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It boggles my mind when people assume that their pet ideas should be everyone's. Patience was a virtue. In a couple hundred years time people will be able to
by flubert 11y ago
It boggles my mind when people assume that their pet ideas should be everyone's. Patience was a virtue. In a couple hundred years time people will be able to do that without having to "leverage the entire world economy".
- kbenson 11y ago>> It is the single most beneficial act to the survival likelihood of the human species that seems available to us. > people assume that their pet ideas should be everyone's. It's not exactly a pet idea, but it is against the grain of most Human thinking, which is far more geared for tribal thinking than thinking at the species level, which is why it doesn't "boggle my mind". That said, I think is important, and arguing it's not selfish[1] by definition, as it puts one's personal, community, national, continental and/or world interests above the interests of the species, which ultimately is survival. Off-world colonies is procreation at the species level, and is the only way to prevent an extinction level event of the type that we know happen occasionally on earth. 1: I'm not trying to imply your statement is selfish as much as make a general point.
- actionwords 11y agolet me guess eugenics is good too
- pc86 11y ago> Off-world colonies is procreation at the species level, and is the only way to prevent an extinction level event of the type that we know happen occasionally on earth. To be fair it doesn't prevent an ELE at all, it just means that one would destroy 99.9%+ of the human species instead of 100%. Shotgunning even a few tens of thousands of people in all directions would not meaningfully change the end result of an ELE on Earth unless you wound up with 100-200 of them on the same hospitable rock.[0] [0] https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1936-magic-number-for-space-pioneers-calculated/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1936-magic-number-for...
- Rhapso 11y ago99.9% loss is infinitely better than the current expected loss rate. The most effective technique for lowering the total loss likelihood is to have as many independent populations large enough to self-propagate indefinitely as possible.
- kbenson 11y ago> it just means that one would destroy 99.9%+ of the human species instead of 100%. That is the difference between extinction and non-extinction. It changes what would previously have been an extinction level event into a non-extinction level event. That is, it doesn't prevent the event, it prevents it from being extinction level, which is the whole point. > Shotgunning even a few tens of thousands of people in all directions would not meaningfully change the end result of an ELE on Earth unless you wound up with 100-200 of them on the same hospitable rock. The point isn't to just send people to other locations, but to eventually create self-sustaining colonies. That doesn't happen without first getting people there. (and hospitable is relative).
- jfoutz 11y agoI think we've almost been wiped out at least once before, http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/10/22/163397584/how-human-beings-almost-vanished-from-earth-in-70-000-b-c http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/10/22/163397584/ho...
- codecamper 11y agoIf survival is the goal, why not spend this few percent of world GDP to solve global warming. Plaster the deserts with solar panels. Heck, we could maybe use the same tech to both robotically plaster the deserts with solar panels. Then send those finely tuned bots up to Mars to do the same thing there.
- kbenson 11y agoGlobal warming will not cause human extinction. At most, it could cause a drop in population, and a regression of civilization in the hardest hit areas. A giant asteroid will not be thwarted by our good stewardship of the Earth.