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I think humanity is not ready to be multi-planetary. Time or distances or conditions are not on humanity's side. Even humanity is not on humanity's side. I thi

I think humanity is not ready to be multi-planetary. Time or distances or conditions are not on humanity's side. Even humanity is not on humanity's side. I think the dreams of being multi-planetary are similar to buying doomsday bunkers in New Zealand. I see it as a desire to escape the problems of earth. I would ask a question to Anjum Choudhary, "If there is a colony on Mars, and your ideology got hold of major countries on Earth, would you try to convert those on Mars?". I think the answer, undoubtedly would be yes. Humanity has much to resolve on earth, if we go multi-planetary before we reconcile then all we would end up doing is make our problems multi-planetary. Unless few people escape earth and destroy earth so that there won't be anyone following them. Equivalent to you first going into a safe bunker and then nuking the world, wait out the nuclear fallout to emerge. But then you would be pure evil. I don't know if they have thought this through. On the scale of centuries, not quarter ends, all they are doing is working for those with higher rate of reproduction.

greedo 9y ago
Umm, interesting take. There are some good sci-fi series that explore the idea of religious groups expanding via space colonies. Heck, even the KSR Mars series discusses this. Living in fear of Islam (or LDS, or Branch Davidians) is a foolish way to evaluate a scientific/societal exploration project.
- AmIFirstToThink 9y ago
  It would be foolish to think humans would be different because they happen to be in space. Yeah, the first ones to look at earth from outer space had an mind altering experience. I am sure the few who flew in first airplanes had similar story to tell, but now we complain about service while flying. We would just get used to being in space, and keep doing what we do best, be humans and have conflict. I want earth treated right, people on earth treated right, space escape will only bring out worst from people.
DesiLurker 9y ago
I think this is perfect time for humanity to start efforts in that direction. IMO international gridlock may work out to our advantage. what I am afraid is having a single global superpower (likely china) emerge and control the fate of humanity with an iron fist. BTW for next few decades the dream of being fully self sufficient mars colony is just that, a dream. Any billionaire would have to be out of their mind to leave perfectly good 'empire' on earth to live life of a commoner on mars/colony. Secondly, I know I am speculating but IMO the reason Elon want to do this now may have something to do with emergence of singularity. I think he wants to have backup BEFORE we create artificial superintelligence which by median of estimates of AI researcher is to be believed around 2045.
- AmIFirstToThink 9y ago
  And you just hope that they AI that's sustaining the human life on Mars, doesn't like the AI taking over the earth. I think having a backup of humanity would make world leaders to be more dangerous with their decision making, destroying earth in the process. Why, they have backup of humanity in outer space. And after disaster on earth, they try to restore the backup and realize that restore is not going to work. Any DBA will tell you stories of failing restore and the dread that sets in when that happens, it does happen. My worst fear is that in space we would realize that humans need a certain bacteria in our stomach to develop brain or to just be humans, and our last colony-wide anti-viral shot killed those bacteria's, and that bacteria only is found in cow's milk, cows that eat grass on earth. And then that's it, end of story. I think the physics of space exploration can be worked out, biology is not going to be.

greedo 9y ago

Umm, interesting take. There are some good sci-fi series that explore the idea of religious groups expanding via space colonies. Heck, even the KSR Mars series discusses this. Living in fear of Islam (or LDS, or Branch Davidians) is a foolish way to evaluate a scientific/societal exploration project.

AmIFirstToThink 9y ago
It would be foolish to think humans would be different because they happen to be in space. Yeah, the first ones to look at earth from outer space had an mind altering experience. I am sure the few who flew in first airplanes had similar story to tell, but now we complain about service while flying. We would just get used to being in space, and keep doing what we do best, be humans and have conflict. I want earth treated right, people on earth treated right, space escape will only bring out worst from people.

DesiLurker 9y ago

I think this is perfect time for humanity to start efforts in that direction. IMO international gridlock may work out to our advantage. what I am afraid is having a single global superpower (likely china) emerge and control the fate of humanity with an iron fist. BTW for next few decades the dream of being fully self sufficient mars colony is just that, a dream. Any billionaire would have to be out of their mind to leave perfectly good 'empire' on earth to live life of a commoner on mars/colony. Secondly, I know I am speculating but IMO the reason Elon want to do this now may have something to do with emergence of singularity. I think he wants to have backup BEFORE we create artificial superintelligence which by median of estimates of AI researcher is to be believed around 2045.

AmIFirstToThink 9y ago
And you just hope that they AI that's sustaining the human life on Mars, doesn't like the AI taking over the earth. I think having a backup of humanity would make world leaders to be more dangerous with their decision making, destroying earth in the process. Why, they have backup of humanity in outer space. And after disaster on earth, they try to restore the backup and realize that restore is not going to work. Any DBA will tell you stories of failing restore and the dread that sets in when that happens, it does happen. My worst fear is that in space we would realize that humans need a certain bacteria in our stomach to develop brain or to just be humans, and our last colony-wide anti-viral shot killed those bacteria's, and that bacteria only is found in cow's milk, cows that eat grass on earth. And then that's it, end of story. I think the physics of space exploration can be worked out, biology is not going to be.