It is obviously true that technology allows us to modify nature to an ever greater extent. That is what technology is! I don't think we'll have a colony on mars anytime soon, but AI is obviously coming and will obviously be extremely disrupting (for better or for worse)
More Everything Forever
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#24> He encourages us not to get hung up on galaxies far, far away but to pay more attention to our own fragile planet and the frail humans around us. While I don't necessarily agree with the motives of the Silicon Valley billionaires you must have a really basic imagination to hate on the future, and the answers to Man's oldest questions which may be on Mars and beyond. Of course, like a broken record, out comes the tr…
I don't see how solving poverty on earth can't be more important than the endeavor of trying with the current rather limited tech to inhabit an as good as inhabitable planet.
It is more important. We spend > $2T per year fighting climate change. We spend > $10T per year on social welfare programs.
We spend less than $10B per year on going back to the moon and trying to inhabit Mars.
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#26Also reviewed by Cory Doctorow: https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/22/vinges-bastards/#cyberpun...
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#27Also reviewed by Cory Doctorow: https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/22/vinges-bastards/#cyberpun...
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#28This book seems insufferable, at least based on the review. Half of the review is trying to poke holes in why people won't live on mars and the other half is about how people trying to pursue goals such as this are self-serving and corrupt. I'm sure a market exists for this kind of book, but to me it's just exhausting. What's the harm in trying to go to mars if it results in decreasing the cost of space flight by 99%…
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Re: More Everything Forever
#29> He encourages us not to get hung up on galaxies far, far away but to pay more attention to our own fragile planet and the frail humans around us. While I don't necessarily agree with the motives of the Silicon Valley billionaires you must have a really basic imagination to hate on the future, and the answers to Man's oldest questions which may be on Mars and beyond. Of course, like a broken record, out comes the tr…
I don't see how solving poverty on earth can't be more important than the endeavor of trying with the current rather limited tech to inhabit an as good as inhabitable planet.
Space exploration is merely a _technological_ problem. Solving poverty is a _political_ problem, one that is resistant to just throwing money at the problem.
Re: More Everything Forever
#30> He encourages us not to get hung up on galaxies far, far away but to pay more attention to our own fragile planet and the frail humans around us. While I don't necessarily agree with the motives of the Silicon Valley billionaires you must have a really basic imagination to hate on the future, and the answers to Man's oldest questions which may be on Mars and beyond. Of course, like a broken record, out comes the tr…
There are large swathes of earth that are too inhospitable, like deserts. They're more accessible and easier to support life in than Mars, and yet no one lives there. The deserts even have breathable air.
I will say the compelling thing about Mars is that you wouldn't be disrupting an ecosystem to terraform it.
That said, I'm definitely on the side of making Fresno a paradise before we try mars.