It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth • Hacker News Board

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

#321

Post by jodrellblank » Sun, Nov 01, 2020, 12:59 AM UTC

Beached wrote: post #319

jodrellblank wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 equ…

There's a huge difference between sending a robot probe or small dedicated mining crew with hazard pay to an asteroid and dragging/slinging chunks of precious metals sunward, and making a self-sustaining colony on Mars.

Like the difference between building an offshore oil-rig (happens a lot) and building a self-sustaining colony on the ocean (never happens), only much moreso.

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

#322

Post by orenweisfeld » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 7:56 PM UTC

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…

Hi John, Thanks for your comment. I tried to specify that I was talking about space exploration for the purposes of finding life/inhabiting planets. This is the thing I dont think we should be spending resources on.

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

#323

Post by orenweisfeld » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 7:59 PM UTC

jschwartzi wrote: post #117

ButWhatFor wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to say this - this has been the difficulty with things like science and research since the dawn of time... you study one thing and then hopefully if you have a lot of people studying multiple things one hugely amazing thing eventually falls out when one person gets lucky. It leads to a very delayed gratification despite very real near term costs. So it’s easy to attack the costs and focus and prioritization…

It's also a tool to pacify people with empty promises of a better future. The way that it's being used as a distant future utopia is like the way promises of Heaven are used in Abrahamic religions to convince people to suffer in the here and now. A lot of people would choose to suffer some now in order to go to some peaceful space colony where they don't have to live with any of the consequences for our biosphere. Th…

Agreed!

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

#324

Post by orenweisfeld » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 8:03 PM UTC

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

#325

Post by johnmorrison » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 10:47 PM UTC

orenweisfeld wrote: post #322

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…

Hi John, Thanks for your comment. I tried to specify that I was talking about space exploration for the purposes of finding life/inhabiting planets. This is the thing I dont think we should be spending resources on.

Hey Oren,

I appreciate your civil clarification, however, I still honestly don't see a reasonable path to your view.

If we find extraterrestrial life, this poses perhaps the greatest opportunity we've ever had to learn more about the limits and fundamentals of life on Earth, as we will finally have a sample size of more than one rise of life in multiple environments.

If we learn to inhabit other planets or moons, this requires perhaps the greatest project in engineering across many specializations ever attempted, constraining us to stricter boundaries than we face on Earth, and thereby inevitably teaching us a lot more about improving life on Earth.

If you can play football against the pros, you can definitely play it against amateurs. Training in the NFL doesn't take away from your ability to play at home, it improves it.