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Copying and pasting from a comment of mine from another thread: There's some good reasons try colonizing Mars: * It would be a significant challenge (like goi

Copying and pasting from a comment of mine from another thread: There's some good reasons try colonizing Mars: * It would be a significant challenge (like going to the Moon was), and (as there is lots of historical evidence for) innovation comes from people working on hard problems. So it would lead to innovations * It would inspire a generation to be more interested in areas like science and technology (also like with going to the Moon) * The fresh start of a new planet would provide the opportunity for people to try out new forms of social structure. The founding of the USA is a historical example of this. Broken systems and structures is a big problem on earth right now. * Ultimately if humanity only exists on a single planet, then it's at great risk of being wiped out by some catastrophe. Getting off earth is important for our future existence. (A long time ago, I read Robert Zubrin's "The Case for Mars" and I think a lot of these ideas came from that. https://www.amazon.com/Case-Mars-Plan-Settle-Planet/dp/145160811X https://www.amazon.com/Case-Mars-Plan-Settle-Planet/dp/14516...)

babyrainbow 9y ago
> innovation comes from people working on hard problems... You are saying we don't have enough hard problems here on earth? > The fresh start of a new planet would provide the opportunity for people to try out new forms of social structure. Is there any social structure that is proposed to solve our current problems, that we can adopt if we were to start from scratch? I ask, because I am not aware of any such social/economic systems. Even if there is something like that, Why not build a big island and try run this experiments there? > Ultimately if humanity only exists on a single planet, then it's at great risk of being wiped out by some catastrophe. Getting off earth is important for our future existence.... So be it. This is our home. It has given birth to life and sustained it till now (and it will if we hadn't messed up so badly). So you want to save yourself by getting out while the earth is still getting fucked? That is like the most ungrateful thing you can do as a species. And if we are doing that, what worth are we really, as a species? We are nothing more that complete imbeciles if we do that. I am ashamed of being a human from what people are saying in these threads!
- edem 9y ago
  Are you religious by any chance?
  - babyrainbow 9y ago
    Maybe, not everyone need a religion to tell them what is proper..
  - Koromix 9y ago
    Of course, everyone that does not buy into the myth of the Star Trek future that surely awaits mankind has to be a religious fool. Perhaps some of us have realised that, like many (now disappeared) past civilizations, our technological civilization is entering a state of decline caused by resource overuse and population overshoot, among other things. It is barely maintained by burning through hundreds of millions of years of solar energy stored as fossil fuels in the span of 200 - 300 years, a behavior that is also wrecking the climate that allowed us to prospere in the first place. In the face of the severe ecological, energy, food and population crises that await us (and indeed are already here in many places around the world), the Mars fantasy sounds foolish to me. Even a seriously damaged earth biosphere will remain infinitely more hospitable to human life than Mars. Damaged biosphere ≫ no biosphere (aka. Mars, and all other planets of our solar system).
- bhaak 9y ago
  > So be it. This is our home. It has given birth to life and sustained it till now (and it will if we hadn't messed up so badly). Do you still live at home with your parents? Some people grow up and move out. So will humanity if it will be responsible. > So you want to save yourself by getting out while the earth is still getting fucked? > That is like the most ungrateful thing you can do as a species. And if we are doing that, what worth are we really, as a species? We are nothing more that complete imbeciles if we do that. Let me draw a historical parallel. Should the colonists have stayed in Europe and tried to solve their social problems first before moving over the ocean to the Americas? I agree that we have enough problems on Earth that we wouldn't need to tackle other problems on other celestial bodies. But that's not how our society works. Not everybody has the same influence on the progression of things. Potential Mars colonists would be able to change things on Mars but unlikely to have any impact on Earth. And if we really fuck over the ecosphere on Earth, if we have no other place where humans are living in a self-sustaining way then it's game over. But if we have an autarkic colony outside Earth there is at least a chance that they might come back to Earth to repopulate it with at least some of the life that was lost. With likely exactly that technology that they had to use on Mars first.

babyrainbow 9y ago

> innovation comes from people working on hard problems... You are saying we don't have enough hard problems here on earth? > The fresh start of a new planet would provide the opportunity for people to try out new forms of social structure. Is there any social structure that is proposed to solve our current problems, that we can adopt if we were to start from scratch? I ask, because I am not aware of any such social/economic systems. Even if there is something like that, Why not build a big island and try run this experiments there? > Ultimately if humanity only exists on a single planet, then it's at great risk of being wiped out by some catastrophe. Getting off earth is important for our future existence.... So be it. This is our home. It has given birth to life and sustained it till now (and it will if we hadn't messed up so badly). So you want to save yourself by getting out while the earth is still getting fucked? That is like the most ungrateful thing you can do as a species. And if we are doing that, what worth are we really, as a species? We are nothing more that complete imbeciles if we do that. I am ashamed of being a human from what people are saying in these threads!

edem 9y ago
Are you religious by any chance?
- babyrainbow 9y ago
  Maybe, not everyone need a religion to tell them what is proper..
- Koromix 9y ago
  Of course, everyone that does not buy into the myth of the Star Trek future that surely awaits mankind has to be a religious fool. Perhaps some of us have realised that, like many (now disappeared) past civilizations, our technological civilization is entering a state of decline caused by resource overuse and population overshoot, among other things. It is barely maintained by burning through hundreds of millions of years of solar energy stored as fossil fuels in the span of 200 - 300 years, a behavior that is also wrecking the climate that allowed us to prospere in the first place. In the face of the severe ecological, energy, food and population crises that await us (and indeed are already here in many places around the world), the Mars fantasy sounds foolish to me. Even a seriously damaged earth biosphere will remain infinitely more hospitable to human life than Mars. Damaged biosphere ≫ no biosphere (aka. Mars, and all other planets of our solar system).
bhaak 9y ago
> So be it. This is our home. It has given birth to life and sustained it till now (and it will if we hadn't messed up so badly). Do you still live at home with your parents? Some people grow up and move out. So will humanity if it will be responsible. > So you want to save yourself by getting out while the earth is still getting fucked? > That is like the most ungrateful thing you can do as a species. And if we are doing that, what worth are we really, as a species? We are nothing more that complete imbeciles if we do that. Let me draw a historical parallel. Should the colonists have stayed in Europe and tried to solve their social problems first before moving over the ocean to the Americas? I agree that we have enough problems on Earth that we wouldn't need to tackle other problems on other celestial bodies. But that's not how our society works. Not everybody has the same influence on the progression of things. Potential Mars colonists would be able to change things on Mars but unlikely to have any impact on Earth. And if we really fuck over the ecosphere on Earth, if we have no other place where humans are living in a self-sustaining way then it's game over. But if we have an autarkic colony outside Earth there is at least a chance that they might come back to Earth to repopulate it with at least some of the life that was lost. With likely exactly that technology that they had to use on Mars first.