6 ms·

Let's look at this way, humanity needs to become multiplanetary species to prevent extinction if some sort of cataclysm happens on Earth: nuclear war; Yellowsto

by sekai 6y ago

Let's look at this way, humanity needs to become multiplanetary species to prevent extinction if some sort of cataclysm happens on Earth: nuclear war; Yellowstone erupts, etc. Compared to that, any other problem seems insignificant.

h0l0cube 6y ago
Life will go on in other parts of the universe, and all life, no matter where they locate themselves, will have some kind of existential threat. And it doesn't matter how many Dyson spheres are made, if humans aren't dedicated to improving the collective opportunity to live life without suffering, there's little real 'significance' to extending the project of humanity compared to any other life-form.
- ZitchDog 6y ago
  I’m sure you’re right, although I’m not convinced that anything like human consciousness will be reproduced, which is a shame.
- shdh 6y ago
  > improving the collective opportunity to live life without suffering You cannot eliminate suffering. > Life will go on in other parts of the universe, and all life, no matter where they locate themselves, will have some kind of existential threat. There's no guarantee or evidence that there is sentient life in the universe
  - h0l0cube 6y ago
    > You cannot eliminate suffering. != improving the collective opportunity to live life without suffering > There's no guarantee or evidence that there is sentient life in the universe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24067017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24067017
- bbojan 6y ago
  How do you know there is life in other parts of the universe? Do you at least consider a possibility that life originated only once?
  - h0l0cube 6y ago
    Let's say by chance we discover an oracle, that could reveal with perfect certainty whether life existed anywhere else in the universe. I wager, that if I made some non-trivial wager with any other reasonable (and educated) person holding this contrarian view, they would back down before the oracle revealed its answer.
nfoz 6y ago
This will sound weird, but I have no idea why anyone cares about the abstract "survival of human species". I care very deeply about the lives of people actually living here right now. But if Earth is wiped out, what does it matter that some humans are alive somewhere? Except of course that I'm glad for them that they didn't get killed. But we're talking about generations from now anyway, and there are more direct ways to stop people from dying here today.
- sekai 6y ago
  Because it's not the end? I think we strive to continue on into the unknown.
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  Because it’s mostly a lie people tell themselves, similar to ‘I’m sure I am a good person’. How are you so sure? There’s a lot of evidence that points to the fact that on a global scale, we can barely care about stuff geographically adjacent to us, or worse, socially (class) adjacent to us, but here we are claiming we care about generations beyond us. Big old lie.
- swader999 6y ago
  Because our code must live on.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- menybuvico 6y ago
  There is the more generic idea of leaving a track in history, making sure one's offspring survives. If one of my descendants make it off-planet and thrives there once the Zombies attack/the meteor strikes/the nukes go off then my line will continue. I have no logic explanation for wanting to continue my bloodline, but I guess it's just a natural instinct. The second reason to get off-world is the more far-fetched one, but assuming we can establish that other worlds are dead or sterile then we are free to customize it as we please without having to feel bad about it. In the long run we could leave Earth completely, allowing whomever comes next to develop freely without our intervention.
reddog 6y ago
If there was a full scale nuclear war. And then the next week the Yellowstone super volcano erupted. And then the week after that an asteroid as big as the one that killed the dinosaurs hit Eurasia, earth would still be wildly more habitable that Mars.
- stallmanite 6y ago
  And after a collision like the one that created the moon? How habitable during a gamma ray burst?
  - Koshkin 6y ago
    ... and wha' if Earth jus' 'splodes one day... (takes another sip)
    - UnFleshedOne 6y ago
      That's a bit too much, but we still have a few month left in 2020...
hnrq 6y ago
I hate this argument. There is no foreseeable disaster that would make Earth less habitable than any other solar system body. Even if every nuke we have was detonated, it would still be orders of magnitude easier to survive on what remains of Earth than to live in Mars. I'm not saying there are no existential risks at all, but being on other planets would not make us any more likely to survive to them than to simply being very well isolated on Earth (which would cost 1000x less). Developing space technology already has all sorts of benefits and it doesn't need this poor argument in its favor.
- nitrogen 6y ago
  Every comment of this nature overlooks the challenge of politics and territory. Any significant social experiment is basically impossible on Earth because every space and person is claimed property by an existing state. Mars would also offer cultural redundancy. Also, sometimes people choose to do things brcause they are hard.
  - sangnoir 6y ago
    > Every comment of this nature overlooks the challenge of politics and territory If I were a betting person, I'm not sure I'd go all-in on a CEO-Emperor-King of Mars over existing nation-states on Terra
    - UnFleshedOne 6y ago
      Is that a bet on a basically functional society, or a bet on which place is better to live in for individual?
- menybuvico 6y ago
  Well, there is the question of whether we will ever have the possibility of developing this technology again. I see no immediate risks to life on Earth, and considering we're quite hard to get rid of, I suspect the human race will be here for quite some time yet. The ability to do a large-scale settlement on other planetary bodies on the other hand, might go away considerably sooner, and who knows if/when we will be able to do it again if we ever end up in a situation where it might be needed. Regardless, there are other reasons, as you say. For one, space-based manufacturing would allow us to increase the standard of living on Earth without having to worry about things like CO2 levels and pollution. If we start commercializing space then I expect colonization to follow as a natural result of that and we won't have to worry about the more philosophical side.

by sekai 6y ago

h0l0cube 6y ago

Life will go on in other parts of the universe, and all life, no matter where they locate themselves, will have some kind of existential threat. And it doesn't matter how many Dyson spheres are made, if humans aren't dedicated to improving the collective opportunity to live life without suffering, there's little real 'significance' to extending the project of humanity compared to any other life-form.

ZitchDog 6y ago
I’m sure you’re right, although I’m not convinced that anything like human consciousness will be reproduced, which is a shame.
shdh 6y ago
> improving the collective opportunity to live life without suffering You cannot eliminate suffering. > Life will go on in other parts of the universe, and all life, no matter where they locate themselves, will have some kind of existential threat. There's no guarantee or evidence that there is sentient life in the universe
- h0l0cube 6y ago
  > You cannot eliminate suffering. != improving the collective opportunity to live life without suffering > There's no guarantee or evidence that there is sentient life in the universe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24067017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24067017
bbojan 6y ago
How do you know there is life in other parts of the universe? Do you at least consider a possibility that life originated only once?
- h0l0cube 6y ago
  Let's say by chance we discover an oracle, that could reveal with perfect certainty whether life existed anywhere else in the universe. I wager, that if I made some non-trivial wager with any other reasonable (and educated) person holding this contrarian view, they would back down before the oracle revealed its answer.

nfoz 6y ago

This will sound weird, but I have no idea why anyone cares about the abstract "survival of human species". I care very deeply about the lives of people actually living here right now. But if Earth is wiped out, what does it matter that some humans are alive somewhere? Except of course that I'm glad for them that they didn't get killed. But we're talking about generations from now anyway, and there are more direct ways to stop people from dying here today.

sekai 6y ago
Because it's not the end? I think we strive to continue on into the unknown.
runawaybottle 6y ago
Because it’s mostly a lie people tell themselves, similar to ‘I’m sure I am a good person’. How are you so sure? There’s a lot of evidence that points to the fact that on a global scale, we can barely care about stuff geographically adjacent to us, or worse, socially (class) adjacent to us, but here we are claiming we care about generations beyond us. Big old lie.
swader999 6y ago
Because our code must live on.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
menybuvico 6y ago
There is the more generic idea of leaving a track in history, making sure one's offspring survives. If one of my descendants make it off-planet and thrives there once the Zombies attack/the meteor strikes/the nukes go off then my line will continue. I have no logic explanation for wanting to continue my bloodline, but I guess it's just a natural instinct. The second reason to get off-world is the more far-fetched one, but assuming we can establish that other worlds are dead or sterile then we are free to customize it as we please without having to feel bad about it. In the long run we could leave Earth completely, allowing whomever comes next to develop freely without our intervention.

reddog 6y ago

If there was a full scale nuclear war. And then the next week the Yellowstone super volcano erupted. And then the week after that an asteroid as big as the one that killed the dinosaurs hit Eurasia, earth would still be wildly more habitable that Mars.

stallmanite 6y ago
And after a collision like the one that created the moon? How habitable during a gamma ray burst?
- Koshkin 6y ago
  ... and wha' if Earth jus' 'splodes one day... (takes another sip)
  - UnFleshedOne 6y ago
    That's a bit too much, but we still have a few month left in 2020...

hnrq 6y ago

I hate this argument. There is no foreseeable disaster that would make Earth less habitable than any other solar system body. Even if every nuke we have was detonated, it would still be orders of magnitude easier to survive on what remains of Earth than to live in Mars. I'm not saying there are no existential risks at all, but being on other planets would not make us any more likely to survive to them than to simply being very well isolated on Earth (which would cost 1000x less). Developing space technology already has all sorts of benefits and it doesn't need this poor argument in its favor.

nitrogen 6y ago
Every comment of this nature overlooks the challenge of politics and territory. Any significant social experiment is basically impossible on Earth because every space and person is claimed property by an existing state. Mars would also offer cultural redundancy. Also, sometimes people choose to do things brcause they are hard.
- sangnoir 6y ago
  > Every comment of this nature overlooks the challenge of politics and territory If I were a betting person, I'm not sure I'd go all-in on a CEO-Emperor-King of Mars over existing nation-states on Terra
  - UnFleshedOne 6y ago
    Is that a bet on a basically functional society, or a bet on which place is better to live in for individual?
menybuvico 6y ago
Well, there is the question of whether we will ever have the possibility of developing this technology again. I see no immediate risks to life on Earth, and considering we're quite hard to get rid of, I suspect the human race will be here for quite some time yet. The ability to do a large-scale settlement on other planetary bodies on the other hand, might go away considerably sooner, and who knows if/when we will be able to do it again if we ever end up in a situation where it might be needed. Regardless, there are other reasons, as you say. For one, space-based manufacturing would allow us to increase the standard of living on Earth without having to worry about things like CO2 levels and pollution. If we start commercializing space then I expect colonization to follow as a natural result of that and we won't have to worry about the more philosophical side.