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Maybe I should clarify my point: all the things that will realistically kill everyone reading this comment are not unique to Earth. Some of the things you've me

Maybe I should clarify my point: all the things that will realistically kill everyone reading this comment are not unique to Earth. Some of the things you've mentioned are quite literally so astronomically unlikely that worrying about them is unproductive. And in any case, each of the extinction scenarios you've listed is also fully plausible on Mars. Scores of people die from cancer, heart disease, obesity, malnutrition, vehicular accidents or warfare every day. In my opinion, there's a sort of messianic hubris involved in the idea that we should colonize an utterly foreign, unfamiliar and inhospitable environment for the sake of our species, when everything that actually threatens our species comes from our own biology and the way we treat each other. The current state of Mars is a vastly more hostile environment than even the worst, most pessimistic scenarios offered by Earth's paleoclimatology. We completely lack the technology to terraform Mars' environment to our needs. It is strictly easier for us to develop the technology, lifestyle changes or sociopolitical reforms necessary to continue thriving here on Earth than it is to learn how to adapt to Mars or to terraform its environment to approximate Earth's. You and I are probably going to die from cancer, heart disease or random accidents. On a long enough timeline, everyone we know is probably going to die from one of those things. But sure let's go to Mars, where the things that kill approximately everyone apparently aren't an issue.

fastball 8y ago
If fixing all our problems on earth is easier than going to other celestial bodies, why have we visited the moon but not done the former? Nobody thinks going to Mars will make us immortal, you're kinda just throwing that straw man in there. The disagreement is really that colonizing Mars does not make us any less capable of solving problems on Earth, but it could have many benefits. There are realistically zero downsides. The great thing about space exploration is that it's mostly a purely scientific endeavor. If you throw money at it, you can get stuff done. That's not how global geopolitics works. That's not how convincing people to take better care of their bodies works. You can't just throw money at that problem, so the idea that spending money on Mars takes money from those things is a baseless premise anyway.

fastball 8y ago

If fixing all our problems on earth is easier than going to other celestial bodies, why have we visited the moon but not done the former? Nobody thinks going to Mars will make us immortal, you're kinda just throwing that straw man in there. The disagreement is really that colonizing Mars does not make us any less capable of solving problems on Earth, but it could have many benefits. There are realistically zero downsides. The great thing about space exploration is that it's mostly a purely scientific endeavor. If you throw money at it, you can get stuff done. That's not how global geopolitics works. That's not how convincing people to take better care of their bodies works. You can't just throw money at that problem, so the idea that spending money on Mars takes money from those things is a baseless premise anyway.