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You make the case that political issues haven’t changed much isn’t he past 2400 years, but then go on to say you’d like to see us manage things here at home bef

You make the case that political issues haven’t changed much isn’t he past 2400 years, but then go on to say you’d like to see us manage things here at home before expanding into space? Those seem to be in conflict to me. I do agree that human engineering has developed far faster than human politics, but I think we need to just accept that this trend will continue.

crazygringo 7y ago
The conflict is exactly what I'm pointing out. It's pretty easy to imagine a minority of administrators on a space habitat decide they'll take some critical system hostage unless they get a bigger share of whatever they want because they think (perhaps legitimately) they've been the victim of some injustice... overplay their hand, critical system fails despite nobody actually intending it, millions of people in the habitat die. Or a million other ways for disaster to happen because of human reasons, not engineering ones. Here on earth, even when societies devolve into civil war and massacre (e.g. Syria the past few years), at least they don't destroy the earth along with it. But with a space habitat, even a partial breakdown of order easily means everybody can just die. So let me be clearer: I wouldn't just "like" to see us manage Earth better first. My point is that this may very likely actually prevent space habitats from being viable at all. "Accepting that this trend will continue" doesn't mean we'll make space habitats regardless -- it means accepting space habitats might not ever be thing (no matter how possible the engineering is), unless it ever happens that we first make enough massive progress in our forms of political organization and cooperation as well.
- solveit 7y ago
  While I see your point, it should be noted that we are perfectly capable of killing everyone on Earth as well. The only reason this hasn't happened is because the whole world came together to be more sensible[1] about nuclear conflicts than we were about less destructive conflicts, and because of a good deal of dumb luck. And killing everyone on Earth will only ever get easier as technology advances. At least a distributed civilisation means one community self-destructing doesn't mean the end of humanity. [1] Not a high bar, and not by much. Nevertheless, we are still (barely) here.
- harmoat 7y ago
  This is probably where GAI would be really useful.

crazygringo 7y ago

The conflict is exactly what I'm pointing out. It's pretty easy to imagine a minority of administrators on a space habitat decide they'll take some critical system hostage unless they get a bigger share of whatever they want because they think (perhaps legitimately) they've been the victim of some injustice... overplay their hand, critical system fails despite nobody actually intending it, millions of people in the habitat die. Or a million other ways for disaster to happen because of human reasons, not engineering ones. Here on earth, even when societies devolve into civil war and massacre (e.g. Syria the past few years), at least they don't destroy the earth along with it. But with a space habitat, even a partial breakdown of order easily means everybody can just die. So let me be clearer: I wouldn't just "like" to see us manage Earth better first. My point is that this may very likely actually prevent space habitats from being viable at all. "Accepting that this trend will continue" doesn't mean we'll make space habitats regardless -- it means accepting space habitats might not ever be thing (no matter how possible the engineering is), unless it ever happens that we first make enough massive progress in our forms of political organization and cooperation as well.

solveit 7y ago
While I see your point, it should be noted that we are perfectly capable of killing everyone on Earth as well. The only reason this hasn't happened is because the whole world came together to be more sensible[1] about nuclear conflicts than we were about less destructive conflicts, and because of a good deal of dumb luck. And killing everyone on Earth will only ever get easier as technology advances. At least a distributed civilisation means one community self-destructing doesn't mean the end of humanity. [1] Not a high bar, and not by much. Nevertheless, we are still (barely) here.
harmoat 7y ago
This is probably where GAI would be really useful.