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> People colonizing the New World from Europe didn't plan on coming right back, never to voyage again. I'm tired of this comparison with the American continent
by grondilu 10y ago
> People colonizing the New World from Europe didn't plan on coming right back, never to voyage again.
I'm tired of this comparison with the American continent. I've expressed my opinion about it before[1], but I guess I should do it again.
It's a terrible comparison. The American continent is not an other planet. It was just a place Europeans did not know about. Living there was not much different from living in Europe, and doing so did not require new technologies or anything : in fact it was already inhabited by people who were not more technologically advanced (and that's an euphemism).
If mars looked anything like what America looked like before Colombus, I would totally be up to colonize it. But it does not.
1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11584314 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11584314
- secstate 10y agoPretty sure the folks of the failed N. American colonies might beg to differ [0]. The earliest settlers experienced food shortages, as their crops either failed or were in appropriate for where they landed and were under attack from folks who had issues with them being there. Actually, considering the absence of folks already living there, Mars is kind of a colonists dream in terms of being able to control the vast majority of the variables. Sure things will still go wrong and people will still die, but in terms of liberating ourselves from our 3rd rock from the sun, colonizing Mars will stand as one of the pivotal moments in Earth life-history, not just human history. 0: http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/amerbegin/exploration/text6/text6read.htm http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/amerbegin/exploratio...