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>and I am not in favor of terraforming. Why not? It would seem that's something we're going to have to master in order to populate the galaxy. Seems like it

by tw04 5y ago

>and I am not in favor of terraforming. Why not? It would seem that's something we're going to have to master in order to populate the galaxy. Seems like it would make sense to figure it out somewhere close to home so we can have all the appropriate gear onboard a flight out into the cosmos.

throwawayboise 5y ago
We aren't going to populate the galaxy. We aren't even going to populate Mars. We are going to live on Earth until something cataclysmic happens, and then we will be gone.
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  That's really likely to be true if you walk into the future believing it.
  - OmicronCeti 5y ago
    Seems a little grandiose considering its just a comment on HN.
- dheera 5y ago
  I strongly disagree with this. We have several hundred million years left, and we've only been around as an intelligent civilization for what, 100K years? 200 years ago nobody would even think of flying on Earth, and yet here we are, taking it for granted that you can get almost anywhere on this planet within 24 hours for a couple thousand dollars, and within a century of inventing the car we landed a robot on freaking Mars. Now I do think that we will take charge of evolution and invent a form of life that will be our successor to withstand a much harsher range of conditions and absent from the "bugs" of current life such as cancer and heart disease, rather than our current unreliable meat bags, but we'll make it happen nonetheless. All that said -- I do want to see more attention toward terraforming Earth as well. Even with zero global warming, the sun's brightness will increase such that our oceans will boil away within 1 billion years, even though it won't actually engulf the Earth for another 4 billion. I would think it's realistic to extend the habitable period of life on Earth from ~300 million years to maybe 2 billion years with some terraforming tricks. That will buy us more time to terraform Mars or Saturn's moons in preparation for the red giant phase of the sun. Also, learning to terraform the Earth can reverse global warming, because, you know, politicians don't give a fuck about stopping it, so we should attempt to learn to reverse it as a backup plan while the political environmental efforts continue in parallel.
  - margalabargala 5y ago
    It's been 241 years since the first manned unpowered flight, in a hot air balloon. Granted that's a long way from getting anywhere on the planet, but I'm skeptical that 41 years after that event no one was thinking of flying.
  - OmicronCeti 5y ago
    I think the disconnect here is between potential and probable. Humanity likely has the potential for interstellar travel, but our nature will prevent it in my opinion. Homo sapiens have twice come to the edge of nuclear oblivion already (being saved only by luck essentially), and I would wager we are are speeding much faster towards nuking each other than reaching the stars.
    - dheera 5y ago
      If nuclear war breaks out, it will be sad, we will lose a lot of our population, and cities will be destroyed, but I do not think a nuclear breakout will result in the death of humanity. I cannot see a realistic war scenario in which we will destroy every habitable corner of the planet. And if we can cure cancer in the next 50 years (I think realistic), we'll have even better odds of surviving an event, as a species.
      - OmicronCeti 5y ago
        The collapse of all plant life would mean the death of humans. Nuclear winter is a well-studied and modeled phenomenon.
        dheera 5y ago
        I don't think we would collapse all plant life. While we have the theoretical capability to destroy all plant life, I think realistically we'd end up obliterating a few cities before war would cease, and a full-on nuclear winter is unlikely.
        5y ago
- f00zz 5y ago
  Not with that attitude.
OmicronCeti 5y ago
As the commentor below stated, I do not believe humans will colonize anything but our own solar system. Things are simply too far away, even assuming there is some breakthrough that speeds up travel by two or three orders of magnitude.
- dheera 5y ago
  There have been several order-of-magnitude breakthroughs in travel speed for the past 200 years. We have several hundred million years of time on Earth to go, and a couple billion on the solar system, to figure it out. We also have plenty of time to figure out how to re-engineer and evolve our own bodies to deal with radiation and other hazards. We will figure it out.
  - OmicronCeti 5y ago
    We simply exploited fossil fuels. You are extremely optimistic about having several hundred million years left on Earth, when the longest living hominid existed for only ~2 million years. I firmly believe that homo sapiens will self-destruct long before that point, as we have greatly overstressed the planet in only 200,000 years, mostly in the last 200.
    - Robotbeat 5y ago
      This is a pretty terrible argument, mostly because it seems to support Musk’s and Zubrin’s position that if we stop progressing we risk falling into stagnation, decay, and ultimately extinction and yet you’re somehow using it to say we SHOULDN’T try expanding to other planets or star systems. It doesn’t seem logically consistent! My view is that learning to master inhabitation of Mars and other places in space will enable us to revert Earth from a bunch of agricultural land and farms and suburban sprawl back into a garden (dotted with dense, luxurious cities) which we camp out in during the weekend. Space development shows how to thrive WITHOUT fossil fuels. It’s so strange to me that folks seem to have this backwards.
      - meepmorp 5y ago
mellosouls 5y ago
Better to master our behaviour on our own planet first before we go and trash another.
ModernMech 5y ago
> Why not? It would seem that's something we're going to have to master in order to populate the galaxy. I think the unstated premise here is that populating the galaxy is something we should do. Looking around at what we're doing here on Earth, I think humanity populating the galaxy would be a net negative for the galaxy. You know how the aliens from Independence Day are portrayed as a race that goes from planet to planet draining its resources until there's a husk left? That's exactly what humanity would do. There's no question about that. https://independenceday.fandom.com/wiki/Harvesters https://independenceday.fandom.com/wiki/Harvesters "The Harvesters are a race of highly intelligent and incredibly technologically advanced hive-mind extraterrestrial beings. They are a threat of universal proportions that seeks to harvest and destroy planets to refuel their ships, to grow, and to perfect their technology at the expense of driving indigenous races to extinction." We are the Harvesters in this story.

by tw04 5y ago

throwawayboise 5y ago

We aren't going to populate the galaxy. We aren't even going to populate Mars. We are going to live on Earth until something cataclysmic happens, and then we will be gone.

bpodgursky 5y ago
That's really likely to be true if you walk into the future believing it.
- OmicronCeti 5y ago
  Seems a little grandiose considering its just a comment on HN.
dheera 5y ago
I strongly disagree with this. We have several hundred million years left, and we've only been around as an intelligent civilization for what, 100K years? 200 years ago nobody would even think of flying on Earth, and yet here we are, taking it for granted that you can get almost anywhere on this planet within 24 hours for a couple thousand dollars, and within a century of inventing the car we landed a robot on freaking Mars. Now I do think that we will take charge of evolution and invent a form of life that will be our successor to withstand a much harsher range of conditions and absent from the "bugs" of current life such as cancer and heart disease, rather than our current unreliable meat bags, but we'll make it happen nonetheless. All that said -- I do want to see more attention toward terraforming Earth as well. Even with zero global warming, the sun's brightness will increase such that our oceans will boil away within 1 billion years, even though it won't actually engulf the Earth for another 4 billion. I would think it's realistic to extend the habitable period of life on Earth from ~300 million years to maybe 2 billion years with some terraforming tricks. That will buy us more time to terraform Mars or Saturn's moons in preparation for the red giant phase of the sun. Also, learning to terraform the Earth can reverse global warming, because, you know, politicians don't give a fuck about stopping it, so we should attempt to learn to reverse it as a backup plan while the political environmental efforts continue in parallel.
- margalabargala 5y ago
  It's been 241 years since the first manned unpowered flight, in a hot air balloon. Granted that's a long way from getting anywhere on the planet, but I'm skeptical that 41 years after that event no one was thinking of flying.
- OmicronCeti 5y ago
  I think the disconnect here is between potential and probable. Humanity likely has the potential for interstellar travel, but our nature will prevent it in my opinion. Homo sapiens have twice come to the edge of nuclear oblivion already (being saved only by luck essentially), and I would wager we are are speeding much faster towards nuking each other than reaching the stars.
  - dheera 5y ago
    If nuclear war breaks out, it will be sad, we will lose a lot of our population, and cities will be destroyed, but I do not think a nuclear breakout will result in the death of humanity. I cannot see a realistic war scenario in which we will destroy every habitable corner of the planet. And if we can cure cancer in the next 50 years (I think realistic), we'll have even better odds of surviving an event, as a species.
    - OmicronCeti 5y ago
      The collapse of all plant life would mean the death of humans. Nuclear winter is a well-studied and modeled phenomenon.
      - dheera 5y ago
        I don't think we would collapse all plant life. While we have the theoretical capability to destroy all plant life, I think realistically we'd end up obliterating a few cities before war would cease, and a full-on nuclear winter is unlikely.
        5y ago
f00zz 5y ago
Not with that attitude.

OmicronCeti 5y ago

As the commentor below stated, I do not believe humans will colonize anything but our own solar system. Things are simply too far away, even assuming there is some breakthrough that speeds up travel by two or three orders of magnitude.

dheera 5y ago
There have been several order-of-magnitude breakthroughs in travel speed for the past 200 years. We have several hundred million years of time on Earth to go, and a couple billion on the solar system, to figure it out. We also have plenty of time to figure out how to re-engineer and evolve our own bodies to deal with radiation and other hazards. We will figure it out.
- OmicronCeti 5y ago
  We simply exploited fossil fuels. You are extremely optimistic about having several hundred million years left on Earth, when the longest living hominid existed for only ~2 million years. I firmly believe that homo sapiens will self-destruct long before that point, as we have greatly overstressed the planet in only 200,000 years, mostly in the last 200.
  - Robotbeat 5y ago
    This is a pretty terrible argument, mostly because it seems to support Musk’s and Zubrin’s position that if we stop progressing we risk falling into stagnation, decay, and ultimately extinction and yet you’re somehow using it to say we SHOULDN’T try expanding to other planets or star systems. It doesn’t seem logically consistent! My view is that learning to master inhabitation of Mars and other places in space will enable us to revert Earth from a bunch of agricultural land and farms and suburban sprawl back into a garden (dotted with dense, luxurious cities) which we camp out in during the weekend. Space development shows how to thrive WITHOUT fossil fuels. It’s so strange to me that folks seem to have this backwards.
    - meepmorp 5y ago

mellosouls 5y ago

Better to master our behaviour on our own planet first before we go and trash another.

ModernMech 5y ago

> Why not? It would seem that's something we're going to have to master in order to populate the galaxy. I think the unstated premise here is that populating the galaxy is something we should do. Looking around at what we're doing here on Earth, I think humanity populating the galaxy would be a net negative for the galaxy. You know how the aliens from Independence Day are portrayed as a race that goes from planet to planet draining its resources until there's a husk left? That's exactly what humanity would do. There's no question about that. https://independenceday.fandom.com/wiki/Harvesters https://independenceday.fandom.com/wiki/Harvesters "The Harvesters are a race of highly intelligent and incredibly technologically advanced hive-mind extraterrestrial beings. They are a threat of universal proportions that seeks to harvest and destroy planets to refuel their ships, to grow, and to perfect their technology at the expense of driving indigenous races to extinction." We are the Harvesters in this story.