WILL technology save us for reals?

[Nessus]

The latter is far, far more credible.

Citation please.

I like the idea of space colonisation, I'd start with getting people to live on the Moon far sooner than Mars though. But without sci-fi solutions like hyperdrive/stargates etc its never a solution to life's problems on Earth.

I am not arguing that, nor is Steely I don't think. I have no idea what Minx was after with this thread though

[Ominous Gamer]

First Rand plays dumb on the we/us thing, then once multiple users take the time to explain that...he blows everyone off because he considers the problems fake and solutions impossible? Isn't that the point of the thread? Technology and and its use being so far from where it should/could be that a mentality like that is considered sound for some?

[RandBlade]

Citation please.

Our planet is already hospitable and can feed well over 6bn already. In fact given how much food already gets wasted and goes towards obesity etc we already have enough food to feed more than that.

Mars is currently completely inhospitable, without any known running water, breathable air etc, etc - if we were to inhabit Mars and have a normal standard of life without relying upon resources from the Earth that would require advances in terraforming and other related technologies so vast that it is much more than an upscaling of what we already have. If you waive the "normal standard of life" criterion for Mars then you can waive it for Earth too and same response.

First Rand plays dumb on the we/us thing, then once multiple users take the time to explain that...he blows everyone off because he considers the problems fake and solutions impossible? Isn't that the point of the thread? Technology and and its use being so far from where it should/could be that a mentality like that is considered sound for some?

I didn't play dumb, I was right. Us means we, it includes myself, OG, Nessus, Minx etc - that is what us means. Us does not include anyone born in 3000AD, there is no way that they are part of "us" but we are not. The term that should have been used if that is what is meant is "the human race" or something similar, but that is not the term used.

As for technology, no the point is that we require technology for what we really need, not some pathetic jokey and meaningless doomsday scenario. The Earth has survived millions of years, humanity tens of thousands of years, yet we need to start evacuating the planet now? Its ludicrous. We need to use technology to fix real problems and that is what we're doing.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Are you so callous that you care not a jot about people with AIDS, those suffering from famines, cancer victims etc but would rather than help them address some sort of total vanity project? That may be your measurement of technological progress but its not mine. Yes extra-planetary colonisation may be useful and it is something worth investing a bit into probably, but its not the measure of man and its certainly not about saving anyone.

[Nessus]

Our planet is already hospitable and can feed well over 6bn already. In fact given how much food already gets wasted and goes towards obesity etc we already have enough food to feed more than that.

In other words, you don't have one. Gotcha.

[']['ear]

For many, many years now Catholics have been reassuring us men and othergendered of science that our concerns about the future are so unfounded as to be minigallodomestic in nature. They claim TECHNOLOGY will SAVE us from the doom of rapid celestial descent. Just LOOK at everything that has happened since Thomas Malthus lived and died, they cheer!

Well I just did and I note that we are STILL not particularly close to getting mankind off of this increasingly unreliable sitting-duck of a planet.

How will technology save us in the long term if we don't LET it??!

Um, how does Catholicism come into this? I hear more of this from non-Catholics than Catholics. The RC church is actually making some "err, maybe we should not fuck our planet noises," which only certain limited fundie sects who interpret the Bible that way echo. So arguably there is LESS of this stuff from the RC than most organized religions.

{And this isn't defensiveness. I was raised in the RCC and despise it. Heck, I despised them before they tried so hard to cover up kiddie rape fiascoes over and over. Taken alone, their stance on condoms, only weakly reversed in the last month, is probably responsible for a couple million AIDS cases.}

Am curious how if other people are on another planet that reduces my risk, please explain.

It is fascinating how occasionally a person's entire world view can be summarized so succinctly!

They do, but only when it comes to important things like stocks. It's funny 'cause economists also know that humans are just wired to be stupid in this way. you'd think that insight would be put to use by convincing people to not be stupid but of course not.

I disagree. Economists are unrealistic idiots. Case in point, consider the widespread insistence on the "rational consumer," when pretty much all psychological data suggests the opposite.

an excellent example of how we're wired to only think of our own immediate fates exclusively with respect to familiar threats.

I'd argue that men are evolutionarily wired to think not far beyond the end of our own dick. Women, who are wired much more strongly to keep their children alive, think in a longer time frame, but still struggle to think past a few years. Long-range vision is not something that comes naturally to most organisms, since evolution doesn't work on that scale. Many of our social and political problems can be distilled down to this fact.

I also note that we STILL haven't cured malaria,

Answer:

reduces my risk

Malaria is not a disease that impacts wealthy countries, and consequently malaria is not a research priority. QED.

and we are continuing to fuck up our oceans and everything therein

But it's profitable! You're talking to the guy who insisted that he couldn't see hidden costs.

He would, and so would Dreadnaught (about his own kids I mean), but perhaps that is the scope of innate human concern (may stretch to grandkids and even great grandkids when we have deteriorated sufficiently in autonomy/health/social status/activity/loving).

But there it is. We want to leave OUR kids MONEY (and some other stuff that all end up tied to money), and how can we do that if the Malaria-busters take it all away?

Evolutionarily-speaking, money is a sure-fire survival tool, for self and progeny. Prima facie. Consequently, people will continue to do everything possible to maximize their earnings, and few will appreciate abstract threats like air and water quality, particularly since the way society apportions such threats is that they usually disproportionally affect the poor, thus reinforcing the notion that the primary goal is to accumulate wealth and thereby influence.

I think there's definitely a bit of a disconnect here. No matter how you run the numbers, short of a physics-defying miracle (a la planet-to-planet wormhole travel) the bulk of humanity is always going to be on planet Earth - at least for the foreseeable future*. If you're concerned about the survival of the human race, then yes, you can diversify your risk some by spread the population around a few star systems (or even galaxies), albeit at rather astronomical cost (far more than the cost of adequately managing our star system). If you're concerned about the people who make up the human race, though, colonizing other planets will have little impact on them - the vast majority of us will still be on Earth,

Agreed. As you point out later, I'm not convinced by the "save the human race" argument vis-a-vis colonization. What I do believe in is maximizing the survival of our species (and coincidentally our own quality of life) by doing our utmost to nurture our planet, which currently has far too many consuming hominids to be sustainable.

and we're likely to get next to no economic or scientific benefit from an extrasolar colony.

True enough. But what about solar colonies? The spin-offs from the "boondoggle" space program radically changed life in developed countries, and I'd bet that further pushes for space-focused research would be similarly revolutionary (not to mention spectacularly lucrative for the countries that develop them first and have the in-house expertise to export the technologies).

And on another note, ultimately the cleanest energy and materials sources are in space. Given how we're running up against teh limits of our closed system, it behooves us to move outside it.

So, I wouldn't emphasize "extra-solar," I'd emphasize "extra-terran."

Don't get me wrong - I love the idea of exploring the cosmos. It's just that short of an unforeseen technological advancement that brings about cheap FTL travel, there's really no reasonable way to do it. Colonizing another planet in our solar system is not only unlikely to be able to support a self-sustaining human population (at least for quite some time), but also fails to account for solar system-wide risks.

Agreed, though I'd point out that risks to our planet are how many times more likely than risks to our solar system? At least in, say, the next few millennia. Beyond that it's sort of pointless to speculate, and really the critical next 100 or so years is what concerns me. (I figure we'll either fuck up or save our world by then).

Given these realities, it's likely that we should look at the low hanging fruit of reducing our risk by making our planet safer, better managed, and more sustainable. There are obviously many competing approaches on how to actually do this, but that seems to be the most logical approach.

Amen!!!! Please hear him, everybody! If we are going to a) continue our lifestyle, and b) accept that the rest of the world will want the same lifestyle, we need to make the lifestyle sustainable in this closed system.

* Our population increases at about 200-250k a day. That means that you'd need to export millions of people a year to even make a dent in the numbers.

Agreed, mathematically emigration has never been the answer outside of speculative fiction.

I recently read an interesting discussion by some economists who were trying to estimate the bare minimum of humans needed to support our current level of development. The numbers ranged around a bit, but a minimum of their estimates was around one hundred million people. Even with labor saving technology thrown in, you're not going to get anywhere near that level any time soon on a new planet (moving that many people is simply impossible on any reasonable time frame), so it means either regular supply ships or starting off the colony on a much lower technology level and allowing for organic growth (if it's even possible to find a sufficiently hospitable planet that wouldn't require self-sustaining high technology to survive on). Either option is high risk and high expense and takes a very long time to get to work. Even assuming some pretty big advances in energy and propulsion technology, we're talking about a minimum travel time of decades between Earth and the colony, possibly more like centuries. Keeping supply and communication lines open would be largely futile.

Just playing Devil's Advocate, since I agree with your general thesis. But you're assuming current level of development, including driving 15000 miles a year in single passenger vehicles with intentionally crappy fuel efficiency, commuting 100 miles each way, living in massive trophy houses, and having the most recent Axe body wash. In a pinch you could take away the excesses of modern life, keep the modern health care, and do so at a much smaller cost than current level of development. In fact, that's exactly what our environmental problems are going to impose, except for the few super-rich.

Still not saying extra-solar exporting of our civilization is feasible, but let's address assumptions in your statement there. I wouldn't assume that colonists would expect live like fat/phat Americans.

See my previous point about transportation problems. Even a Mars colony (if it could magically have enough food to export to Earth) couldn't possibly ship more than a miniscule fraction of our food consumption. Anything short of a science fiction method of space travel isn't going to hack it, and even then you'd need a pretty ridiculously large fleet of ships.

To reiterate, I'd argue that Minx asked the wrong question, and you're spending a lot of time knocking down what is essentially a kooky and naive notion. It's a waste of your time, and you'd do better tackling the pig-headed notion that taking everything possible for oneself is the wisest life philosophy.

I don't understand why you're using the fact that this undertaking will take a very long time to get going as a reason to delay starting it.

I'd re-structure that idea, since the goal is wrong. What we really want is a) adequate space-faring technology to protect the planet from it's second greatest existential threat (impact by large asteroids), and b) raw materials to help stave off the single biggest existential threat, which is making our planet a place that is untenable for our species to have a good quality of life.

One and a half Iraq wars? Maybe a full two?

But doesn't that illustrate how fucked up our priorities are? As an American, the surest way to ensure the future dominance of our country is a continuation of our past course: large-scale public funding of transformational science research. Biomed and clean energy is the fount of future wealth, and any moron should be able to see that. History shows us that the countries that will best tap that fount are those who invest in the research foundation NOW. China gets that, the US doesn't because of this stupid "hurf durf free markets rool all!" philosophy. And philosophy it is, not grounded in reality. Because the US, and England before it, rose to economic dominance NOT through unfettered free markets, but through free markets directed by government policy. America and England become financially dominant by controlling trade through erecting certain trade barriers and tearing down others, all backed by military might. Well, that's not possible any more, bu the new model is scientific might, and modern American wealth is generated by industries that were born of government funding. The likes of Eisenhower understood this. Hell, Nixon understood it. But modern conservatives are effectively guaranteeing that America will be second rate in the future by strangling that science in the name of an untested and improbable philosophy.

Anyway, relativity is the reason no one is ever going to cough up the dough for it. The only realistic technological option we have right now is that nuclear bomb accelerator, and those ships would be going near-c with enough time in acceleration to cause hundreds, thousands of years to pass down here. Now that society doesn't believe in the Pharaoh anymore, I don't see anyone wasting their money on that. I'd rather start terraforming Mars.

Agreed. But a more reasonable goal would be sustainable orbital activities, with the goal of some sort of mining and novel zero-g technologies.

And the real technological salvation we need is the energy one, plus possibly the biological ones that enable us to feed seventeen thousand billion people just as well as we are fed now, or whatever it is that Randy's PR people are promising his constituents

[LittleFuzzy]

No realistic disaster could make Earth as uninhabitable as Mars anyway.


Which again if we had the tech to support ourselves on Mars we'd far more have the tech to support ourselves on Earth.

It is amusing to hear how you find the idea of Mars colonisation plausible, but 17bn on Earth implausible. The latter is far, far more credible.

That's actually a fair point I hadn't considered. Any disaster which would actually make the Earth as or more inhabitable than Mars could be reasonably expected to affect Mars as well, with it's inevitably smaller and more concentrated population and infrastructure.

[Steely Glint]

Uh, no, I think it's unrealistically long on any reasonable time scale, and actually impossible given current technology. Furthermore, given the sheer amount of resources necessary for such a project (say, the entire industrial output of the world for several centuries at a minimum), it seems that the resources could be better used elsewhere.

When you say, "such a project", what do you mean, exactly? Since there are a range of actual possibilities here, from 'move towards permanent human habitation in space as first steps' to 'recreate the first five turns of Master of Orion within our lifetimes'. One is very achievable, the other is fantasy and it's not very honest to try and conflate one with the other.

Maybe, someday, the technology will exist that will make my doubts much less significant. In such a case, I can see the argument for colonization. Right now, though, it's an awful policy choice.

The technology will only come if we're actively developing space flight and a human presence in space. That's the point. Not that we start building a ship to take colonists to another world now.

We are not some sort of borg collective, potentially saving "the human race" 500 years from now is so close to meaningless as to barely register.

To you, maybe.

How about saving all those now? How about curing malaria, cholera, AIDS, famine, cancer ...

Those are more important, but that does not automatically make this unimportant.

We have no evidence that 500 years from now there will be a disaster, and even if there was what you're proposing would not prevent it. If an asteroid from space were going to destroy the Earth then having a few colonists out in space won't save it - finding a way to save the Earth from said asteroid would make more sense.

Again, assuming a one off catastrophe. Assuming that the free market will not put more resources that are currently physically present into the ground at some point in the future (I'm sure assuming this makes me some kind Chicken Little Communist, but humour me), then at some point in the future we are not going to be able to sustain a technological society on earth with what we have on Earth. If we have access to space, we'll be able to continue as a technological civilization by bringing resources from off-world. However, if we ignore space until we're passed the point where the amount of resources we need to get there in a major way are no longer present on Earth then, we're boned.

Besides which, given the exponential growth of science 500 years from now at this rate we'll look pretty primitive so said disaster won't be saved by us. That's like someone from the 1400's trying to improve cavalry techniques to prevent WWII.

There is no reason to assume scientific progress will just grow exponentially forever. Though it seems you an Ender are assuming it will grow exponentially in every area except space flight, which will remain static.

Barring the Sun going supernova there is nothing science points to that will destroy the Earth, so preventing, adapting to and solving problems here > sending a few elsewhere.

Well, nothing else that will physically destroy the world. But plenty that might render it uninhabitable, and plenty that might render it still well able to support life but unable to support 6 billion of us. And plenty that might not do shit to long term habitability but might destroy enough of our infrastructure to kill off a good chunk of us with starvation and disease.

Except that even in that scenario there isn't a single known planet that would support life better than here on Earth.

Isn't there? I don't remember writing that.

Furthermore without FTL travel the idea of off-world farms supporting us is impossible.

Why is that?

Because we have real problems now, not fake problems in the future?

The real problems aren't existential, and the fake problems aren't fact. They're a fact. We just don't know how far away they are.

Because we don't have the tech to start?
Because tech is improving so we can do it better, more reliable and cheaper in the future?

You know that religious proverb, about a man who refuses assistance from a series of emergency services because he believes God will rescue him and then, after he dies, God explains how he had sent an ambulance, a fire engine, a helicopter &c ? Well, you remind me of that guy. Except with science as God and investment in actual spaceflight as the ambulances and so on.

[Aimless]

Why are we even pretending to buy this nonsense about how today's real tragedies are far more important than tomorrow's imagined dooms? This twittery about how irresponsible it would be to spend more time and money on working towards space-colonies when people are dying and suffering and in constant jeopardy right here on our increasingly more burdened planet??

I mean, I agree with those sentiments, my opening rant notwithstanding. But given those truths it's atrocious that we haven't fixed malaria, saved the oceans, or even come particularly far on the road to widespread use of renewable energy. Instead we're spending time energy money and lives on fighting wars, on fighting "terrorism", and on getting even more wasteful tech into people's hands so that they can burden the world some more. and while the TVs are getting cheaper, drugs and procedures and education and a great many things of great value are just getting more and more expensive as well as less and less accessible (congratulations Lewk ).

Clearly it is disingenuous in the extreme to pretend that our approach today is responsible, or wise, or good. Even when you remove the extreme example of colonising uranus we're faced with the simple truth that we are not helping science save us (pick your definition). Probably because we suck!






PS. Tear, most economists I'm acquainted with know very well that people are not perfect and that they're influenced (RATIONALLY!!!) by all sorts of psychological emotional contingent factors not to mention by their own poorly evolved probability processors.

[Aimless]

For the last few decades now, we've been tolerating assertions of "we don't need to get off fossil fuels", and look now, voila, with this cold winter comes a doubling of electricity costs thanks to the free marketeers of yesterday and where the hell is my fusion powerplant you sods??

[RandBlade]

When you say, "such a project", what do you mean, exactly? Since there are a range of actual possibilities here, from 'move towards permanent human habitation in space as first steps' to 'recreate the first five turns of Master of Orion within our lifetimes'. One is very achievable, the other is fantasy and it's not very honest to try and conflate one with the other.

First steps being lunar outposts etc - that is plausible. First steps being extra-solar system inhabitation - not in our life time.

The fastest spacecraft heading out of the solar system currently is Voyager 1 with a record 62,100 km/hr - or 17,250 m/s
The speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s
Voyager 1 is travelling at 0.00575% of c

The closest solar system to our own is Alpha Centauri at 4.4 light years away. If Voyager 1 was to travel directly to Alpha Centauri it would take 76,521 years each way. Assuming a round trip you're talking over 150k years each way without considering fuel, life-support etc of anyone apparently on such a vessel.

The technology will only come if we're actively developing space flight and a human presence in space. That's the point. Not that we start building a ship to take colonists to another world now.

Unless we definitively discover new laws of physics that allow FTL travel the technology may never come.

Again, assuming a one off catastrophe. Assuming that the free market will not put more resources that are currently physically present into the ground at some point in the future (I'm sure assuming this makes me some kind Chicken Little Communist, but humour me), then at some point in the future we are not going to be able to sustain a technological society on earth with what we have on Earth. If we have access to space, we'll be able to continue as a technological civilization by bringing resources from off-world. However, if we ignore space until we're passed the point where the amount of resources we need to get there in a major way are no longer present on Earth then, we're boned.

Now assume we can travel to Alpha Centauri at 100 thousand times faster than Voyager 1 in order for Earth to "trade" with a civilisation we spawn there, it would still take 1 and a half years to make a round trip. Just how much resources exactly do you think we can profitably take from any planets there without

There is no reason to assume scientific progress will just grow exponentially forever. Though it seems you an Ender are assuming it will grow exponentially in every area except space flight, which will remain static.

Even if it grows exponentially extra-solar activity remains so far away it would take a very long time (if its even possible) to develop to the point where we could realistically act outside the solar system.

Well, nothing else that will physically destroy the world. But plenty that might render it uninhabitable, and plenty that might render it still well able to support life but unable to support 6 billion of us. And plenty that might not do shit to long term habitability but might destroy enough of our infrastructure to kill off a good chunk of us with starvation and disease.

Really? Name anything that could plausibly do that to an Earth that has the technology to travel to other planets and inhabit them.

Isn't there? I don't remember writing that.

You think there is? Please name this other hospitable planet then.

Why is that?

Because without FTL travel it will take too long to get to other planets. The commodities consumed in the journey alone would far exceed those that could be harvested there.

The real problems aren't existential, and the fake problems aren't fact. They're a fact. We just don't know how far away they are.

Are they a fact? Any evidence?

You know that religious proverb, about a man who refuses assistance from a series of emergency services because he believes God will rescue him and then, after he dies, God explains how he had sent an ambulance, a fire engine, a helicopter &c ? Well, you remind me of that guy. Except with science as God and investment in actual spaceflight as the ambulances and so on.

Except you've not shown a single scenario where the spaceflight is an ambulance, nor a single act of desperation the ambulance is meant to save us from that we have in that proverb.

-----

EDIT: Electricity costs are not the fault of the free market - and I've advocated a switch to more nuclear powers my entire time at the forums Minx, but Cold Fusion, now that's something we should damn well develop . I think the post above that would make an interesting thread if you were to start it, you may not be surprised to find I disagree with you but since this thread is all about space I think having the two discussions simultaneously would be confusing.

[Nessus]

Cold fusion isn't really accepted by main-stream science

[RandBlade]

Indeed, definitely not for any current research but it's far more plausible and doesn't require a re-writing of relativity. Regular fusion would be a good start.

[Nessus]

A good start? The problems are entirely different

[RandBlade]

A lot closer than the problems between getting somebody to support themselves for a few weeks/months on the moon and colonising the universe, bringing resources from outside the galaxy back home.

[Nessus]

I'm not sure who you're trying to have an argument with, there

[Steely Glint]

First steps being lunar outposts etc - that is plausible. First steps being extra-solar system inhabitation - not in our life time.

Never claimed otherwise.

Now assume we can travel to Alpha Centauri at 100 thousand times faster than Voyager 1 in order for Earth to "trade" with a civilisation we spawn there, it would still take 1 and a half years to make a round trip. Just how much resources exactly do you think we can profitably take from any planets there without

Half has long as, for example, the first voyage of Captain Cook (though not actually possible, because c). As for profitability, obviously the answer 'it depends'.

Really? Name anything that could plausibly do that to an Earth that has the technology to travel to other planets and inhabit them.

Resource Exhaustion.

You think there is? Please name this other hospitable planet then.

I thought we were talking about the hypothetical scenario I drempt up for illustrative purposes, which takes place in the future?

Because without FTL travel it will take too long to get to other planets. The commodities consumed in the journey alone would far exceed those that could be harvested there.

Sorry, I was talking about space farming in the solar system.

Are they a fact? Any evidence?

You mean, the earth won't exist as a habitable space for humankind indefinitely? Yes, that's a fact.

Except you've not shown a single scenario where the spaceflight is an ambulance, nor a single act of desperation the ambulance is meant to save us from that we have in that proverb.

You're the one that keeps talking about how any cataclysmic scenario is no threat to a society with advanced spaceflight.

[RandBlade]

Actually a cataclysm that can't be avoided won't be minimised/prevented by spaceflight.

On what timescale would the Earth not be habitable any more and where else would be then? If Earth were no longer habitable then space-farming in this solar system wouldn't help.

Resource exhaustion will be avoided by technological progress/recycling/reclamation more than space mining. What resources do you think are able to be mined in our solar system in a serious quantity to be able to assist on earth?

[EyeKhan]

For many, many years now Catholics have been reassuring us men and othergendered of science that our concerns about the future are so unfounded as to be minigallodomestic in nature. They claim TECHNOLOGY will SAVE us from the doom of rapid celestial descent. Just LOOK at everything that has happened since Thomas Malthus lived and died, they cheer!

Well I just did and I note that we are STILL not particularly close to getting mankind off of this increasingly unreliable sitting-duck of a planet.

How will technology save us in the long term if we don't LET it??!

BAH

The Catholics? Huh? Catholics adhere to a doom religion in which your only path to salvation is Jesus Christ, not technology. As if. Besides, it doesn't matter what happens to us in this physical world. Jesus the Messiah will return sooner or later, and when He does, this is world will end. And if you're a decent christian, that's going to be a great day. So what's all this techno save nonsense?

We don't need to get off this rock, which is far more reliable than any other rock.

Wrong.

[EyeKhan]

Am curious how if other people are on another planet that reduces my risk, please explain.

There is the species to consider. Perhaps not your realm of concern, but those more qualified should be thinking about it. And making plans.

There are no nice words

Of course there are.

(Fixed.)

"Us" as in the human species

btw i note that we still don't seem to have any good options for eg. averting disaster in the form of comets or meteors that may strike us right her on earth

Ahem. "Us" as in all species. Or at least everything we can transplant elsewhere. Life must go on. For all we know, we are all there is. And continuance is all that matters to life. Sort of.

Randblade,

If you had kids, would you give a shit about them?

Fuck yeah he will. Just hope he never has to choose betewen them and you. That's how humans roll, yo. But his sleezy stance on this topic won't change, Catholics be damned.

[RandBlade]

So you'd be ok if the world got destroyed but 2 people survived to preserve the species on some form of Noah's Ark? Why? What is your logic behind that?

For what logical reason is it ok to doom everyone else but 'consider the species'

[EyeKhan]

I'm going to assume this is directed at me, if that's ok. So:

1. Two people isn't sufficient to continue the human species. Dr. Aimy I'm sure could give a better number but I'm guessing it would require dozens if not hundreds to provide enough genetic diversity.

2. No, I would not be ok if the world "got destroyed." However, if it did, say James Bond wasn't there to stop the evil Dr. Moriorety, then it would be better to have a dozen extra solar colonies, supporting thousands if not millions of humans and samplings of all the life on Earth, than to have none. Do you disagree with that last statement?

3. Where did you come up with the absurd idea that to save the species everyone on Earth has to die? The actual idea is that if something terrible happens here that with all our best efforts we cannot prevent, then an ace in the hole, in the form of more baskets to keep our eggs safe, is a good backup plan. To argue the opposite makes no sense at all.

[RandBlade]

No I do not see any advantage in having eggs in multiple baskets, I don't view humanity as an egg. We are individuals, not a collective.

[EyeKhan]

So, in 2 above you would choose to have all life go extinct? That is better than to have some life survive elsewhere. You are being intentionally daft in your hero worship. Too much ideology gets people killed and wrecks whole nations sonny boy. Be careful what you close your eyes and follow without thinking.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

After a certain point you don't sell extraplanetary exploration as part of "saving mankind", you sell it as "getting access to unlimited riches". And colonising the solar system or beyond shouldn't be sold as the same but as "expanding your borders, your prestige and your power".
Those are the motivations to power any significant exploration, exploitation and colonisation.

I'm pretty convinced we'll see the start of it happening soon enough as the private space-lines start coming on line.
Sure it's just for the rich for now but that's logical. At first they'll pay top-money to just go into space for a bit. Then another company will offer better and in true "keeping up with the neighbours" a new batch of rich people will go their, just to say they did. And so forth.
In the meantime the initial effort will get cheaper as the technology becomes more mature.

It's inevitable since there's always someone who wants to be able to say he did something "you" didn't.

[EyeKhan]

After a certain point you don't sell extraplanetary exploration as part of "saving mankind", you sell it as "getting access to unlimited riches". And colonising the solar system or beyond shouldn't be sold as the same but as "expanding your borders, your prestige and your power".
Those are the motivations to power any significant exploration, exploitation and colonisation.

I'm pretty convinced we'll see the start of it happening soon enough as the private space-lines start coming on line.
Sure it's just for the rich for now but that's logical. At first they'll pay top-money to just go into space for a bit. Then another company will offer better and in true "keeping up with the neighbours" a new batch of rich people will go their, just to say they did. And so forth.
In the meantime the initial effort will get cheaper as the technology becomes more mature.

It's inevitable since there's always someone who wants to be able to say he did something "you" didn't.

I agree completely.

[Enoch the Red]

So, in 2 above you would choose to have all life go extinct? That is better than to have some life survive elsewhere. You are being intentionally daft in your hero worship. Too much ideology gets people killed and wrecks whole nations sonny boy. Be careful what you close your eyes and follow without thinking.

Indulge me if you will in a quick thought experiment...
(This is not simply directed at you, but many of the posters in this thread)

Would you sacrifice yourself, right now, in order to save the entirety of man-kind? Would you sacrifice your family to do the same?

What is the primary role that mankind plays with regard to the planet? Generally speaking, is it a parasitic, symbiotic, or commensalistic capacity, or something else entirely?

Where do you fall within that context?

[EyeKhan]

Indulge me if you will in a quick thought experiment...
(This is not simply directed at you, but many of the posters in this thread)

Would you sacrifice yourself, right now, in order to save the entirety of man-kind? Would you sacrifice your family to do the same?

What is the primary role that mankind plays with regard to the planet? Generally speaking, is it a parasitic, symbiotic, or commensalistic capacity, or something else entirely?

Where do you fall within that context?

Answers, in order: Yes. Yes. A species with a large capacity for mischief yet the greatest capability of any species in the history of life on Earth. I'm a member of that species, a tiny cog or minute cell in a vast machine or organism.

[Enoch the Red]

Answers, in order: Yes. Yes. A species with a large capacity for mischief yet the greatest capability of any species in the history of life on Earth. I'm a member of that species, a tiny cog or minute cell in a vast machine or organism.

How many people would have to be saved to make your sacrifice(s) worthy? A thousand? Fifty? Ten?

Are you causing more mischief or good? Are you contributing to the decline and deterioration of the species, or the betterment of it?

[Veldan Rath]

Answers, in order: Yes. Yes.

While I think you are serious in your belief that you would sacrifice yourself...you would kiss off your family?

Really?

What empowers you to make that choice? (Honestly...I'm asking)

[RandBlade]

So, in 2 above you would choose to have all life go extinct? That is better than to have some life survive elsewhere. You are being intentionally daft in your hero worship. Too much ideology gets people killed and wrecks whole nations sonny boy. Be careful what you close your eyes and follow without thinking.

You make it sound like the choice is between "all life extinct" and "not all life extinct", that is a gross over-simplification.

Someone asked whether they taught about spreading risks in Economics - actually more talk is done of "opportunity cost" - that which can not be done because something else was done instead. What is the opportunity cost of investing sufficiently to spread life? What are the benefits of spreading life? What is the risk it will be "necessary"?

I would say in order: Massive, negligible, negligible.

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The sacrificing yourself in order to save mankind is a bad analogy, since virtually 100% of mankind would still get destroyed if Earth was. Would you sactifice yourself and 99.9% of all the rest of mankind to save 1 stranger?