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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

#191

Post by brundolf »

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…

Those people still had free access to water, oxygen, sunlight that would warm and illuminate but not incinerate, Earth-strength gravity, shielding from astral radiation, a self-sustaining ecology of animals and microbes, self-circulating air replenished and cross-pollenated from other parts of the globe. I would even argue that psychological foundations like a horizon, and a sky above, and space that one can roam with one's own two feet, are essential to human thriving.

There are so many things we take for granted that probably don't exist, exactly this way, anywhere else in the universe.

We could probably satisfy our basic survival needs on a planet like Mars. We could make water, and nutrients, and oxygen, and shield ourselves from radiation. But it would mean living inside a box, possibly underground, forever, in constant precarity because if our artificial biomes ever have problems, we're out of luck. We can't fall back to nature; there is no nature. The world outside doesn't have a life of its own, it's fully dead. Even the very most optimistic version of this scenario is a bleak shadow of the life that can be lived on Earth.

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

#192

Post by mchusma »

Bedon292 wrote: post #181
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…

22B / 4,800B in spend = about 0.5%. math checks out. Hard to argue we are prioritizing space that much.

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

#193

Post by gumby »

Never send a human to do a robot's job. If you want more space exploration (and I do) then pour more work into robots.

Humans carry an ocean around with them everywhere (in their veins) in order to function, and in space need to drag a bunch of atmosphere and gravity with them (well, muscle machines). That should be the special case, not the general one.

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

#194

Post by CryptoPunk »

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…

>>A lot of unreasonably rich people are unreasonably obsessed with space, but thats largely because they are sociopaths. Thats how they got rich in the first place, or were born to such extreme luxury they are psychologically impaired to be unable to relate to anyone outside their class meaningfully. So they go full scifi because they don't think the world we have with all its problems not so easily solved by throwing money at them (that isn't for their own immediate personal gain) is worth it.

Or they think that expanding the amount of clean energy available to humanity a million fold - which a significant space economy would make possible - would do more to elevate the quality of life humanity enjoys than any other endeavor.

This hyper-cynical outlook, where you assume a focus on pushing the technological boundaries to make more of the universe accessible to humanity is motivated by sociopathic priorities, is toxic and totally inconsiderate of the goodwilled individuals it maligns.

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

#195

Post by worik »

The point of the article is that space exploration is a spectacle to distract people from hard problems. It is not about whether space colonisation is possible.

Perhaps it is possible, perhaps not. Who cares? The Earth is dying, humans are responsible, stop it with being distracted!

Surely it is time that we started to deal with the existential hard problems and stop the "pie in the sky"?

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

#196

Post by pjmorris »

save_ferris wrote: post #12
GenerocUsername wrote: post #3

I've seen more anti-space rhetoric in the last few weeks than ever before in my life. What gives? Great advancements have cost. That doesn't make them not worth doing

It's not that great advancements have cost. The argument is that focusing on space exploration deflects from facing the realities of climate change on our planet. If people start to think that space exploration could yield a solution to an increasingly uninhabitable climate on Earth, it could create a scenario where we spend even more on space exploration and less on addressing Earth's climate.

Why do you see climate change and space exploration as orthogonal? It would seem to me that moving energy-intensive processes off the planet surface might ease the climate burden.

In the early 70's, physicist Gerard K. O'Neil asked the question "Is the surface of a planet really the right place for an expanding technological civilization?" [0]

You would seem to answer this question with 'Yes.' Why?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_K._O%27Neill

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

#197

Post by defterGoose »

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 don't know

You certainly don't. You have a serious misunderstanding of the sheer scale involved in space travel. Its great to think that an individual will be able to pack up their space car in 200 years and move on out west to mars or something, but there literally wont be anything to do but crash land once you get there, or maybe if you're lucky, walk around for a few hours before suffocating.

Im not saying it's not possible to colonize another planet, but I am saying that disintermediated space travel in the sense of a Heinlein novel is overwhelmingly a pipe dream.

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

#198

Post by ogre_codes »

save_ferris wrote: post #12
GenerocUsername wrote: post #3

I've seen more anti-space rhetoric in the last few weeks than ever before in my life. What gives? Great advancements have cost. That doesn't make them not worth doing

It's not that great advancements have cost. The argument is that focusing on space exploration deflects from facing the realities of climate change on our planet. If people start to think that space exploration could yield a solution to an increasingly uninhabitable climate on Earth, it could create a scenario where we spend even more on space exploration and less on addressing Earth's climate.

> The argument is that focusing on space exploration deflects from facing the realities of climate change on our planet.

In order to make this argument, you have to first figure out what percentage of NASA's budget is spent on space exploration versus things like GPS systems, weather satellites, climate monitoring, solar monitoring, physics experiments, etc etc, which have direct or indirect benefits to things happening here on earth.

NASA's budget for entire actual space exploration would be more-or-less a rounding error on our defense budget which routinely has $5b projects which benefits very few people and arguably makes the quality of life worse on our planet.

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

#199

Post by bmitc »

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?

> We could make an artificial magnetic field for it. Beyond current technology but seems like a viable option a hundred years from now.

How? Because to me, that seems extremely far-fetched. My understanding as to why Earth has a magnetic field and why Mars does not (or has a weak one) is that Earth has a highly dynamic molten core surrounding a solid inner core, whereas Mars only has a molten core with not as much activity. It is my understanding that Earth's geodynamo plus its rotation helps create the magnetic field that protects our atmosphere.

So unless humans are able to alter planets in such...planetary ways, then I don't see how we'll suddenly be able to give Mars a sustainable magnetic field.

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

#200

Post by ogre_codes »

worik wrote: post #195

The point of the article is that space exploration is a spectacle to distract people from hard problems. It is not about whether space colonisation is possible. Perhaps it is possible, perhaps not. Who cares? The Earth is dying, humans are responsible, stop it with being distracted! Surely it is time that we started to deal with the existential hard problems and stop the "pie in the sky"?

I don't see these two ideas being remotely related. The world is filled with distractions, space exploration is way down the list in terms of money and time spent by individuals. I don't see anyone suggesting we should focus on space exploration instead of fighting climate change.
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