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'

#271

Post by skuthus » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 7:15 PM UTC

leto_ii wrote: post #188

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…

Do you really think that the only reason to 'go to mars' to colonization?

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

#272

Post by Semaphor » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 7:27 PM UTC

heeen2 wrote: post #239

Tepix wrote: post #209

I see Mars not so much as a "plan b" or "insurance". That's just a nice side effect. Humans venturing out into space and establishing colonies is a big step in human evolution. It's a bigger step than when animal life left the oceans and ventured onto land. If you look at all of life on Earth from far away, there would be only a few achievements you could see. Rather shortly after life began, it changed Earth's atmos…

I think you underestimate how far apart galaxies are.

I think once we manage to colonize our entire galaxy, the next galaxy won't be that far away.

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

#273

Post by staticman2 » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 7:29 PM UTC

_sbrk wrote: post #207

JMS had it right: Mary Ann Cramer: I have to ask you the same question people back home are asking about space these days. Is it worth it? Should we just pull back? Forget the whole thing as a bad idea, and take care of our own problems at home? Sinclair: No. We have to stay here. And there's a simple reason why. Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics, and you'll get ten diff…

He has it wrong. The universe will end and it will be for nothing. Going to the stars does not make life meaningful or preserve anything in the end. Life has no meaning other than what we invent.

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

#274

Post by cgriswald » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 7:33 PM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #196

cgriswald wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 spre…

You're just re-stating the original argument for colinization (an asteroid/event would make the earth less inhabitable than mars is currently) that I disagree with and originally addressed.

I don't think so. For most asteroid impacts, we wouldn't even need to build subterranean shelters for the species to survive. It isn't enough for the species to survive. Our civilization, particularly our very technological civilization, must survive as well. Without such a civilization, we'll be trapped here until the Earth itself dies. Our long term survival depends on the short term survival of our civilization.

The relative habitability of Earth and Mars may actually have a converse effect on the survival of a technological civilization. On Mars, such a civilization would be necessary for continued individual survival for what may be geological time scales. On a recovering Earth, humans may salvage civilization, devolve into a new and indefinite dark ages, or give up on civilization entirely and the species will still go on.

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

#275

Post by leoh » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 7:35 PM UTC

freeopinion wrote: post #260

leto_ii wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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? Fort Bridger, Wyoming has a population of 345[0]. California has a population of nearly 40 million[1]. Should those crazy people of the 19th century never have bothered with Fort Bridger? Inhabiting a habitable planet outside our solar system is so far beyond our current capabilities th…

You can breathe and find sustenance in Fort Bridger if you have human skills that have existed for dozens of millenia.

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

#276

Post by UnFleshedOne » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 7:50 PM UTC

leetcrew wrote: post #171

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…

why care about the long-term existence of our species? certainly we should strive to leave a better world for our children, their children, and their children's children, but past a certain point it seems very abstract to me. even 10,000 years is about three times as long as the totality of recorded history. in 100,000 years, our genome may have diverged enough that whatever humans live at that point in the future wo…

You can tell that to the Biomaterial Processing Courts when they queue you up for utilization for the betterment of humanity. But for now I don't think anybody asks you to personally care about anything, much less do anything.

Or would you like to ask somebody else to work on things you do care about?

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

#277

Post by vraivroo » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 7:53 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…

Yeah, he's definitely playing 4-dimensional chess. Complete with the insane Twitter outbursts.

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

#278

Post by rtkwe » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 7:55 PM UTC

naravara wrote: post #242

rtkwe wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life expanded because there were resources and opportunities on land. Plants grew there because there were no predators and then some animals managed to go eat them and benefited because there was little competition, I don't see a real analog there for Mars. [0] I think an actual Mars colony is centuries out just due to the amount of things left to invent to make it viable. We still haven't really even retried a clos…

> I think an actual Mars colony is centuries out just due to the amount of things left to invent to make it viable. More importantly, there just isn’t enough reason to bother doing it aside from satisfying the Edmund Hillary “because it’s there” urge. If you want more space to live, you’d be better off investing in women’s health and education so long run population trends can go down here in Earth. If you want natur…

Mars does have some benefits as the main living space over a space station at least. Gravity is gratis for one which really helps with long term health and we don't have to completely redesign our current technology to work if there's gravity where we will in space. And yes the resources for Earth are better found in the asteroid belt but it would probably be easier to mine and extract on Mars again because of gravity and locality. [-1] The atmosphere, thin as it is, is still a convenient source for carbon and oxygen to support the life support cycle and could maybe be a source of nitrogen for growing plants. In those ways it's maybe an easier first long term settlement than space or the moon ignoring the cost of bringing everything there and resupply missions. [0]

I think it may be more likely to happen somewhere with gravity just given how much development still needs to be done to extract materials out of asteroids. There's a lot to work through in being able to refine stuff like metals in micro gravity that hasn't even started yet.

If history is any judge though we'll go to Mars long before it's really viable simply because it's there. Hopefully not too many people get caught up in it.

[0] Unless it's turns out to be viable to bake similar resources out of lunar regolith. I haven't read deeply enough to see if that's just SciFi or a viable source of the basic elementals needed to support a settlement.

[-1] edit: To clarify here I mean on Mars for consumption on Mars of course. Though Mar's much thinner atmosphere would also make some more exotic launch technologies potentially viable. eg: a rail/coil gun launch to a skyhook maybe given the much lower atmospheric drag it would experience.

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

#279

Post by UnFleshedOne » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 7:56 PM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #143

wrsh07 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes it includes all those examples. Humans could endeavor to build many vast underground or undersea habitats (mineshaft gap!) that serve as a protective function for, I dunno 1 millionth(?) the cost of sending a terraform crew Mars with probably a million X more capacity to support humanity, plus the ability to use it and iterate on it right now. Doesn't sound very sexy though right? Kind of like all the data engine…

Mars has a built-in advantage of distance from the hordes of desperate people who would destroy a too-small or half-done habitat if it helps them survive next week (if disaster strikes before you are ready for example). Nobody can blame them, yet it is a valid and expected hazard.

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

#280

Post by mnm1 » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 8:00 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…

Getting people to invest money in crazy ideas that have no hope of working was also Elizabeth Holmes' gift. It's not rare or even that difficult. Now Musk has had previous successes, but I'd hardly call electric cars or even rockets and satellites genius or novel. The sad thing is that while he focuses on this, he's not only wasting his money and time, he's wasting the time and money of all the fools who believe that's it's possible and desirable, diverting what could be resources for fixing our own planet. That is the exact opposite of genius and that's why he rightly gets criticised for this insane idea. This Mars idea is no different than Theranos' product. In fact, it's a lot less likely to ever happen.