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I think people are alarmed, but solutions to these problems are enormously costly and largely fictional. The techniques we have for living in space (or transiti

I think people are alarmed, but solutions to these problems are enormously costly and largely fictional. The techniques we have for living in space (or transiting through it) would not sustain us if we lost earth. They are enormously costly[1], which is fine for what we are doing, but we need multiple orders-of-magnitude improvement to be practically interstellar. On balance, I think we could spend more, but I also think diminishing returns is very real. Giving the wright brothers 100,000 workers to build copies of their planes would not have gotten us to the space shuttle much faster. Ironically, it could have slowed us down because of sunk cost fallacies. [1] https://twitter.com/sim_kern/status/1411304471934685184 https://twitter.com/sim_kern/status/1411304471934685184

e40 5y ago
> I think people are alarmed I think your view is skewed. Every single person I've talked to about this as looked at me like they are bored. Of course, here on HN, I've found many like-minded people. That's great, but I think very few humans, especially humans in the power structures that run this planet, care about this issue.
- aeturnum 5y ago
  > I think your view is skewed I suspect it's more that we have different definitions of how widely a feeling of alarm should spread before saying this. I agree the absolute number of people who are worried about the problem is small. I guess I think about it in terms of "what proportion of the population that would be directly involved in solving this problem"? I would suspect that is close to 100%. Anyone involved in space work is aware that we may we wiped out and would not like that to happen. Government leaders are also, I think, aware, but unconvinced that more resource expenditure would be meaningfully helpful. Given how difficult it's been to convince people to deal with a much cheaper & easier problem that is much more obvious and immediate (global climate change) I have trouble critiquing people for being insufficiently zealous about this issue.
  - e40 5y ago
    I think there's a correlation between the age of politicians and how much they care, and we have far too many old politicians. (I'm old, btw.) We need more young people to get involved and get into positions of power. They have a vested interested in seeing solutions implemented, rather than the current crop who know they'll be dead when the real shit hits the fan and they're just letting things stay as is, because they want to maximize their benefits between now and death.
    - JALTU 5y ago
      Related to this age observation, I happened to be listening to a recording of Anand Giridharadas speaking in Seattle about how technocratic, engineering-oriented, "rational" mindsets (like most of the people here, like the people who work at tech-influenced foundations) very often do not understand or apparently don't consider the power component of their policy or solution efforts. Net net, more young people in power and more understanding of the power dynamics in society might go a lot farther in getting the "right thing" done. To e40's point, sadly, when Anand asked the audience how many would be willing to commit to getting involved in the then upcoming election, it was a small minority despite generous applause at other points in his talk about effecting societal change. And this was for local changes in taxation if I recall correctly. I'm guessing they were mostly "old" and have their life's effort to lose in the latter halves of their expected lives. This is where technical solutions seeking wide societal traction need a helping hand from that other side of our brains that relate to stories, myths, meaning, and purpose.
- mikevin 5y ago
  I think that's a pretty healthy reaction, pretty much all of human history took place in an environment where investing time an energy in thinking/caring about "the big picture"/"distant future" would drastically lower your chances of survival. Even today there's still plenty of people who have to worry about having something to eat tomorrow. We're slowly getting comfortable enough about our immediate situation, leaving room to start thinking on a bigger scale. But I think it takes actual effort to say: "ok brain, I understand our immediate situation is important but I think we've got that covered enough to allow us to start caring about the less immediate problems we might face" I'm a glass half full guy so maybe it's naive but I think we're actually doing pretty well. Climate change sucks and we're pretty slow to respond but you wouldn't expect a hunter/gatherer to be able to see the importance of fighting it. Our situation is different but the brain isn't all that different when it comes to prioritizing things to spend time/energy on. Obesity is a good example of what happens when you combine ancient instincts with modern situations. Same thing probably goes for racism. We're advanced enough to know better and responsible for our actions but we're dealing with a brain has evolved mostly during times where trusting other tribes and survival of the fittest were Incompatible. Xenophobia had some evolutionary benefit and now we have to deal with it's existence in a vastly different situation. Like I said, people should know better and have to be held responsible for their actions and we should never be comfortable with the slow rate of change. Still I like to remind myself every now and then that its amazing how much progress has already been made changing things that evolution hasn't had time to value yet. This turned out way longer than I expected but it's something I think about a lot. Hope you don't mind me using your comment to finally put some thoughts into words.

e40 5y ago

> I think people are alarmed I think your view is skewed. Every single person I've talked to about this as looked at me like they are bored. Of course, here on HN, I've found many like-minded people. That's great, but I think very few humans, especially humans in the power structures that run this planet, care about this issue.

aeturnum 5y ago
> I think your view is skewed I suspect it's more that we have different definitions of how widely a feeling of alarm should spread before saying this. I agree the absolute number of people who are worried about the problem is small. I guess I think about it in terms of "what proportion of the population that would be directly involved in solving this problem"? I would suspect that is close to 100%. Anyone involved in space work is aware that we may we wiped out and would not like that to happen. Government leaders are also, I think, aware, but unconvinced that more resource expenditure would be meaningfully helpful. Given how difficult it's been to convince people to deal with a much cheaper & easier problem that is much more obvious and immediate (global climate change) I have trouble critiquing people for being insufficiently zealous about this issue.
- e40 5y ago
  I think there's a correlation between the age of politicians and how much they care, and we have far too many old politicians. (I'm old, btw.) We need more young people to get involved and get into positions of power. They have a vested interested in seeing solutions implemented, rather than the current crop who know they'll be dead when the real shit hits the fan and they're just letting things stay as is, because they want to maximize their benefits between now and death.
  - JALTU 5y ago
    Related to this age observation, I happened to be listening to a recording of Anand Giridharadas speaking in Seattle about how technocratic, engineering-oriented, "rational" mindsets (like most of the people here, like the people who work at tech-influenced foundations) very often do not understand or apparently don't consider the power component of their policy or solution efforts. Net net, more young people in power and more understanding of the power dynamics in society might go a lot farther in getting the "right thing" done. To e40's point, sadly, when Anand asked the audience how many would be willing to commit to getting involved in the then upcoming election, it was a small minority despite generous applause at other points in his talk about effecting societal change. And this was for local changes in taxation if I recall correctly. I'm guessing they were mostly "old" and have their life's effort to lose in the latter halves of their expected lives. This is where technical solutions seeking wide societal traction need a helping hand from that other side of our brains that relate to stories, myths, meaning, and purpose.
mikevin 5y ago
I think that's a pretty healthy reaction, pretty much all of human history took place in an environment where investing time an energy in thinking/caring about "the big picture"/"distant future" would drastically lower your chances of survival. Even today there's still plenty of people who have to worry about having something to eat tomorrow. We're slowly getting comfortable enough about our immediate situation, leaving room to start thinking on a bigger scale. But I think it takes actual effort to say: "ok brain, I understand our immediate situation is important but I think we've got that covered enough to allow us to start caring about the less immediate problems we might face" I'm a glass half full guy so maybe it's naive but I think we're actually doing pretty well. Climate change sucks and we're pretty slow to respond but you wouldn't expect a hunter/gatherer to be able to see the importance of fighting it. Our situation is different but the brain isn't all that different when it comes to prioritizing things to spend time/energy on. Obesity is a good example of what happens when you combine ancient instincts with modern situations. Same thing probably goes for racism. We're advanced enough to know better and responsible for our actions but we're dealing with a brain has evolved mostly during times where trusting other tribes and survival of the fittest were Incompatible. Xenophobia had some evolutionary benefit and now we have to deal with it's existence in a vastly different situation. Like I said, people should know better and have to be held responsible for their actions and we should never be comfortable with the slow rate of change. Still I like to remind myself every now and then that its amazing how much progress has already been made changing things that evolution hasn't had time to value yet. This turned out way longer than I expected but it's something I think about a lot. Hope you don't mind me using your comment to finally put some thoughts into words.