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It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth

techeffect.substack.com

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Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth

#91

Post by pizza234 »

laverya wrote: post #84
brundolf wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that they made some big leaps when turning this into a narrative, but I think there's truth to the basic premise that focusing too much on a hypothetical future amongst the stars - which at best would be harsh, difficult, and miserable - serves as a distraction against the very real and very urgent and very solvable problems facing our species and habitat as it exists right now. Even if we managed interstella…

> Evolution has geared us for this world. We might be able to cobble together a survival elsewhere, but I doubt we could ever thrive. People on Earth thrived in the Arctic, which is incredibly far from the savannas of Africa, and did this with the technology of 10,000 years ago. Saying that people with the technology of 1000 years from now can't possibly thrive on an airless rock is a little pessimistic to me. And th…

> People on Earth thrived in the Arctic

Can you define "thrive"?

Because according to my definitions, I wouldn't "thrive" if I lived there - I would actually "cobble together a survival" like the parent wrote, and think I'm not in a minority that thinks so.

Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth

#92

Post by keiferski »

I don't know, I can't help but feel like nearly all of our solutions to contemporary problems involve space travel, specifically self-contained space travel (i.e., when spaceships become within an order of magnitude as affordable as houses or automobiles.) The universe is essentially limitless from a human point of view, so to be perpetually stuck on Earth seems like a failure of perspective.

- Oppressive government controlling you or your land? Move elsewhere in the solar system.

- Resource extraction destroying natural environments on Earth? Asteroids and other planets have far more natural resources and long term, it is inevitable that mining will be off-planet.

- Overpopulation? On a universal scale, there is no such thing.

Obviously most of these won't be solvable in 20, or 50, or even 100 years. But, they seem conceivably doable in 200, or even 150. In the greater scheme of things, this is a very small amount of time.

Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth

#93

Post by Justsignedup »

johnmorrison wrote: post #13

This is frankly a blatantly wrong and quite foolish argument. Space exploration has already created many significant benefits for humanity on Earth , by advancing hundreds of new technologies with terrestrial applications and launching satellite networks that support a safer, more peaceful world for humans, with improved agricultural efficiencies as well as advanced warning and a better understanding of extreme weath…

I think it is important to understand differences:

The future of humanity is not only on earth. Too much risk, too limited resources.

HOWEVER the future of humanity in space is NOT "tomorrow we lift off a giant spaceship with everyone on it." If we survive a few hundred years we might see some amount of human civilization outside of earth, but for many hundreds of years after more practical space tech comes about most of humanity will still be born, live, and die on earth.

Maybe in a thousand years we'll see more humans outside of earth than on earth. But that's a long long long ways from now. If we are to become an "immortal" race (doesn't go extinct) then I can see the human race abandoning earth in a hundred thousand years or so due to many possible conditions. But even if we can colonize and terraform other planets, why would we want to when we already have a perfectly terraformed planet we're already on. Life has survived on earth farily well for billions of years, there's no reason why if we don't completely obliterate the climate we can't survive here till the sun blows up.

Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth

#94

Post by criddell »

pizza234 wrote: post #91
laverya wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Evolution has geared us for this world. We might be able to cobble together a survival elsewhere, but I doubt we could ever thrive. People on Earth thrived in the Arctic, which is incredibly far from the savannas of Africa, and did this with the technology of 10,000 years ago. Saying that people with the technology of 1000 years from now can't possibly thrive on an airless rock is a little pessimistic to me. And th…

> People on Earth thrived in the Arctic Can you define "thrive"? Because according to my definitions, I wouldn't "thrive" if I lived there - I would actually "cobble together a survival" like the parent wrote, and think I'm not in a minority that thinks so.

Thrive: Exist over many generations developing unique and rich culture and society.

Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth

#95

Post by freeqaz »

aeturnum wrote: post #88

I agree that for every resource we need, getting that resource on earth (if it exists on earth) will always make more sense than seeking it in space. Humanity should always seek to fulfill its needs from terrestrial sources. We shouldn't mistake space exploration for infrastructure building. At the same time - this doesn't mean we shouldn't explore space! Just that we should understand that exploration as low-to-no-r…

If we captured an asteroid we would immediately double or triple the world's supply of metals like platinum. They simply are not plentiful for us on the crust.

I like to believe that we can achieve this within our lifetime. Having the price of certain rarer metals come down significantly would be amazing!

Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth

#96

Post by [deleted] »

keiferski wrote: post #92

I don't know, I can't help but feel like nearly all of our solutions to contemporary problems involve space travel, specifically self-contained space travel (i.e., when spaceships become within an order of magnitude as affordable as houses or automobiles.) The universe is essentially limitless from a human point of view, so to be perpetually stuck on Earth seems like a failure of perspective. - Oppressive government…

[deleted]

Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth

#97

Post by JoeAltmaier »

keiferski wrote: post #92

I don't know, I can't help but feel like nearly all of our solutions to contemporary problems involve space travel, specifically self-contained space travel (i.e., when spaceships become within an order of magnitude as affordable as houses or automobiles.) The universe is essentially limitless from a human point of view, so to be perpetually stuck on Earth seems like a failure of perspective. - Oppressive government…

I like your way of thinking.

But remember, even with sublight travel, to populate the entire galaxy would take only a few million years. Including say a thousand years to rebuild the capability in each new colony. It grows geometrically you see, and there's no beating that.

So on a Galactic scale its certainly possible to overpopulate, and in the blink of a cosmic eye (a million years). In fact that's a powerful argument for 'we must be alone', since it hasn't happened already (not getting radio signals from every star system everywhere).

Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth

#98

Post by dreamcompiler »

It's at least 10x harder to build a human-staffed base on the Moon than to build one at the bottom of the ocean. And it's 10x harder still to build one on Mars. (And that's optimistic; those numbers probably need more zeros.)

Likewise Level 5 self-driving cars. Every level is at least one more zero on the hardness multiplier.

Neither is gonna happen soon. They will happen some day, and none of this means we shouldn't work on them now, but yeah, the hype is ridiculous.

Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth

#99

Post by JoeAltmaier »

aeturnum wrote: post #88

I agree that for every resource we need, getting that resource on earth (if it exists on earth) will always make more sense than seeking it in space. Humanity should always seek to fulfill its needs from terrestrial sources. We shouldn't mistake space exploration for infrastructure building. At the same time - this doesn't mean we shouldn't explore space! Just that we should understand that exploration as low-to-no-r…

Once the bulk of humanity is 'in space' (on planetary bodies or in stations outside of earth) then the goalposts change! Sending things back to sad ol earth becomes unsupportable.

Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth

#100

Post by Udik »

coldcode wrote: post #38
tahoeskibum wrote: post #14

It is dangerous to think fish have a destiny outside Ocean, said a vocal member in a school of fish 400 million years ago.

Columbus had a hard time finding anyone to fund his idea of traveling west to seek India until the new monarchs in Spain decided it was cheap enough to risk and he found a whole new land mass (sadly to loot). People have always taken risks and gone to new places and found things not imagined by others. Space will be no different; the only difference is we already know a lot about it. Whether governments or industry o…

> Space will be no different

Space is different. The analogy between the discoveries of new continents and the exploration of space is terribly naive. I would understand if it came from a 12 years old with his bedroom full of sci-fi novels, but not from grown ups.

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