The industrial revolution and the technological progress that followed it were driven and accelerated by the opening of new frontiers, mainly in the Americas (admittedly at terrible cost to those peoples already there or those brought against their will). The same holds here: true major progress will only occur when driven by external imperatives and incentives. Restriction will bring decay and eventual collapse. Expanding into space will provide first world prosperity to all peoples on Earth while also protecting the irreplaceable biosphere.
It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth
301–310 of 325 posts
Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth
#302Earlier 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…
you're moving the goalpost from self sufficient to 100 millions humans, and the two are very lightly correlated. beside, earth manufacturing is biased toward efficiency and low cost, with the driver of capital gain, not sustainability, you don't actually need lcd if crt are good enough and could be manufactured in situ. sure it won't make for a good nor a pleasant standard of living, but then again, that's moving the…
If the standard of living is bad enough people will simply fail to immigrate. You need not just young men seeking adventure, but educated and talented people willing to have a family there across long timeframes as infrastructure is slowly built up.
The US for example is below replacement rate, which is fine if you has constant immigration or it’s going to increase as the population falls. Less so if having 10% fewer people means everyone else dies.
Technology is only half the battle you also need to avoid negative feedback loops where if conditions are bad enough you don’t get doctors and surgeons immigrants. Which then makes things worse. A few year shift is fine for a token settlement, less so if you’re shipping 100,000 people there and 100,000 people back every year.
Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then let's do both, and not just space exploration.
Do you honestly think people are focusing more on exploration than other things? We already do both.
Globally, no. In certain spheres (some influential), yes. And while I realize that my comment is (intentionally) pushing it a bit, I do think that when you look at the urgency of space exploration and climate issues that, per unit of urgency, space exploration is getting far more attention than climate issues.
Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
Space exploration has already created many significant benefits for humanity on Earth, by advancing hundreds of new technologies with terrestrial applications Velcro! Tang! Teflon! Computers! NASA PR used to make a big thing of that. But those things didn't come from NASA's space program. The ISS was a huge disappointment. It's the best argument for not putting people in space. Hugely expensive, and not very useful.
Literally every new car sold today uses plasma coatings to extend the lifetime of the rotating assembly and efficiency of the combustion facing components. Every commercial airliner turbine uses this technology, not to mention GPS, communication and weather satellites... https://spinoff.nasa.gov/spinoff2000/ip9.htm https://spinoff.nasa.gov Yeah, that was another NASA spi
Plasma coat spraying predates the space era, though it was rapidly refined in the 1950s for aerospace use.
Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth
#305The blog title doesn't fit the content. Were it changed to "it's dangerous to think humans will leave earth" it would be more fitting and at the same time less divisive (and less wrong, in my view).
Arguments in these comments are great defenders of space exploration in the now, but even in the distant future we should realise that a destiny among the stars and space travel doesn't mean leaving earth behind.
Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's because of the recent RNC tweet[0] with a list of some of Trump's priorities for the next term, and the firs two listed were a permanent presence on the moon and sending a manned mission to Mars. It did not mention the pandemic. Most people who already considered these were a waste of resources probably didn't bother talking about it much. Now they are, because they have a clear rallying point to shout about. I'…
This is the nature of political strategy. The pandemic is a really hard thing for the current administration to spin, so they're probably better off talking about "hopes and dreams" types of things. They're trying as hard as possible to look good right now in order to get reelected.
Or you could consider that whilst this global pandemic hasn't been particularly lethal or existence-threatening, the next one might be. And having off-site backup for humanity is wise in that context.
Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth
#307I'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
>I've seen more anti-space rhetoric in the last few weeks than ever before in my life. What gives?
Who would benefit from English-language anti-space rhetoric?
Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The politics of terraforming a barren plant to make more suitable for colonization is going to be different from that of our home world.
Of course. My concern is: will the politics remain aligned in the long term with keeping it habitable after it’s been terraformed?
Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth
#309My argument for colonizing other worlds has nothing to do with finding a "new utopia" and everything to do with not having all of our eggs in one basket. Earth is going to get annihilated at some point. It would be nice if our species didn't go with it.
“It would be nice if our species didn’t go with it?” On a semi-facetious note, why would it be nice? If the species did the annihilation, isn’t that just good galactic hygiene? Or perhaps humans are just a beta version of a dodgy app. It goes down the “why is there something rather than nothing” rabbit hole, but the post started it...
Call it an intrinsic loyalty to my species.
Or, more charitably in the case of humanity actually ending Earth, further opportunity for learning. Even if it's because of humanity that Earth ceases to be a viable life-bearing world, if our species learns from that and doesn't do it again, then what's one planet in the grand scheme of things?
Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the nature of political strategy. The pandemic is a really hard thing for the current administration to spin, so they're probably better off talking about "hopes and dreams" types of things. They're trying as hard as possible to look good right now in order to get reelected.
Or you could consider that whilst this global pandemic hasn't been particularly lethal or existence-threatening, the next one might be. And having off-site backup for humanity is wise in that context.
We as a society can’t even agree to guarantee basic fundamentals needed to live in the US. Flint, MI still has tainted water, millions are unemployed, homelessness is rising and some are starving.
We can’t take care of our people on this planet, what makes you think everyone, or even most people, would be the ones chosen to be on the ships headed for a new life? Just look at what billionaires spend on private doomsday shelters, you think they’re willing to accommodate the masses? Migration from Earth under those circumstances would look a whole lot like the Titanic tragedy: life boats for the rich and powerful and certain death for everyone else.