - ]Just humans? Any other sapient species?
  [ - ]It doesn't matter how strong your peacekeepers are, if they can't find trouble. Obviously local issues are beyond detection, but can advanced factions keep track of teleportation traces? What is the maximum range, so to speak?
  [ - ]What is the lower limit for nation/corporation size to make and use this technology? Hypothetically, could a city-state do it? Could fictional Wal-Mart do it? Or is this a superpower/military thing?
  [ - ] What about diseases and other invasive wildlife? Are there organisms able to teleport biologically? Are there natural portals that pop up from time to time?

[noob]

Some thoughts:

• [ - ]How does long-distance communication work across realities? What about power sources?
  [ - ]Are you assuming otherwise standard modern technology and science? Or are supernatural elements a possibility in some worlds.
  [ - ]How common are other powerful civilizations? Have they developed any interdimensional law system? What are the actions that mark a civilization as an interdimensional pariah?
  [ - ]Just humans? Any other sapient species?
  [ - ]It doesn't matter how strong your peacekeepers are, if they can't find trouble. Obviously local issues are beyond detection, but can advanced factions keep track of teleportation traces? What is the maximum range, so to speak?
  [ - ]What is the lower limit for nation/corporation size to make and use this technology? Hypothetically, could a city-state do it? Could fictional Wal-Mart do it? Or is this a superpower/military thing?
  [ - ] What about diseases and other invasive wildlife? Are there organisms able to teleport biologically? Are there natural portals that pop up from time to time?

Are there organisms that use nuclear fusion naturally?

[Paleomancer]

Are there organisms that use nuclear fusion naturally?

Aside from humans, not that I'm aware. But you never know, right ;) More seriously, I was curious if the OP had considered the possibility of organisms adjusting to interdimensional teleportation. Heck, we have to be careful insects don't end up in spacecraft... Can you imagine the ecological impact of species that can survive transit between realities?

Plus there is always the question of how people invented the technology in the first place. Getting ideas doesn't come out of nowhere, a lot of other people have to make insights on the way. If natural gateways exist, someone would study them. Harder to envision someone stumbling on it randomly without a lot of previous work.

[Accelerator]

Some thoughts:

• [ - ]How does long-distance communication work across realities? What about power sources?

Power sources? No.

Long-distance communications? Think of it like radio. Subject to interference. Jamming. Lag.

[ - ]Are you assuming otherwise standard modern technology and science? Or are supernatural elements a possibility in some worlds.

Sigh. Look. Its... based on Nanoha. I just want to see how the presence of dimensional travel would affect the Human race.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magica...Lyrical_Nanoha


https://forums.spacebattles.com/thre...d-dove.223637/

[ - ]How common are other powerful civilizations? Have they developed any interdimensional law system? What are the actions that mark a civilization as an interdimensional pariah?

The situation has stabilized. Five or six powers, after a cold war and consolidation.

Think of it like....

No eugenics. No mass murder or genocide. Slaughtering civilians would make you no friends. Neither would slavery. Racism or religious persecution would seen as quaint at best, dangerously deluded at worst.

[ - ]It doesn't matter how strong your peacekeepers are, if they can't find trouble. Obviously local issues are beyond detection, but can advanced factions keep track of teleportation traces? What is the maximum range, so to speak?

Teleportation traces, dimensional travel, all can be detected and leave traces. Most movement leaves traces, with only the best stealth not leaving any.

[ - ]Just humans? Any other sapient species?

Just humans

[ - ]What is the lower limit for nation/corporation size to make and use this technology? Hypothetically, could a city-state do it? Could fictional Wal-Mart do it? Or is this a superpower/military thing?

Hypothetically, a city state can do it.

[ - ] What about diseases and other invasive wildlife? Are there organisms able to teleport biologically? Are there natural portals that pop up from time to time?

Same as always.

Nope. Nope.

[Accelerator]

Aside from humans, not that I'm aware. But you never know, right ;) More seriously, I was curious if the OP had considered the possibility of organisms adjusting to interdimensional teleportation. Heck, we have to be careful insects don't end up in spacecraft... Can you imagine the ecological impact of species that can survive transit between realities?

Plus there is always the question of how people invented the technology in the first place. Getting ideas doesn't come out of nowhere, a lot of other people have to make insights on the way. If natural gateways exist, someone would study them. Harder to envision someone stumbling on it randomly without a lot of previous work.

An insect goes outside your craft? And the craft travels?

If that insect can survive the equivalent of vacuum... it can spread.

No natural fusion or teleportation.

[noob]

Aside from humans, not that I'm aware. But you never know, right ;) More seriously, I was curious if the OP had considered the possibility of organisms adjusting to interdimensional teleportation. Heck, we have to be careful insects don't end up in spacecraft... Can you imagine the ecological impact of species that can survive transit between realities?

Plus there is always the question of how people invented the technology in the first place. Getting ideas doesn't come out of nowhere, a lot of other people have to make insights on the way. If natural gateways exist, someone would study them. Harder to envision someone stumbling on it randomly without a lot of previous work.

It could be a byproduct of studying quantum physics very far (stuff similar to the nonsensical "lone photons diffracts with themselves and at the end of their travel impacts a single point of the captor" which happens in real life).

[Bohandas]

Wasn't this basically the premise of The Long Earth?

[Accelerator]

Wasn't this basically the premise of The Long Earth?

Kinda-sorta?

Didn't the Long Earth forbid metals, require intelligence, and only opened up a door?

[Bohandas]

Yup. You're right/

[Accelerator]

Yup. You're right/

Then isn't it totally different?

I mean, the purpose of this thread is to see what happens when you have a sudden influx of raw materials and free land and living space.

[noob]

Kinda-sorta?

Didn't the Long Earth forbid metals, require intelligence, and only opened up a door?

so you can not make humans travel with it and you are restrained to sending machines in other dimensions(because an human dies rather quickly without metals while making a machine with no metals is possible)
Or did they forget humans needed metals?(in their organism)

[Mechalich]

Then isn't it totally different?

I mean, the purpose of this thread is to see what happens when you have a sudden influx of raw materials and free land and living space.

That's closer to the events of Charles Stross' Merchant Prince series, in which a pathway to alternate Earths gets discovered and the US government starts colonizing the crap out of a whole bunch of functionally empty Earths (a lot of them have only really primitive hunter gatherers at best). The consequences are actually modest. The prices of certain commodities: metals, oil, plastics; collapse and this launches a sustained boom, but the other dimensions are mostly used as extraction sites nobody moves to them, it's not worth cutting yourself off (living space is not currently an issue no Earth, housing shortages are mostly a consequence of local economic forces, China's got plenty of huge empty cities). There's also a long term problem with global warming that results - dropping the price of oil to 10 cents a gallon kind of kneecaps renewables - but the books don't operate on that timeframe.

[Paleomancer]

Aye, I wouldn't expect too much to change in any positive sense for our Earth. You'd probably see some migration by people seeking to make their own nations; at least some would be politically or religiously extreme, others might be refugees or migrants, and many nations might see it as an opportunity to "remove" undesired ethnic or social groups. On worlds with lower tech indigenous civilizations, you'd likely see other nations scrambling to colonize in the vein of the scramble for Africa, with the risk of mass indigenous population death or displacement in the vein of the Americas (I know you didn't want to consider disease or invasive species above, but realistically it would be a huge issue and is still in real life - I honestly can't see anyone not having issues with either). Actually making settlements could be tricky, since establishing industry and agriculture takes resources and doing it fast as well as right requires access to energy sources and infrastructure, neither a guaranteed factor on a new world. Even if a city state has the technology, they probably lack the human power and preexisting resources to fully exploit it. More USA or China, less Monaco, essentially.

Provided it is easy to send materials back to Earth, you'd probably see heightened geopolitical conflict between current and rising powers. Just because your great powers are advanced gives no guarantee we would be. How quickly prexisting strife escalates will play a big role in whether our Earth puts a united front, peaceful or not, when dealing with the great powers. There is a risk we would end up divided between the powers; even if they don't engage in bigotry and such, doesn't mean they are friendly with one another. Considering recent history, you likely will have dissent in even the most peaceful civilization, and much of it... will not be particularly constructive.

Of course, maybe instead Earth as a whole becomes the pariah of the interdimensional community and end up facing sanctions for our warmongering :) I suppose your helpful explorer might end up reviled for her trouble in that instance.

[Tvtyrant]

There was a series called The Long Earth which is about this exact concept. I would take a look at that.

Personally I think it depends on how cheap travel is. If it is cheap enough you will be closer to the same place in the other dimension then other places on the same planet, so nations might become very small on each world but consist of hundreds or thousands of worlds. Why have an elaborate system of trains and trucks when you can just put a farm planet adjacent to each city planet and hop instantly between them?

At the extreme end of that it could be easier to hyper-specialize, with people living on a specific living world then commuting to Doomed Factory World or Perfect Garden World for work each day. Why have pollution controls when you can make a world that you offload all your pollution and garbage onto?

[Accelerator]

There was a series called The Long Earth which is about this exact concept. I would take a look at that.

Personally I think it depends on how cheap travel is. If it is cheap enough you will be closer to the same place in the other dimension then other places on the same planet, so nations might become very small on each world but consist of hundreds or thousands of worlds. Why have an elaborate system of trains and trucks when you can just put a farm planet adjacent to each city planet and hop instantly between them?

At the extreme end of that it could be easier to hyper-specialize, with people living on a specific living world then commuting to Doomed Factory World or Perfect Garden World for work each day. Why have pollution controls when you can make a world that you offload all your pollution and garbage onto?

Your scenario, by author fiat, does not happen.

[Paleomancer]

Your scenario, by author fiat, does not happen.

Hmm... I think you may need to clarify what it is you actually want from this discussion. Your question did not specify any specific outcome, merely what people thought would happen given the scenario. Invoking author fiat is as unhelpful as it always is, and merely discourages further discussion.

Since you probably have a specific desired outcome for this hypothetical world, please describe it for us, so we can tailor our responses accordingly.

[Accelerator]

Hmm... I think you may need to clarify what it is you actually want from this discussion. Your question did not specify any specific outcome, merely what people thought would happen given the scenario. Invoking author fiat is as unhelpful as it always is, and merely discourages further discussion.

Since you probably have a specific desired outcome for this hypothetical world, please describe it for us, so we can tailor our responses accordingly.

.... to put it frankly, its already been answered.

What happens when you get sudden access to new sources of resources, and new living space?

The answer: Nothing much changes, except for a drop in prices.

This was way more... anticlimatic than expected.

[Mechalich]

.... to put it frankly, its already been answered.

What happens when you get sudden access to new sources of resources, and new living space?

The answer: Nothing much changes, except for a drop in prices.

This was way more... anticlimatic than expected.

A major drop in commodity prices, on a global scale, would actually be really significant, though it would take some time for it to trigger major lifestyle changes. In particular, if energy costs fall that unleashes massive industrial growth potential and might result in a major economic expansion in underdeveloped areas. So it would change impoverished nations significantly more than rich ones. Certain price drops might also make materially-limited commodities either much cheaper or much more abundant, but these are relatively few in number and for the most part, in a 'Long Earth' sort of scenario all the other Earth's are going to have extraction costs that are mostly similar to those presently existing on Earth (oil's an exception because you can effectively turn back the clock and mine all the rich deposit we've already depleted all over again), and assuming inter-world transport has any sort of cost at all, you're looking at marginal savings at best.

However, there are some other options. For instance, in this scenario you could presumably dump nuclear waste (and other nasty things) into another Earth and not care about them. That might be enough to trigger a massive nuclear power revolution, which would be a big deal.

[Paleomancer]

.... to put it frankly, its already been answered.

What happens when you get sudden access to new sources of resources, and new living space?

The answer: Nothing much changes, except for a drop in prices.

This was way more... anticlimatic than expected.

Not necessarily anticlimactic. A key question is whether this event would bring out the best in Earth humans, or if we'd fall into the same old patterns. Most posters seem to agree that we'd repeat past issues. Another is what alternate humans would do. Only the six superpowers to which you have alluded would be a match for us, the rest likely lacking not only technology, but also numbers and knowledge needed to appropriately protect themselves from us. Given how conflicts that imbalanced tend to go in real life, it is reasonable to postulate that it would be rather atrocious in your hypothetical as well.

Another thing to consider is that a consistent flaw of capitalism is a perverse incentive to reduce costs, even at the expense of other people's wellbeing. Empires of all kinds get wealthy by exploiting the labor and resources of other locales and people. Corporations do ridiculously complicated and energy inefficient trade routes to manufacture parts, because it saves them money even as it makes life worse for most other people. Your hypothetical would allow us to offset the concequences of our actions on other worlds entirely. Net increase of welfare for those who can get it, but potentially very negative for those worlds.

Also think of these new worlds as alternate Americas or Australia. A place where people face persecution can go, a place to dispose of criminals or unwanted populations, a place to get away with slavery, or a place where violent extremists can retreat to live life as they see fit. Think a less fantastic Bioshock or Oceania for the latter. Plenty of conflicts over living space, particularly if people are worried about real or perceived threats gestating on another world. Lots of conflict just waiting to happen.

If you're hoping we've grown past that... Sadly we very much have not done so. Your superpowers might live to regret us getting that technology.

[Accelerator]

Not necessarily anticlimactic. A key question is whether this event would bring out the best in Earth humans, or if we'd fall into the same old patterns. Most posters seem to agree that we'd repeat past issues. Another is what alternate humans would do. Only the six superpowers to which you have alluded would be a match for us, the rest likely lacking not only technology, but also numbers and knowledge needed to appropriately protect themselves from us. Given how conflicts that imbalanced tend to go in real life, it is reasonable to postulate that it would be rather atrocious in your hypothetical as well.

Another thing to consider is that a consistent flaw of capitalism is a perverse incentive to reduce costs, even at the expense of other people's wellbeing. Empires of all kinds get wealthy by exploiting the labor and resources of other locales and people. Corporations do ridiculously complicated and energy inefficient trade routes to manufacture parts, because it saves them money even as it makes life worse for most other people. Your hypothetical would allow us to offset the concequences of our actions on other worlds entirely. Net increase of welfare for those who can get it, but potentially very negative for those worlds.

Also think of these new worlds as alternate Americas or Australia. A place where people face persecution can go, a place to dispose of criminals or unwanted populations, a place to get away with slavery, or a place where violent extremists can retreat to live life as they see fit. Think a less fantastic Bioshock or Oceania for the latter. Plenty of conflicts over living space, particularly if people are worried about real or perceived threats gestating on another world. Lots of conflict just waiting to happen.

If you're hoping we've grown past that... Sadly we very much have not done so. Your superpowers might live to regret us getting that technology.

Ok. Here's the thing.

There are humanity on other worlds.

There are habitable worlds with no humanity.

Other humans know of dimensional travel, and have communications with the rest of the interdimensional community. Tech spreads, and this is no different for dimensional travel.

[Accelerator]

A thought point. The first world consumes most of the planets resources. With sudden massive access to other planets, would this mean that there is a sudden population boom and increase in standard of living as the 3rd world begins to take advantage of this fall in prices?