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Bury me on the moon, preferably on the far side

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Bury me on the moon, preferably on the far side

#41

Post by [deleted] »

olddustytrail wrote: post #35
WalterBright wrote: post #12

> so why not agree to leave it unmarred by any obvious act of humanity, forevermore? How some people hate humanity. Personally, I'd love to see the lights from a lunar colony on the moon. This reminds me of the people who don't want to "pollute" Mars. Sheesh, it's a dead rock. There is no environment to pollute. It could desperately use people on it, just like the moon. The solar system is ours, and we can and should…

You have no idea whether Mars is a dead rock or not. Even if it now is, you have no idea whether it used to be alive or not. So no, we shouldn't just dump random crap on Mars based on your ignorance.

[deleted]

Re: Bury me on the moon, preferably on the far side

#42

Post by goatlover »

vacuity wrote: post #17
WalterBright wrote: post #12

> so why not agree to leave it unmarred by any obvious act of humanity, forevermore? How some people hate humanity. Personally, I'd love to see the lights from a lunar colony on the moon. This reminds me of the people who don't want to "pollute" Mars. Sheesh, it's a dead rock. There is no environment to pollute. It could desperately use people on it, just like the moon. The solar system is ours, and we can and should…

Is it an act of hatred to say that humans shouldn't expend huge amounts of effort and energy to try to populate Mars so that humans can escape the very human act of polluting the Earth? When this human pollution kills millions a year and plenty of other organisms? Is it a celebration of humanity to continue buying chocolate or clothing or rugs, even if they are clearly the result of exploited or downright slave labor…

Doubt MLK Jr had much to say about Mars colonization. Why would he be opposed to it as long as Martian settlers were treating each other equally?

I don't like the view that we shouldn't go to space as long as there are problems on Earth to fix. There are always problems to fix. It's an excuse to never explore space. There's no reason that going to Mars would prevent addressing pollution on Earth. I don't even see how they're related. If anything, trying to live on Mars would probably help us deal with climate change on Earth.

Re: Bury me on the moon, preferably on the far side

#43

Post by giraffe_lady »

WalterBright wrote: post #12

> so why not agree to leave it unmarred by any obvious act of humanity, forevermore? How some people hate humanity. Personally, I'd love to see the lights from a lunar colony on the moon. This reminds me of the people who don't want to "pollute" Mars. Sheesh, it's a dead rock. There is no environment to pollute. It could desperately use people on it, just like the moon. The solar system is ours, and we can and should…

Manifest destiny but with secular scientism this time.

Re: Bury me on the moon, preferably on the far side

#44

Post by goatlover »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #21
WalterBright wrote: post #12

> so why not agree to leave it unmarred by any obvious act of humanity, forevermore? How some people hate humanity. Personally, I'd love to see the lights from a lunar colony on the moon. This reminds me of the people who don't want to "pollute" Mars. Sheesh, it's a dead rock. There is no environment to pollute. It could desperately use people on it, just like the moon. The solar system is ours, and we can and should…

> it's a dead rock. There is no environment to pollute I used to share this view until I read Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars . There is aesthetic value to preserving Mars in its pristine form, within reason, if only so future generations can enjoy it. That doesn't mean full space NIMBY, as this article suggets. But it does argue against being cavalier about an alien landscape simply because it's lifeless.

Would future generations enjoy pristine Mars or colonized Mars more? In the trilogy, Mars does get converted to a blue planet people can live out in the open on just like Earth. Wouldn't that be more enjoyable? Seems like it is for most people in the book. The pristine Mars defenders are considered radicals who lose out.

The only constant in life is change. The future will be different. If Mars is worth colonizing, we'll colonize it.

Re: Bury me on the moon, preferably on the far side

#45

Post by itishappy »

WalterBright wrote: post #12

> so why not agree to leave it unmarred by any obvious act of humanity, forevermore? How some people hate humanity. Personally, I'd love to see the lights from a lunar colony on the moon. This reminds me of the people who don't want to "pollute" Mars. Sheesh, it's a dead rock. There is no environment to pollute. It could desperately use people on it, just like the moon. The solar system is ours, and we can and should…

I personally think it would be amazing to visit the stars, but I'm also disappointed that human development currently makes it hard to even see them. My children will be unable to view the Milky Way with their eyes like I have. Is it "hating humanity" to mourn this loss a little, to want to preserve something like it for future generations?

It feels a bit like natural parks to me. Of course they contain resources! We can tear all the trees out and strip mine the land, but I'm glad we don't! They're pretty in ways the lit Coca-Cola billboard that replaces them can't imitate. I'm honestly a bit depressed to hear this preservation framed as "self-hatred" and "loathing."

Also, we should be super freakin' sure that these rocks are actually devoid of life before we start moving all our stuff in (and the recent asteroid sample contamination shows we move in hard and fast). I don't think we're anywhere near as certain about this as you imply, and it would suck to burry the evidence for abiogenesis before we understand it.

> There is no environment to pollute.

The moon has an environment. "We towed it outside the environment" was a joke!

Re: Bury me on the moon, preferably on the far side

#46

Post by goatlover »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #43
WalterBright wrote: post #12

> so why not agree to leave it unmarred by any obvious act of humanity, forevermore? How some people hate humanity. Personally, I'd love to see the lights from a lunar colony on the moon. This reminds me of the people who don't want to "pollute" Mars. Sheesh, it's a dead rock. There is no environment to pollute. It could desperately use people on it, just like the moon. The solar system is ours, and we can and should…

Manifest destiny but with secular scientism this time.

Or we beat grabby aliens to the punch.

Re: Bury me on the moon, preferably on the far side

#47

Post by function_seven »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #32

There is no far side of the moon, really. Matter of fact, from a cosmic perspective it's pretty nearby. The only thing that makes it look far is that we're so small.

The moon has two sides from our vantage. The near side is the one you see, the far side is the one you don't. It has nothing to do with our distance from the object, just the orientation of that object.

Re: Bury me on the moon, preferably on the far side

#49

Post by vacuity »

goatlover wrote: post #42
vacuity wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it an act of hatred to say that humans shouldn't expend huge amounts of effort and energy to try to populate Mars so that humans can escape the very human act of polluting the Earth? When this human pollution kills millions a year and plenty of other organisms? Is it a celebration of humanity to continue buying chocolate or clothing or rugs, even if they are clearly the result of exploited or downright slave labor…

Doubt MLK Jr had much to say about Mars colonization. Why would he be opposed to it as long as Martian settlers were treating each other equally? I don't like the view that we shouldn't go to space as long as there are problems on Earth to fix. There are always problems to fix. It's an excuse to never explore space. There's no reason that going to Mars would prevent addressing pollution on Earth. I don't even see how…

I invoked MLK Jr. in pointing to problems on Earth, including pollution, as an example of how we are not serving "humanity" in MLK Jr.'s spirit. I think your technology advancement argument is far-fetched, even though I acknowledge the historical basis. In part due to reasoning in another comment of mine:

> I would be (grudgingly) fine with populating Mars if I felt that we as a race were remotely trying our best to improve Earth. By opening up Mars, incentives are wrong and we will probably become even more lax.

Re: Bury me on the moon, preferably on the far side

#50

Post by JumpCrisscross »

vacuity wrote: post #36
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we, as humans who have privilege and comfort, deserve to continue and expand those qualities Cutting down forests for farms asserts a human privilege. Arguing for colonies on the Moon or Mars isn't asserting a human privilege, it's arguing for a biological one: the privilege the living should enjoy over the non-living.

Are you saying that farmland production is unnecessary (at least at its current rate) but spce colonies aren't? If your concern is that humans need the latter to live, shouldn't the former be justified too? Is the Earth too doomed for the former to work? I don't follow.

> Are you saying that farmland production is unnecessary (at least at its current rate) but spce colonies aren't?

When we cut down forests for farmland, we're saying our (human) need for that land supercedes the needs of the creatures living on it. That the needs of humans trump those of other living things. (While cute to debate, this isn't ever actually in doubt. Effective arguments for conservation, et cetera, come down to decidedly human systems of values and ethics.)

When we build a colony on the Moon, we aren't taking land from Moon people. That tabula rasa makes the previous discussion about humans versus other living things moot.

Instead, the practical trade-offs aren't about any inherent rights dead things have (they don't), but how it impacts life on Earth. In particular, for humans.

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