3 ms·

This seems kind of silly. Yes, there's good chances that there will be balkanization and space wars when we colonize widely. That's no reason not to do it. Shou

by ufmace 8y ago

This seems kind of silly. Yes, there's good chances that there will be balkanization and space wars when we colonize widely. That's no reason not to do it. Should we stay confined to a tiny island on Earth just so that we don't get big enough to form nations that sometimes fight each other? Maybe there would be less war overall, but we'd never progress from being hunter-gatherers and subsistence farmers, and would always be vulnerable to a whole bunch of things that are inconsequential to our current global society.

lou1306 8y ago
Moreover, staying confined here has not prevented us from forming nations and waging wars... With the added drawback that all our eggs are currently in the same planetary basket. I'm not even sure that "space wars" will be that common. War is expensive, even more so when you have to do it on top of space travel. I think that, without either some extreme commodification of space travel, or some insanely huge reward, space wars won't be a reasonable option in most cases.
- JetSpiegel 8y ago
  > I'm not even sure that "space wars" will be that common. War is expensive, even more so when you have to do it on top of space travel. Using the example from the article, if Earth considered "Gliese 581 d" Space Commies or something and sent an army NOW at c/4, we would get a message saying "We're here, will engage" in 2118. That's beyond the life expectancy of anything but a small percentage of people being born now. Using xkcd logic, it was like WW1 Germans deciding "We will invade Russia", send his Pickelhaube corps and when they get to Moscow its 1998 and the Soviet Union has collapse already. They would be using Gewehr 98, they would be slaughtered by a single T-34 out of a museum. News of 1998 Moscow (and pictures of McDonald's on Red Square) would arrive to Angela Merkel. 100 years is a damn long time.
- MrLeap 8y ago
  Could be cheaper to wage war from space under certain circumstances. Some earth bound city giving you lip? Put a little ion engine a telephone pole sized rod of tungsten. Bye bye city. Industrially, building such a weapon for a spacefaring society is quite a bit cheaper than the equivalent terrestrial solution (nukes most of the time).

by ufmace 8y ago

lou1306 8y ago

Moreover, staying confined here has not prevented us from forming nations and waging wars... With the added drawback that all our eggs are currently in the same planetary basket. I'm not even sure that "space wars" will be that common. War is expensive, even more so when you have to do it on top of space travel. I think that, without either some extreme commodification of space travel, or some insanely huge reward, space wars won't be a reasonable option in most cases.

JetSpiegel 8y ago
> I'm not even sure that "space wars" will be that common. War is expensive, even more so when you have to do it on top of space travel. Using the example from the article, if Earth considered "Gliese 581 d" Space Commies or something and sent an army NOW at c/4, we would get a message saying "We're here, will engage" in 2118. That's beyond the life expectancy of anything but a small percentage of people being born now. Using xkcd logic, it was like WW1 Germans deciding "We will invade Russia", send his Pickelhaube corps and when they get to Moscow its 1998 and the Soviet Union has collapse already. They would be using Gewehr 98, they would be slaughtered by a single T-34 out of a museum. News of 1998 Moscow (and pictures of McDonald's on Red Square) would arrive to Angela Merkel. 100 years is a damn long time.
MrLeap 8y ago
Could be cheaper to wage war from space under certain circumstances. Some earth bound city giving you lip? Put a little ion engine a telephone pole sized rod of tungsten. Bye bye city. Industrially, building such a weapon for a spacefaring society is quite a bit cheaper than the equivalent terrestrial solution (nukes most of the time).