5 ms·

We can do both at the same time and we should.

dragontamer 5y ago
"Global Warming" is about the Earth going ~2C to 4C out-of-whack with our traditional norms over the next century or so. Mars is about being at -60C all the time, or roughly 80C away from what humans want. And temperature isn't even the worst part: Mars doesn't have enough oxygen for Humans to survive. Mars doesn't have enough nitrogen for plants to grow (and make oxygen). Mars doesn't have enough gravity to keep a dense enough atmosphere for us. --------- Look, I recognize the difficulty that Global Warming has on the human race. But Global Warming is a far, far, far easier problem than trying to have a sustainable, livable experience on Mars.
- tpmx 5y ago
  In your nightmare scenario we're going to need terraforming tech for Earth. If all of humanity lives on Earth though, we're just one unlucky meteorite away from going extinct. Given this: let's develop the terraforming tech for Mars, and establish colonies there.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    > In your nightmare scenario we're going to need terraforming tech both on Earth and Mars. The hypothetical technology to reduce Earth's temperature by 4-degrees Celsius is simply going to be fundamentally different from the hypothetical technology to increase Mars's temperature by 80-degrees Celsius.
    - tpmx 5y ago
      (Sorry, you caught my post while I was editing it in the first two minutes.) I don't see why shouldn't try to do both: a) Lower the earth's surface temperature b) Begin the process of building a backup of humanity on Mars
      - dragontamer 5y ago
        Because B) is a waste of time, money, and effort. Whether or not A) is true has nothing to do with whether or not B) is worth doing. There's no reason to imply that I'm making a false dichotomy fallacy.
        tpmx 5y ago
        I'm sorry, but short of instating a dictatorship you can't really stop people betting on things you don't like.
        dragontamer 5y ago
        I'm not saying you're not allowed to work on it. If its a task you feel like wasting your money on, that's fine. But don't expect me to support the effort by any means, not until you give me an argument for why Mars Terraforming would be a worthwhile use of resources I control or resources I have otherwise influence over.
        jokethrowaway 5y ago
        It's a private enterprise, not the government Nobody wants your support, they just need crazy enough wealthy people
        dragontamer 5y ago
        Sure. But we're discussing Elon Musk here. The fact that he's spending resources on nominally going to Mars is completely idiotic. I've got enough of a brain to figure that out. Its a free country. Which means I'm free to make my opinion on how others spend their money and resources. ----------- This is relevant because of all of the highly questionable moves Musk has done in the past weeks. He pumped BTC, pumped DOGE online. He pretends that he's a busy and (Aspergers) CEO despite spending huge amounts of effort on pop culture like Rick and Morty, Saturday Night Live, and other cultural mainstays. He proposes that terraforming Mars is a fruitful endevour. He lies about "Full Self Driving" to the public for years, even as news reports come out as people literally die and burn to death inside of the cars his companies make. He claims COVID19 is a hoax, in an effort to keep his factories open. He publishes a Finite-Element-Analysis of Hyperloop so basic that a 1st year college student could have done it. He builds tiny tunnels without any emergency contingencies while putting highly flammable lithium Ion batteries inside of those tunnels for Las Vegas. And then finally, we come to this topic. Where he first hypes BTC (after buying it), and then after selling a huge chunk of it (over 10% in the past quarter), seemingly moves to dump the price of BTC. Etc. etc. At some point, we have to recognize that this guy is not an "engineer" at all. Musk is a hypeman at best. His lack of focus (so many topics covered...) suggests mania (as opposed to Aspergers). I dunno. Its getting harder and harder to take Musk seriously on any of these issues.
- halfmatthalfcat 5y ago
  There's 7 billion human brains on earth. We can spare a couple to focus on making our species multi-planetary while the rest deal with cleaning up the mess at home. It's unreasonable to expect the entire human race to stop what they're doing and focus on one issue.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    Its unreasonable to expect any progress in transforming Mars to happen within our lifetime.
    - halfmatthalfcat 5y ago
      ...and Rome wasn't built in a day, what's your point? Just because we won't see tangible results in our lifetime doesn't mean the effort, lessons learned and thought energy in that direction is meaningless.
      - dragontamer 5y ago
        Trying to live on Mars is meaningless. All effort put towards it is complete, and utter waste. As I said in other comments, feel free to waste your resources on the project. But if you're trying to convince others that the project is useful or fruitful (and ask for other people's resources or help on the matter), then be prepared for some resistance.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    There is no meaningful difference between surviving extreme conditions on mars and extreme conditions on earth. The only difference is that the number of people that can live in extreme conditions is much smaller than the number that can live in normal conditions. Fighting against climate change is purely about making sure that the earth can maintain 7 billion + humans. Any mars colonization program will not progress fast enough to let 7 billion humans inhabit mars within the next 200 years. >It's unreasonable to expect the entire human race to stop what they're doing and focus on one issue. Nobody said "stop what they're doing" except you. But the usual argument is that Elon Musk is accelerating the progress toward mars colonization and accelerating that progress simply isn't needed because of time constraints that no amount of money can solve. It will take decades no matter what a conman tells you.

"Global Warming" is about the Earth going ~2C to 4C out-of-whack with our traditional norms over the next century or so. Mars is about being at -60C all the time, or roughly 80C away from what humans want. And temperature isn't even the worst part: Mars doesn't have enough oxygen for Humans to survive. Mars doesn't have enough nitrogen for plants to grow (and make oxygen). Mars doesn't have enough gravity to keep a dense enough atmosphere for us. --------- Look, I recognize the difficulty that Global Warming has on the human race. But Global Warming is a far, far, far easier problem than trying to have a sustainable, livable experience on Mars.

tpmx 5y ago
In your nightmare scenario we're going to need terraforming tech for Earth. If all of humanity lives on Earth though, we're just one unlucky meteorite away from going extinct. Given this: let's develop the terraforming tech for Mars, and establish colonies there.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  > In your nightmare scenario we're going to need terraforming tech both on Earth and Mars. The hypothetical technology to reduce Earth's temperature by 4-degrees Celsius is simply going to be fundamentally different from the hypothetical technology to increase Mars's temperature by 80-degrees Celsius.
  - tpmx 5y ago
    (Sorry, you caught my post while I was editing it in the first two minutes.) I don't see why shouldn't try to do both: a) Lower the earth's surface temperature b) Begin the process of building a backup of humanity on Mars
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      Because B) is a waste of time, money, and effort. Whether or not A) is true has nothing to do with whether or not B) is worth doing. There's no reason to imply that I'm making a false dichotomy fallacy.
      - tpmx 5y ago
        I'm sorry, but short of instating a dictatorship you can't really stop people betting on things you don't like.
        dragontamer 5y ago
        I'm not saying you're not allowed to work on it. If its a task you feel like wasting your money on, that's fine. But don't expect me to support the effort by any means, not until you give me an argument for why Mars Terraforming would be a worthwhile use of resources I control or resources I have otherwise influence over.
        jokethrowaway 5y ago
        It's a private enterprise, not the government Nobody wants your support, they just need crazy enough wealthy people
        dragontamer 5y ago
        Sure. But we're discussing Elon Musk here. The fact that he's spending resources on nominally going to Mars is completely idiotic. I've got enough of a brain to figure that out. Its a free country. Which means I'm free to make my opinion on how others spend their money and resources. ----------- This is relevant because of all of the highly questionable moves Musk has done in the past weeks. He pumped BTC, pumped DOGE online. He pretends that he's a busy and (Aspergers) CEO despite spending huge amounts of effort on pop culture like Rick and Morty, Saturday Night Live, and other cultural mainstays. He proposes that terraforming Mars is a fruitful endevour. He lies about "Full Self Driving" to the public for years, even as news reports come out as people literally die and burn to death inside of the cars his companies make. He claims COVID19 is a hoax, in an effort to keep his factories open. He publishes a Finite-Element-Analysis of Hyperloop so basic that a 1st year college student could have done it. He builds tiny tunnels without any emergency contingencies while putting highly flammable lithium Ion batteries inside of those tunnels for Las Vegas. And then finally, we come to this topic. Where he first hypes BTC (after buying it), and then after selling a huge chunk of it (over 10% in the past quarter), seemingly moves to dump the price of BTC. Etc. etc. At some point, we have to recognize that this guy is not an "engineer" at all. Musk is a hypeman at best. His lack of focus (so many topics covered...) suggests mania (as opposed to Aspergers). I dunno. Its getting harder and harder to take Musk seriously on any of these issues.
halfmatthalfcat 5y ago
There's 7 billion human brains on earth. We can spare a couple to focus on making our species multi-planetary while the rest deal with cleaning up the mess at home. It's unreasonable to expect the entire human race to stop what they're doing and focus on one issue.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  Its unreasonable to expect any progress in transforming Mars to happen within our lifetime.
  - halfmatthalfcat 5y ago
    ...and Rome wasn't built in a day, what's your point? Just because we won't see tangible results in our lifetime doesn't mean the effort, lessons learned and thought energy in that direction is meaningless.
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      Trying to live on Mars is meaningless. All effort put towards it is complete, and utter waste. As I said in other comments, feel free to waste your resources on the project. But if you're trying to convince others that the project is useful or fruitful (and ask for other people's resources or help on the matter), then be prepared for some resistance.
- imtringued 5y ago
  There is no meaningful difference between surviving extreme conditions on mars and extreme conditions on earth. The only difference is that the number of people that can live in extreme conditions is much smaller than the number that can live in normal conditions. Fighting against climate change is purely about making sure that the earth can maintain 7 billion + humans. Any mars colonization program will not progress fast enough to let 7 billion humans inhabit mars within the next 200 years. >It's unreasonable to expect the entire human race to stop what they're doing and focus on one issue. Nobody said "stop what they're doing" except you. But the usual argument is that Elon Musk is accelerating the progress toward mars colonization and accelerating that progress simply isn't needed because of time constraints that no amount of money can solve. It will take decades no matter what a conman tells you.