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Last Flight Out

brr.fyi

171–180 of 322 posts

Re: Last Flight Out

#171
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the protocol for deciding under what circumstances the first human will be born and raised off-earth This one's easy. We won't have one when it happens. > predict that will turn out to be an intractable problem In what ways?

Goodness, where to even begin? Maybe here... https://www.wired.com/2009/08/spacebabies/ We've never even successfully raised a mouse in space.

Oh, you're talking about extraterrestrial reproduction being intractable. Sure. I have no view on this scientifically. That won't stop people from trying. And I'd assume there's a massive difference between zero g and 0.4g.

Re: Last Flight Out

#172
post #100

As someone who has lived rather isolated for long stretches, I think the one thing that helps fight feeling isolated is to find your joy and practice it. My joy is in creative outlets. When I'm alone, I sing, woodwork, cook new recipes, garden [indoors or out], sew. If I had a large indoor space I'd probably practice slacklining, aerial arts, tumbling, parkour, climbing. And then there's the computer, where I can cre…

Or, instead of all that. You can spend your entire summer at the south pole playing a single game of Factorio.

the joke's lost on me? I know the game (never played it, though) but why "a single game"?

Re: Last Flight Out

#173
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how difficult and fraught it is to keep a few people alive down there, how does anyone expect to keep a few people alive on Mars, let alone build a colony there? Necessity is the mother of invention. It makes no sense to use precious Antarctic time and space growing all the food when it's cheaper to ship it in. Similar to how civilizations with a history of littoral shipbuilding figured out ocean-faring--if you're…

Let me pose a different question. If the purpose of Mars is being a lifeboat for some life-ending disaster on Earth, why doesn't that group of people go and build a self-sufficient colony in the Antarctic? It'll get you 90% of the way there for way less than 10% of the effort. Necessity is the mother of invention, and nobody is doing it because it's not actually necessary. Martian colonisation is more of a religion,…

> the purpose of Mars is being a lifeboat for some life-ending disaster on Earth, why doesn't that group of people go and build a self-sufficient colony in the Antarctic?

There are various reasons for wanting to go to Mars. I don't think most people's primary motivation is species-level survival.

Re: Last Flight Out

#174
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> absence of self-sustaining colonies in harsh outposts on the earth (and similar absence of more local positive terraforming projects) indicate limits in how serious anyone is about colonizing Mars This is a stronger argument. I agree. I think there is serious interest in establishing permanent facilities on Mars. But a self-sufficient, self-sustaining population isn't being planned on because there are too many unk…

Something I've never even seen mentioned , let along seriously discussed, is the protocol for deciding under what circumstances the first human will be born and raised off-earth. I predict that will turn out to be an intractable problem.

When a female crew member gets nutted in on the two year long journey to mars...

I give it like a day before they're all having sex.

Re: Last Flight Out

#175
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Goodness, where to even begin? Maybe here... https://www.wired.com/2009/08/spacebabies/ We've never even successfully raised a mouse in space.

Oh, you're talking about extraterrestrial reproduction being intractable. Sure. I have no view on this scientifically. That won't stop people from trying. And I'd assume there's a massive difference between zero g and 0.4g.

Maybe. We have zero data about this.

Re: Last Flight Out

#176
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beautiful, thanks for sharing. That penguin walked to his certain death, while his mates swam and caught fish, to their certain death. Sadness for it and his supposed insanity only exists for a fleeting moment. In a long enough timespan, it lived and died like any other penguin has or ever will. Nihilism is not necessarily pessimistic. It presents our universe, and life itself, as a glass half full, but it's up to yo…

at least for most of us it is not pessimistic only as long as one can muse about it while sitting comfortably in a warm place with a full stomach.

You are mistaken. Being at peace with the universe isn't only available to wealthy people. This is a very materialistic view.

There is someone out there in abject poverty that is more content than anyone with a warm place and a full stomach. They are hungry, they are cold, yet they are at peace.

Likewise, I believe one can reach inner contentment even if fed and clothed. It is not a path accessible only to the poor.

Re: Last Flight Out

#177

> Our water comes from a “Rodwell”, which is basically a big hole in the ground. TIL some people call a borewell a "rodwell"

not quite a borewell. short for rodriguez. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodriguez_well https://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/rodwell/rodwell.html

Re: Last Flight Out

#178
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a decent opportunity to use a nuclear reactor .. something like what you would find on a submarine.

We already tried that 60 years ago in Greenland, it didn’t end well. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Iceworm

That didn’t fail because of the nuclear reactor, it failed because the ice sheet movement deformed the tunnels over time and collapsed ceilings. Nothing to do with the feasibility of sitting a portable nuclear reactor on top of the ice like the settlements in Antarctica.

Re: Last Flight Out

#179
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently not great if you're a woman: https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/as-antarctic-fieldwo...

[flagged]

Just to recap your argument:

> We enforce the rules in our society because we can afford to. In the Antarctic winter where resources are incredibly scarce and the people are trapped for months a time, their local society can’t afford to have such strict standards. The animal within each of us comes out in Antarctica more than anywhere else. This is of course part of what makes living there so exciting on an elemental level.

And your point brought home:

> Because in those conditions it’s not wrong, it’s adaptive.

You have to be a pretty ignorant person to think "I don't have many resources, so sexual harassment and violence is not only normal, it's a good idea".

Other human societies around the world live in conditions close to those at McMurdo, and they do not have this problem. But amazingly, McMurdo is better equipped with more supplies, with the same seasonal inaccessibility as those other societies. So your argument is factually incorrect. Limited resources and an extreme environment does not implicitly result in a culture of sexual harassment and violence.

Nor it is "adaptive" in any advantageous way. It is much more likely a result of psychological breakdown, combined with a lack of social consequence, and a position of power over trainees who do not anticipate this treatment. Basically, psychos who can't deal with stress and take it out on the most vulnerable to make themselves feel better. In no way does this reflect human society, nor normal human behavior, as even in hunter-gatherer societies, people work together and prevent abuse.

You also have to be pretty morally bankrupt to suggest that this condition of abusing other humans for fun is totally fine. I don't think you would hold this position if you were the one receiving the treatment.

Re: Last Flight Out

#180
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me pose a different question. If the purpose of Mars is being a lifeboat for some life-ending disaster on Earth, why doesn't that group of people go and build a self-sufficient colony in the Antarctic? It'll get you 90% of the way there for way less than 10% of the effort. Necessity is the mother of invention, and nobody is doing it because it's not actually necessary. Martian colonisation is more of a religion,…

> the purpose of Mars is being a lifeboat for some life-ending disaster on Earth, why doesn't that group of people go and build a self-sufficient colony in the Antarctic? There are various reasons for wanting to go to Mars. I don't think most people's primary motivation is species-level survival.

Like what? A research outpost?

You have to get into a knife fight with your peers to get a grad student who works for ramen on your lab's funding proposal, you're not going to get the amortized cost of a real lab on Mars approved. For that money, there's a thousand languishing research proposals that we should be looking into instead.

There are no economic reasons to go there, either. It's too far away, it's too dangerous, and shipping anything is too much work.

There are no military reasons to go there, either. The military is happy to put weapons in orbit, but Mars is too far away.

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