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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

#181

Post by Bedon292 »

kstenerud wrote: post #10

> Indeed, the idea that technological developments will solve all of our problems —eventually allowing us to leave Earth — is instrumental to political mobilization on behalf of the powers that be. It helps to perpetuate the current socio-economic system that is designed for the one percent to stay in power and the working class to stay working. Sorry to say, but almost EVERYTHING big that happens on this planet help…

Yeah, I have never been sold some future utopia here. There are plenty of reasons to fund NASA, and that is not one that is on me mind. Its $22.6B budges is a small fraction of the US total budget. Something like 0.5%. There are much larger portions of the budget that should be addressed first. I think we can prioritize things like space exploration and higher standard of living at the same time. They are not at all mutually exclusive.

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

#182

Post by m463 »

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…

> This is frankly a blatantly wrong and quite foolish argument.

I like to remember that these types of flawed arguments are the best at getting viewership up and ads viewed.

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

#183

Post by soylentcola »

nine_k wrote: post #163
RobertoG wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolutely not beyond our current level of technology. Unfortunately, there are not economic incentives yet. Now, this(1) it's beyond our current level, but one can dream. It's obvious to me that this is the most probable future and I would not be surprise if, at some point, most humanity is living in this kind of environment instead of planets. Planets have a lot of disadvantages. (1) - https://en.wikipedia.org…

There can't be an economic incentive, only political ones. Much like pilgrims who founded Massachusetts, founders of space habitats will be groups of people who don't enjoy living on Earth badly enough (due to persecution, or because of desire of some grand reforms) to fund a move elsewhere. I bet the first Martian colony will quickly be recognized as a place not controllable by any Earth government, and that will be…

I would imagine that any colony would be dependent on Earth (for survival) for quite a while. I think that it would take a certain level of self-sufficiency in order to reach a point of not being controllable by earth.

Being far away is one thing, but when I look at how powers on Earth exert influence and control over others, it seems you also need to be self-sufficient (protection from blockades, trade embargoes, or other modern "seiges"), and also sufficiently defended/defensible to avoid military threats. Sure, your Martian buildings may be underground, but would they be safe from heavy objects flung at them at high velocity? Seems like it would be easy enough for Earth to "put down" any Martian activities that rubbed people the wrong way for the foreseeable future.

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

#184

Post by vagrantJin »

zanny wrote: post #160
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…

> It's just that it's a very long-term and theoretical value, and at this particular moment in history there are much more pressing concerns. Like blowing up people living in mud huts in deserts going by US economic priorities. A regime largely in place to protect biased trade relations for cheap materials and goods from around the world and more importantly (to those orchestrating the regime) to the line the pockets…

> Like blowing up people living in mud huts in deserts going by US economic priorities. A regime largely in place to protect biased trade relations for cheap materials and goods from around the world and more importantly (to those orchestrating the regime) to the line the pockets of select defense contractors.

Haha. How on earth did they convince US citizens that indeed sending highly trained soldiers each worth their weight in gold to fight a war of attrition in the desert against sons of goat farmers?

At what point did everyone agree and say "this is a brilliant idea Mon general!" and proceed to send their sons to die in the desert?

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

#185

Post by ben_w »

mkaic wrote: post #125
macspoofing wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We can change Mars in large ways. No we can't. The gravity of Mars is always going to be a problem. The lack of magnetic field is always going to be a problem. Most of its atmosphere was lost to space and there is not enough water on the planet to replenish. >we could redirect an icy asteroid to collide, providing water, atmosphere and heat. I read the Mars trilogy too. >On the order of decades from now. Sure.

We could make an artificial magnetic field for it. Beyond current technology but seems like a viable option a hundred years from now. I agree low gravity would be a problem, but life finds a way, right? Current generations of humans wouldn’t do well in 1/4 G, but maybe we’ll see significant adaptations 100 generations down the line! Who knows?

In principle, the cities themselves could have angled bases and be spinning, adding mass-gravity to centrifugal-gravity. I’m not sure if this is actually a good idea (and why would you want to build on a planet if you’re going to live in spin gravity?) but in principle it can be done.

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

#187

Post by dmitriid »

eindiran wrote: post #158
Retric wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self sufficient requires a manufacturing base to include everything needed to sustain it’s self, including redundancies. Going from zero humans on mars to 100’s of millions is a massive bootstrap problem with minimal incentive for the the people involved or the multiple years worth of earth’s GDP to get to that point. It’s like the “self replicating” 3D printers where they can produce 98% of the structure by weight a…

> [Y]ou need to accept [that] everyone on Mars [will] live in relative poverty for generations. I think this point is by far the easiest one to address. Historically, there have always been people willing to do dangerous things (ie exploring the Arctic / Antarctica). I don't think you'd have any trouble finding people willing to give up their Earth lifestyle for a chance to explore the "frontier" even with the knowle…

Those explorers always have the luxury of going back to civilisation after relatively short excursions into the unknown.

I doubt many people are willing to live the entirety of their lives in constant danger and constrained resources. And even fewer of those people will have the skills needed to run a complex technological society (and you will need a lot of technology to survive on Mars).

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

#188

Post by ben_w »

nsxwolf wrote: post #176
staplers wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human climate management shouldn't give anyone hope.

We've demonstrated that we can heat planets up.

Unfortunately what we’ve demonstrated is that we make bad decisions if they’re cheap; that we have heated up the plant is merely because it happened to be the case that fossil fuels could power a population growth from 1 to 8 billion in a century and a half.

The tech is available, it’s the politics that I doubt.

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

#189

Post by jp555 »

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…

Absolutely. Learning to live in the constraints of space help up learn to do everything with less on Earth.

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

#190

Post by bmitc »

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…

> 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

I don't think this is a strong supporting argument because it applies to any major technological development. Anytime you invest people, billions of dollars, etc. into major technological goals, you're going to get advances and spinoffs that have broader applications. Space exploration is already basically a spinoff of military projects, goals, and investing, just like a huge amount of existing and future technology.

> that support a safer, more peaceful world for humans, with improved agricultural efficiencies as well as advanced warning and a better understanding of extreme weather events and climate trends

A citation would be very helpful there in terms of creating a more peaceful world for humans, as I do not think it's so cut and dry. Further, one could argue that exploring the oceans instead of space would be far more beneficial to understanding life, climate, ecosystems, etc. and would have just as much if not more technological spinoffs as sending man to the Moon or Mars.

My personal viewpoint on space exploration is to currently concentrate on drones and robots being sent out to space and to turn the money that would otherwise be invested into manned missions towards understanding the ocean and Earth itself. It's difficult to imagine a more perfect place for sustainable life than Earth, and yet we are not sustaining. That is a big gap and a big goal for humans: sustain life on Earth in a healthy way. If we can't do that on Earth, then I truly do not understand how we'll do it anywhere else.

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