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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

#311

Post by ergl »

tehchromic wrote: post #140

I can appreciate that no one wants to hear cautionary words about our loftiest ambitions. However, I believe it's worth reflecting carefully on the topic. One way to look at the dream of escaping the planet and colonizing space is in mythological terms. One comparison in particular is good and this is the idea of the afterlife or heaven which for centuries were as real and attainable as a Mars colony to you and I. Fo…

I think the article is both too simplistic and too outside HN's regular ideas regarding space, science and progress, which makes it easy to see how it was received as it was.

As you say, there's a much more nuanced way of explaining the parallels between space colonization and mythology. Another common trope you can read in these discussions is the "myth of limitlessness":

In this way, modern technology conveys an ideology of limitlessness by offering itself as a way of overcoming all manner of limits, chiefly those that arise out of our being situated in the world as embodied creatures. But cultural and moral boundaries also yield to modern technology. At every turn, we tend to choose the tools, devices, and techniques that allow us to act beyond or irrespective of the limitations of place and time that have historically conditioned the texture of human existence. At the far end of this tendency we encounter the transhumanist disdain for the human body, otherwise and unaffectionately designated our meat sacks.

– https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/the-convivial-soc...

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

#313

Post by bryanlarsen »

Balgair wrote: post #293
aftbit wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe that will be MAD for the 23rd century - you blow up our habitats, we'll drop rocks on your cities.

It may be a bit more like the Triangle Trades of old [0]. Raw/rare materials and elements are mined in the Belt and are then sent to Earth for use in manufacture. You pick up the high quality goods and tools from Earth and ship them to Mars/Moon. Since there is water on Mars/Moon, you grow food, 'wet' supplies, and unfinished goods in the weaker gravity well for shipment to the Belt. These arrive in the Belt and you…

There are no known commodity items that can be profitably mined in space.[0]

There will almost certainly be stuff like gold and rare metals shipped from a Mars colony to Earth, but only because returning the ships from Mars makes vital resupply easier. From a total system perspective it'd be better to keep the ship on Mars and scavenge it, but Mars will be on such an economic imbalance that they will want to make it easy as possible for Earth to resupply them. And if you're going to return the ships anyways, you might as well put something in them.

The diagram at the top of [1] is a good illustration of import vs make in situ vs export.

[0] https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/08/27/there-are-no-k...

[1] https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2020/08/23/progression-of...

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

#314

Post by heresie-dabord »

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…

> You'd have to be ideologically possessed or completely ignorant of reality to believe this anti-space bs.

I think you have just offered a good reason why homo sapiens is a threat to other worlds. (o:

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

#315

Post by zekrioca »

diab0lic wrote: post #103
zekrioca wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were people living in the Americas before your ancestors arrived there.

> or even left Africa. I think it's pretty clear the parent post is talking about the first people to migrate to the Americas.

noun: colonization; plural noun: colonizations; noun: colonisation; plural noun: colonisations

- the action or process of settling among and establishing control over the indigenous people of an area.

- the action of appropriating a place or domain for one's own use.

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

#316

Post by UnFleshedOne »

gmuslera wrote: post #72
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

Space exploration and research is necessary for our long term survival (1000+ years) as species, provided that us and our civilization survives short term threats like global warming and ecosystems destruction. Space exploration is not a fix for local and urgent problems, nor is a contingency plan. That is an idea that should be eradicated. Something that may blow off, at least partially, this century, can't wait the…

Exactly, and if we do the research and tech development at a reasonable pace, it might be ready when it _is_ needed for an urgent problem.

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

#317

Post by JoeAltmaier »

aeturnum wrote: post #113
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I mean, that's true! Your scenario also places our investment in learning how to live in space in the past. If we're already living in space then, of course, investing in learning how to live in space worked out! This is what I was saying at the end about investing resources we have now into futures we may never see. If you argue from the point of view that projects will always work out as you imagine they will, then…

That's a pretty negative view - never try anything that isn't sure to work out? Am I understand the argument properly? We'd still all be living in Europe (or Africa!) if that was the way folks always decided.

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

#318

Post by aeturnum »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #317
aeturnum wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, that's true! Your scenario also places our investment in learning how to live in space in the past. If we're already living in space then, of course, investing in learning how to live in space worked out! This is what I was saying at the end about investing resources we have now into futures we may never see. If you argue from the point of view that projects will always work out as you imagine they will, then…

That's a pretty negative view - never try anything that isn't sure to work out? Am I understand the argument properly? We'd still all be living in Europe (or Africa!) if that was the way folks always decided.

Again, I am pro space exploration.

It's about how we understand resource expenditures. Spending resources to research how to improve crop yields cannot replace food production. You have to invest resources to feed everyone with current technology, then spend surpluses on researching improvements.

We should explore space, but we shouldn't expect exploring space to solve our current problems.

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

#319

Post by Beached »

jodrellblank wrote: post #169
Udik wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can read as what you want, when people arrived to the Americas, the continents were covered in lush vegetation and had plenty of water, food and space. When we'll arrive to the only planet in reach where it is even vaguely conceivable to survive for more than a couple of hours, we'll find a freezing desert with high radiation levels and no air where every cubic centimetre of living space will need to be created f…

Not only that, but Mars is smaller than the Earth. Even best case for teraforming all of it into paradise and shipping half the world's population there gives ~one more population doubling time to being "full" again. Planets are not an efficient way to make surface living space with all that matter inside them. Whatever you think of the difficulty or possibility of it, it will be easier to work out how to support 2x…

but the rewards of colonizing space are so much greater too. Imagine making gold so cheap and valueless that we now use it for consumer electronics, wiring, etc. smaller, more efficient devices, less energy loss, etc would change the world.

structural metals harvested from not earth means environmental destruction from mining would not only be unnecessary, but fiscally stupid, in orbit construction could build an equivalent loving space as your floating cities, and more, and provide theoretical backups to humanity.

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

#320

Post by jodrellblank »

aeternum wrote: post #298
Udik wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mars is the size (surface) of the Pacific Ocean. And infinitely less habitable than the Pacific. We could settle a few billion people in entirely self-sufficient and zero-impact communities floating on the Pacific and it would be absolutely cheap and straightforward compared to doing the same on Mars.

Yet it will take only a single asteroid, massive volcanic eruption, or giant H-bomb explosion to render the planet inhospitable to all those billions of people. The risk of staying on a single planet is crazy.

Not all of them. Nuclear fallout shelters exist. A Mars base is like that, but it needs flying to Mars and landing from orbit and constructing in a spacesuit with almost no local materials and no supply chain and few people, and you can't come back when the dust settles, and that makes it orders of magnitude more expensive and difficult.

> The risk of staying on a single planet is crazy.

Unless you plan to clone yourself, you are staying on a single planet whatever happens. If you think disaster is coming any time soon, you'd save more people trying to avert or survive it on Earth. To prioritise saving a, what, 50 person research base on Mars that doesn't exist yet over billions of people who exist right now on Earth by spending your resources on a research base on Mars instead of an asteroid detection and diversion system for Earth is crazy.

If your priority was saving the most people, Mars wouldn't be on the list. Orbital space stations are closer. The Moon is closer. Under-ocean habitats are closer. Underground habitats are closer. Self-contained arcologies are closer. (Wearing a mask is closer).

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