Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars • Hacker News Board

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#211

Post by kbenson » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 5:56 PM UTC

darpa_escapee wrote: post #200

pc86 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An oncologist wishing more money was spent on cancer? In other news, water is wet. First of all, the optimal place for me to spend my money is not necessarily the optimal place for someone else to spend theirs. We can't know for sure, of course, but who were would have preferred Elon Musk start a cancer research firm instead of SpaceX? Secondly, there is no universal "cancer" that we can fight. There are hundreds of…

I'd argue that there are many problems endemic to the way we've structured society that spell out our doom on Earth, and if they aren't fixed here, will spell out our doom on other planets. We should fix our problems here, today, before exporting them elsewhere. Nevermind the fact that the after almost any type of disaster, the bottom of the ocean is infinitely more habitable than Mars. Mars as a holdout for humanity…

> We should fix our problems here, today, before exporting them elsewhere.

Although, if we export them, that's that many different places to try out solutions in semi-isolation in an attempt to find one that works. If we can parallelize the process, and also get cleaner starting conditions to test, why shouldn't we do so?

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#212

Post by rad88 » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 5:58 PM UTC

Nadya wrote: post #155

rad88 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could not save "all of humanity". Humanity would be down there on Earth dying. In the end who you would save would again be individuals -- a few people on the moon. The question is could you save more people in space in a hypothetical end of world scenario than you could people on Earth dying in a very real scenario today.

I refuse to argue against pedantry. You knew exactly what I meant by saying "all of humanity". 0 humans alive after mass extinction on Earth = humans are extinct, humanity has ended vs 100 humans living in a space colony after mass extinction on Earth = humans are not extinct, humanity has been saved. >The question is could you save more people in space in a hypothetical end of world scenario than you could people on…

You argued that on one hand we could save individuals with cancer, and on the other we could save all of humanity. Only that doesn't include the individual with cancer, or anybody else on Earth! I knew exactly what you meant which is that a non-zero number of humans would be alive, but to me that doesn't live up to the grandiose idea of saving humanity.

I don't want to divert money from cancer and presumably other medical research as well, so that the last N humans can live in a space capsule. Mortality rates for cancer have been on the decline for decades, so the issue is not theoretical.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#213

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 6:01 PM UTC

bvc35 wrote: post #166

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but to quote the annoyingly semi-reasonable creationist Ken Ham: “We weren’t there. We didn’t observe it.” (Note: I am not a creationist, I do agree with the logic of that argument, but I also see no scientific basis for any religious origin story of life to have more scientific basis than others). We have recreated the conditions that predate life and found that organic molecules were formed, but we’ve never ob…

You see a man lying still on the ground, blood pooling around his body, and a woman standing close by gripping a knife with bloody hands. What happened? “We weren’t there. We didn’t observe it.”

That only works because humans have killed each other, not to mention animals, many times in the past, so all of us are familiar with the process. We're yet to observe any instance of abiogenesis at all, anywhere.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#214

Post by newnewpdro » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 6:02 PM UTC

bordercases wrote: post #174

robotrout wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there are many causes. We are in violent agreement. If you focus on the causes, you are preventing cancer, not curing it. You are playing whack-a-mole.

LOL Seems more cost efficient long run to address lifestyle than deal with proximal consequence

The reality is there's no escaping the causes for cancer, many of which are environmental and increasing. No amount of lifestyle change is going to eliminate the growing number of carcinogens present throughout our air, food, and water.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#215

Post by freehunter » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 6:03 PM UTC

geezerjay wrote: post #179

endymi0n wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then again, for the 700 billion dollars defense budget you'd get free universal healthcare and higher education for all of the US — AND would still have a few dozen billions to spare on cancer and Mars expeditions... but who in their right mind would want that?

You're missing the fact that the US military is in its core a employment and social services program used extensively to create artificial jobs and artificial demand for skilled labour and high-tech products and services. Not to mention the cultural importance that the US military as an institution has on the US, of course.

And those skilled labor and high-tech products and services would transition extraordinarily well to a space-based economy.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#216

Post by zaroth » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 6:04 PM UTC

mtgx wrote: post #152

endymi0n wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then again, for the 700 billion dollars defense budget you'd get free universal healthcare and higher education for all of the US — AND would still have a few dozen billions to spare on cancer and Mars expeditions... but who in their right mind would want that?

You wouldn't need that much for free healthcare. Remember people already pay a ton for healthcare. You'd just repackage those payments into taxes for free universal healthcare and then the government would have to pay the difference.

This word “free” you keep using.... I’m not sure it means what you think it means?

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#217

Post by spot » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 6:08 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #185

remote_phone wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was talking to an oncologist yesterday. Her biggest frustration is that Silicon Valley billionaires are spending billions upon billions to send things to space, when there are serious problems on Earth that could be fought, most importantly cancer. It’s hard to argue with her. $400B/yr would fund a lot of research that would benefit humanity a lot better than a coordinated mission to Mars, even though it would be v…

An oncologist wishing more money was spent on cancer? In other news, water is wet. First of all, the optimal place for me to spend my money is not necessarily the optimal place for someone else to spend theirs. We can't know for sure, of course, but who were would have preferred Elon Musk start a cancer research firm instead of SpaceX? Secondly, there is no universal "cancer" that we can fight. There are hundreds of…

> If we don't get people living and populating on other planets, the human species is doomed.

does it have to be a planet? what's wrong with space stations?

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#218

Post by pc86 » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 6:09 PM UTC

darpa_escapee wrote: post #200

pc86 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An oncologist wishing more money was spent on cancer? In other news, water is wet. First of all, the optimal place for me to spend my money is not necessarily the optimal place for someone else to spend theirs. We can't know for sure, of course, but who were would have preferred Elon Musk start a cancer research firm instead of SpaceX? Secondly, there is no universal "cancer" that we can fight. There are hundreds of…

I'd argue that there are many problems endemic to the way we've structured society that spell out our doom on Earth, and if they aren't fixed here, will spell out our doom on other planets. We should fix our problems here, today, before exporting them elsewhere. Nevermind the fact that the after almost any type of disaster, the bottom of the ocean is infinitely more habitable than Mars. Mars as a holdout for humanity…

Aside from us killing ourselves in myriad spectacular ways, the most looming threats are cosmic. The sun is on a timeline and asteroids hit planets with some measure of regularity. Any cosmic extinction-level event will render the bottom of the ocean just as inhospitable as the south of France or the Midwest US.

An ELE on Earth in the short term future wipes out the human race, full stop. The only thing that can continue our species is having that species on more than one rock in space.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#219

Post by freehunter » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 6:10 PM UTC

darpa_escapee wrote: post #200

pc86 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An oncologist wishing more money was spent on cancer? In other news, water is wet. First of all, the optimal place for me to spend my money is not necessarily the optimal place for someone else to spend theirs. We can't know for sure, of course, but who were would have preferred Elon Musk start a cancer research firm instead of SpaceX? Secondly, there is no universal "cancer" that we can fight. There are hundreds of…

I'd argue that there are many problems endemic to the way we've structured society that spell out our doom on Earth, and if they aren't fixed here, will spell out our doom on other planets. We should fix our problems here, today, before exporting them elsewhere. Nevermind the fact that the after almost any type of disaster, the bottom of the ocean is infinitely more habitable than Mars. Mars as a holdout for humanity…

You could say pretty much the same thing about other cities, other states, other countries, other continents. Why did mankind leave Africa if they just repeated the same mistakes in Europe and Asia? Why did they leave Europe to go to the US if they just did the same thing over there? Why would someone leave New England and go west across America if they're just bringing the same thing?

All of that ignores, of course, that the culture of mankind evolved dramatically between and during those big migrations, and then again ignoring that Africa, Asia, Europe, and America all have wildly, wildly different belief systems, cultures, politics, and people.

Who is saying that we'd take our same problems to Mars? The kind of people who were willing to move from Europe to America were not the same kind of people who wanted support the system in Europe at the time, and the kind of people who want to move to Mars aren't going to be the same people who want to continue the same system we have on Earth.

"Fix our problems here"... but what if "here" is the problem? If the Pilgrims had stayed in England and the Netherlands, they wouldn't have been able to fix what they considered to be "the problem" no matter how hard they tried. It was only by starting a new life that they could solve their problems.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#220

Post by fucking_tragedy » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 6:10 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #216

mtgx wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wouldn't need that much for free healthcare. Remember people already pay a ton for healthcare. You'd just repackage those payments into taxes for free universal healthcare and then the government would have to pay the difference.

This word “free” you keep using.... I’m not sure it means what you think it means?

This point you're making is pretty pedantic considering the OP clearly recognizes that funding for universal healthcare comes from somewhere, they say as much themselves.