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Mars Is No Earth

theatlantic.com

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Re: Mars Is No Earth

#41

Post by johnjj257 »

qayxc wrote: post #24
elsonrodriguez wrote: post #10

> Someone in his position could do so many things on our little blue dot itself to help those in need. The entire article boils down to this one tired old argument. And in the case of Musk, while Teslas don't help people in need directly, the adoption of electric cars and other electric transportation will help the entire world population by reducing air pollution and climate change. So, whynotboth.jpg.

> the adoption of electric cars and other electric transportation will help the entire world population by reducing air pollution and climate change. This one tired old argument again. While reducing air pollution is a plus (at least in city centres), electric cars are nothing but green washing. If you really are concerned about climate change and pollution, reduce the need for cars and own no car. Abandon Euclidian-…

Rofl wow man you can trash anything must be nice to just shit on geniune development and call it crap.

The issue is the article actually had a tired argument, your broken attempt to reframe electric cars as useless is really bizarre and not fitting at all to the sentiment it just points out how shallow and negative you are being

Re: Mars Is No Earth

#42

Post by billoday »

bwestergard wrote: post #22
fourseventy wrote: post #2

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the de…

This is fantastic rhetoric in the service of a fundamentally anti-intellectual point. Note first that it proves too much. Richard Nixon referenced this speech as he was resigning the presidency after Watergate. Was Nixon the "man in the arena" who deserved praise for "striving valiantly"? He thought so. Not also that it assumes what it is trying to prove: that the critic does not have practical experience, that the c…

In THIS case, a writer for the Atlantic with a bio of "Shannon Stirone is a freelance science writer based in the Bay Area" is criticizing. If we had an expert in planetary exploration doing the criticism, I think it would be a more interesting conversation, even if I feel that conversation would be FAR more nuanced than - "Mars bad. Elon Musk bad." Which is what I read here. If I agree with Elon's vision or not is immaterial - he's executing, I'm not, neither is the author. If I have a better idea, I should do it, or at least get it to a point of doable, then we can discuss if they are mutually exclusive or at cross purposes.

Re: Mars Is No Earth

#43

Post by quantummkv »

bcatanzaro wrote: post #23

I am really sad that so much of our elite media institutions are deeply Luddite. They wear their anti-technology, anti-progress biases like badges of honor. It’s likely a signaling mechanism. The elite doesn’t need technology because they don’t need change. So opposing change signals that things are good for you already. I don’t love Elon Musk but at least he dreams big and has a change-positive attitude. Because I t…

It's not that the elite media institutions are Luddite. It's that a lot of tech people don't give elite media the proper respect it thinks it demands. And that turns into a cycle where media then lashes out with hurt egos, further flaming it, like with this article.

It's clear from reading the article that the real issue in the article is not Mars or Earth or Carl Sagan, it's Elon Musk. Or more specifically, the complete lack of respect Elon publicly gives to elite media.

Re: Mars Is No Earth

#44

Post by iab »

vagrantJin wrote: post #20
iab wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extra-planetary colonization is so far-fetched given our impending climate crisis. We will struggle to adapt to the oncoming environmental changes in a planet that we have completely adapted do. The thought that leaving this custom bubble for one that is actively hostile, and thriving there, is a grand delusion. I admire the explorative & scientific nature of space missions, but I am also pro-reality.

Can you imagine going back 500 years and telling the Kings of the world in their courts - with a straight face- that man in the future will send humans to the moon. And he will get there, take pictures, ride around a moon buggy, and come back safe and sound. Not only will you be drawn and quartered for blaspheming, some might just kill you out of pity. The poor mad thing. Today a 7 year old can say that with as much…

I think the issue is that we face truly existential environmental crises in the near-to-mid term, which has not been the predominant cause of strife for our history thus far (world wars, the thread of nuclear exchanges, etc.). So it is hard to say it is impossible, but it is even harder to say that it will be achievable.

Re: Mars Is No Earth

#45

Post by jerf »

Valgrim wrote: post #15
netsec_burn wrote: post #4

Yet? It seems the writer is debating a view that Elon doesn't have. His goal is to begin the process of making Mars habitable, I'm not aware of anyone with the position that Mars is currently as nice as Earth. Terraforming Mars is a long term vision and not one we'll see in our lifetimes. If we don't take steps towards achieving that goal then of course it will always seem lofty. Martian greenhouses may sooner emulat…

Personally, I'd like to see his enthusiasm more focused toward space megastructures, such as O'Neill Cylinders and Dyson Swarms. It seems to me that humanity would benefit a lot more from mastering industrial-scale manufacturing and construction in space than sticking ourselves in another large gravity well.

Economically, I consider this inevitable personally. The very tech you need to get to Mars with anything significant is this tech, and for quite a while, there's going to be more of this stuff in orbit than anyone on Mars.

Plus there's a non-trivial overlap with what you need for a self-sustaining Mars. We know we can build a functioning supply chain on a planet rich in resources; the real technological question remaining is, can we build a functioning supply chain out of nothing but energy and the requisite atoms not already preconfigured in desirable molecules?

BioSphere was interesting and all, and this Mars shot is interesting, but if we really want this kind of technology, what we really need to do is to build ourselves a base in Antarctica, with the goal of producing a base that can build a duplicate of itself with no additional outside resources other than what the base itself can scrounge from the environment. (With possibly a couple of carefully selected exceptions; we might spot them some yellowcake or something.) Or to build a base, whose goal it is to build a base, that can then duplicate itself without the first base. Once you have that tech stack, you'd have a pretty good idea what you need to do to start building self-sustaining space presence.

The problem is, it's intrinsically impossible for such a base to compete economically on Earth with the other entities using the local abundance of resources. It has to be a deliberate project.

If I were a billionaire targeting human survivability in the long term, this is actually what I'd be doing right now, not reaching for Mars. Once you have this in hand, you'd have something you could actually send to Mars and have some hope of it surviving.

(This gets you a good 80%+ of the way to super-long-term sustainability on its own terms; anything short of an extra-large planetary impact event would in principle be survivable by such a facility. Lifting it into space later would almost just be the icing on the cake.)

Re: Mars Is No Earth

#46

Post by erispoe »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #3

The myth of a wonderful terraformed Mars must be pushed as part of capitalist technosaviourism. If we recklessly consume Earth into dust that's actually ok because technology can save us as we simply load into rocket ships for a new life on the offworld colonies. If we accept the notion that actually there's only one Earth, that we already live on a paradise planet and that we must protect what we have then going han…

We only have one earth but there are trillions of planets. Both are true at the same time.

Re: Mars Is No Earth

#47

Post by iab »

c22 wrote: post #27
iab wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extra-planetary colonization is so far-fetched given our impending climate crisis. We will struggle to adapt to the oncoming environmental changes in a planet that we have completely adapted do. The thought that leaving this custom bubble for one that is actively hostile, and thriving there, is a grand delusion. I admire the explorative & scientific nature of space missions, but I am also pro-reality.

I suspect the life-support technologies developed in the pursuit of Mars colonization will be extremely useful tools in the earthbound struggle for survival whether or not such colonies are actually successful.

Great point.

Re: Mars Is No Earth

#48

Post by apocalypstyx »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #26
staticman2 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your genes might compel you to try to leave the planet and keep mating after our sun dies, but our species will inevitably be dead once entropy kicks in at the heat death of the universe. Ultimately we are going to go extinct and there is no point to the colonization scheme other than delusions of grandeur.

By this logic, there's no point to anything.

There is either existential nihilism or there is God. And God may be the more horrific of the two. (Or the unknown unknown third option may yet still be worse, who knows? The calculation of it being better just leads back to God, so the construction collapses back into two poles.)

Re: Mars Is No Earth

#49

Post by narrator »

bcatanzaro wrote: post #23

I am really sad that so much of our elite media institutions are deeply Luddite. They wear their anti-technology, anti-progress biases like badges of honor. It’s likely a signaling mechanism. The elite doesn’t need technology because they don’t need change. So opposing change signals that things are good for you already. I don’t love Elon Musk but at least he dreams big and has a change-positive attitude. Because I t…

All the elite needs is fewer people taking up resources. Otherwise, everything is perfect for them. The status quo could last from now to eternity. This is kind of how the Egyptian civilization worked. They went 2000 years without a lot of change. Just an endless "sustainable" cycle.

I like the comparison between the Canaanite religion and Judaism. The elites are Canaanites and dealt with their not being enough for everyone by having the lower classes sacrifice their children to Mammon. This is the equivalent of the endless complaining about useless eaters and overpopulation by extremely wealthy people.

The Jews, and the rest of the Abrahamic religions on the other hand, let the people who properly prepared survive (e.g Noah), with a few carveouts, such as the gleanings for those that didn't. The king could never take your property without just compensation. The priest could never ask you to sacrifice your children. This individualistic struggle to survive is what culturally has led to the huge technological innovations in the west.

Re: Mars Is No Earth

#50

Post by lom888 »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #26
staticman2 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your genes might compel you to try to leave the planet and keep mating after our sun dies, but our species will inevitably be dead once entropy kicks in at the heat death of the universe. Ultimately we are going to go extinct and there is no point to the colonization scheme other than delusions of grandeur.

By this logic, there's no point to anything.

The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart.
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