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Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

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Re: Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

#41

Post by shantanubala »

rdl wrote: post #37
nisa wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I could solve 90% Equatorial Guinea's problems for How so? And why is immunity required?

Assassinating foreign heads of state, particularly those who have business interests closely allied with US corporations, isn't legal. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo doesn't deserve something as clean as a bullet, but for reasons of practicality, it'll do. (and, realistically, you'd have to eliminate the entire leadership; it's essentially a corrupt group who pocket oil wealth and rule through fear and oppression. How…

> Assassinating foreign heads of state

But who will replace them? Didn't we try something like this during the Cold War multiple times and end up introducing even more totalitarian "democratic" governments?

Re: Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

#42

Post by rdl »

shantanubala wrote: post #32
rdl wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not me. We mostly know the solutions to fixing the most oppressed or otherwise defective parts of the world; we just don't find it worthwhile to implement those solutions. I could solve 90% Equatorial Guinea's problems for The solutions to the most defective countries are all pretty straightforward and widely known; it's figuring out how to turn decent but not ideal countries like Pakistan into really stable first-wo…

> I could solve 90% Equatorial Guinea's problems for Oh really? What's your plan? How do you intend on ensuring that culture is preserved while you implement this plan? Or do you believe that Western culture is superior because it has been more successful in the last 100 years (forgetting that segregation ended less than 50 years ago, if you must include the eradication of entire populations as "successes," we can ca…

I don't think I could do a particularly good job running the country, and wouldn't try (beyond a few weeks/months in transition). There are plenty of other African leaders in other countries, particularly elected in the past ~10 years, who are far better. I don't think there's any reason why EG wouldn't be able to come up with some domestic political leadership which was better than what they have now. The problem is the nexus of oil wealth and foreign support has allowed Obiang to remain for decades.

The less violent solution would be a trade embargo of the country (at least, not allowing them to sell oil).

Re: Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

#43

Post by saalweachter »

Udo wrote: post #22

If Mars can be mined for water (and it looks like it can), there is no reason to make it a one-way trip only. Sending people there with the explicit expectation to die soon speaks of poor planning and not a lot of willingness to export the basic tenets of humanity into space with us. It's a bad precedent, it carries the wrong message about the value of intelligent life, and I'm afraid the mission's limitations also i…

> Scraping together a suicide team and shooting it roughly in Mars' general direction is not the answer to this problem.

I think you misunderstand. While the linked article is brief, the one-way plan isn't to send a ship-full of people with suicide pills, but to supply them for the next 40-80 years from Earth.

Because of the hilarities of the rocket equation, it is cheaper to send rocket after rocket full of water, breathable air, food, fuel, and other supplies than it is to send enough rocket fuel for a return trip. Like, way cheaper. As the article says, the technology for a return trip just doesn't exist; the technology for a series of one-way trips does.

Re: Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

#44

Post by skrebbel »

vwinsyee wrote: post #15

Mars One did an AMA on reddit nine months ago: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/uta10/iama_founder_of_... Personally, I remember being most astonished that their team only had one technical person: http://mars-one.com/en/about-mars-one/team

I count three M.Sc.'s?

Re: Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

#45

Post by eCa »

smnrchrds wrote: post #18
cryptoz wrote: post #2

I think the most likely way to successfully land on Mars and stay there is to allow for frequent trips back and forth. Obviously I think Musk and SpaceX are taking this approach. Ensure complete and rapid rocket re-usability, make engines that take fuel that Mars mostly provides, and ensure a constant stream of supplies, growth, new people. If your colony is growing, and expanding, and there are frequently (every 2 y…

The thing I'm most worried about is what happens if one of the residents needs medical attention. Mars is going to be a one-way trip and while the pioneers will most probably be young and healthy, they won't stay young and healthy forever. It is entirely possible to place a doctor within the group and send medical supplies, but it could work only for the simplest medical conditions. I think it would be a long time be…

I think you are right. Medical procedures would likely go back to basics: Bad tooth? Pull it out. Broken leg? Maybe amputate.

However, with the right provisions fairly advanced procedures should be possible to carry out with minimum personnel. For instance, in 1961 a Russian doctor in Antarctica removed his own infected appendix [1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-surgery

Re: Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

#46

Post by shantanubala »

rdl wrote: post #42
shantanubala wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I could solve 90% Equatorial Guinea's problems for Oh really? What's your plan? How do you intend on ensuring that culture is preserved while you implement this plan? Or do you believe that Western culture is superior because it has been more successful in the last 100 years (forgetting that segregation ended less than 50 years ago, if you must include the eradication of entire populations as "successes," we can ca…

I don't think I could do a particularly good job running the country, and wouldn't try (beyond a few weeks/months in transition). There are plenty of other African leaders in other countries, particularly elected in the past ~10 years, who are far better. I don't think there's any reason why EG wouldn't be able to come up with some domestic political leadership which was better than what they have now. The problem is…

Practically speaking, how do you ensure that the new government doesn't become corrupt in a year or two? Or more importantly, how do you restore the people's faith in their government so that they participate?

Also, how would a trade embargo "fix" a country? Perhaps it would force a dictator to lessen or hide civil rights violations, but it would not repair the economy or necessarily give people more confidence in their government.

Re: Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

#47

Post by rdl »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #39
rdl wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not me. We mostly know the solutions to fixing the most oppressed or otherwise defective parts of the world; we just don't find it worthwhile to implement those solutions. I could solve 90% Equatorial Guinea's problems for The solutions to the most defective countries are all pretty straightforward and widely known; it's figuring out how to turn decent but not ideal countries like Pakistan into really stable first-wo…

I think you vastly underestimate the difficulty of "fixing" a country. I think Russia is a good example: communism fell, but that doesn't mean things have necessarily gotten better for the average citizen. You could replace the entire government of Equatorial Guinea, but that won't address the problems like poor education that underlying many poor country's problems.

I agree entirely for middle tier countries (which Russia was -- and, honestly, Iraq under Saddam was). For really defective places (NK, Somalia, EG, maybe Afghanistan under the Taliban, ...), your odds of killing the leadership and randomly replacing are much more likely to give you something adequate. It doesn't always work out, and it's hard when you have set yourself up for failure (like the US did in Afghanistan, for a variety of reasons, but I don't think just eliminating AQ and some of the Taliban leadership was doomed to turn out badly), but in a lot of cases it's beneficial.

Re: Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

#50

Post by rdl »

shantanubala wrote: post #41
rdl wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assassinating foreign heads of state, particularly those who have business interests closely allied with US corporations, isn't legal. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo doesn't deserve something as clean as a bullet, but for reasons of practicality, it'll do. (and, realistically, you'd have to eliminate the entire leadership; it's essentially a corrupt group who pocket oil wealth and rule through fear and oppression. How…

> Assassinating foreign heads of state But who will replace them? Didn't we try something like this during the Cold War multiple times and end up introducing even more totalitarian "democratic" governments?

The cold war was a special case, as we had ideological reasons to pick replacement governments who basically sucked even worse than those they replaced. In a country where most of the decent people who could go into government are somewhat leftist, replacing a hard-line communist with someone who will resist the other leftists (for your own ideological reasons) is a lot more likely to produce a situation like Pinochet than just replacing a criminal despot with virtually anyone else.

I don't think the US really tried replacing with "democratic" governments, either -- just with US allied dictators. We supported a lot of really evil people because they brought stability and nominal pro-US interests. I'm not advocating that; I'm just saying get rid of some bad leadership with virtually anyone else, with no ongoing agenda. That is a far lower bar to cross.

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