4 ms·

You have seen what Mars looks like right? That planet had way more potential for you to perish than this one

by dathos 5y ago

SilverRed 5y ago
Its crazy how everyone sees mars as some kind of safety rope when climate change goes bad. Surviving on mars would be 100x harder than the worst case scenario for life on earth.
- mjevans 5y ago
  Most of what would make it more survivable is the small quantity of other humans and the need for "exotic on earth" life support infrastructure already required. Though to be viable as a backup for our species the colony would have to be able to survive, as well as be genetically viable, completely solo. Such preparation might include a "seed" vault for both plants and life, as well as a Horizon Zero Dawn style repository of all human knowledge. BTW that would also be a great international education standard for children even without it's use in the Doomsday setting.
  - bildung 5y ago
    Isn't the small quantity of humans exactly what makes it less survivable? The smaller the group, the more severe a single fault in the system. This is the way habitats ecosystems work anyway. A trivial example might be aquariums: the bigger the easier to maintain a healty equilibrium.
    - mjevans 5y ago
      If you have 1000000 people, there's a very high risk at least one is crazy or illogical with respect to survival. If you have a couple hundred really well examined people who all really wanted to be somewhere the odds are much better, and all the more so, that problems can be contained when identified.
      - lolc 5y ago
        Romantic prepper fantasies. With a couple hundred people, the bus factor of a tech society is wildly negative. Meaning, you'd need miracle spawns of workers already trained to keep up with just maintenance. On Mars the whole thing would just collapse and people suffocate once the parts shipments from Earth were disrupted for a substantial period.
      - rrobukef 5y ago
        Given that mental illness is prevalent and that we misdiagnose mental illness at a rate >1%. There is a already high risk in a couple hundred people. Furthermore, some 500 healthy adults do not form a stable society. Being in a high risk environment will flare tempers, 500 is on the low side of genetic diversity, there are no children, there will be pregnancies...
      - sfink 5y ago
        So some form of meritocracy. Are there any instances in the history of the human race where that idea has worked? My impression is that it always fails due to corruption or incorrect evaluation metrics or some other fundamental flaw in the starry-eyed idea of separating "good" from "bad". In theory, it's perfectly straightforward to write a flawless, unexploitable large program in C. In practice, we get hacked by plugging something into a Lightning port.
- res0nat0r 5y ago
  Exactly. It's crazy that so many folks are buying into the dream of moving off world successfully before the planet is uninhabitable. I think this is just tied to billionaire hero worship. We should be shaming them for wasting money vs. spending those billions to force real change on Earth to fix the climate situation here which will come due long before any off world living will be anywhere close to reality.
  - chriswarbo 5y ago
    > We should be shaming them for wasting money vs. spending those billions to force real change on Earth to fix the climate situation here which will come due long before any off world living will be anywhere close to reality. That's a false dichotomy, and just as much of a fantasy utopia as the 'solve our problems by moving to Mars' crowd: - Space exploration and technology is an investment, not a waste. - Space technology is not in competition with climate fixes, it helps. The most obvious example is Earth observation satellites, which are monitoring vegetation, cloud cover, ocean height, atmospheric composition, natural gas flares, forest fires, volcanic emissions, etc. right now. More long-term, reducing launch costs (like SpaceX is attempting with Starship) would increase the viability of solutions like space-based solar (24/7 sunlight, no atmosphere or cloud attenuation, no limit on surface area, no competition with agriculture/housing/etc., much less material/structure thanks to micro-gravity, etc.) - Meanwhile there are billions being wasted on vanity projects (superyachts, palaces, etc.), and on actively harmful activities (the US war budget comes to mind), which are far more suitable targets than space tech. - Online comment threads aren't going to change the spending habits of billionaires. Sure, if someone's making bullshit claims online (like 'moving to Mars will avoid climate change' or 'we should fix the climate before spending money on space') then calling them out can be good (hello!); combatting misinformation can sway the public discourse, even if just a little bit. On the other hand, armchair philosophising between like-minded individuals achieves absolutely nothing. Finally, it's probably worth saying w.r.t. 'long before any off world living will be anywhere close to reality': off world living will never become reality if we (as a species) don't bother trying. Self-sustaining colonies on Mars, the Moon, etc. will probably take centuries, but only if we keep taking baby steps in that direction today. Before Falcon 9, the industry was pretty content to milk a few cash-cow rockets for inflated government contracts. Now re-usability is becoming expected (e.g. ULA's hand-waving platitudes about one day catching Vulcan's engines). Starship is a huge gamble, but I'm happy someone is trying it. The Human Landing System award from NASA is both encouraging (an experienced third-party doesn't think the gamble's odds are too bad), hilarious (the lunar gateway station would be dwarfed by its "landing module"), and hopefully a face-saving way for NASA to loosen its ties to SLS/Orion/etc. (forcing the "old guard" to up their game). We should absolutely call out these particular billionaires for their terrible labour practices, tax dodging, market manipulation tweets, monopolising, etc. We should also call out billionaires in general for not doing enough to help the climate emergency. We should also call out governments for allowing these tax-dodgers to wield such economic power in the first place. We should also call out governments for their lacklustre climate efforts. And so on. Yet criticising space investment is a nonsense strawman.
- Tade0 5y ago
  I found that what gets to people is how expensive obvious stuff like running water would be on Mars.

You have seen what Mars looks like right? That planet had way more potential for you to perish than this one

by dathos 5y ago

You have seen what Mars looks like right? That planet had way more potential for you to perish than this one

Its crazy how everyone sees mars as some kind of safety rope when climate change goes bad. Surviving on mars would be 100x harder than the worst case scenario for life on earth.

mjevans 5y ago
Most of what would make it more survivable is the small quantity of other humans and the need for "exotic on earth" life support infrastructure already required. Though to be viable as a backup for our species the colony would have to be able to survive, as well as be genetically viable, completely solo. Such preparation might include a "seed" vault for both plants and life, as well as a Horizon Zero Dawn style repository of all human knowledge. BTW that would also be a great international education standard for children even without it's use in the Doomsday setting.
- bildung 5y ago
  Isn't the small quantity of humans exactly what makes it less survivable? The smaller the group, the more severe a single fault in the system. This is the way habitats ecosystems work anyway. A trivial example might be aquariums: the bigger the easier to maintain a healty equilibrium.
  - mjevans 5y ago
    If you have 1000000 people, there's a very high risk at least one is crazy or illogical with respect to survival. If you have a couple hundred really well examined people who all really wanted to be somewhere the odds are much better, and all the more so, that problems can be contained when identified.
    - lolc 5y ago
      Romantic prepper fantasies. With a couple hundred people, the bus factor of a tech society is wildly negative. Meaning, you'd need miracle spawns of workers already trained to keep up with just maintenance. On Mars the whole thing would just collapse and people suffocate once the parts shipments from Earth were disrupted for a substantial period.
    - rrobukef 5y ago
      Given that mental illness is prevalent and that we misdiagnose mental illness at a rate >1%. There is a already high risk in a couple hundred people. Furthermore, some 500 healthy adults do not form a stable society. Being in a high risk environment will flare tempers, 500 is on the low side of genetic diversity, there are no children, there will be pregnancies...
    - sfink 5y ago
      So some form of meritocracy. Are there any instances in the history of the human race where that idea has worked? My impression is that it always fails due to corruption or incorrect evaluation metrics or some other fundamental flaw in the starry-eyed idea of separating "good" from "bad". In theory, it's perfectly straightforward to write a flawless, unexploitable large program in C. In practice, we get hacked by plugging something into a Lightning port.
res0nat0r 5y ago
Exactly. It's crazy that so many folks are buying into the dream of moving off world successfully before the planet is uninhabitable. I think this is just tied to billionaire hero worship. We should be shaming them for wasting money vs. spending those billions to force real change on Earth to fix the climate situation here which will come due long before any off world living will be anywhere close to reality.
- chriswarbo 5y ago
  > We should be shaming them for wasting money vs. spending those billions to force real change on Earth to fix the climate situation here which will come due long before any off world living will be anywhere close to reality. That's a false dichotomy, and just as much of a fantasy utopia as the 'solve our problems by moving to Mars' crowd: - Space exploration and technology is an investment, not a waste. - Space technology is not in competition with climate fixes, it helps. The most obvious example is Earth observation satellites, which are monitoring vegetation, cloud cover, ocean height, atmospheric composition, natural gas flares, forest fires, volcanic emissions, etc. right now. More long-term, reducing launch costs (like SpaceX is attempting with Starship) would increase the viability of solutions like space-based solar (24/7 sunlight, no atmosphere or cloud attenuation, no limit on surface area, no competition with agriculture/housing/etc., much less material/structure thanks to micro-gravity, etc.) - Meanwhile there are billions being wasted on vanity projects (superyachts, palaces, etc.), and on actively harmful activities (the US war budget comes to mind), which are far more suitable targets than space tech. - Online comment threads aren't going to change the spending habits of billionaires. Sure, if someone's making bullshit claims online (like 'moving to Mars will avoid climate change' or 'we should fix the climate before spending money on space') then calling them out can be good (hello!); combatting misinformation can sway the public discourse, even if just a little bit. On the other hand, armchair philosophising between like-minded individuals achieves absolutely nothing. Finally, it's probably worth saying w.r.t. 'long before any off world living will be anywhere close to reality': off world living will never become reality if we (as a species) don't bother trying. Self-sustaining colonies on Mars, the Moon, etc. will probably take centuries, but only if we keep taking baby steps in that direction today. Before Falcon 9, the industry was pretty content to milk a few cash-cow rockets for inflated government contracts. Now re-usability is becoming expected (e.g. ULA's hand-waving platitudes about one day catching Vulcan's engines). Starship is a huge gamble, but I'm happy someone is trying it. The Human Landing System award from NASA is both encouraging (an experienced third-party doesn't think the gamble's odds are too bad), hilarious (the lunar gateway station would be dwarfed by its "landing module"), and hopefully a face-saving way for NASA to loosen its ties to SLS/Orion/etc. (forcing the "old guard" to up their game). We should absolutely call out these particular billionaires for their terrible labour practices, tax dodging, market manipulation tweets, monopolising, etc. We should also call out billionaires in general for not doing enough to help the climate emergency. We should also call out governments for allowing these tax-dodgers to wield such economic power in the first place. We should also call out governments for their lacklustre climate efforts. And so on. Yet criticising space investment is a nonsense strawman.
Tade0 5y ago
I found that what gets to people is how expensive obvious stuff like running water would be on Mars.