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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?

#61

Post by zeemonkee »

arethuza wrote: post #47
borism wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

H-bombs are sitting on tops of 30-year old space rockets right now. Sending them to defeat asteroid might be even more devastating than not sending them though.

ICBMs don't even make it to orbit - if you wait till an asteroid is close enough that an ICBM could hit it then you might as well not bother. [NB I do know that the SS-25 could do fractional orbits.]

No, but we've had rockets capable of delivering space probes across interplanetary distances for decades. Replace payload with nuclear warhead. Is that hard ? Maybe, but the manned Moon landings were hard, and we did those decades ago. Hard, but not "high tech".

Now whether or not such a solution would actually work is another matter. The original comment however was "extremely high tech such as H-Bombs on rockets". Both are examples of tech that's decades old.

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

#62

Post by jsn »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #59
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.

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 pira…

Well, if you are a libertarian, you probably know about all kinds of solutions for those issues, as outlined by Rothbard et ol. Do you find them all less realistic than e.g. "unite" plan?

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

#63

Post by arethuza »

zeemonkee wrote: post #61
arethuza wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ICBMs don't even make it to orbit - if you wait till an asteroid is close enough that an ICBM could hit it then you might as well not bother. [NB I do know that the SS-25 could do fractional orbits.]

No, but we've had rockets capable of delivering space probes across interplanetary distances for decades. Replace payload with nuclear warhead. Is that hard ? Maybe, but the manned Moon landings were hard, and we did those decades ago. Hard, but not "high tech". Now whether or not such a solution would actually work is another matter. The original comment however was "extremely high tech such as H-Bombs on rockets".…

But that argument also applies to stored program electronic computers - which are also 40s/50s tech.

So we have the technology to get a large enough device far enough out into the solar system quickly enough for it to make a difference and to engineer all of this within a limited timescale? I don't know about that....

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

#65

Post by icegreentea »

cturner wrote: post #40
Tichy wrote: post #32

Has there ever in history been an example of a super project uniting people?

I thought of many attempts. They grow rapidly into mass slaugher. Forcing a particular religion onto people, forcing people to fund great mausoleums to the glory of their leaders, autocracy done in the name of socialism, "super-races" states from Sparta forward. In fairness, I did think of one that could qualify, the vaccination of Polio.

If Polio counts, then small pox MUST count. We did an even better job with small pox than polio.

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

#67

Post by yummyfajitas »

jsn wrote: post #62
yummyfajitas wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pira…

Well, if you are a libertarian, you probably know about all kinds of solutions for those issues, as outlined by Rothbard et ol. Do you find them all less realistic than e.g. "unite" plan?

For some issues they tend to work well. For others they don't. Rothbard was a fantastic intellectual, but he suffered the same problem that many specialists do - he carried a hammer, and thought every problem was a nail. I don't see any plausible mechanism by which spontaneous order will form to address environmental issues. Additionally, it has not tended to occur historically.

(Note: I don't even intend that as a harsh criticism. Rothbard's intellectual contributions are fantastic, and his hammer worked quite well for many things. Just not everything.)

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

#68

Post by jcroberts »

retube wrote: post #12
scrrr wrote: post #6

The Internet will provided it stays free and open. Through freely available information eventually we will resolve our petty differences, overcome destructive behavior and start fixing big problems like illness and space flight. Perhaps.

Ha. I get the feeling your comment is a little tongue in cheek. I have a pet theory that precisely the opposite will happen. That the internet will give rise to increased differences and destructive behaviour. Why? Because the internet allows people to be exposed to widely opposing views, to trolling by groups with opposing views, allows people to "meet" and argue, allows even the most extreme of viewpoints to build…

"Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation." --Douglas Adams

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

#69

Post by jcroberts »

z92 wrote: post #18

As history is witness, "united towards" doesn't work in large scale. It should be "united against". Human need an enemy to get united against. Alien invasion, asteroid collusion might be such thing. Otherwise no matter what, humanity will find one reason or another to form groups to fight one another. Therefore humans are unlikely to get united to colonize a new planet few light years away. That's not in human nature…

  > asteroid collusion
I mean no offense, but that was one of the most hilariously accurate typos I've ever seen.

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

#70

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

How much of humanity? 10%? 40? 99?

I doubt you will get much more than about 20% of humanity to agree to anything at any given time. Extraterrestrial invasion? Nope, a bunch will just see them as gods and their own death as a journey to heaven? Another bunch will try to negotiate, another bunch will try to blast them into nonexistence?

Global catastrophe? See above.

And then there's the problem of who you're talking about. You can't e.g., reach everyone in every little town in India, Central Africa and South America. So if their "leaders" agree, does that mean that they agree? Look at all the disagreement that happens with people and their elected officials in the US all the time.

Sorry dude, we're doomed to all die alone.

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