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> To me this is the main reason that going multiplanetary or space habitat based is basically the only way to escape this inevitable doom I disagree with this

> To me this is the main reason that going multiplanetary or space habitat based is basically the only way to escape this inevitable doom I disagree with this. Leaving the Earth doesn't remove random acts of doom from happening, and in fact, they are more lethal in unfamiliar and hostile environments. If we do not figure out how to handle such black swan events on our home planet, we have no chance of handling them in space or on other planets.

bilegeek 6y ago
That's the issue. If we can't handle the black swan events in time, we'll at least have a backup. Granted, this doesn't cover bigger black swan events like gamma ray bursts, where the entire solar system is screwed, but it'll at least help with Earthside apocalypse. The fact that we couldn't handle it is indeed incriminating against our abilities as a species, but as they say, perfect is the enemy of good.
- cgriswald 6y ago
  It's not possible for a gamma ray burst to 'screw' the entire solar system. It's already an incredibly unlikely event to occur near enough to do damage. Then the beam would have to be directed in our direction. And the beam would have to essentially hit the solar system edge on or face on, but not at any other angle. Even if all that happened, underground bases would be protected, as would above-ground or in-space habitats that happened to be protected either by the mass of the body they're on by virtue of 'facing away' from the GRB; or by virtue of being behind another body (e.g. Jupiter, the sun, some body they are orbitting) relative to the GRB. With space habitats, they may also be protected by virtue of already needing some level of protection against cosmic radiation; but that's highly speculative. A GRB also wouldn't destroy the Earth. It would do a lot of damage to its ecosystems, but the Earth would be relatively safe again not terribly long after the event, even without human intervention. If we had the technology to colonize space, we could definitely recolonize the Earth, even in a worst case scenario where the entire ecosystem collapses.
  - MauranKilom 6y ago
    How long would such a burst be expected to last? Because at least momentarily, one half of the earth will remain pretty safe.
    - cgriswald 6y ago
      Most of them are very short lived (think seconds at most), but they can be as long as a few hours. No part of the Earth will really be 'safe' for humans in sense of 'unaffected' like other places could be, but yeah, lots of people would only suffer from the after effects.
sethammons 6y ago
The idea is not to avoid black swan events entirely, it is to have pockets that are missed by a given event. Earth goes cold? Well, good thing the moon base can preserve technology and knowledge for a hundred years. Solar flare? Good thing we have the under-ice base on Europa. Europa explodes? Good thing that we are still on Earth. Now if they all happen at the same time, like the sun dying, then that is why you want to get a star base even further away.
- pfdietz 6y ago
  What event would leave the Earth less habitable than the Moon already is?
  - tryauuum 6y ago
    grey goo
  - iso1631 6y ago
    If you already have a self sufficient colony on the moon, but don't on the earth, when the catastrophic event occurs the moon will still be self sufficient. The technology developed to live on the moon may allow it to be rapidly deployed on Earth, saving a large number of people, but if that technology doesn't exist then you're stuck
  - vardump 6y ago
    Anything that would block sunlight for an extended period.
- m4rtink 6y ago
  Not only that, sufficiently advanced off-world infrastructure could be helpful for handling dangerous events. Yelowstone blows up unexpectedly - orbital rescue forces do a quick drop, help rescue survivors in the immediate area. Later on food supplies from orbital/Lunar farms help cover food shortages and teraforming techniques can be used to fixup the biosphere.
pogimabus 6y ago
Becoming multiplanetary IS handling it, just not in a necessarily "ideal" way. The problem is that we don't want to have the reset button hit and have every human in existence set back to the stone age technologically; having multiple self sustaining human societies on multiple planets mitigates that risk in a major way since the likelihood of a disaster being so large that it resets technology on both/all planets is much smaller than the likelihood of having a disaster that does it for just one of them.
- newsbinator 6y ago
  I suppose a pandemic would still do it though, assuming sustained travel between habitats. We're gonna want a multi-week airlock to be allowed into the Moon & Mars habitats.
  - Nasrudith 6y ago
    Latency provides a natural level of quarantine as well even if the volume is high enough for a sustained stream. Although there are plenty of messy details involved in sufficiency.
- kmonsen 6y ago
  The problem is that it is at least 10x easier to fix Earth than to terraform Mars, and all the problems we have on Earth are going to be there as well.
  - baby 6y ago
    Resilience is not about fixing something. Otherwise we wouldn’t have created the internet.
  - unFou 6y ago
    That might be the point. Few people are going to bother spending resources to fix a problem that doesn't exist. And by the time such a problem arises on Earth (inhospitable living conditions due to e.g. supervolcano), we might not have the resources to fix it. Whereas terraforming Mars creates the incentives to develop solutions while we have abundant resources, which means that we have a fix ready and waiting if something catastrophic happens on earth.
incompatible 6y ago
It would be very hard and very expensive to build a space colony that was self-sufficient, instead of requiring constant supplies from Earth. In fact, it would be very hard and very expensive to build a self-sufficient society on Earth which was up-to-date with modern technology. The range of products and materials required is vast, and the manufacturing of certain state-of-the-art products, such as the most advanced integrated circuits, has been centralized in only a few locations. It would probably also require a change of culture, away from treating information as property and/or trade secrets in favour of open-hardware with shared designs. Designs would be shared and manufacturing decentralised, to improve robustness.
unethical_ban 6y ago
Making Earth better through comprehensive, global action: RAID Putting people on Mars, and then other solar systems: Backups

bilegeek 6y ago

That's the issue. If we can't handle the black swan events in time, we'll at least have a backup. Granted, this doesn't cover bigger black swan events like gamma ray bursts, where the entire solar system is screwed, but it'll at least help with Earthside apocalypse. The fact that we couldn't handle it is indeed incriminating against our abilities as a species, but as they say, perfect is the enemy of good.

cgriswald 6y ago
It's not possible for a gamma ray burst to 'screw' the entire solar system. It's already an incredibly unlikely event to occur near enough to do damage. Then the beam would have to be directed in our direction. And the beam would have to essentially hit the solar system edge on or face on, but not at any other angle. Even if all that happened, underground bases would be protected, as would above-ground or in-space habitats that happened to be protected either by the mass of the body they're on by virtue of 'facing away' from the GRB; or by virtue of being behind another body (e.g. Jupiter, the sun, some body they are orbitting) relative to the GRB. With space habitats, they may also be protected by virtue of already needing some level of protection against cosmic radiation; but that's highly speculative. A GRB also wouldn't destroy the Earth. It would do a lot of damage to its ecosystems, but the Earth would be relatively safe again not terribly long after the event, even without human intervention. If we had the technology to colonize space, we could definitely recolonize the Earth, even in a worst case scenario where the entire ecosystem collapses.
- MauranKilom 6y ago
  How long would such a burst be expected to last? Because at least momentarily, one half of the earth will remain pretty safe.
  - cgriswald 6y ago
    Most of them are very short lived (think seconds at most), but they can be as long as a few hours. No part of the Earth will really be 'safe' for humans in sense of 'unaffected' like other places could be, but yeah, lots of people would only suffer from the after effects.

sethammons 6y ago

The idea is not to avoid black swan events entirely, it is to have pockets that are missed by a given event. Earth goes cold? Well, good thing the moon base can preserve technology and knowledge for a hundred years. Solar flare? Good thing we have the under-ice base on Europa. Europa explodes? Good thing that we are still on Earth. Now if they all happen at the same time, like the sun dying, then that is why you want to get a star base even further away.

pfdietz 6y ago
What event would leave the Earth less habitable than the Moon already is?
- tryauuum 6y ago
  grey goo
- iso1631 6y ago
  If you already have a self sufficient colony on the moon, but don't on the earth, when the catastrophic event occurs the moon will still be self sufficient. The technology developed to live on the moon may allow it to be rapidly deployed on Earth, saving a large number of people, but if that technology doesn't exist then you're stuck
- vardump 6y ago
  Anything that would block sunlight for an extended period.
m4rtink 6y ago
Not only that, sufficiently advanced off-world infrastructure could be helpful for handling dangerous events. Yelowstone blows up unexpectedly - orbital rescue forces do a quick drop, help rescue survivors in the immediate area. Later on food supplies from orbital/Lunar farms help cover food shortages and teraforming techniques can be used to fixup the biosphere.

pogimabus 6y ago

Becoming multiplanetary IS handling it, just not in a necessarily "ideal" way. The problem is that we don't want to have the reset button hit and have every human in existence set back to the stone age technologically; having multiple self sustaining human societies on multiple planets mitigates that risk in a major way since the likelihood of a disaster being so large that it resets technology on both/all planets is much smaller than the likelihood of having a disaster that does it for just one of them.

newsbinator 6y ago
I suppose a pandemic would still do it though, assuming sustained travel between habitats. We're gonna want a multi-week airlock to be allowed into the Moon & Mars habitats.
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  Latency provides a natural level of quarantine as well even if the volume is high enough for a sustained stream. Although there are plenty of messy details involved in sufficiency.
kmonsen 6y ago
The problem is that it is at least 10x easier to fix Earth than to terraform Mars, and all the problems we have on Earth are going to be there as well.
- baby 6y ago
  Resilience is not about fixing something. Otherwise we wouldn’t have created the internet.
- unFou 6y ago
  That might be the point. Few people are going to bother spending resources to fix a problem that doesn't exist. And by the time such a problem arises on Earth (inhospitable living conditions due to e.g. supervolcano), we might not have the resources to fix it. Whereas terraforming Mars creates the incentives to develop solutions while we have abundant resources, which means that we have a fix ready and waiting if something catastrophic happens on earth.

incompatible 6y ago

It would be very hard and very expensive to build a space colony that was self-sufficient, instead of requiring constant supplies from Earth. In fact, it would be very hard and very expensive to build a self-sufficient society on Earth which was up-to-date with modern technology. The range of products and materials required is vast, and the manufacturing of certain state-of-the-art products, such as the most advanced integrated circuits, has been centralized in only a few locations. It would probably also require a change of culture, away from treating information as property and/or trade secrets in favour of open-hardware with shared designs. Designs would be shared and manufacturing decentralised, to improve robustness.

unethical_ban 6y ago

Making Earth better through comprehensive, global action: RAID Putting people on Mars, and then other solar systems: Backups