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We have to start somewhere that isn’t earth. Interstellar travel over the next 100-1000 years will be a requirement for the next 5000-10000 years if humans expe

We have to start somewhere that isn’t earth. Interstellar travel over the next 100-1000 years will be a requirement for the next 5000-10000 years if humans expect to survive that long. Starting development now to understand terraforming and building out the primitives that allow for it in the future is something we owe to generations to come.

brigade 8y ago
If you're arguing species-level survival, really we're going to survive longer than that, short of a meteor strike or maybe nuclear war. Sure, 99% of the population might die, the equator could become uninhabitable, and we might lose advanced tech in the ensuing wars, but it'll take much more than climate change to completely wipe out homo sapiens. We do need to be colonizing other stars within a quarter billion years or so though. The sun won't last forever!
- Avshalom 8y ago
  Capitalism is built on the belief that ownership creates value and thus entitles owners to some portion of the value created in perpetuity. In a free market profit should be driven to zero through competition. As a result capitalism requires constant growth. And so in the same way 'it is easier to imagine the end of civilization than to imagine the end of capitalism' the idea that we could survive for even a year without exploiting the planet beyond steady-state seems so unrealistic as to not be mentionable.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >Sure, 99% of the population might die, the equator could become uninhabitable, and we might lose advanced tech in the ensuing wars, but it'll take much more than climate change to completely wipe out homo sapiens. Why? Tons of other species have been wiped out very easily, and they didn't even contribute to their own demise as much as we did.
  - newnewpdro 8y ago
    I think it's mostly because the same abilities enabling us to do so much long-term (self-)destruction in slow motion will enable at least some of us to always be able to conquer the immediate threats to survival. No other species on the planet has attained a comparable ability to bend the environment to its needs like we have. Everything's had to evolve to live in differing conditions. We start fires, invent and build air conditioners, etc.
  - dagw 8y ago
    Tons of other species have been wiped out very easily Most of them due to an external force they could not begin to comprehend actively or accidentally trying to kill them (ie humans). Also we are on the whole smarter, more creative and better with tools than they where. they didn't even contribute to their own demise as much as we did. The fact the we actively contributed to our (potential) demise gives us a massive head start in that we understand and can see the problem coming in a way no other species could. Realistically anything that could wipe out humans would have to be something so completely alien and beyond our current understanding or control that we cannot even currently imagine it. Basically anything we can comprehend we can control for and counter.
- lmm 8y ago
  > We do need to be colonizing other stars within a quarter billion years or so though. The sun won't last forever! If we don't start now, when? It's the kind of thing that you can always put off for another million years.
  - qbrass 8y ago
    We should have done it a million years ago. Once we had fire and the ability to sharpen rocks, there's no excuse not to start colonizing the galaxy.
    - lmm 8y ago
      We spread as far as we could, with the technology we had at the time. Going over the next hill, over the next ocean, and so on was for the best even when we hadn't fixed all the problems at home.
- adrianN 8y ago
  I think the important part is the survival of a technological civilization. It's unclear whether we'd ever manage to reach the current level of development again if we happened to lose it for a few generations.
EGreg 8y ago
I am going to ask the philosophical question that is practically begging to be asked: Who cares? If no one is around to care, then who will care? Suppose we do discover ABC and achieve XYZ, if at some point things end then no one will be around anymore to care. So what was ultimately the point of doing any of it, I mean long term? Eventually everything will end in the physical universe. What’s the point of escaping the sun’s growth and keeping things going for a billion years versus 10 million years? Humans will be very different. Will they even be considered human? In a few generations, cyborgs may start to replace humans and computer data can be cheaply replicated and thus the idea of self-preservation and “the self” may change. In that case, what is the goal of a hive mind? But I would ask the question about even the next generation. Why do you care what happens when you’re not around? Maybe you care out of empathy. But I don’t see how you extend that to 50,000 years in the future.
- throwaway8879 8y ago
  Most people don't care about the future of the species in the scale of thousands of years. But the accumulated effects of our individual selfish desires add up, and we can then say that humanity cares, even if that's just for the short term. And when all this adds up in 10k years, we will claim that humanity engineered their future, even though it wasn't a grand vision or anything like that. I may not care individually about the specie or the planet, but I suppose all our desires/visions/goals add up in an objective sense. If that makes any sense.
coldtea 8y ago
>Interstellar travel over the next 100-1000 years will be a requirement for the next 5000-10000 years if humans expect to survive that long. Given the mechanics, interstellar travel will most likely always be a pipe dream, because techies still have to believe to some fairy tales... http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/the_high_frontier_redux.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/the_high... http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/11/the_myth_of_the_starship.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/11/the_myth...
- biffq 8y ago
  Hello I just wanted to say that out of the infinite numerical odds of you not existing, you are sentient, alive, breathing, and sharing someone’s journal, human. “If u breathin u achievin” ㅓㅁ.먀 - ㅌ
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >Hello I just wanted to say out of the incredible numerical odds of you not existing, you are sentient, alive, breathing, and sharing someone’s journal. Numerical odds are not the same as laws of nature like e.g. the speed of light or the economics of the energy required and so on. Odds are quite low to win the lottery too, but someone always does. Few have travelled faster than the speed of light though (superman comes to mind), or any other of the many physical limitations to overcome. And the fact that we went from carriages to planes doesn't guarantee any continuous growth to interstellar travel. Not the fact that we're "ingenious" (whatever that means) or that we "really want it". Plus, I'm not even sure about the odds being that low (for all we know life can also be easy to develop over time as long as they have some basic conditions, similar to which we know tons of planets in the universe to have). But sure, no actual on-topic arguments needed, whatever keeps the faith alive...
  - qbrass 8y ago
    The irony is being alive and breathing are impediments to traveling the galaxy. Sentience is kind of a hassle when you have long spans of travel time, as well.
- 8y ago
verelo 8y ago
I really doubt it’s that critical to get to another planet. Or at least, if it is, we could correct that without leaving ie start treating this planet with a little respect.

brigade 8y ago

If you're arguing species-level survival, really we're going to survive longer than that, short of a meteor strike or maybe nuclear war. Sure, 99% of the population might die, the equator could become uninhabitable, and we might lose advanced tech in the ensuing wars, but it'll take much more than climate change to completely wipe out homo sapiens. We do need to be colonizing other stars within a quarter billion years or so though. The sun won't last forever!

Avshalom 8y ago
Capitalism is built on the belief that ownership creates value and thus entitles owners to some portion of the value created in perpetuity. In a free market profit should be driven to zero through competition. As a result capitalism requires constant growth. And so in the same way 'it is easier to imagine the end of civilization than to imagine the end of capitalism' the idea that we could survive for even a year without exploiting the planet beyond steady-state seems so unrealistic as to not be mentionable.
coldtea 8y ago
>Sure, 99% of the population might die, the equator could become uninhabitable, and we might lose advanced tech in the ensuing wars, but it'll take much more than climate change to completely wipe out homo sapiens. Why? Tons of other species have been wiped out very easily, and they didn't even contribute to their own demise as much as we did.
- newnewpdro 8y ago
  I think it's mostly because the same abilities enabling us to do so much long-term (self-)destruction in slow motion will enable at least some of us to always be able to conquer the immediate threats to survival. No other species on the planet has attained a comparable ability to bend the environment to its needs like we have. Everything's had to evolve to live in differing conditions. We start fires, invent and build air conditioners, etc.
- dagw 8y ago
  Tons of other species have been wiped out very easily Most of them due to an external force they could not begin to comprehend actively or accidentally trying to kill them (ie humans). Also we are on the whole smarter, more creative and better with tools than they where. they didn't even contribute to their own demise as much as we did. The fact the we actively contributed to our (potential) demise gives us a massive head start in that we understand and can see the problem coming in a way no other species could. Realistically anything that could wipe out humans would have to be something so completely alien and beyond our current understanding or control that we cannot even currently imagine it. Basically anything we can comprehend we can control for and counter.
lmm 8y ago
> We do need to be colonizing other stars within a quarter billion years or so though. The sun won't last forever! If we don't start now, when? It's the kind of thing that you can always put off for another million years.
- qbrass 8y ago
  We should have done it a million years ago. Once we had fire and the ability to sharpen rocks, there's no excuse not to start colonizing the galaxy.
  - lmm 8y ago
    We spread as far as we could, with the technology we had at the time. Going over the next hill, over the next ocean, and so on was for the best even when we hadn't fixed all the problems at home.
adrianN 8y ago
I think the important part is the survival of a technological civilization. It's unclear whether we'd ever manage to reach the current level of development again if we happened to lose it for a few generations.

EGreg 8y ago

I am going to ask the philosophical question that is practically begging to be asked: Who cares? If no one is around to care, then who will care? Suppose we do discover ABC and achieve XYZ, if at some point things end then no one will be around anymore to care. So what was ultimately the point of doing any of it, I mean long term? Eventually everything will end in the physical universe. What’s the point of escaping the sun’s growth and keeping things going for a billion years versus 10 million years? Humans will be very different. Will they even be considered human? In a few generations, cyborgs may start to replace humans and computer data can be cheaply replicated and thus the idea of self-preservation and “the self” may change. In that case, what is the goal of a hive mind? But I would ask the question about even the next generation. Why do you care what happens when you’re not around? Maybe you care out of empathy. But I don’t see how you extend that to 50,000 years in the future.

throwaway8879 8y ago
Most people don't care about the future of the species in the scale of thousands of years. But the accumulated effects of our individual selfish desires add up, and we can then say that humanity cares, even if that's just for the short term. And when all this adds up in 10k years, we will claim that humanity engineered their future, even though it wasn't a grand vision or anything like that. I may not care individually about the specie or the planet, but I suppose all our desires/visions/goals add up in an objective sense. If that makes any sense.

coldtea 8y ago

>Interstellar travel over the next 100-1000 years will be a requirement for the next 5000-10000 years if humans expect to survive that long. Given the mechanics, interstellar travel will most likely always be a pipe dream, because techies still have to believe to some fairy tales... http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/the_high_frontier_redux.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/the_high... http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/11/the_myth_of_the_starship.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/11/the_myth...

biffq 8y ago
Hello I just wanted to say that out of the infinite numerical odds of you not existing, you are sentient, alive, breathing, and sharing someone’s journal, human. “If u breathin u achievin” ㅓㅁ.먀 - ㅌ
- coldtea 8y ago
  >Hello I just wanted to say out of the incredible numerical odds of you not existing, you are sentient, alive, breathing, and sharing someone’s journal. Numerical odds are not the same as laws of nature like e.g. the speed of light or the economics of the energy required and so on. Odds are quite low to win the lottery too, but someone always does. Few have travelled faster than the speed of light though (superman comes to mind), or any other of the many physical limitations to overcome. And the fact that we went from carriages to planes doesn't guarantee any continuous growth to interstellar travel. Not the fact that we're "ingenious" (whatever that means) or that we "really want it". Plus, I'm not even sure about the odds being that low (for all we know life can also be easy to develop over time as long as they have some basic conditions, similar to which we know tons of planets in the universe to have). But sure, no actual on-topic arguments needed, whatever keeps the faith alive...
- qbrass 8y ago
  The irony is being alive and breathing are impediments to traveling the galaxy. Sentience is kind of a hassle when you have long spans of travel time, as well.
8y ago

verelo 8y ago

I really doubt it’s that critical to get to another planet. Or at least, if it is, we could correct that without leaving ie start treating this planet with a little respect.