4 ms·

I take your point; I think maybe this line of discourse is to prevent the "savior" line of thinking, whereby all manner of ills will be addressed by technologic

by iab 6y ago

I take your point; I think maybe this line of discourse is to prevent the "savior" line of thinking, whereby all manner of ills will be addressed by technological advancement, and the day-to-day drudgery of improving our current situation is lessened. The aspirational nature of it is - of course - grand, but maybe a more inward, introspective, look at our current situation would be better in the long-term.

nickthemagicman 6y ago
See I think exploring space IS understanding ourselves just like exploring our biology is. We've been doing the "spiritualism self understanding" thing for 100,000 years and it's just let to wars, virgin sacrifices, and other dumb human outcomes. It's not even clear what "understanding ourselves" means. I'd argue that Science has led to more enlightenment and improvement of the human condition than spiritualism ever has.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  > We've been doing the "spiritualism self understanding" thing for 100,000 years and it's just let to wars, virgin sacrifices, and other dumb human outcomes. Indeed. At some point, if you stare inwards hard enough, you just end up divining patterns in a random number generator.
  - nickthemagicman 6y ago
    Yeah, the harsh truth is that we've developed a part of the brain that makes us good with tools but other than that we're one step away from chimps. All of our desires for mating, hierarchy, tribalism, and status are the same. Very primitive instincts. Any consideration that there's depth to the majority of human beings beyond sophisticated pursuit of Mating or Resources is completely delusional. Some, very few people, have vision, but the grand majority are just existing in the four F's of survival (myself included, I'm no Elon Musk or Jobs or Einstein or Pasteur).
netsec_burn 6y ago
We'll take important steps to ensure the continuity of our species by making it multi-planetary. The risks are diverse and well known such as climate change, thermonuclear war, geomagnetic reversal, asteroid impacts, etc. Some of these are within our power to change, but others -- such as the asteroid impact -- are more easily mitigated by colonizing two worlds (than overcoming not just the politics but the physics problem here on Earth).
- iab 6y ago
  The continuity argument is a strong one, but it is weakened - in my mind - by assuming sufficient time to colonize anywhere else, while trying to survive on our current lifeboat. I don't doubt the intent, but I think the timelines do not match, in that we will exhaust resources here (both fundamental and good-will) way before any second colony becomes viable.

by iab 6y ago

nickthemagicman 6y ago

See I think exploring space IS understanding ourselves just like exploring our biology is. We've been doing the "spiritualism self understanding" thing for 100,000 years and it's just let to wars, virgin sacrifices, and other dumb human outcomes. It's not even clear what "understanding ourselves" means. I'd argue that Science has led to more enlightenment and improvement of the human condition than spiritualism ever has.

TeMPOraL 6y ago
> We've been doing the "spiritualism self understanding" thing for 100,000 years and it's just let to wars, virgin sacrifices, and other dumb human outcomes. Indeed. At some point, if you stare inwards hard enough, you just end up divining patterns in a random number generator.
- nickthemagicman 6y ago
  Yeah, the harsh truth is that we've developed a part of the brain that makes us good with tools but other than that we're one step away from chimps. All of our desires for mating, hierarchy, tribalism, and status are the same. Very primitive instincts. Any consideration that there's depth to the majority of human beings beyond sophisticated pursuit of Mating or Resources is completely delusional. Some, very few people, have vision, but the grand majority are just existing in the four F's of survival (myself included, I'm no Elon Musk or Jobs or Einstein or Pasteur).

netsec_burn 6y ago

We'll take important steps to ensure the continuity of our species by making it multi-planetary. The risks are diverse and well known such as climate change, thermonuclear war, geomagnetic reversal, asteroid impacts, etc. Some of these are within our power to change, but others -- such as the asteroid impact -- are more easily mitigated by colonizing two worlds (than overcoming not just the politics but the physics problem here on Earth).

iab 6y ago
The continuity argument is a strong one, but it is weakened - in my mind - by assuming sufficient time to colonize anywhere else, while trying to survive on our current lifeboat. I don't doubt the intent, but I think the timelines do not match, in that we will exhaust resources here (both fundamental and good-will) way before any second colony becomes viable.