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Can you help me understand this? I keep hearing about expansion to other planets but it seems to me that no matter how inhospitable Earth becomes, we’ll be star

Can you help me understand this? I keep hearing about expansion to other planets but it seems to me that no matter how inhospitable Earth becomes, we’ll be starting off from a much worse position elsewhere.

glial 8y ago
There's no understanding it because it doesn't actually make sense. Lasting solutions to earth-scale issues like climate change must ultimately be social solutions (regulations, taxes, treaties, and ultimately alignment of incentives). Terraforming Mars seems easier than developing social solutions to some people, so that's what they fixate on. But trying to spread into the solar system because we're afraid of having the hard conversations about social solutions is a gross misapplication of imagination and resources.
- randallsquared 8y ago
  The fact that we're using "hard conversations" as a euphemism for large scale violence is a wry comment on just how hard those conversations will actually be. I don't expect that colonization of Mars or other distant places will save "us", but it might well save many of those who go. There are lots of ways in which places on Mars are less hospitable to human life than places on Earth, but if things get really bad on Earth, the surrounding weather will not be nearly as bad as how other people are reacting.
  - adrianN 8y ago
    It will take a really long time before any off-planet colony could be self-sustaining. Just think about how long the supply chains for even the simplest things needed for repairs are. Until then Earth is either fucked due to climate change or we have a local solution to the problem.
  - fornaxese 8y ago
    There's also the more strategic aspects of interplanetary exploration. Namely: rendering those places conceptually impractical as a doctrine of area denial. Area denial isn't just about land mines. It can mean fomenting political unrest among the constituents of a standing, stable, and sustainable Martian colony, so that it's suddenly an unappealing alternative to solving Earth's problems. Don't go there, it's the Salem witch trials and the holocaust all at once. Stay here and fix the biosphere instead.
- sathackr 8y ago
  I think the point, or at least a parallel point, is that if we have the technology to terraform Mars, then we likely have the technology to terraform earth back to a more habitable environment. Eventually the situation will be come obvious enough that it can no longer be ignored by half of the West, and most of the developing world. When that happens, and a solution to the problem becomes a global priority, it will be solved in one manner or another.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > it will be solved in one manner or another The closer we get to that point, the worse it will be for those further from resources (political and financial).
    - glial 8y ago
      Exactly. That's why I think people fantasizing about Mars instead of investing in fixing our current social/media/political situation is a severe misapplication of resources. I'm looking at you, Jeff Bezos.
      - Faark 8y ago
        We humans usually don't focus our resources on a single issues. Have you ever heard we have to stop spending money for cosmetics because right now we have to fix amazon deforestation? And even then, we usually don't go all in on a single plan but want backups. Mars might be one of those. A tiny one we barely invest any resources into. NASA is ~0.5 percent of the US budget. Cosmetics would be easily 3x that. I'm with your GP on that. Not terra-forming, but a small mars colony will prove Humans are able to live independent from earths ecology. That we have the necessary technology and just have to scale it up. That will be hard enough on potentially short available time frame we have to react, so doing the R&D now in form of a government financed space program will probably buy us necessary time. That doesn't mean the colony has to be independent of earths economy. Decoupling mines and factories from earths ecology will be a lot easier than doing so for e.g. food production. But yeah, that will be painful and I'd prefer mankind to find ways to keep our current environment intact.

glial 8y ago

There's no understanding it because it doesn't actually make sense. Lasting solutions to earth-scale issues like climate change must ultimately be social solutions (regulations, taxes, treaties, and ultimately alignment of incentives). Terraforming Mars seems easier than developing social solutions to some people, so that's what they fixate on. But trying to spread into the solar system because we're afraid of having the hard conversations about social solutions is a gross misapplication of imagination and resources.

randallsquared 8y ago
The fact that we're using "hard conversations" as a euphemism for large scale violence is a wry comment on just how hard those conversations will actually be. I don't expect that colonization of Mars or other distant places will save "us", but it might well save many of those who go. There are lots of ways in which places on Mars are less hospitable to human life than places on Earth, but if things get really bad on Earth, the surrounding weather will not be nearly as bad as how other people are reacting.
- adrianN 8y ago
  It will take a really long time before any off-planet colony could be self-sustaining. Just think about how long the supply chains for even the simplest things needed for repairs are. Until then Earth is either fucked due to climate change or we have a local solution to the problem.
- fornaxese 8y ago
  There's also the more strategic aspects of interplanetary exploration. Namely: rendering those places conceptually impractical as a doctrine of area denial. Area denial isn't just about land mines. It can mean fomenting political unrest among the constituents of a standing, stable, and sustainable Martian colony, so that it's suddenly an unappealing alternative to solving Earth's problems. Don't go there, it's the Salem witch trials and the holocaust all at once. Stay here and fix the biosphere instead.
sathackr 8y ago
I think the point, or at least a parallel point, is that if we have the technology to terraform Mars, then we likely have the technology to terraform earth back to a more habitable environment. Eventually the situation will be come obvious enough that it can no longer be ignored by half of the West, and most of the developing world. When that happens, and a solution to the problem becomes a global priority, it will be solved in one manner or another.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > it will be solved in one manner or another The closer we get to that point, the worse it will be for those further from resources (political and financial).
  - glial 8y ago
    Exactly. That's why I think people fantasizing about Mars instead of investing in fixing our current social/media/political situation is a severe misapplication of resources. I'm looking at you, Jeff Bezos.
    - Faark 8y ago
      We humans usually don't focus our resources on a single issues. Have you ever heard we have to stop spending money for cosmetics because right now we have to fix amazon deforestation? And even then, we usually don't go all in on a single plan but want backups. Mars might be one of those. A tiny one we barely invest any resources into. NASA is ~0.5 percent of the US budget. Cosmetics would be easily 3x that. I'm with your GP on that. Not terra-forming, but a small mars colony will prove Humans are able to live independent from earths ecology. That we have the necessary technology and just have to scale it up. That will be hard enough on potentially short available time frame we have to react, so doing the R&D now in form of a government financed space program will probably buy us necessary time. That doesn't mean the colony has to be independent of earths economy. Decoupling mines and factories from earths ecology will be a lot easier than doing so for e.g. food production. But yeah, that will be painful and I'd prefer mankind to find ways to keep our current environment intact.