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Without a moon there are no tides, so I suspect there would be no tides with the rings since they're evenly distributed. Is this right? Anyone smarter than me care to chime in on this?

Also, wouldn't this have a drastic effect on the weather? Would higher order life even be viable under such an arrangement?

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I think your right. The tides are caused by the fact that the earth spins as as result, the moon moves relative to each spot on earth. As long as the distribution of mass never changes (e.g. if its always uniformly distributed), any gravitational effect they have on each part of the earth would be constant.

However, I have no idea if the rings of Saturn are uniformly distributed or what.

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