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Ask HN: What super projects could unite humanity?

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Re: Ask HN: What super projects could unite humanity?

#51

Post by jsn »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #42
jsn wrote: post #39

I refuse to be united with humanity. And it's not just me. Differences are good, disagreements are good, and diversity is good. Including differences in goals, values, priorities and everything else. If you have some serious differences and if you want to avoid conflicts, you probably shouldn't keep pushing to unite. You probably should separate. Like, you know, if a family can't agree on some important set of issues…

I generally agree with you, but concerning an issue like global warming specifically, you are wrong. For issues like global warming/pollution, it doesn't help to separate. If the US pollutes less and China picks up the slack, the earth will be just as warm (including the US). Separation is a great solution to some problems, but it doesn't solve the problem of how to pay for global public goods (it deals with local on…

There are people who will refuse to care about global warming (or asteroid, or anything else), no matter what arguments you are going to provide. From here, you have to choices: A) suck it up, and B) force them.

I refuse to choose B, and I'm going to fight back if anyone chooses B wrt me.

Re: Ask HN: What super projects could unite humanity?

#52

Post by Aetius »

arethuza wrote: post #33
arethuza wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we have to invent an enemy alien civilization can I suggest we decide to go to war with the Culture? Think of it: godless, drug-using communists in space!!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture [NB I've always suspected that Iain M. Banks is a Special Circumstances agent - installing an author to write "fiction" about themselves is exactly the kind of sneaky thing the Culture would do]. ;-)

And if they do exist, which of course they don't, quite a lot of people might just decide they rather like the idea of the Culture and immediately defect/surrender. I know what I would do given the choice!

Traitor!

Re: Ask HN: What super projects could unite humanity?

#53

Post by cryptoz »

retube wrote: post #46
cryptoz wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A manned trip to Mars is estimated at ~$50 billion. Assume that NASA goes twice over budget and it costs $100 billion. That's cheap! Any modern developed country could send a crew to Mars in 10 years. However, nobody has done it because nobody has devoted the resources to that cause. The bank bailouts were around $700 billion, for comparison. Space travel is cheap compared to the rest of what we do.

I think that's a low-ball cost. I've seen some estimates at $1 tr. But still yes, the US (and the US alone) could conceivably afford that (compare to cost of Iraq for example), so I take your point. However, even so, i don't think even the US would (or should) attempt this alone. (It's not just cash, but expertise too). Re the bailout figure: this is slightly misleading. This isn't money that's just been "spent". It'…

Your $1 trillion figure to Mars is absurd. The Mars Direct plan is about $55 billion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct

Could you cite where you heard $1 trillion? Nobody in the last 50 years has suggested it would cost anywhere near that much.

Sure, the bank bailouts were a bad example. But you gave an even better one! The Iraq War cost hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars.

Re: Ask HN: What super projects could unite humanity?

#55

Post by khafra »

borism wrote: post #13
zacharypinter wrote: post #2

Not exactly inspiring, but an alien enemy would be a pretty good way of uniting the planet towards a common goal.

the problem is that aliens who would be able to reach Earth to threaten it will be so much more technologically advanced that any resistance will be quite futile. what I think should unite us is the understanding that this tiny blue dot in the middle of Milky Way is the only thing that keps us alive, so we need to strive to keep it so for as long as possible while searching for other ways to survive in space on a lar…

I agree; if current levels of existential risk aren't enough to unite humanity, I don't think anything survivable will do so.

Re: Ask HN: What super projects could unite humanity?

#57

Post by bendmorris »

jsn wrote: post #51
yummyfajitas wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally agree with you, but concerning an issue like global warming specifically, you are wrong. For issues like global warming/pollution, it doesn't help to separate. If the US pollutes less and China picks up the slack, the earth will be just as warm (including the US). Separation is a great solution to some problems, but it doesn't solve the problem of how to pay for global public goods (it deals with local on…

There are people who will refuse to care about global warming (or asteroid, or anything else), no matter what arguments you are going to provide. From here, you have to choices: A) suck it up, and B) force them. I refuse to choose B, and I'm going to fight back if anyone chooses B wrt me.

As an ecologist, it's always bothered me that because people can't immediately observe the effects of their actions in this regard, they don't assign much importance to them...

If the issue was Lex Luthor destroying the western US to make midwest property values go up, would you suck it up, or would you advocate forcing him to stop?

The end result here will be just as catastrophic. We can't let people go their own way because they don't "believe" in science. It won't make it any less true.

Re: Ask HN: What super projects could unite humanity?

#58

Post by arethuza »

Aetius wrote: post #52
arethuza wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if they do exist, which of course they don't, quite a lot of people might just decide they rather like the idea of the Culture and immediately defect/surrender. I know what I would do given the choice!

Traitor!

If it means I get to belong to the Culture, yes!

Re: Ask HN: What super projects could unite humanity?

#59

Post by yummyfajitas »

jsn wrote: post #51
yummyfajitas wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally agree with you, but concerning an issue like global warming specifically, you are wrong. For issues like global warming/pollution, it doesn't help to separate. If the US pollutes less and China picks up the slack, the earth will be just as warm (including the US). Separation is a great solution to some problems, but it doesn't solve the problem of how to pay for global public goods (it deals with local on…

There are people who will refuse to care about global warming (or asteroid, or anything else), no matter what arguments you are going to provide. From here, you have to choices: A) suck it up, and B) force them. I refuse to choose B, and I'm going to fight back if anyone chooses B wrt me.

The point is this - if my locality wishes to criminalize drugs and yours doesn't, we both get what we want. My locality has a bunch of drug users getting raped in prison, yours doesn't. We all get what we want.

This doesn't work for a few narrow issues. If you dump oil into your oceans, it floats into my oceans and you are forcing me to deal with polluted waters. If you allow piracy (the "arrr, matey" kind), the pirates rob everyone rather than just people in your locality. In cases like this, force will be used no matter what. There is no getting around it.

Look, I'm almost as libertarian as they come. I'm not even making a pro-AGW argument, since I'm unconvinced of AGW myself. I'm just pointing out that you need to fully think through your position - it's a great proposal, but doesn't solve every problem.

Re: Ask HN: What super projects could unite humanity?

#60

Post by jsn »

bendmorris wrote: post #57
jsn wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are people who will refuse to care about global warming (or asteroid, or anything else), no matter what arguments you are going to provide. From here, you have to choices: A) suck it up, and B) force them. I refuse to choose B, and I'm going to fight back if anyone chooses B wrt me.

As an ecologist, it's always bothered me that because people can't immediately observe the effects of their actions in this regard, they don't assign much importance to them... If the issue was Lex Luthor destroying the western US to make midwest property values go up, would you suck it up, or would you advocate forcing him to stop? The end result here will be just as catastrophic. We can't let people go their own wa…

I really didn't want to reply to that (I think I've made my position perfectly clear already), but then I've got so curious that I just can't hold this question:

If you had some Lex Luthor powers, and there were 4 billion people destroying, I don't know, the ozone layer and forests, and refusing to believe in "science", and if your only way to stop them was to use your huge robot army and your giant space lasers as a military force against them -- would you do that?

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