6 ms·

Me neither, but I would love to live there for, I don't know, a year. If living in a foreign country for some time can have a profound impact on you, imagine li

Me neither, but I would love to live there for, I don't know, a year. If living in a foreign country for some time can have a profound impact on you, imagine living in a foreign planet.

joe_the_user 9y ago
Well, even given a degree of habitation, visiting Mars would likely be similar to visiting Antarctica in winter, which is certainly a novel experience but not necessarily culturally expanding in the fashion that a year in tremendously different cultural climate might be.
- whatshisface 9y ago
  After about twenty years of habitation (and extremely bottlenecked social inheritance), I bet Mars would be a pretty interesting cultural climate itself. Could you even imagine what kind of self-parody our political groups could grow in to if their opposition just happened to not book a seat?
gboudrias 9y ago
I think it would mostly be about fending off senseless boredom.
slimsag 9y ago
Living on a foreign planet would surely have a _much greater profound impact_ on you, but the profoundness isn't what is important. It's the type of a profound impact that matters. As an example, let's say you grew up only in the U.S. Visiting a foreign European country might have a profound impact of the type that is very eye-opening due to seeing and interacting with another culture. In contrast, visiting an active war-zone like Syria will surely have a _greater profound impact_ on you, but the type will be one that is very sad. The same would go for a foreign planet, where the type of a profound impact it would have on you would be one of loneliness, abandoned-ness, etc.
- timthelion 9y ago
  This is why, I, as an environmentalist hope humans will colonize Mars. I firmly believe that a Mars colony is the best bet we have at forcing humans to finally see how precious our trees and our green and blue earth is.
  - samstave 9y ago
    Has there been a single person ever who has determined how to grow anything on mars? We have freaking rovers there for decades. Not a single seed planted, not a single tiny green house or terrarium delivered to the surface. We have spent billions putting robots on mars and we have literally nothing to show for it. And by "something to show for it" that would mean an experiment to literally show that we can sustain life on mars. Have we even had a single person with the qualifications to state so, commented on this? Until then, mars is simply an expensive cemetery.
    - timthelion 9y ago
      It is currently "illegal" to bring life to Mars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_protection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_protection
    - slimsag 9y ago
      There is a good reading about greenhouses on Mars here by NASA[1], also this seems to (obviously) be an active area of research for them. There is talk of them trying to put a small greenhouse on Mars by 2021[2] [1] https://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/livingthings/25feb_greenhouses.html https://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/livingthings/25feb_greenho... [2] https://www.space.com/25767-nasa-mars-greenhouse-rover-plant-experiment.html https://www.space.com/25767-nasa-mars-greenhouse-rover-plant...
    - tstactplsignore 9y ago
      >We have spent billions putting robots on mars and we have literally nothing to show for it. This kind of anti-intellectualism is really inexcusable. We've gained an enormous amount of knowledge from the rover expeditions to Mars over the years[1], and nobody should apologize that the previous expeditions didn't meet your specific science fiction fantasies. We can agree that we'd both love more funding for more missions to Mars, but your characterization of the earlier missions as useless is outrageous and uninformed. [1] https://marsmobile.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/science/results/ https://marsmobile.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/science/results/

Me neither, but I would love to live there for, I don't know, a year. If living in a foreign country for some time can have a profound impact on you, imagine living in a foreign planet.

joe_the_user 9y ago

Well, even given a degree of habitation, visiting Mars would likely be similar to visiting Antarctica in winter, which is certainly a novel experience but not necessarily culturally expanding in the fashion that a year in tremendously different cultural climate might be.

whatshisface 9y ago
After about twenty years of habitation (and extremely bottlenecked social inheritance), I bet Mars would be a pretty interesting cultural climate itself. Could you even imagine what kind of self-parody our political groups could grow in to if their opposition just happened to not book a seat?

gboudrias 9y ago

I think it would mostly be about fending off senseless boredom.

slimsag 9y ago

Living on a foreign planet would surely have a _much greater profound impact_ on you, but the profoundness isn't what is important. It's the type of a profound impact that matters. As an example, let's say you grew up only in the U.S. Visiting a foreign European country might have a profound impact of the type that is very eye-opening due to seeing and interacting with another culture. In contrast, visiting an active war-zone like Syria will surely have a _greater profound impact_ on you, but the type will be one that is very sad. The same would go for a foreign planet, where the type of a profound impact it would have on you would be one of loneliness, abandoned-ness, etc.

timthelion 9y ago
This is why, I, as an environmentalist hope humans will colonize Mars. I firmly believe that a Mars colony is the best bet we have at forcing humans to finally see how precious our trees and our green and blue earth is.
- samstave 9y ago
  Has there been a single person ever who has determined how to grow anything on mars? We have freaking rovers there for decades. Not a single seed planted, not a single tiny green house or terrarium delivered to the surface. We have spent billions putting robots on mars and we have literally nothing to show for it. And by "something to show for it" that would mean an experiment to literally show that we can sustain life on mars. Have we even had a single person with the qualifications to state so, commented on this? Until then, mars is simply an expensive cemetery.
  - timthelion 9y ago
    It is currently "illegal" to bring life to Mars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_protection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_protection
  - slimsag 9y ago
    There is a good reading about greenhouses on Mars here by NASA[1], also this seems to (obviously) be an active area of research for them. There is talk of them trying to put a small greenhouse on Mars by 2021[2] [1] https://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/livingthings/25feb_greenhouses.html https://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/livingthings/25feb_greenho... [2] https://www.space.com/25767-nasa-mars-greenhouse-rover-plant-experiment.html https://www.space.com/25767-nasa-mars-greenhouse-rover-plant...
  - tstactplsignore 9y ago
    >We have spent billions putting robots on mars and we have literally nothing to show for it. This kind of anti-intellectualism is really inexcusable. We've gained an enormous amount of knowledge from the rover expeditions to Mars over the years[1], and nobody should apologize that the previous expeditions didn't meet your specific science fiction fantasies. We can agree that we'd both love more funding for more missions to Mars, but your characterization of the earlier missions as useless is outrageous and uninformed. [1] https://marsmobile.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/science/results/ https://marsmobile.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/science/results/