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It wasn't supposed to be an argument against space flight in general, but against Musk's specific arguments about "making humanity multi planetary to avoid exis

It wasn't supposed to be an argument against space flight in general, but against Musk's specific arguments about "making humanity multi planetary to avoid existential risk" being one of the major things we need to be doing right now. It's no good having a few thousand people on Mars if climate collapse causes critical destabilisation of our society. The tech bro thing isn't really about personality and more about ideology. The hyperloop and the boring company stuff is pretty dumb and clearly based on a disregard for public transit and publicly funded infrastructure, but I'm still glad he's investing in solar power and electric cars. The neuralink monkey stuff is pretty sickening too, but overall he's one of the less-bad billionaires.

relativ575 5y ago
> "making humanity multi planetary to avoid existential risk" being one of the major things we need to be doing right now If not right now, then when? what should we wait for? space exploration is very hard. It takes very long time and huge investment to make any meaningful progress. Even if we start now it'd be a long time before a sustainable presence in Mars can be established. It's also annoying to use space exploration as scapegoat for the lack of progress on Earth. You, being a HN visitor, is likely a tech savvy person who probably plays video games. Do you ever ask yourself if video games are a huge resource hog? and if we all stop playing games and devote our time and money to solve problems here on Earth, how much progress would we be able to make?
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  Once again, I'm not saying that space exploration isn't worthwhile - just that Elon Musk talks about it like getting established on Mars avoids a significant x-risk, where the most obvious x-risk right now is climate change. If he just said "because space exploration is cool and also advances science" then I wouldn't be critical because it wouldn't be a specious argument. I actually rather like SpaceX but I don't like x-risk arguments from Elon the same way I don't like rationalists freaking out about AI alignment: it's such a far out risk compared to the actual one we are facing (climate change), and they wilfully ignore it because their ideology (libertarianism) has no means to address it.
  - cloutchaser 5y ago
    What about a potential asteroid collision? If you actually check it out, there’s an asteroid flying near to earth every 2-3 years, one’s which at a minimum would wipe out a city and change the climate for hundreds of years. Are you adding that to your tail risk calculations? We’re pretty lucky we haven’t had a major asteroid impact in over 10,000 years, some people argue that’s when it happened last and completely changed the climate. I actually think you could legitimately argue this is larger risk than climate change, it’s just that the media don’t write about it. What about getting resources from asteroids? Ever think about what sort of economy of abundance that could create on earth? Like some asteroids have more metals than what’s on earth. How is that for creating a better world on earth? I think even today spacex could probably change the path of an asteroid if needed. Which is a massive amount of protection for earth. 10-20 years they can mine asteroids. So It’s not just about creating a mars colony for tech bros. It’s a million other possibilities. You are being extremely short sighted and your judgement is clouded by not liking musks personality. His personality is the last thing you should be thinking about.
    - beaconstudios 5y ago
      I have no issue with his personality - I have no idea who you're responding to with that point because it isn't me. I very much doubt they could divert an asteroid right now - and if asteroid defense is the actual reason behind space innovation then why isn't anybody explicitly working on it? Because it's not profitable, and NASA's budget is pretty miniscule. Presumably if they thought it was a significant risk they'd be diverting what resources they have to asteroid defense. My only issue with SpaceX is that Elon makes the argument that a Mars colony is somehow a counter to x-risk. It isn't, because any colony would be dependent on earth for survival for a long time and if we're worried about asteroids we should probably be defending earth instead of ditching 8 billion people and surviving with 1000 people on an inhospitable rock.
      - quantumduck 5y ago
        "Presumably if they thought it was a significant risk they'd be diverting what resources they have to asteroid defense" You are assuming that everyone in the government works to protect our interests in long-term. Spoiler alert: they don't.

relativ575 5y ago

> "making humanity multi planetary to avoid existential risk" being one of the major things we need to be doing right now If not right now, then when? what should we wait for? space exploration is very hard. It takes very long time and huge investment to make any meaningful progress. Even if we start now it'd be a long time before a sustainable presence in Mars can be established. It's also annoying to use space exploration as scapegoat for the lack of progress on Earth. You, being a HN visitor, is likely a tech savvy person who probably plays video games. Do you ever ask yourself if video games are a huge resource hog? and if we all stop playing games and devote our time and money to solve problems here on Earth, how much progress would we be able to make?

beaconstudios 5y ago
Once again, I'm not saying that space exploration isn't worthwhile - just that Elon Musk talks about it like getting established on Mars avoids a significant x-risk, where the most obvious x-risk right now is climate change. If he just said "because space exploration is cool and also advances science" then I wouldn't be critical because it wouldn't be a specious argument. I actually rather like SpaceX but I don't like x-risk arguments from Elon the same way I don't like rationalists freaking out about AI alignment: it's such a far out risk compared to the actual one we are facing (climate change), and they wilfully ignore it because their ideology (libertarianism) has no means to address it.
- cloutchaser 5y ago
  What about a potential asteroid collision? If you actually check it out, there’s an asteroid flying near to earth every 2-3 years, one’s which at a minimum would wipe out a city and change the climate for hundreds of years. Are you adding that to your tail risk calculations? We’re pretty lucky we haven’t had a major asteroid impact in over 10,000 years, some people argue that’s when it happened last and completely changed the climate. I actually think you could legitimately argue this is larger risk than climate change, it’s just that the media don’t write about it. What about getting resources from asteroids? Ever think about what sort of economy of abundance that could create on earth? Like some asteroids have more metals than what’s on earth. How is that for creating a better world on earth? I think even today spacex could probably change the path of an asteroid if needed. Which is a massive amount of protection for earth. 10-20 years they can mine asteroids. So It’s not just about creating a mars colony for tech bros. It’s a million other possibilities. You are being extremely short sighted and your judgement is clouded by not liking musks personality. His personality is the last thing you should be thinking about.
  - beaconstudios 5y ago
    I have no issue with his personality - I have no idea who you're responding to with that point because it isn't me. I very much doubt they could divert an asteroid right now - and if asteroid defense is the actual reason behind space innovation then why isn't anybody explicitly working on it? Because it's not profitable, and NASA's budget is pretty miniscule. Presumably if they thought it was a significant risk they'd be diverting what resources they have to asteroid defense. My only issue with SpaceX is that Elon makes the argument that a Mars colony is somehow a counter to x-risk. It isn't, because any colony would be dependent on earth for survival for a long time and if we're worried about asteroids we should probably be defending earth instead of ditching 8 billion people and surviving with 1000 people on an inhospitable rock.
    - quantumduck 5y ago
      "Presumably if they thought it was a significant risk they'd be diverting what resources they have to asteroid defense" You are assuming that everyone in the government works to protect our interests in long-term. Spoiler alert: they don't.