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Hey at least he says it, sometimes I think half or more of the people who end up famous for some reason and also talk about going to live on other planets are o

Hey at least he says it, sometimes I think half or more of the people who end up famous for some reason and also talk about going to live on other planets are only doing it for the hype. It’s insanely impractical, we’d be millions of times more likely to develop a way of living under the sea than on another planet, and that is only a few hours drive away and nobody wants to live under the sea given current capabilities. Imagine how much worse life on Earth would have to get (and how much better undersea living would have to get) to make it a viable place to raise a family and get old.

dustingetz 7y ago
is there money buried under the sea? We all spend 70% of our life living through a screen anyway, what’s the difference
im3w1l 7y ago
The main feature of living on another planet is that it's harder for the earthlings to police you and your deviant lifestyle / society.
- coldtea 7y ago
  Actually that would be the worst reason to live on another planet. Take your average totalitarian state. Say China. Multiply times 10. That would be what living on another planet will be like. It wont be some pristine unexplored planet, where you'd be let to go settle anywhere you like, explorer style. At least not on the solar system. It would be something like a small, tightly controlled, and highly co-dependent colony, where everyone must stick together. There will be less room, no places to just roam (except with your suit and air). Away from the food, air, generators etc, would be mostly death. Oh, and at least for the first decades the government and/or some big corporation will select who goes and who can't go. And everybody will be monitored 24/7, first because it would be made with high tech, which can just as easily include tracking chips, smart doors, cameras, and so on, and because if anybody goes crazy/suicidal and does something stupid, they can get everybody killed easily (e.g. sabotage something)... If you want that kind of freedom of being deviant you'd be much more likely to get it in Alaska, Antarctica, Siberia, and so on, than in another planet we're going to go anytime soon... (Herzog's documentary "Encounters at the end of the world" alludes to that, and shows some such types https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0KzBHJLQ80 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0KzBHJLQ80 ).
  - DuskStar 7y ago
    Or it would be like the Puritan settlements in the New World - a totalitarian state, sure, but one that shares that fetish/deviant lifestyle/whatever of yours.
    - coldtea 7y ago
      That's unlikely though, because the Puritans went to the New World themselves, on their own means - crossing the ocean, building their cabins, etc. Whereas the space colony will need trillions of dollars to be set up, coughed up by some big government. And they're unlike to send people there to fulfill their fetish/deviant lifestyle/whatever lifestyle... Heck, the puritans were persecuted from their old country. No government is going to pay billions to send persecuted people to a space colony... Except if it's a doomed mission, and e.g. they send death row volunteers or something, like The Dirty Dozen movie...
      - DuskStar 7y ago
        And you think that going to the New World was cheap? I would have to disagree. Religious groups can bring surprising amounts of money to bear for things that reduce the chance of eternal damnation. If the price of space travel comes down enough for colonies to be viable, I would not be surprised to see a mix of governmental, corporate and religious settlements setup.
        coldtea 7y ago
        >And you think that going to the New World was cheap? Dirt cheap. They were persecuted people, they gathered, paid together for a ship to take them, and landed there. Money weren't that good where they settled, as there was hardly an economy at the time. Most of the stuff they built themselves, started growing, etc.
shantly 7y ago
Earth could take a big ol' comet strike or a nuclear war—or probably both—and still be better able to support human life than Mars is. You could build a bunch of super-hardened bunkers and pay people to live in them in shifts, cheaper than you could build a Martian colony and move people there. It's less sexy but it gets the job done cheaper, if anyone cares to do it. As for any other reason to live on Mars aside from temporarily in the name of science—I'm not seeing it.
- cryptoz 7y ago
  > As for any other reason to live on Mars aside from temporarily in the name of science—I'm not seeing it. Why don't you see the human desire to move to new places? It's a simple matter of wanting to go. No other reason should be required to explain why humans will go live on Mars. It's going to happen simply because people want it to happen.
  - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
    That explains why humans want to live on Mars, certainly. But "we really want to" is not, on its own, a compelling reason to spend billions of dollars.
  - paulryanrogers 7y ago
    > It's going to happen simply because people want it to happen. This sounds a lot like the religious arguments for supernatural healing, just have to believe and try. Human willpower is limited by the laws of physics. Barring some fundamental breakthroughs in resource utilization, like cold fusion, I don't see it happening--no matter the desire to do so. And if the cost is making Earth uninhabitable then it'd a be foolish to pursue blindly.
  - shantly 7y ago
    It's an incredibly difficult place to live? It's probably not much easier than living on the Moon, really. A little more gravity but that's about the only useful thing it's got that the Moon doesn't—not enough atmosphere to be much help. That for a months-long travel time, versus days. It'd be like living on top of Everest, but a solid 100x worse in just about every way. It's wicked inhospitable. It's a romantic notion for some because we've got over a century of science fiction about Mars behind us, but it'd be a pretty miserable (and extremely expensive) existence. People'll probably go there at some point. A long-term colony? I really doubt it. It'd be a colossal waste of money more or less doomed to failure.
benreesman 7y ago
This is a really important argument and one that I think gets far too little airtime. It’s just as applicable to efforts to live on e.g. Mars as it is to efforts to colonize the galaxy. Living in Antarctica or in the middle of the Gobi desert or at the bottom of the ocean (independently and sustainably) are way easier than living on Mars, and that’s orders of magnitude easier than finding and reaching a viable exoplanet. The break even point for living on an exoplanet or Mars is when Earth is the worse environment, and I don’t think even a serious Dinosaur-killer asteroid impact makes Earth less habitable to mammals than anywhere else we know about. Maybe a gamma-ray burst would but at some point if the universe wants you, it’ll get you. Climate change is real, environmental pollution is serious, the powers that be most likely aren’t going to do enough in time, so we’re going to get a screwed-up Earth. But it’ll still be the best place we have access to for living in.
- me_me_me 7y ago
  I see the point and I wouldn't want to go to live on Mars as the 'first wave', but there are people on earth living in the harshest environments because they are used to living there. Some towns in Russia, or Canada where its deadly cold outside in the winter. Why don't they move out of there? People are more adaptive then you'd give them credit for it.

dustingetz 7y ago

is there money buried under the sea? We all spend 70% of our life living through a screen anyway, what’s the difference

im3w1l 7y ago

The main feature of living on another planet is that it's harder for the earthlings to police you and your deviant lifestyle / society.

coldtea 7y ago
Actually that would be the worst reason to live on another planet. Take your average totalitarian state. Say China. Multiply times 10. That would be what living on another planet will be like. It wont be some pristine unexplored planet, where you'd be let to go settle anywhere you like, explorer style. At least not on the solar system. It would be something like a small, tightly controlled, and highly co-dependent colony, where everyone must stick together. There will be less room, no places to just roam (except with your suit and air). Away from the food, air, generators etc, would be mostly death. Oh, and at least for the first decades the government and/or some big corporation will select who goes and who can't go. And everybody will be monitored 24/7, first because it would be made with high tech, which can just as easily include tracking chips, smart doors, cameras, and so on, and because if anybody goes crazy/suicidal and does something stupid, they can get everybody killed easily (e.g. sabotage something)... If you want that kind of freedom of being deviant you'd be much more likely to get it in Alaska, Antarctica, Siberia, and so on, than in another planet we're going to go anytime soon... (Herzog's documentary "Encounters at the end of the world" alludes to that, and shows some such types https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0KzBHJLQ80 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0KzBHJLQ80 ).
- DuskStar 7y ago
  Or it would be like the Puritan settlements in the New World - a totalitarian state, sure, but one that shares that fetish/deviant lifestyle/whatever of yours.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    That's unlikely though, because the Puritans went to the New World themselves, on their own means - crossing the ocean, building their cabins, etc. Whereas the space colony will need trillions of dollars to be set up, coughed up by some big government. And they're unlike to send people there to fulfill their fetish/deviant lifestyle/whatever lifestyle... Heck, the puritans were persecuted from their old country. No government is going to pay billions to send persecuted people to a space colony... Except if it's a doomed mission, and e.g. they send death row volunteers or something, like The Dirty Dozen movie...
    - DuskStar 7y ago
      And you think that going to the New World was cheap? I would have to disagree. Religious groups can bring surprising amounts of money to bear for things that reduce the chance of eternal damnation. If the price of space travel comes down enough for colonies to be viable, I would not be surprised to see a mix of governmental, corporate and religious settlements setup.
      - coldtea 7y ago
        >And you think that going to the New World was cheap? Dirt cheap. They were persecuted people, they gathered, paid together for a ship to take them, and landed there. Money weren't that good where they settled, as there was hardly an economy at the time. Most of the stuff they built themselves, started growing, etc.

shantly 7y ago

Earth could take a big ol' comet strike or a nuclear war—or probably both—and still be better able to support human life than Mars is. You could build a bunch of super-hardened bunkers and pay people to live in them in shifts, cheaper than you could build a Martian colony and move people there. It's less sexy but it gets the job done cheaper, if anyone cares to do it. As for any other reason to live on Mars aside from temporarily in the name of science—I'm not seeing it.

cryptoz 7y ago
> As for any other reason to live on Mars aside from temporarily in the name of science—I'm not seeing it. Why don't you see the human desire to move to new places? It's a simple matter of wanting to go. No other reason should be required to explain why humans will go live on Mars. It's going to happen simply because people want it to happen.
- PhasmaFelis 7y ago
  That explains why humans want to live on Mars, certainly. But "we really want to" is not, on its own, a compelling reason to spend billions of dollars.
- paulryanrogers 7y ago
  > It's going to happen simply because people want it to happen. This sounds a lot like the religious arguments for supernatural healing, just have to believe and try. Human willpower is limited by the laws of physics. Barring some fundamental breakthroughs in resource utilization, like cold fusion, I don't see it happening--no matter the desire to do so. And if the cost is making Earth uninhabitable then it'd a be foolish to pursue blindly.
- shantly 7y ago
  It's an incredibly difficult place to live? It's probably not much easier than living on the Moon, really. A little more gravity but that's about the only useful thing it's got that the Moon doesn't—not enough atmosphere to be much help. That for a months-long travel time, versus days. It'd be like living on top of Everest, but a solid 100x worse in just about every way. It's wicked inhospitable. It's a romantic notion for some because we've got over a century of science fiction about Mars behind us, but it'd be a pretty miserable (and extremely expensive) existence. People'll probably go there at some point. A long-term colony? I really doubt it. It'd be a colossal waste of money more or less doomed to failure.

benreesman 7y ago

This is a really important argument and one that I think gets far too little airtime. It’s just as applicable to efforts to live on e.g. Mars as it is to efforts to colonize the galaxy. Living in Antarctica or in the middle of the Gobi desert or at the bottom of the ocean (independently and sustainably) are way easier than living on Mars, and that’s orders of magnitude easier than finding and reaching a viable exoplanet. The break even point for living on an exoplanet or Mars is when Earth is the worse environment, and I don’t think even a serious Dinosaur-killer asteroid impact makes Earth less habitable to mammals than anywhere else we know about. Maybe a gamma-ray burst would but at some point if the universe wants you, it’ll get you. Climate change is real, environmental pollution is serious, the powers that be most likely aren’t going to do enough in time, so we’re going to get a screwed-up Earth. But it’ll still be the best place we have access to for living in.

me_me_me 7y ago
I see the point and I wouldn't want to go to live on Mars as the 'first wave', but there are people on earth living in the harshest environments because they are used to living there. Some towns in Russia, or Canada where its deadly cold outside in the winter. Why don't they move out of there? People are more adaptive then you'd give them credit for it.