James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars' • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by bryanrasmussen » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 4:16 PM UTC

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…

Quote from 1945:

Perhaps it might have been possible in some long distant past to underestimate Howard Hughes and write him off as a crazy person. That time is gone. If Hughes appears to be doing something crazy you've not understood it.

I do however agree that Mars is a sales pitch for SpaceX, but the idea that Musk is not crazy may also be headed for a turnaround.

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

#182

Post by cgriswald » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 4:17 PM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #162

34679 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine, unless we have something better to do. If it takes 10,000 years or 100,000 years, it doesn't matter, unless the work being done is detracting from more important work. Many people, myself included, would struggle to think of more impactful goals for humanity to accomplish. Feeding, clothing, and housing everyone would be nice, but those things are still far more personal than any project that aims to pro…

I argue we should be building a more capable and survivable successor to biological intelligence that can survive beyond traditional biological extinction periods (M of years).

It's a bit of a false dichotomy to suggest we have to choose between the two, but...

If we must choose, we should choose to colonize Mars. Statistically speaking, an asteroid impact is inevitable. Time is the relevant variable. The sooner humanity can be a multi-world species, the sooner we are more robust against that threat. The same will be true of our successors who will necessarily have less time than we to spread from Earth. If we manage to spread to other worlds and Earth is destroyed, we will still be around to develop our successors (and will also have a leg up on spreading to ever more worlds). If we manage to create our successors and the Earth is destroyed before we get to other worlds, it's game over.

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

#183

Post by ameister14 » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 4:19 PM UTC

hising wrote: post #64

unicornmama wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

as far as #2 is concerned, he lives in a country with nationalized healthcare so he doesn't really see a reason not to get it taken care of and get bi-annual checkups.

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

#184

Post by SuoDuanDao » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 4:23 PM UTC

Seenso wrote: post #147

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…

> If Musk appears to be doing something crazy you've not understood it. That's a pretty ridiculous attitude. You're literally talking about Musk like he's a god or something. He's a regular guy, not some kind of superman: he makes mistakes, has limited understanding, and is often wrong.

Sure, but he's been right on enough deeply contrarian bets that the kind of 'common sense' dismissal we'd apply to most people making the kind of claims he's made are clearly the wrong heuristic.

It's not that he's never wrong. It's that how outlandish his statements are is not a good indicator of how likely he is to be wrong.

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

#185

Post by snarf21 » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 4:25 PM UTC

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…

It will be interesting to see how this plays out but one thing has always confounded me. We haven't even started to figure out how to build a self-sustaining base of operations on the moon. We've been there, it is close but we don't know what years of low gravity will do to our bodies. If we can't figure that out, how could we ever go to Mars to set up a permanent colony.

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

#186

Post by mynegation » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 4:26 PM UTC

keanzu wrote: post #176

njb311 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

> the military would be the first to occupy What's your reasoning here? The purpose of the military is to defend valuables from others. Deploying military to Mars is as likely as deploying military to the Antarctic. Scientists will be the first and probably last to occupy. Difficult to imagine it will ever expand much beyond research missions. The Antarctic environment is far less harsh than Mars and no-one maintains…

Not because of the lack of trying though: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_activity_in_the_Ant...

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

#187

Post by njb311 » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 4:30 PM UTC

keanzu wrote: post #176

njb311 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

> the military would be the first to occupy What's your reasoning here? The purpose of the military is to defend valuables from others. Deploying military to Mars is as likely as deploying military to the Antarctic. Scientists will be the first and probably last to occupy. Difficult to imagine it will ever expand much beyond research missions. The Antarctic environment is far less harsh than Mars and no-one maintains…

> Deploying military to Mars is as likely as deploying military to the Antarctic.

Nobody is suggesting we colonise the Antarctic, because there's nothing much (of current economic value) there. There are a handful of people there to study it and they need a constant supply of resources to sustain them. If that was the point of going to Mars, then you'd really have to question what can be achieved there that warrants such massive cost, especially if any part of that cost is government funded.

Now, if we contrast that with the Arctic, the first sign of a melting ice cap and there's military posturing over who is going to exploit the natural resources being exposed there.

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

#188

Post by leto_ii » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 4:30 PM UTC

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'm gonna take the risk of being extremely unpopular and I'll say that Musk is completely overrated.

I think he's nowhere near the level of people that we usually think of as geniuses. In certain ways he's good at marketing and hyping things up, but a lot of his ideas, especially the Mars one, are nonsensical.

Just try to think about this: how bad do the conditions on Earth have to get before it makes sense to try to move to a planet that is essentially uninhabitable? Where even in the best scenarios we would live really harsh lives after a long and dangerous voyage.

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

#189

Post by keanzu » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 4:31 PM UTC

Seenso wrote: post #147

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…

> If Musk appears to be doing something crazy you've not understood it. That's a pretty ridiculous attitude. You're literally talking about Musk like he's a god or something. He's a regular guy, not some kind of superman: he makes mistakes, has limited understanding, and is often wrong.

> You're literally talking about Musk like he's a god or something.

There's absolutely the risk, probably already too late for some, of getting into hero worship of Musk. We should definitely steer away from that type of erroneous thinking.

If you are playing Kasparov at chess and he appears to have made a beginner blunder so stupid you think him crazy then you are not seeing the full picture. Kasparov makes mistakes and loses matches but never one so serious he could be called "crazy" in the sense that any fool can see the error.

Elon Musk is a regular guy, not some kind of superman: he makes mistakes, has limited understanding, and is often wrong - but never would he commit a blunder so severe as to earn the description: "crazy". Something else is going on if it appears crazy, look closer.

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

#190

Post by russdill » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 4:32 PM UTC

goatlover wrote: post #155

russdill wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The atmosphere is what blocks radiation, not the magnetosphere.

https://science.nasa.gov/heliophysics/focus-areas/magnetosph...

That's a pretty simplistic explanation. If you look at the details, the magnetosphere is protecting the atmosphere. Take each kind of radiation in turn.

X-Rays: The magnetosphere has no effect

UV: The magnetosphere has no effect

Cosmic rays: While both the Earth's magnetic field and the sun's magnetic deflect some cosmic rays, the Earth's atmosphere is mostly opaque to cosmic rays.

Solar wind/coronal mass ejections: The Earth's magnetic field does block these, but if it wasn't present, the atmosphere would block them (but of course be slowly stripped away in the process)

The fact that the magnetosphere does deflect some particles but isn't what makes life on Earth possible (other than protecting the atmosphere) is made most clear by the ISS being well within the magnetosphere but still receiving hundreds of times the amount on Earth.