Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Let's Colonize Titan

blogs.scientificamerican.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 508 posts

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#171

Post by justinhj »

banach wrote: post #106

I think that, before colonizing other planets, we should start by realizing that Earth can easily sustain human kind for the foreseeable future, given some pretty modest tweaks to our way of life (compared to "going multi-planetary" that is). If we start valuing quality over novelty, stop eating animal-based foods and re-organize to live closer to where we work, we can stop the consumption and that is taxing our ecos…

Before agriculture and civilization as we know it, people lived all over the world. Their lifestyles were sustainable and included meat.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#172

Post by chiefofgxbxl »

lossolo wrote: post #134
banach wrote: post #106

I think that, before colonizing other planets, we should start by realizing that Earth can easily sustain human kind for the foreseeable future, given some pretty modest tweaks to our way of life (compared to "going multi-planetary" that is). If we start valuing quality over novelty, stop eating animal-based foods and re-organize to live closer to where we work, we can stop the consumption and that is taxing our ecos…

Finding solution is not a problem, human nature is a problem. > stop eating animal-based foods Good luck with that. Sad true is that people don't want to change their life style. If you ask them for solution they will tell you exactly the same thing as you wrote, but most of them will not implement any of this solutions in their life. They want to eat meat, they want to consume, look at global warming, everyone know…

I would add that there is poor, and inconsequential information directed at people on how to mitigate the causes of climate change.

For instance, I've seen in my surroundings a disproportionate emphasis on recycling. Whatever happened to reducing and re-using? While recycling reduces our need to extract more resources, it still requires energy to transport to processing facilities and process.

The real issue is not cutting your shower time by 30 seconds, or turning off the tap when you brush your teeth (although both these waste resources). It's the rise of sprawl and the dependence on cars that makes our society unsustainable.

Driving a single mile releases roughly 1 pound of CO2 (assuming ~20mpg). Now multiply that by the 25.4 minute commute time [0] and the rising number of cars per household [1] to accommodate our poor suburban designs, and that equals a lot of carbon emissions.

But if the American responds to climate change by recycling, they'll be mislead that their efforts are actually helping. They are not. Recycling a Starbucks coffee cup will not cancel out the effect of driving an SUV 5 miles round-trip that you used to get there.

What we truly need is effective altruism, and a public service campaign that goes after the top 3 or so most destructive behaviors of Americans. Not whether we can design water bottles that have a "slim cap" design.

> Huge quantities of fossil fuels are burned daily just so hundreds of millions of Americans can go back and forth between two points 5 times a week. It doesn't make sense; cars can be useful for certain things, but regular and predictable commutes are best done with public transit. (http://www.treehugger.com/cars/average-commute-times-usa-int...)

[0] https://project.wnyc.org/commute-times-us/embed.html#5.00/42... [1] https://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/UJuMkdu2LWC6AavNsVuY-mHHjIE...

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#173

Post by pmoriarty »

banach wrote: post #106

I think that, before colonizing other planets, we should start by realizing that Earth can easily sustain human kind for the foreseeable future, given some pretty modest tweaks to our way of life (compared to "going multi-planetary" that is). If we start valuing quality over novelty, stop eating animal-based foods and re-organize to live closer to where we work, we can stop the consumption and that is taxing our ecos…

Watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc4HL_-VT2Y

then come back and tell us how stopping eating of animal-based foods is going to help.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#174

Post by banach »

pavelrub wrote: post #159
banach wrote: post #106

I think that, before colonizing other planets, we should start by realizing that Earth can easily sustain human kind for the foreseeable future, given some pretty modest tweaks to our way of life (compared to "going multi-planetary" that is). If we start valuing quality over novelty, stop eating animal-based foods and re-organize to live closer to where we work, we can stop the consumption and that is taxing our ecos…

Yes let's stop all scientific and technological progress which isn't directly related to achieving utopia on earth, until a hypothetical point in the future that will never come. Is everything you do and find important in life directly related to improving our ecosystem and eliminating nuclear stockpiles? Do you think it's ok to be interested, for example, in web development, but not in space colonization? Maybe inst…

I think that the pursuit of knowledge is a really good way to spend your time, but I do not like when simple solutions to real problems are sidelined in favor of the latest buzzword-oriented technology fetish. In times when the president-elect has announced that he is shutting down NASA's climate change research, ostensibly to fund space exploration, I think we need to remind ourselves that any work we chose to pursue has an opportunity cost. I really believe that we can address the main issues facing our society with pretty simple means, but that will not happen if everyone is too busy looking for problems to solve using their favorite tool. In the terminology of Hacker News, I guess what I am arguing is that colonization is bike-shedding for the reforms that I have mentioned in my first comment.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#175

Post by odonnellryan »

lossolo wrote: post #134
banach wrote: post #106

I think that, before colonizing other planets, we should start by realizing that Earth can easily sustain human kind for the foreseeable future, given some pretty modest tweaks to our way of life (compared to "going multi-planetary" that is). If we start valuing quality over novelty, stop eating animal-based foods and re-organize to live closer to where we work, we can stop the consumption and that is taxing our ecos…

Finding solution is not a problem, human nature is a problem. > stop eating animal-based foods Good luck with that. Sad true is that people don't want to change their life style. If you ask them for solution they will tell you exactly the same thing as you wrote, but most of them will not implement any of this solutions in their life. They want to eat meat, they want to consume, look at global warming, everyone know…

We're basically able to literally grow meat anyway.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#176

Post by banach »

pmoriarty wrote: post #173
banach wrote: post #106

I think that, before colonizing other planets, we should start by realizing that Earth can easily sustain human kind for the foreseeable future, given some pretty modest tweaks to our way of life (compared to "going multi-planetary" that is). If we start valuing quality over novelty, stop eating animal-based foods and re-organize to live closer to where we work, we can stop the consumption and that is taxing our ecos…

Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc4HL_-VT2Y then come back and tell us how stopping eating of animal-based foods is going to help.

These are orthogonal issues. You are right that avoiding these kinds of catastrophic events will require technology (many solutions other than colonization have been proposed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_avoidance). My point is that there are issues that are more imminent, and thus deserve far more attention.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#177

Post by paulddraper »

banach wrote: post #106

I think that, before colonizing other planets, we should start by realizing that Earth can easily sustain human kind for the foreseeable future, given some pretty modest tweaks to our way of life (compared to "going multi-planetary" that is). If we start valuing quality over novelty, stop eating animal-based foods and re-organize to live closer to where we work, we can stop the consumption and that is taxing our ecos…

https://xkcd.com/1232/

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#178

Post by petre »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #119
banach wrote: post #106

I think that, before colonizing other planets, we should start by realizing that Earth can easily sustain human kind for the foreseeable future, given some pretty modest tweaks to our way of life (compared to "going multi-planetary" that is). If we start valuing quality over novelty, stop eating animal-based foods and re-organize to live closer to where we work, we can stop the consumption and that is taxing our ecos…

While everything you say is important whether we go to space or not, it does not save the mankind from catastrophic events originating from space, which may seem like having low probability, but still are not impossible. If there's even a tiny chance that a big enough celestial body somewhere from Oort cloud will meet Earth in next 100-500 years, it's time to go to other planets right now to be prepared.

The celestial body from the Oort cloud will eventually solve all humankins's problems, because civilization will reboot.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#179

Post by pmoriarty »

banach wrote: post #143
saganus wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the issue is more with own human nature, as usual. Terraforming another planet is an engineering problem (of course, not only an engineering problem), and in the end it's something that in theory can be accomplished as long as we "work it out". Changing the human nature however, is not trivial by any measure. It's very hard for individuals to change, and even more so for groups and even more so for societies.…

I don't think the issues that are putting Earth in danger are the result of some immutable, unfortunate human nature. I think they are the result of a system that could be changed as easily as it was put in place. Many of the pathologies of the modern society were consciously manufactured (c.f. "Propaganda" by Edward Bernays), and all we need to do is to realize this, and start changing things. Luckily, the young gen…

"Luckily, the young generation is far less bought into the current system, and I believe we will see a move to a saner way of life over the coming decades."

I hope you're right, and don't want to say that we're doomed. But look at the 1960's and '70s: the young people of that time were far more committed to a radically different life than the young people of today -- and were so on a much larger scale, with the sense of the immanent revolutionary overthrow of society being in the air.

While their dedication was not fruitless (bringing us the likes of environmentalism and feminism, both of which are very much in the mainstream today) we still wound up where we are today -- very far from their vision of a radically free, non-hierarchical, loving, and "back to the earth" society.

The changes that young people seek aren't always necessarily positive either. Just because it's different doesn't mean it's good. Witness Pol Pot, China's Cultural Revolution, the Hitler Youth, etc. Radical changes are often very bloody, and result in a system worse than what it replaced.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#180

Post by pmoriarty »

banach wrote: post #176
pmoriarty wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc4HL_-VT2Y then come back and tell us how stopping eating of animal-based foods is going to help.

These are orthogonal issues. You are right that avoiding these kinds of catastrophic events will require technology (many solutions other than colonization have been proposed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_avoidance ). My point is that there are issues that are more imminent, and thus deserve far more attention.

Such an object heading for earth could be detected tomorrow, and there may not be enough time for an effective response. We have to prepare in advance.
Post reply on HN