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Was thinking the same thing. But… although I do 100% drink the Elon Koolaid about "us" colonizing Mars, I really doubt that humans, as we know them today, are
by natch 5y ago
Was thinking the same thing.
But… although I do 100% drink the Elon Koolaid about "us" colonizing Mars, I really doubt that humans, as we know them today, are the creature that is going to be there.
It will instead be some planet-specific tweaked versions of us and other creatures, eventually in a different substrate even, as opposed to bags of meat.
When you think of it that way, the possibilities for mental health are just a sub-problem of the larger problem of aligning AGI.
I said I drink the Koolaid, and the above may sound out of line with what Elon has been saying about making humans multi-planetary.
But if you read between the lines of what he says, I think this is already his view; he just doesn't say it the way I did above because (I think his reason is) the freakout factor is too high. It is consistent with what he does say. Lately he has been saying "make life multi-planetary" and "make consciousness multi-planetary" not just humans. He still says humans too but it may be a loose usage of the word humans, and I don't doubt there will be a transition period with some homo sapiens. Long term, not so much.
OK that kind of got far afield but the point is mental health is going to be a different equation by that point. Maybe harder actually, but different.
- katmannthree 5y agoNot just mental health, but physical as well. Humans are not well suited for long term high G environments, while I have every expectation that we will someday make it to other planetary systems I doubt the meatbags will be coming along.
- natch 5y agoYes absolutely.
- plugger 5y agoIt's the solar radiation, not high G's, that is the main problem with colonising Mars given Mars doesn't have a functional magnetosphere. At best Martian colonists will be the modern day equivalent of Morlocks if they want to have a sustainable colony on mars.
- davedx 5y agoNot if you design the habitation appropriately. Something like a 1m layer of water in the roof and thick glass windows would provide pretty decent protection. Sleeping underground would be a good idea though.
- nicoburns 5y agoWater's not that easy to come by on mars though! Sounds like a pretty miserable existence either way.
- imagine99 5y agoI feel like I want to hear more about what you're saying but despite reading it several times, your comment remains pretty opaque to me. Could you elaborate in a more plain English how exactly you think Mars colonisation will actually go? My understanding is that Elon considers this unmistakably as a concrete near-term goal, whereas - certainly to my knowledge - "tweaked versions of us... in a different substrate" seem significantly closer to science-fiction still (despite Neuralink etc.). So I'm curious what concrete things and time lines you were referring to...
- hutzlibu 5y agoI think he means transhumanism. Genetically adopted humans/cyborgs, that can survive the radiation etc. Scie-Fi for sure.
- est31 5y agoIt's not sci fi. Hominids have evolved radiation adaptations here on earth already through natural selection alone: dark skin. > The evolution of dark skin is believed to have begun around 1.2 million years ago,[9] in light-skinned early hominid species after they moved from the equatorial rainforest to the sunny savannas. In the heat of the savannas, better cooling mechanisms were required, which were achieved through the loss of body hair and development of more efficient perspiration. The loss of body hair led to the development of dark skin pigmentation, which acted as a mechanism of natural selection against folate depletion, and to a lesser extent, DNA damage. The primary factor contributing to the evolution of dark skin pigmentation was the breakdown of folate in reaction to ultraviolet radiation; the relationship between folate breakdown induced by ultraviolet radiation and reduced fitness as a failure of normal embryogenesis and spermatogenesis led to the selection of dark skin pigmentation. By the time modern Homo sapiens evolved, all humans were dark-skinned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_skin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_skin
- hutzlibu 5y agoNo doubt about that - but I don't think anyone would want to have natural evolution with natural selection as the primary way to achieve humans can live on mars. Because that would not be pleasant. And genetic engeneering has come a long way, but modifying humans genetically for improved radiation protection is sci-fi at the moment. Maybe it comes already in a couple of years, but currently it is not remotely there - so sci fi.
- BrandoElFollito 5y agoThe movie The Titan bases on that idea. This is not a particularly good movie, but the idea is interesting.