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You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook

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Re: You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook

#181

Post by zanny »

guelo wrote: post #115
numair wrote: post #86

All of these articles and ways of thinking always miss the bigger, more fundamental shift in human society — we now know there is literally no place we can access in any meaningful amount of time where the “grass is greener” than the places we’ve already been. This is profound, semi-depressing, and enlightening at the same time. Rather than seeking something new somewhere else, our new obsession is in improving what…

I try to imagine humanity a thousand years from now, still bound to the same increasingly inhospitable planet, paying for the sins of our generations but nowhere to escape to. With probably an abandoned Mars or moon colony. Just nothing to explore. Even the boundaries of natural science would be mostly understood by that point. It would be so depressing. Our only salvation would be if we still have enough resources r…

I don't think there is any chance we make it a thousand years without either reaching technological singularity or destroying ourselves. In the 80 years of transistor technology we went from string manipulation via pneumatic tubes to real time ray tracing.

Though to be fair, both outcomes basically end biological human life - a technological singularity obsoletes carbon based biology and any rational successor species wouldn't keep living humans around when they can trivially archive our genetic code and reproduce us at will if ever needed - which is also then unlikely to happen. Its that or nuclear annihilation.

Re: You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook

#182

Post by heavyset_go »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #130
numair wrote: post #86

All of these articles and ways of thinking always miss the bigger, more fundamental shift in human society — we now know there is literally no place we can access in any meaningful amount of time where the “grass is greener” than the places we’ve already been. This is profound, semi-depressing, and enlightening at the same time. Rather than seeking something new somewhere else, our new obsession is in improving what…

>The final argument someone’s inevitably going to make is, survival of the race. Yeah, okay. You might want to self-reflect on our existence as deeply terrestrial beings that are intrinsically connected to the Earth. Even if you spend all of your day hidden in a bedroom, you can’t escape your bond with this planet. Instead of trying to find a mistress in the form of another moon/planet, we need to spend more time wor…

In the face of all extinction events, the bottom of the ocean would be more habitable than an alien planet.

Re: You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook

#183

Post by 205guy »

nootropicat wrote: post #154
Animats wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it always space? Good question. The best off-earth real estate in this solar system is worse than the worst on-earth real estate. It's easier to build colonies in Antarctica or underwater on the continental shelf than on Mars. Mars is small, cold, and nearly airless. We're not short of low-value real estate, after all.

"Hell is other people". It's not possible to escape the state on Earth anymore. It's a pure question of travel time. Underwater continental shelf or Antarctica, it's all trivially accessible and indefensible. It's not possible to start a new way of living somewhere, like the Amish or Mormons did. What's needed is at least the equivalent of travel time and cost between Europe and Americas before steam ships. Space is…

This is so much hyperbole, typical of manifest destiny escapists.

You start with a pop-interpretation of an edgy existential statement. The point of Sartre's "No Exit" was not to glibly quote the punch-line, it's to think about the logical implications. Probably something about learning to live together despite our flaws/sins.

About escaping the state, the Book of Genesis figured it out long ago: humans behave badly (aka sin) and were thus cast out of the only place they could live in peace--in other words, some people ruined it for all the others. And because of bad behavior, humans need to follow laws; and who makes the laws is what has created (and continues to create) history. So it was never possible to escape the laws/state ever.

To dream of running far enough away to a mythical place where you alone get to make the laws is just futile escapism. The Amish and the Mormons just moved with their laws to a new place, and if you didn't agree with their laws, you still got kicked out.

Now for the hyperbole: the "underwater continental shelf" and Antarctica are not "trivially accessible", they are some of the most unexplored and hostile environments on Earth. You'd have lots of trouble establishing a livable base there.

Why does it have to be defensible? Is this some sort of Fort Laramie you have to steal from someone else? Leave society, live off only what you can make or grow, have no contact with the outside world. Find a lake in some remote mountains or an island in some remote sea, sneak out there and never come back! What? You still want the amenities, energetic resources, trade, and communication with the rest of the world? Then you're going to have to deal with other people and THEIR laws.

"basic human upgrades" "just an engineering problem" fit a factory in a human-sized body??? Why that should be as easy as a CRUD app on a virtual server with some rented storage.

Face it: for all intents and purposes, the world is full, nobody is escaping anywhere, and we all have to learn to live together.

Re: You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook

#184

Post by 205guy »

numair wrote: post #86

All of these articles and ways of thinking always miss the bigger, more fundamental shift in human society — we now know there is literally no place we can access in any meaningful amount of time where the “grass is greener” than the places we’ve already been. This is profound, semi-depressing, and enlightening at the same time. Rather than seeking something new somewhere else, our new obsession is in improving what…

Exactly, Manifest Destiny is over, the world is full now and we recognize we can't just take land from others anymore. Time to learn how to live together without depleting or destroying our biosphere.

Re: You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook

#186

Post by lazylizard »

I dunno why ppl keep saying all we got is facebook. We got vxlan, 100gbe, SSDs,nvme SSDs,and soon non-volatile memory, GPUs, dpdk, segment routing, containers, config management, nosql, json, bittorrent, blockchain, eliptical curve crypto, totp, letsencrypt/acme, raft consensus..and more!

Re: You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook

#187

Post by merpnderp »

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #64
trixie_ wrote: post #39

NASA hasn’t been actively trying to drive down the cost of space. If the had it would of unlocked space for all of us decades ago. It took SpaceX investing their own profits into building a reusable booster. And now they’re doing the same for the entire vehicle with Starship. NASA does pay SpaceX for flights to the IIS, but most of that money goes into building Dragons and the rockets to support them. What if NASA ac…

Well then there would be less money for things like PACE, ICE-SAT, ICE Bridge. They've been building earth satellites to improve fisheries management and inform earth conservation efforts. PACE will be particularly helpful for me as an oceanographer because of they've got those neato optical plankton sensors onboard. Also, NASA allocates funding based on decadal surveys of the scientific community, so they have reall…

How many billions upon billions upon billions did NASA waste on the Space Shuttle. NASA would be able to fund a hundred times their current projects if they’d simply kept the Saturn, never mind if they’d invested in reusable vehicles.

Re: You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook

#188

Post by merpnderp »

p_l wrote: post #52
trixie_ wrote: post #39

NASA hasn’t been actively trying to drive down the cost of space. If the had it would of unlocked space for all of us decades ago. It took SpaceX investing their own profits into building a reusable booster. And now they’re doing the same for the entire vehicle with Starship. NASA does pay SpaceX for flights to the IIS, but most of that money goes into building Dragons and the rockets to support them. What if NASA ac…

NASA projects are endangered by politicians. The difference is that SpaceX funded reusability on their own, instead of depending on fickle funding from Congress that killed the original STS (leaving us with the one that flew and costed as much as Apollo per launch). And sometimes it wasn't Congress zit was president - like Nixon deciding to kill nuclear space propulsion for no known reason. The cutthroat politics of…

Nixon killing nuclear space propulsion for no known reason? You mean the Orion project and thousands of nuclear bombs in space? I’d say keeping space nuclear weapons free in the face off with the Soviet Union counts as a known reason.

Re: You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook

#189

Post by 7thaccount »

zanny wrote: post #181
guelo wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I try to imagine humanity a thousand years from now, still bound to the same increasingly inhospitable planet, paying for the sins of our generations but nowhere to escape to. With probably an abandoned Mars or moon colony. Just nothing to explore. Even the boundaries of natural science would be mostly understood by that point. It would be so depressing. Our only salvation would be if we still have enough resources r…

I don't think there is any chance we make it a thousand years without either reaching technological singularity or destroying ourselves. In the 80 years of transistor technology we went from string manipulation via pneumatic tubes to real time ray tracing. Though to be fair, both outcomes basically end biological human life - a technological singularity obsoletes carbon based biology and any rational successor specie…

Paul Davies (head of SETI) has a fantastic book called "The Eerie Silence". It was the first time in years that I had read a good science book written for the layman that taught me not only a lot of new scientific ideas, history I didn't know about, and made me think about humanity in a new light. I really can't recommend it enough.

Ok, so he makes an argument that made me put down the book (ok 17 year old me) and really ponder the statement. It was his belief that "all biological life is transistory". Of course we have no other intelligent life outside of earth to compare against, but it kind of makes sense in a completely unproven kind of way. A species develops as biological and eventually transcends to machine. At that point, you would be far more intelligent (maybe) and the only requirement for society would be lots and lots of energy. You would essentially be a mind floating around in infinite cyber space experiencing everything there is to experience. You could travel to the stars if you would like (no cryogenics or food necessary), but honestly...why would you want to?

The book mostly sticks to scientific fact and covers a lot of SETI history, but there are many additional topics like this that are thought provoking.

Some of my friends were horrified by this (end of biological humanity assuming it is ever possible), but to me...it is the most logical progression for humanity to become more than what it currently is. These flesh bodies cause us to die far too early and our brains can probably only be enhanced so much.

Re: You Promised Me Mars Colonies but I Got Facebook

#190

Post by mch82 »

kristopolous wrote: post #92

I'm writing a book on future thought tentatively titled The Soul of Tomorrow A futurist's construction kit A field manual for how to think about and create "future stuff", stepwise advances for a continuous world. I'm about 25,000 words in. It's currently being developed on github. If this really interests anybody, I'd really love to talk to them about things. The chapters are starting to come together, but honestly…

Have you checked out Shell’s scenario writing? They used to publish some very good how-to guides for futures research. I didn’t see as much how-to content the last time I visited the website. https://www.shell.com/energy-and-innovation/the-energy-futur...

Syd Meade is also an interesting person to study for a book about envisioning the future. He designed a number of cars and is famous for Blade Runner. I talked with him & his key insight was that he always drew a car in a world. A car needs a world (context) in order to make sense of its design. http://sydmead.com/

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