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> “We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, an
by mistermann 4y ago
> “We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.”
This is a lovely saying, but it feels like fairly strong false advertising. "We hope X", interpreted literally, implies that people physically engage in such forms of thinking. I do not believe this is actually true at ground level, rather, I think this is more of a story that we like to tell ourselves about ourselves.
- kortilla 4y agoSpaceX is actively working towards that goal.
- Planktonne 4y agoSpaceX's own mission statement doesn't mention becoming part of a community of civilisations [1]. It mentions making humans multiplanetary, but that is a very different aim [2]. Further, it's a good idea to be skeptical of corporate mission statements generally. SpaceX is doing exciting stuff in the field of rocketry; that's really happening and it's worth being excited about, but they aren't doing more. It's misguided and dangerous to treat them as utopian idealists. [1] https://www.spacex.com/mission/ https://www.spacex.com/mission/ [2] https://www.gutenbergcanada.ca/ebooks/lewiscs-outofthesilentplanet/lewiscs-outofthesilentplanet-00-e.html https://www.gutenbergcanada.ca/ebooks/lewiscs-outofthesilent...
- mr_toad 4y agoIf Starship isn’t designed to go to Mars and back they’ve made some odd design choices.
- WalterBright 4y ago> but they aren't doing more Criminy, aren't they doing great? I finally found a way to buy some shares of SpaceX. I don't even care if that investment does badly, I just want to share in a tiny bit of SpaceX. > dangerous ?? On the scale of things that terrify me, SpaceX doesn't move the needle.
- SyzygistSix 4y agoMusk has acknowledged that he considers colonizing Mars a step to becoming extrasolar eventually, not that SpaceX plans to do that itself.
- mistermann 4y agoOn a portion of it - I don't see any attention paid to discovering how to teach human beings how to be better at good will, which is part of the claim.
- myself248 4y agoIt seems pretty narrow to assume that because _you_ don't engage in this thinking, that _nobody_ does. Plenty of us do. The fact that we're not running the world is a detail.
- dotancohen 4y ago> Plenty of us do. The fact that we're not running the world is a detail. I think that "we're not running the world" was the GP's point. It _is_ an important detail in the context of the President saying these words, to remember that he is not one of us who do really engage in this type of thinking.
- mistermann 4y agoThe magnitude (quantity x quality) of people who do on planet earth is also highly relevant to the objective truth value of the claim.
- mistermann 4y agoI wonder if you do indeed engage in the specific type of thinking I am referring to. Would you be willing to compare notes?