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Yes, and going to another planet is at least an order of magnitude more stark and perilous of a change. I don't feel that it's the risk I'm meant to take on, I

Yes, and going to another planet is at least an order of magnitude more stark and perilous of a change. I don't feel that it's the risk I'm meant to take on, I've chosen other risks and challenges. But maybe it's someone else's?

kortilla 5y ago
> Yes, and going to another planet is at least an order of magnitude more stark and perilous of a change. Unlikely. As a society we’re not nearly as tolerant of knowingly sending people to their death as they were in the 1500s. A safe job of simply working a coal mine in the 1800s even would be more risky than what we end up subjecting the first mars explorers to.
- JetAlone 5y ago
  Right now, we're not. I am firmly convinced that will eventually change. EDIT: I missed out on something. "Knowingly" is a strong word for this case. Nobody knew for 100% certain if an early American colonist was going to die or achieve prosperity. Nobody knows the same about a hypothetical martian colonist. We've become more culturally sensitive about risk in this exact way, thinking we "know" the outcome based on scrutinized likelihoods. We didn't suddenly become rational in the face of nigh certain death, where before we were just being silly about it. We're not necessarily silly in either case to most heavily consider the risk or the benefit, I'd say it all really depends on what's called for at that time.
  - kortilla 5y ago
    No, it was very well known that there were high risks of death just because of weather, food, disease, etc and people did it in the face of that. The only people who went were doing under the promises of vast riches or having literally no other options. There was no welfare to keep them alive in Europe so a 1/4 chance of dying on the journey as a deck hand with only a 1/100 chance of ever coming back was still appealing. We know way more about what a Martian colonist will experience even now than the people in Europe did about the various risks even after a smattering of successful journeys. Modern society is very intolerant of unknown risks like that. An aircraft worthy of passenger travel in the 1950s is considered barbaric by todays standards. The risks incurred by astronauts on the international space station are lower than the passengers that took flights in the 1930s.
    - JetAlone 5y ago
      I'm gonna zoom out here a little. I've been living a life that for decades has felt like slavery to what I confidently believe is an overly risk averse cultural mindset, applied to economic life. I see no safe path to a life I could tolerate myself choosing. If it became clear to me, I would take longer odds of death than the American colonist in your example to break free of it, because dying is preferable to me over living in the boxes most people are eager to ensconce me in. But because of the "intolerance to unknown risks" (and the fact that I refuse to become a career criminal) there are tons of hurdles now in the way of risking my own life to succeed and all I've got left realistically is burnout and feeling shame for not being or doing X, Y, Z. So because of that, the "elephant" I'm riding is a complete behemoth. You're never going to convince me that the modern world will always be and should be so intolerant of these kinds of risks. You left behind google to work in a startup, so you've experienced something about a real economic risk if not a deadly one. Beyond that I don't know what kind of elephant you're riding on about this kind of thing but it's probably also too strong for me to expect to influence you into adopting my thoughts about risk epistemology. Possibly, precisely because they are my thoughts; they're not for you. Having taken that step back, I don't see why I need to care so much if you really want to stick to your heuristic of approximating risk confidence into a functional "knowledge" that it's 100% or 0% at the margins of the infinitesimal. That's your choice. Maybe those are good guardrails for you. I'd hope to speak as a check and balance to stop you from pressuring (whether deliberately or inadvertently) other people who feel the same way I do into these boxes, but It would be arrogant of me to assume I know best for what you should be thinking.
      - JetAlone 5y ago
        Having this conversation, and realizing why I was digging into the position I held inspired me to look up the most dangerous occupations in my available area, looking at the statistics and contrasting them to salary, other benefits, and hurdles in the way of doing them. I see a possibility of a better life on the other side of all that.

kortilla 5y ago

> Yes, and going to another planet is at least an order of magnitude more stark and perilous of a change. Unlikely. As a society we’re not nearly as tolerant of knowingly sending people to their death as they were in the 1500s. A safe job of simply working a coal mine in the 1800s even would be more risky than what we end up subjecting the first mars explorers to.

JetAlone 5y ago
Right now, we're not. I am firmly convinced that will eventually change. EDIT: I missed out on something. "Knowingly" is a strong word for this case. Nobody knew for 100% certain if an early American colonist was going to die or achieve prosperity. Nobody knows the same about a hypothetical martian colonist. We've become more culturally sensitive about risk in this exact way, thinking we "know" the outcome based on scrutinized likelihoods. We didn't suddenly become rational in the face of nigh certain death, where before we were just being silly about it. We're not necessarily silly in either case to most heavily consider the risk or the benefit, I'd say it all really depends on what's called for at that time.
- kortilla 5y ago
  No, it was very well known that there were high risks of death just because of weather, food, disease, etc and people did it in the face of that. The only people who went were doing under the promises of vast riches or having literally no other options. There was no welfare to keep them alive in Europe so a 1/4 chance of dying on the journey as a deck hand with only a 1/100 chance of ever coming back was still appealing. We know way more about what a Martian colonist will experience even now than the people in Europe did about the various risks even after a smattering of successful journeys. Modern society is very intolerant of unknown risks like that. An aircraft worthy of passenger travel in the 1950s is considered barbaric by todays standards. The risks incurred by astronauts on the international space station are lower than the passengers that took flights in the 1930s.
  - JetAlone 5y ago
    I'm gonna zoom out here a little. I've been living a life that for decades has felt like slavery to what I confidently believe is an overly risk averse cultural mindset, applied to economic life. I see no safe path to a life I could tolerate myself choosing. If it became clear to me, I would take longer odds of death than the American colonist in your example to break free of it, because dying is preferable to me over living in the boxes most people are eager to ensconce me in. But because of the "intolerance to unknown risks" (and the fact that I refuse to become a career criminal) there are tons of hurdles now in the way of risking my own life to succeed and all I've got left realistically is burnout and feeling shame for not being or doing X, Y, Z. So because of that, the "elephant" I'm riding is a complete behemoth. You're never going to convince me that the modern world will always be and should be so intolerant of these kinds of risks. You left behind google to work in a startup, so you've experienced something about a real economic risk if not a deadly one. Beyond that I don't know what kind of elephant you're riding on about this kind of thing but it's probably also too strong for me to expect to influence you into adopting my thoughts about risk epistemology. Possibly, precisely because they are my thoughts; they're not for you. Having taken that step back, I don't see why I need to care so much if you really want to stick to your heuristic of approximating risk confidence into a functional "knowledge" that it's 100% or 0% at the margins of the infinitesimal. That's your choice. Maybe those are good guardrails for you. I'd hope to speak as a check and balance to stop you from pressuring (whether deliberately or inadvertently) other people who feel the same way I do into these boxes, but It would be arrogant of me to assume I know best for what you should be thinking.
    - JetAlone 5y ago
      Having this conversation, and realizing why I was digging into the position I held inspired me to look up the most dangerous occupations in my available area, looking at the statistics and contrasting them to salary, other benefits, and hurdles in the way of doing them. I see a possibility of a better life on the other side of all that.