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

James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

spiegel.de

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 330 posts

Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#61

Post by AndrewKemendo »

hising wrote: post #6

He may be a smart dude, but this answer is out there: > "DER SPIEGEL: Cancer is a silent killer that might get diagnosed long after the exposure, when it is too late. > Lovelock: I've had 10 cancers in the last few years and it hasn't been very bad. They just appear and grow. If you go to a good oncologist nearby, they'll take it out. It's just unfortunate for people who let it happen and it grows and grows until it'…

I'm unclear what is "out there" exactly in his statement.

According to the WHO cancer is the 4th leading cause of death for High-Income Countries [1].

[1] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-...

Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#62

Post by est31 »

EthanHeilman wrote: post #58
e2le wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The moon also has water and it's a lot closer. Whatever goes wrong on Mars, it might be months or years before they receive help. Building the technology and experience with something a lot closer might be a better option before moving onto bigger things.

Thats the value of Mars. It forces whatever is built there to be sufficient and is largely a one way trip. A moon base will probably function more like a research station on Antarctica. New supplies will be shipped, people will transition back home every 4-12 months. For health reasons you'll want to avoid people spending too much time on Lunar gravity. A similar issue exists on Mars, but causes the opposite result.…

There is nothing stopping you from building self-sufficient and secluded colonies on Earth as well. Svalbard has a no-visa-needed policy and is barely populated. If you can convince the Norwegian government to sell you land, you can build your colony there and will mostly be kept alone (compared to a colony in say Sahara which lies on a heavily populated continent).

Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#63

Post by skellera »

keanzu wrote: post #55

Perhaps it might have been possible in some long distant past to underestimate Elon Musk and write him off as a crazy person. That time is gone. If Musk appears to be doing something crazy you've not understood it. > It’s crazy, completely crazy. Elon Musk has read too much science fiction. He got carried away with it. If I were in his position, I would not waste my fortune on colonizing Mars. And all they would lear…

I wouldn’t say marketing is his skill. His skill is getting shit done. The only reason why we listen to his (crazy) words is because he actually does what he sets out to do.

Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#64

Post by hising »

unicornmama wrote: post #52
hising wrote: post #6

He may be a smart dude, but this answer is out there: > "DER SPIEGEL: Cancer is a silent killer that might get diagnosed long after the exposure, when it is too late. > Lovelock: I've had 10 cancers in the last few years and it hasn't been very bad. They just appear and grow. If you go to a good oncologist nearby, they'll take it out. It's just unfortunate for people who let it happen and it grows and grows until it'…

What exactly is wrong here? Many cancers are now treatable - no longer a death sentence. Cancer treatment improvements have snowballed.

Oh, so many wrongs in his statement:

1. He extrapolates from his own experience of cancer 2. He blames people for not taking care of it (so dying of it is their fault) 3. He talks about a disease group that kills a lot of people like it is a cold

Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#65

Post by luckylion »

jcranmer wrote: post #43
Dotnaught wrote: post #15

His response to cancer as a possible outcome of radiation exposure following from a nuclear accident is troubling: "I mean, nowadays, I think middle class and fairly wealthy people don't die of cancer."

He almost made the point that the nuclear accident killed far less people than the tsunami that caused it, but instead went down the route that cancer isn't a big deal. The tsunami killed over 15,000 people. The nuclear disaster is estimated to eventually kill 100-ish people due to excess cancer cases from radioactive releases.

Don't forget that interviews are usually edited ("for brevity"), and especially in Der Spiegel of 2020 (as opposed to, say, 1980), I wouldn't be suprised if they heavily edited it.

Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#66

Post by AndrewKemendo »

keanzu wrote: post #55

Perhaps it might have been possible in some long distant past to underestimate Elon Musk and write him off as a crazy person. That time is gone. If Musk appears to be doing something crazy you've not understood it. > It’s crazy, completely crazy. Elon Musk has read too much science fiction. He got carried away with it. If I were in his position, I would not waste my fortune on colonizing Mars. And all they would lear…

JFK sold us on space because "we choose to do these things because they are hard." It was an aspirational exploratory message.

The reality is that we are in space because it is required for great power contests. I'm mired in space as a DoD executive, so I promise you space - at least inside the GEO orbits - is extremely practical. Starlink is honestly amazing.

Mars though? I've steel-manned that one and I don't see it as anything more than what JFK did. Tickling the never-ending exploration/expansion desires of humanity.

I say it frequently: Outside of the sun exploding or the moon crashing into earth, there is no future event that would make earth as uninhabitable as Mars is today.

Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#67

Post by [deleted] »

skellera wrote: post #63
keanzu wrote: post #55

Perhaps it might have been possible in some long distant past to underestimate Elon Musk and write him off as a crazy person. That time is gone. If Musk appears to be doing something crazy you've not understood it. > It’s crazy, completely crazy. Elon Musk has read too much science fiction. He got carried away with it. If I were in his position, I would not waste my fortune on colonizing Mars. And all they would lear…

I wouldn’t say marketing is his skill. His skill is getting shit done. The only reason why we listen to his (crazy) words is because he actually does what he sets out to do.

[deleted]

Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#68

Post by est31 »

skellera wrote: post #63
keanzu wrote: post #55

Perhaps it might have been possible in some long distant past to underestimate Elon Musk and write him off as a crazy person. That time is gone. If Musk appears to be doing something crazy you've not understood it. > It’s crazy, completely crazy. Elon Musk has read too much science fiction. He got carried away with it. If I were in his position, I would not waste my fortune on colonizing Mars. And all they would lear…

I wouldn’t say marketing is his skill. His skill is getting shit done. The only reason why we listen to his (crazy) words is because he actually does what he sets out to do.

> His skill is getting shit done.

The main contribution is from his employees, not himself. He manages to convince them to work for him with extreme hours for bad pay and without even receiving proper credit (check out how many authors the Neuralink paper listed, then check out the cern paper's authors). How does he convince people to work for him? Marketing. He's a marketing guy.

Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#69

Post by baroomba »

socialdemocrat wrote: post #53
zerr wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's the plenty of places on Earth which are uninhabited due to climate conditions. What makes Mars a better place?

Nobody has EVER suggested we should colonize Mars to save ourselves from global warming expect people against colonizing Mars. We can survive global warming for sure. If we can build habitats on Mars we can do it on Earth. However there are many conditions far worse than global warming which we cannot protect ourselves from: All out nuclear war. Asteroid hitting earth etc. It is stupid to put all eggs in one basket.…

Earth after most disasters short of getting hit by a full-on planetoid that liquefies the entire crust is still much easier to live on than Mars, and hardened Earth-based bunkers are a lot cheaper and easier to make than a Martian colony.

Really, for most planet-wide disasters the thing they do is force us to live a little bit like we'd have to on non-disaster-stricken Mars.

[EDIT] for the record I'm not against Martian exploration or even a Martian colony—I'm susceptible both to the "because it was there" and the "we'll come up with some cool tech in the process" arguments—I'm just very unconvinced Martian colonization is a good path to better survivability for the human species.

Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#70

Post by arcticfox »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #61
hising wrote: post #6

He may be a smart dude, but this answer is out there: > "DER SPIEGEL: Cancer is a silent killer that might get diagnosed long after the exposure, when it is too late. > Lovelock: I've had 10 cancers in the last few years and it hasn't been very bad. They just appear and grow. If you go to a good oncologist nearby, they'll take it out. It's just unfortunate for people who let it happen and it grows and grows until it'…

I'm unclear what is "out there" exactly in his statement. According to the WHO cancer is the 4th leading cause of death for High-Income Countries [1]. [1] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-...

> I mean, nowadays, I think middle class and fairly wealthy people don't die of cancer.

Some of the richest people in the world have died of cancer. It kills anyone and everyone, eventually.

His answer is so ignorant that I stopped reading his words right there, I don't trust his information processing.

Post reply on HN