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Certainly. Our irrationality is why we're here. Launching a ship toward America was irrational. The scientists of the time could tell you with absolute certaint

Certainly. Our irrationality is why we're here. Launching a ship toward America was irrational. The scientists of the time could tell you with absolute certainty you'd die if your goal was to get to Asia by sailing west. We won't be discovering any new land, nor will we be surprised by anything. But that energy -- the fact that people want to go there, and want to colonize it -- that's rare. That's why the Sahara isn't the frontier. Love, in many ways, is completely irrational. There are countless advantages to spending your life alone. You'd conserve resources, you'd avoid heartbreak. If you want children, you can adopt. You could probably find someone to live with you, if you just want companionship. But the irrationality makes the experience.

zajd 9y ago
> Launching a ship toward America was irrational. uhh.. no it wasn't?
- zamalek 9y ago
  The earth was flat according to many people.
  - zajd 9y ago
    It still is!
  - pvg 9y ago
    Not really, certainly not those who sailed ships. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth
  - eropple 9y ago
    This isn't true. It was well-understood from antiquity that Earth was round--had to be, otherwise stuff like Eratosthenes's measuring of Earth wouldn't...well...work. It's a trivial thing to observe, too: if you're high enough over the ground, you can see horizon curvature. That knowledge was not, contrary to popular thought, widely lost during the Middle Ages even in Europe and definitely not in the Eastern Roman Empire or places east. Serious flat-Earth thought was ideologically motivated in the late 19th and early 20th century and bears some interesting parallels to climate change denialism.
    - simonh 9y ago
      >This isn't true. It was well-understood from antiquity that Earth was round... Among educated people able to afford and read a copy of Eratosthenes yes, but there were probably a lot of ordinary people that were not literate and were never exposed to any actual evidence to the contrary，who believed it was flat. Flat earthers in the modern world really do have no excuse, education in the basic geometry and simple tools they need to prove it themselves is near universal in the Western world, but back then it was perhaps more understandable
      - fapjacks 9y ago
        Education in basic sciences and simple tools are all people need to prove that the creation myths in <religious text> are not true, but that doesn't stop the vast bulk of humanity from subscribing to those stories.
      - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
        >Among educated people able to afford and read a copy of Eratosthenes who were the ones capable of funding the project in the first place
    - api 9y ago
      It still exists among right-wing conspiranoids determined to believe that absolutely everything is a lie.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- aetherson 9y ago
  It was. Nobody educated thought the Earth was flat. But Christopher Columbus miscalculated the size of the Earth, and everyone else correctly calculated it. There was no way that Columbus's ships could cover a distance equal to the width of the Atlantic + the width of the Pacific + the width of North America. They would've all starved to death before they reached their actual goal: the islands east of Asia (or Asia proper). It wasn't a calculated risk to find new land, they were trying to go to existing land and Columbus was just convinced that it was much, much, much closer than it actually was. Despite the fact that pretty close estimates of the size of the world had been calculated for a long time before him.
  - grondilu 9y ago
    > But Christopher Columbus miscalculated the size of the Earth, and everyone else correctly calculated it. There's a difference between being wrong and being irrational.
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      Yeah. He was both.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
grondilu 9y ago
> Launching a ship toward America was irrational. The scientists of the time could tell you with absolute certainty you'd die if your goal was to get to Asia by sailing west. At least they had a goal, even the trip was risky. I was replying to a comment from someone who wrote "It's mars. That's all the justification I need".
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  Ah. In that case: the goal is to colonize Mars. But you knew that. I think what you're looking for is a justification. Like love, sometimes there isn't one. Maybe it's a waste of resources. But it's theirs to waste. It's awesome, in the original sense of the word. That's the justification.
  - grondilu 9y ago
    > But it's theirs to waste. Not quite, since as Musk admits in this paper, he expects this madness to be "a huge public–private partnership". So yeah, he expects tax-payer money to contribute.
    - Ajedi32 9y ago
      We already spend significant amounts of taxpayer money sending random probes to other planets. What makes you think it'd be a bad idea to divert some of that money to sending humans instead? Especially if there are people who want to go and SpaceX manages to make it cheap enough for that to be viable.
      - grondilu 9y ago
        > We already spend significant amounts of taxpayer money sending random probes to other planets. I tend to think scientific research deserves public funding. What musk advocates is not for scientific research, it's basically an extremely weird and expensive real estate project. And I don't think real estate deserves public funding, no matter how exotic it is. And even if I did not think scientific research deserves public funding, that would not matter, for a wrong should not justify an other wrong.
grondilu 9y ago
> Love, in many ways, is completely irrational At least I know what love is. So when someone does something foolish for love, I understand. But when someone tells me he wants to spend billions to live in a small box on a cold, airless desert planet constantly bombarded by lethal radiations, and when he justifies that by "that's mars, and that's the only justification I need", I tend to think that's quite an other level of irrationality.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  Most of us already live in a small box in a cold desert. It's just cold in a different way. I'm not sure Mars will turn out differently. But in the early days, the people will be unique. And that's worth experiencing, even if it's for a short while. When you're in a situation where you could die tomorrow, and you're with other people who signed up knowing those risks, it's different than almost any other experience available to humans. Yes, it's a form of craziness. But a dose of crazy can sometimes work out in rather interesting ways. Or it won't. But there are worse ways to light billions on fire. People have been writing stories about Mars for a long time. Isn't it worth a few billion dollars and a few million lives to bring those stories to life?
  - babyrainbow 9y ago
    > Isn't it worth a few billion dollars and a few million lives to bring those stories to life?.. Do you really mean this, I mean, I don't even....
    - sillysaurus3 9y ago
      You bet. What are our lives worth? I think spawning a new world is a fine use. Also, that "lives" figure is counting the descendants of the people that eventually make a life for themselves on Mars. Those descendants won't get a choice, and one could argue it's unethical to put them in that position. So any analysis of how many lives Mars is worth must take this into account. And if it's anywhere near successful, a few million lives is at the low end.

zajd 9y ago

> Launching a ship toward America was irrational. uhh.. no it wasn't?

zamalek 9y ago
The earth was flat according to many people.
- zajd 9y ago
  It still is!
- pvg 9y ago
  Not really, certainly not those who sailed ships. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth
- eropple 9y ago
  This isn't true. It was well-understood from antiquity that Earth was round--had to be, otherwise stuff like Eratosthenes's measuring of Earth wouldn't...well...work. It's a trivial thing to observe, too: if you're high enough over the ground, you can see horizon curvature. That knowledge was not, contrary to popular thought, widely lost during the Middle Ages even in Europe and definitely not in the Eastern Roman Empire or places east. Serious flat-Earth thought was ideologically motivated in the late 19th and early 20th century and bears some interesting parallels to climate change denialism.
  - simonh 9y ago
    >This isn't true. It was well-understood from antiquity that Earth was round... Among educated people able to afford and read a copy of Eratosthenes yes, but there were probably a lot of ordinary people that were not literate and were never exposed to any actual evidence to the contrary，who believed it was flat. Flat earthers in the modern world really do have no excuse, education in the basic geometry and simple tools they need to prove it themselves is near universal in the Western world, but back then it was perhaps more understandable
    - fapjacks 9y ago
      Education in basic sciences and simple tools are all people need to prove that the creation myths in <religious text> are not true, but that doesn't stop the vast bulk of humanity from subscribing to those stories.
    - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
      >Among educated people able to afford and read a copy of Eratosthenes who were the ones capable of funding the project in the first place
  - api 9y ago
    It still exists among right-wing conspiranoids determined to believe that absolutely everything is a lie.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
aetherson 9y ago
It was. Nobody educated thought the Earth was flat. But Christopher Columbus miscalculated the size of the Earth, and everyone else correctly calculated it. There was no way that Columbus's ships could cover a distance equal to the width of the Atlantic + the width of the Pacific + the width of North America. They would've all starved to death before they reached their actual goal: the islands east of Asia (or Asia proper). It wasn't a calculated risk to find new land, they were trying to go to existing land and Columbus was just convinced that it was much, much, much closer than it actually was. Despite the fact that pretty close estimates of the size of the world had been calculated for a long time before him.
- grondilu 9y ago
  > But Christopher Columbus miscalculated the size of the Earth, and everyone else correctly calculated it. There's a difference between being wrong and being irrational.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    Yeah. He was both.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

grondilu 9y ago

> Launching a ship toward America was irrational. The scientists of the time could tell you with absolute certainty you'd die if your goal was to get to Asia by sailing west. At least they had a goal, even the trip was risky. I was replying to a comment from someone who wrote "It's mars. That's all the justification I need".

sillysaurus3 9y ago
Ah. In that case: the goal is to colonize Mars. But you knew that. I think what you're looking for is a justification. Like love, sometimes there isn't one. Maybe it's a waste of resources. But it's theirs to waste. It's awesome, in the original sense of the word. That's the justification.
- grondilu 9y ago
  > But it's theirs to waste. Not quite, since as Musk admits in this paper, he expects this madness to be "a huge public–private partnership". So yeah, he expects tax-payer money to contribute.
  - Ajedi32 9y ago
    We already spend significant amounts of taxpayer money sending random probes to other planets. What makes you think it'd be a bad idea to divert some of that money to sending humans instead? Especially if there are people who want to go and SpaceX manages to make it cheap enough for that to be viable.
    - grondilu 9y ago
      > We already spend significant amounts of taxpayer money sending random probes to other planets. I tend to think scientific research deserves public funding. What musk advocates is not for scientific research, it's basically an extremely weird and expensive real estate project. And I don't think real estate deserves public funding, no matter how exotic it is. And even if I did not think scientific research deserves public funding, that would not matter, for a wrong should not justify an other wrong.

grondilu 9y ago

> Love, in many ways, is completely irrational At least I know what love is. So when someone does something foolish for love, I understand. But when someone tells me he wants to spend billions to live in a small box on a cold, airless desert planet constantly bombarded by lethal radiations, and when he justifies that by "that's mars, and that's the only justification I need", I tend to think that's quite an other level of irrationality.

sillysaurus3 9y ago
Most of us already live in a small box in a cold desert. It's just cold in a different way. I'm not sure Mars will turn out differently. But in the early days, the people will be unique. And that's worth experiencing, even if it's for a short while. When you're in a situation where you could die tomorrow, and you're with other people who signed up knowing those risks, it's different than almost any other experience available to humans. Yes, it's a form of craziness. But a dose of crazy can sometimes work out in rather interesting ways. Or it won't. But there are worse ways to light billions on fire. People have been writing stories about Mars for a long time. Isn't it worth a few billion dollars and a few million lives to bring those stories to life?
- babyrainbow 9y ago
  > Isn't it worth a few billion dollars and a few million lives to bring those stories to life?.. Do you really mean this, I mean, I don't even....
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    You bet. What are our lives worth? I think spawning a new world is a fine use. Also, that "lives" figure is counting the descendants of the people that eventually make a life for themselves on Mars. Those descendants won't get a choice, and one could argue it's unethical to put them in that position. So any analysis of how many lives Mars is worth must take this into account. And if it's anywhere near successful, a few million lives is at the low end.