Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars • Hacker News Board

Re: Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

#141

Post by ams6110 » Mon, Mar 18, 2013, 4:29 AM UTC

saraid216 wrote: post #122

frozenport wrote: post #100

UNANSWERED QUESTION: why mars, what is there that we need? What would I be doing that a robot can't do? Why would I sacrifice my life for a gimmick?

Space colonization is an unmitigated Good Thing for the indefinite future, assuming you're okay with the human species existing after our sun explodes. Mars is the first step for dealing with that problem.

Worrying about humans surviving after the sun explodes is not a motivation for anything. We have only existed for moment in time relative to the age of the sun, and any number of things could lead to our extinction in another relative moment's time, such that our entire existence on a solar lifetime calendar would not even be noticed.

Re: Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

#142

Post by lsc » Mon, Mar 18, 2013, 4:35 AM UTC

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…

Huh. I'd assume that you'd get top-of-field type people in medicine, science and engineering along for the trip. I'd also assume that you'd get older people, too... brains and experience (and, as they say, getting along with a group) is going to matter more than physical fitness, I would assume. And from what I've seen, most people with technical skills learn social skills much later, if at all.

My worry would not be that I'd get stuck with a bunch of peasants, but that the standards would be so high, with regards to education and useful skills, that I would not qualify for the trip.

If I was trying to pitch myself at the interview, I'd point out all my experience maintaining older equipment with limited resources. (I'm sure they'd point out that nearly all my repair experience is board-level, not component-level, which is the right thing when you have a lot of cheap spares, such as when dealing with older equipment on earth, but completely the wrong thing when you are in an environment where you have to bring or manufacture everything you use.) I'd also point out my years of 24x7 pager experience, (and my experience in knowing where my burn out point is- I will push back rather than work myself to burn-out) Of course, they'd point out that there exist outliers who can work harder and longer than I can without burn-out, and I'm sure a few of them also know how to spot burn-out coming up.

So, yeah; I would assume that if they were taking a credible run at it, they'd get some really good people (including some good medical personnel.)

Re: Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

#143

Post by saraid216 » Mon, Mar 18, 2013, 5:40 AM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #141

saraid216 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Space colonization is an unmitigated Good Thing for the indefinite future, assuming you're okay with the human species existing after our sun explodes. Mars is the first step for dealing with that problem.

Worrying about humans surviving after the sun explodes is not a motivation for anything. We have only existed for moment in time relative to the age of the sun, and any number of things could lead to our extinction in another relative moment's time, such that our entire existence on a solar lifetime calendar would not even be noticed.

Did you know that we do more than one thing at a time? It is a strange and abnormal thing, but it is true.

Re: Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

#144

Post by luotuoshangdui » Mon, Mar 18, 2013, 7:15 AM UTC

tokenadult wrote: post #10

I wonder how many people are willing to take on the real adventure of living in any of the twenty poorest countries in the world, or twenty most tyrannical countries of the world (there is overlap between the two sets) to try to change those from the inside. When I was in high school, going to a high school that was named after an astronaut just after the first moon landing, I thought it was completely natural to hav…

Is China one of the "twenty most tyrannical countries of the world"? If so, there are more than one billion people currently taking on the real adventure of living there.

Re: Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

#145

Post by Evbn » Mon, Mar 18, 2013, 7:31 AM UTC

I wonder if we will ever have a day on HN without talking about death. Or if someone could write a filtering app.

Re: Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

#146

Post by nnq » Mon, Mar 18, 2013, 8:32 AM UTC

rdl wrote: post #119

noonespecial wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are very few things that people in power hate more than someone else succeeding at something without consulting them first. I'm afraid you organization would need to be almost all military.

Most of these countries have fairly ineffective militaries, though, so even a lightly armed force could deter them. Blackwater and at least 2 other PMCs in Iraq could hold their own vs. any failed-state force or militia. It wouldn't need to be like the US Army or USAF fielding high-end weapons where a huge tail to tooth ratio came into play.

Do you know any example of a humanitarian foundation contracting services from Blackwater/Academi type PMCs? Sounds like a workable combo that hasn't been tried before. Though you'd have to have the support of the government even if you can defend yourself from guerrillas/militias and thieves, but by simply receiving this support in a messed up country with "alternative governments" fighting for power, you'd end up taking sides, loosing your neutrality and becoming vulnerable to all sorts of bloody acts, even if they are directed against the people you help and not against yourself - imagine you're helping a school and a bunch of guys from a local guerrilla fighting for power show up and take the school children hostages and tell you they'll kill them if you don't pack your gear and leave the area: even if you have the resources to kill the untrained kidnappers and save all children, by doing so you seriously piss up the fraction that sent those guys and open things up to other alike situations that will not all end well. Something like a PMC force would only be usable against thieves / poachers / drug-dealers... any other "defensive" use would be "taking side" and pull you out of the neutrality zone messing up everything.

To actually be able to use a PMC for such situations, you'd need the kind of force that could win a fight/kidnapping situation by using non-lethal force against lethal force, because using lethal force will put you on one side or another and compromise everything. And to be able to reliably win a non-lethal vs. lethal force situation you'd basically need your PMC to be more advanced and well trained than the US military (!!), at least on the non-lethal weaponry and people manipulation parts... and at that point something like the US (or other "big guys" with interest in the region) would perceive you as a potential treat to them, despite your humanitarian mission, bringing up whole new levels of "fun" :)

Sorry for the pessimism, but these is why I don't like touching this kinds of problems, as I can only find an infinite amount of reasons of why things wouldn't work.

Re: Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

#147

Post by nnq » Mon, Mar 18, 2013, 8:36 AM UTC

18pfsmt wrote: post #123

rdl wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of these countries have fairly ineffective militaries, though, so even a lightly armed force could deter them. Blackwater and at least 2 other PMCs in Iraq could hold their own vs. any failed-state force or militia. It wouldn't need to be like the US Army or USAF fielding high-end weapons where a huge tail to tooth ratio came into play.

I realize this is pretty much irrelevant, but I just wanted to point out that Blackwater has changed its name twice, and is now known as Academi: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academi

yeah, and they've taken up the domain name that I wanted to use for the next world changing cloud-education startup :)

Re: Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

#148

Post by brazzy » Mon, Mar 18, 2013, 8:39 AM UTC

desireco42 wrote: post #106

rdl wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US government's interest in intervention is not "fix things for the residents" but "US interests" (which, during the cold war, essentially just meant opposition to the USSR and some basing rights or access to resources). Admittedly even by that metric, most of the US interventions have been failures. There are a few cases where US/NATO intervention has been sort of helpful. Panama is probably better now that we g…

I am from Balkans, Balkans conflicts were largely influenced and made worse from the outside, I would even say that they would not happen if there were not desire from Germany and other powers to make as much mess as possible. Somehow Balkan conficts never got critical review from journalists and rosy propaganda stayed even to this day. For example in present day Croatia there is only 7% of people who would actually…

How exactly did "Germany and other powers" cause the 1991-1995 war?

Re: Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

#149

Post by captain_mars » Mon, Mar 18, 2013, 10:52 AM UTC

rdl wrote: post #24

tokenadult wrote: post #10

I wonder how many people are willing to take on the real adventure of living in any of the twenty poorest countries in the world, or twenty most tyrannical countries of the world (there is overlap between the two sets) to try to change those from the inside. When I was in high school, going to a high school that was named after an astronaut just after the first moon landing, I thought it was completely natural to hav…

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…

> The solutions to the most defective countries are all pretty straightforward and widely known.

Maybe you really do know the best solutions to every country's problems. Or maybe you know enough "rules of thumb" to get each of these countries to start moving in the right direction. That is not my point.

However, one "meta" problem is that most people are convinced that they know the solutions to the world's problems, and if everybody else would let them execute their solution, the world would be fixed.

Re: Wanted: People Willing to Die on Mars

#150

Post by rdl » Mon, Mar 18, 2013, 12:02 PM UTC

nnq wrote: post #146

rdl wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of these countries have fairly ineffective militaries, though, so even a lightly armed force could deter them. Blackwater and at least 2 other PMCs in Iraq could hold their own vs. any failed-state force or militia. It wouldn't need to be like the US Army or USAF fielding high-end weapons where a huge tail to tooth ratio came into play.

Do you know any example of a humanitarian foundation contracting services from Blackwater/Academi type PMCs? Sounds like a workable combo that hasn't been tried before. Though you'd have to have the support of the government even if you can defend yourself from guerrillas/militias and thieves, but by simply receiving this support in a messed up country with "alternative governments" fighting for power, you'd end up t…

Plenty of NGOs and UN entities hire either local security or external PMCs to provide security. They usually can't afford top end like Blackwater, though.

It would be easier to stick to services like running an airport (eg Mogadishu kept operating...), water, hospitals, power, etc. but another option would be to run "refugee/IDP centers" like the UN allegedly was doing in the Balkans (where they failed spectacularly). If people live inside a camp they are relatively easy to protect.

The point behind lethal force by a PMC is to have overwhelming force. Blackwater had an Air Force, and essentially could call in favors from the CIA and DOD as needed. Outside of the 2004 Fallujah incident, they never were in serious trouble, and after 2004, the USMC basically tore the city apart, largely over the bridge incident.

There would be no way to do this kind of thing without US support (tacit or otherwise) and at least non objection by regional powers, but if you stuck to "help IDPs and execute on international obligations" you would get UN, USAID, etc funding. The issue is that most people in NGOs tend to be bleeding hearts, and also humanities people vs infrastructure people, so thy don't have these capabilities in house; they have to contract them in. The exception are medical groups -- there are huge numbers of great medical facilities run by religious and other charities, and their neutrality is generally respected.