8 ms·

All the extraterrestrial expansion, dream of Men to conquer Space, star track enterprise! I'm pessimistic that we will ever leave our solar system, and if so in

All the extraterrestrial expansion, dream of Men to conquer Space, star track enterprise! I'm pessimistic that we will ever leave our solar system, and if so in 1000 years, I do not care. Hopefully people learn how tiny our bubble is and protect our environment more. The Martian environment looks so boring -- as a replacement for polluted Earth. (We will pollute Mars faster than Earth). I'm living at the ocean, trying to keep my vicinity free of garbage. Today I pulled out pair of trousers and some plastic bands out out water. Sometimes I'm having fights with my elderly village neighbors, who are burning household trash (paper, wood) on the ocean shore. I take their garbage out their hands and carry it to my home, later drive to the garbage processing center.

wait_a_minute 6y ago
The only solution is the spread of information and education. That's the only thing that will help. We must reach all people and present them with the evidence on environmental degradation. The planet is ours to protect and cherish, and I'm confident this is an achievable goal if we act fast. By advocating for access to internet and education at global scale! Starting with our homes.
- mLuby 6y ago
  "One person's trash is another's treasure." The other solution is make it more profitable to collect and sell your garbage than to dispose of it. Which means it has to be worth it for a business to collect your trash from you. Better recycling and distribution technologies can enable this. I dream of the day when businesses fight for the privilege of hauling away your trash. Maybe delivery drones could bring back garbage to make their return trips less, uh, wasteful.
  - runarberg 6y ago
    nah. We’ve been waiting for businesses to step up their game for over 30 years now. I don’t see it happening in the next thirty years coming. A more realistic scenario is for governments to build the infrastructure required to recycle and reuse our trash and, better yet, regulate how trash is produced and punish it’s existence.
    - wait_a_minute 6y ago
      This. Fuck that. Anyone under 65 can agree with me. It's us and our kids and their kids for the next 50-100 years that will pay. Time for us to take the reigns. These fat cows had their chance. We'll build a garden.
    - mrmonkeyman 6y ago
      They don't need to "step up their game", they are plenty efficient at minmaxing the economic game. If anything the government and thus the people need to step up their game to change the incentives.
  - wait_a_minute 6y ago
    Profit has been a deprecated concept. Technology we have today can automate Maslow's hierarchy of needs for all at global scale.
    - wiz21c 6y ago
      Maslow. You mean the guy who took babies ape away from their mother ?
moltar 6y ago
I admire your efforts to clean. But unfortunately it’s pointless. There are entire million and billion population countries that treat oceans as waste baskets, simply because they don’t know better. I’ve talked to fishermen in rural Thailand and they don’t have waste collection. So they take their trash every day and just dump it in the middle of the ocean somewhere. They didn’t understand why that was a problem when I discussed it with them.
- jcims 6y ago
  My imagination has a pretty big range for 'rural Thailand', do they have a safe way to dispose of it inland? Subsistence folks, to the extent that it might apply here, get a pass from me.
  - rsj_hn 6y ago
    The issue is that 90% of the plastic in the ocean is dumped from 10 rivers in Asia and Africa where the waste disposal system consists of driving a truck up to a river and dumping the trash in. Of the remaining 10%, it comes from Latin American nations that do the same thing. Meanwhile western people see these masses of trash and plastic in the ocean and conclude the rational response is to ban straws in the western nations that do have effective waste disposal systems that don't consist of transporting said waste to the ocean and dumping it. So the question is whether the outrage about ocean pollution is harnessed towards effectively addressing the problem or whether it is dissipated in the heat of pointless kabuki rituals that we do to absolve ourselves of guilt, even as the trash in the oceans piles up every time someone in the third world throws something away.
    - Clewza313 6y ago
      A lot of those effective waste disposal systems in the West, particularly for recycling, consist of paying Asian and African companies to take away the waste, so it can then be dumped in their countries/oceans or get "recycled" in places like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agbogbloshie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agbogbloshie
Trasmatta 6y ago
> We will pollute Mars faster than Earth I don't see how this is possible. At most, Mars might have small, organized colonies someday. Earth has billions of people.
sytelus 6y ago
Most people are unable to realize distances in space. Humans are simply not designed to travel in space. For a space ship that can be self-sustaining in every way and capable of multi-year travel, it has to be almost like a city. Even when you get to planets, they are even less hospitable than Mars. I think future life forms which will colonize other planets will be machines, not humans.
- yellowapple 6y ago
  > I think future life forms which will colonize other planets will be machines, not humans. Tardigrades seem like likely candidates, too.
- nostromo 6y ago
  Most people also don't realize how slow the speed of light is in relation to the size of the universe and the distance between stars. It's quite easy for a person to look at two galaxies in a telescope that will never be able to even observe each other's existence, let alone visit one another. People often argue that we'll find a way to travel faster than light -- which is curious given how rarely people argue that we'll find a way to travel backwards in time.

wait_a_minute 6y ago

The only solution is the spread of information and education. That's the only thing that will help. We must reach all people and present them with the evidence on environmental degradation. The planet is ours to protect and cherish, and I'm confident this is an achievable goal if we act fast. By advocating for access to internet and education at global scale! Starting with our homes.

mLuby 6y ago
"One person's trash is another's treasure." The other solution is make it more profitable to collect and sell your garbage than to dispose of it. Which means it has to be worth it for a business to collect your trash from you. Better recycling and distribution technologies can enable this. I dream of the day when businesses fight for the privilege of hauling away your trash. Maybe delivery drones could bring back garbage to make their return trips less, uh, wasteful.
- runarberg 6y ago
  nah. We’ve been waiting for businesses to step up their game for over 30 years now. I don’t see it happening in the next thirty years coming. A more realistic scenario is for governments to build the infrastructure required to recycle and reuse our trash and, better yet, regulate how trash is produced and punish it’s existence.
  - wait_a_minute 6y ago
    This. Fuck that. Anyone under 65 can agree with me. It's us and our kids and their kids for the next 50-100 years that will pay. Time for us to take the reigns. These fat cows had their chance. We'll build a garden.
  - mrmonkeyman 6y ago
    They don't need to "step up their game", they are plenty efficient at minmaxing the economic game. If anything the government and thus the people need to step up their game to change the incentives.
- wait_a_minute 6y ago
  Profit has been a deprecated concept. Technology we have today can automate Maslow's hierarchy of needs for all at global scale.
  - wiz21c 6y ago
    Maslow. You mean the guy who took babies ape away from their mother ?

moltar 6y ago

I admire your efforts to clean. But unfortunately it’s pointless. There are entire million and billion population countries that treat oceans as waste baskets, simply because they don’t know better. I’ve talked to fishermen in rural Thailand and they don’t have waste collection. So they take their trash every day and just dump it in the middle of the ocean somewhere. They didn’t understand why that was a problem when I discussed it with them.

jcims 6y ago
My imagination has a pretty big range for 'rural Thailand', do they have a safe way to dispose of it inland? Subsistence folks, to the extent that it might apply here, get a pass from me.
- rsj_hn 6y ago
  The issue is that 90% of the plastic in the ocean is dumped from 10 rivers in Asia and Africa where the waste disposal system consists of driving a truck up to a river and dumping the trash in. Of the remaining 10%, it comes from Latin American nations that do the same thing. Meanwhile western people see these masses of trash and plastic in the ocean and conclude the rational response is to ban straws in the western nations that do have effective waste disposal systems that don't consist of transporting said waste to the ocean and dumping it. So the question is whether the outrage about ocean pollution is harnessed towards effectively addressing the problem or whether it is dissipated in the heat of pointless kabuki rituals that we do to absolve ourselves of guilt, even as the trash in the oceans piles up every time someone in the third world throws something away.
  - Clewza313 6y ago
    A lot of those effective waste disposal systems in the West, particularly for recycling, consist of paying Asian and African companies to take away the waste, so it can then be dumped in their countries/oceans or get "recycled" in places like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agbogbloshie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agbogbloshie

Trasmatta 6y ago

> We will pollute Mars faster than Earth I don't see how this is possible. At most, Mars might have small, organized colonies someday. Earth has billions of people.

sytelus 6y ago

Most people are unable to realize distances in space. Humans are simply not designed to travel in space. For a space ship that can be self-sustaining in every way and capable of multi-year travel, it has to be almost like a city. Even when you get to planets, they are even less hospitable than Mars. I think future life forms which will colonize other planets will be machines, not humans.

yellowapple 6y ago
> I think future life forms which will colonize other planets will be machines, not humans. Tardigrades seem like likely candidates, too.
nostromo 6y ago
Most people also don't realize how slow the speed of light is in relation to the size of the universe and the distance between stars. It's quite easy for a person to look at two galaxies in a telescope that will never be able to even observe each other's existence, let alone visit one another. People often argue that we'll find a way to travel faster than light -- which is curious given how rarely people argue that we'll find a way to travel backwards in time.