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Humanity managed to get this far without specialists in every conceivable field herding us the whole time. I think our expectations need adjusting to the sparse
by Meerax 8y ago
Humanity managed to get this far without specialists in every conceivable field herding us the whole time. I think our expectations need adjusting to the sparser/harsher realities of what an early extra-terran colony would look like. In shared living situations (dorms, apartments, families etc) there is generally a division of shared labor so that the whole unit can exist. Sending people with the sole purpose of functioning as a custodian is wasteful and preposterous. As is administration staff for obgyn's. Or, for another example, what good is your HR department if the habitation section of the colony experiences explosive decompression?
- gotocake 8y agoHumanity did all of that on a planet every generation of organism evolved to thrive on for billions of years, not a completely hostile environment. All of our ancestors, going back to protoplasmic goo evolved on one planet. All of our mammalian ancestors evolved just on an incredibly narrow window on or near the surface of said planet. Maybe we won’t need all of our current specialists, but we’re going to need rafts of new ones. You’re also making the “Golgafrincham” mistake when you arbitrarily dismiss existing specialties. It would be a shame for our first colony to die from a disease contracted from the proverbial “unexpectedly dirty telephone.” Having dedicated personal to keep th place clean might be one of the more essential jobs for all we know. HR might be another essential, or something similar unless you want that explosive decompression to have been the result of sabotage because of co-worker conflict.