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

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

#101

Post by keanzu »

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.

People are willing to buy a ~100K car sight unseen. Tesla has a near zero marketing budget. Musk is the marketing department.

No other car, or truck, has generated anything close to the buzz Musk is able to consistently pull off.

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

#102

Post by RivieraKid »

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…

No, that time is not over. I still underestimate him and think that he often says stupid stuff (for example some of his claims about Hyperloop, self-driving, world as a simulation theory).

Musk is someone who's obsessed about being admired and considered smart.

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

#103

Post by Waterluvian »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #66
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 i…

I feel that JFK could give such a rousing speech that touched our spirits because he already had the Soviet threat with which to touch our pocketbooks. I imagine the closest Musk has is the threat of climate disaster?

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

#104

Post by njb311 »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #66
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 i…

I agree, earth orbit is great for deploying tech that helps us on the surface. The moon may prove useful if there's something of sufficient value to bring back. Mars is pure 'human endeavour', putting it kindly. Some individuals with large egos and wallets are pursuing it just because they can. Any sense in which Mars could be 'colonised' is indeed fantasy unless we are talking over a hundreds-to-thousands-of-years timescale, and you can be sure that it wouldn't be some haven. For one thing, the military would be the first to occupy, and if that was the military of one country you can be sure that they'd be joined by another fairly soon, and then...

Given we seem to struggle with working out how humans will get on okay on earth in the coming decades, we should not be distracting resources (our own and our planet's) until we have solved some more pressing issues. Given most of the 'wealth' that we have today has been created by exploiting fossil fuels (or exists only within financial systems), we have a huge job ahead in transforming society into something more sustainable.

> there is no future event that would make earth as uninhabitable as Mars is today

As I heard someone say recently: while we think about terra-forming Mars, we are busy Mars-forming Earth.

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

#106

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#107

Post by root_axis »

ElijahLynn wrote: post #98

Musk sees the future, the future where we destroy Earth. Lovelock has an incorrect understanding of the future.

Mars is not a solution to a destroyed earth. Billionaires living on mars would suffer a quality of life worse than homeless people living on Earth.

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

#108

Post by keanzu »

valgor wrote: post #100
bitexploder wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, but the cynic in my says... what SHOULD you be spending your billions on? Carefully grabbing more billions and political influence/power so you can have more influence/power? Or, you know, try to make humanity better?

My reply to thoughts like these are always the same: In the US we spend an insulting amount of money on military and defense. The amount of money Spacex is spending is nothing in comparison. If one is truly interested in helping humanity, then one should be advocating moving funds from the military to any branch of science or social welfare. To nitpick the small difference someone like Musk could make by doing someth…

There's no comparison here.

Musk acquired his money through voluntary exchanges with buyers freely and willingly engaging in market transactions.

The government uses coercive force to raise taxes, it is not voluntary.

Tax money is public property and we should have a say in how it is spent. Musk's money we gave to him freely and is his to dispose of as he sees fit.

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

#109

Post by jcranmer »

wrsh07 wrote: post #80
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

Is that true of nuclear winter or a major impact event? Wouldn't either of those render the Earth temporarily uninhabitable? Is the argument that it would be easy enough to build on Earth places to survive such events rather than going to Mars?

Nuclear winter is probably quite survivable. Its mechanisms are the same as volcanic winters, with the caveat that it requires the assumption that nuclear weapons will result in uncontrollably large fires in cities that are as effective stratospheric soot pumps as volcanoes. And the worst volcanic winter in recorded history was in 1816, and the fact that you probably never learned anything about it in your history class should give you some indication of how close it was to a humanity extinction event.

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

#110

Post by [deleted] »

keanzu wrote: post #101
skellera wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People are willing to buy a ~100K car sight unseen. Tesla has a near zero marketing budget. Musk is the marketing department. No other car, or truck, has generated anything close to the buzz Musk is able to consistently pull off.

[deleted]
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