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> If there's a way for humanity to avoid its sorry fate You don't think there is, though. You've admitted as much. So why are you wasting your time? > Setting

> If there's a way for humanity to avoid its sorry fate You don't think there is, though. You've admitted as much. So why are you wasting your time? > Setting aside basic survivability problems — which are huge problem — whatever social problems we have here on Earth would just be magnified in the extremely hostile Mars environment. There's little or no margin for error (or stupidity) there. That's always been one of the benefits of settling a frontier--any hard and dangerous undertaking has a way of forging people and cultures into a healthier and more functional form. > Ok. And 1+1=2. So you agree with my point that "environmental issues are a question of tradeoffs and cost-benefits"; you just want to express that agreement in a belligerent tone. > You really need to elaborate to explain how this basic point illuminates the current discussion in any way. It's certainly more nuanced than the statement of yours I was responding to, which was "stop destroying our own environment, duh". It doesn't take very much light to illuminate the bottom of the Marianas Trench.

lapcat 4y ago
> So why are you wasting your time? Because I've got time to waste? And because I'm not happy about the situation. Honestly, aren't most HN commenters mostly just wasting time here? > any hard and dangerous undertaking has a way of forging people and cultures into a healthier and more functional form This does not seem true to me. > So you agree with my point that "environmental issues are a question of tradeoffs and cost-benefits"; you just want to express that agreement in a belligerent tone. No, I'm still waiting for the nuance that you mention. There are some obvious, massive environmental problems in the world, such as global warming, air pollution, water pollution, ground pollution, etc. I'm not seeing a serious global effort to stop, undo, or prevent these problems. In that respect, I'm not interested in "tradeoffs", which sound to me like a justification or excuse to continue to destroy our one planet for the sake of short-term profit. But if there's some nuance that I'm missing here, then please explain. The only thing you ever mentioned was windmills hurting birds and dams hurting fish, which as you can probably guess, doesn't impress me or justify doing nothing about the environment.
- philwelch 4y ago
  > In that respect, I'm not interested in "tradeoffs", which sound to me like a justification or excuse to continue to destroy our one planet for the sake of short-term profit. But if there's some nuance that I'm missing here, then please explain. The only thing you ever mentioned was windmills hurting birds and dams hurting fish, which as you can probably guess, doesn't impress me or justify doing nothing about the environment. I mentioned those things as examples of tradeoffs where the benefit outweighs the ecological impact. “Doing nothing about the environment” is a complete strawman that you made up for some reason, it certainly has nothing to do with anything I mentioned. I don’t think I’m making a particularly nuanced point either, but you’re still not really grasping it or coherently responding to it, so I have no reason to think you’re willing and capable of engaging with anything more nuanced.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > I mentioned those things as examples of tradeoffs where the benefit outweighs the ecological impact. “Doing nothing about the environment” is a complete strawman that you made up for some reason, it certainly has nothing to do with anything I mentioned. I keep asking, over and over, for you to give examples of tradeoffs where the cost/benefit goes the other way, but you steadfastly refuse to elaborate. All you do is complain that I'm misunderstanding you, while never elaborating on your view. If doing nothing about the environment is a strawman, then why don't you go ahead and explain your non-strawman position? > I don’t think I’m making a particularly nuanced point either You're not making any point. That's my point. You apparently just want me to say "You were right, Phil, and I was wrong", despite my not even knowing what the heck you're supposed to be right about, except the totally vague, handwavey "tradeoffs exists". Ok, fine. Tradeoffs exists. Are you happy now? But that doesn't really get us anywhere or change anything in the argument. You asked, "How do you plan to provide food, energy, housing, and health care to eight billion people?" Can we feed and house an unlimited number of humans? No. Can we feed and house the current number of humans? Yes, I believe so. We already produce vastly more consumer goods than is necessary for this basic purpose, but we refuse to distribute them equitably. In any case, if for some reason we can't adequately feed and house the current number of humans, the answer is certainly not Mars, which doesn't support human life at all and wouldn't help even a tiny bit to feed or house current Earth humans. The cost of feeding and housing a human on Mars is, as it were, astronomically greater than the cost of feeding and housing a human on Earth. One answer would be population control, strictly limiting new births. There's a tradeoff for you. But as I already said, I don't think the basics are really our biggest problem: "We have rampant, insatiable consumerism..."

lapcat 4y ago

> So why are you wasting your time? Because I've got time to waste? And because I'm not happy about the situation. Honestly, aren't most HN commenters mostly just wasting time here? > any hard and dangerous undertaking has a way of forging people and cultures into a healthier and more functional form This does not seem true to me. > So you agree with my point that "environmental issues are a question of tradeoffs and cost-benefits"; you just want to express that agreement in a belligerent tone. No, I'm still waiting for the nuance that you mention. There are some obvious, massive environmental problems in the world, such as global warming, air pollution, water pollution, ground pollution, etc. I'm not seeing a serious global effort to stop, undo, or prevent these problems. In that respect, I'm not interested in "tradeoffs", which sound to me like a justification or excuse to continue to destroy our one planet for the sake of short-term profit. But if there's some nuance that I'm missing here, then please explain. The only thing you ever mentioned was windmills hurting birds and dams hurting fish, which as you can probably guess, doesn't impress me or justify doing nothing about the environment.

philwelch 4y ago
> In that respect, I'm not interested in "tradeoffs", which sound to me like a justification or excuse to continue to destroy our one planet for the sake of short-term profit. But if there's some nuance that I'm missing here, then please explain. The only thing you ever mentioned was windmills hurting birds and dams hurting fish, which as you can probably guess, doesn't impress me or justify doing nothing about the environment. I mentioned those things as examples of tradeoffs where the benefit outweighs the ecological impact. “Doing nothing about the environment” is a complete strawman that you made up for some reason, it certainly has nothing to do with anything I mentioned. I don’t think I’m making a particularly nuanced point either, but you’re still not really grasping it or coherently responding to it, so I have no reason to think you’re willing and capable of engaging with anything more nuanced.
- lapcat 4y ago
  > I mentioned those things as examples of tradeoffs where the benefit outweighs the ecological impact. “Doing nothing about the environment” is a complete strawman that you made up for some reason, it certainly has nothing to do with anything I mentioned. I keep asking, over and over, for you to give examples of tradeoffs where the cost/benefit goes the other way, but you steadfastly refuse to elaborate. All you do is complain that I'm misunderstanding you, while never elaborating on your view. If doing nothing about the environment is a strawman, then why don't you go ahead and explain your non-strawman position? > I don’t think I’m making a particularly nuanced point either You're not making any point. That's my point. You apparently just want me to say "You were right, Phil, and I was wrong", despite my not even knowing what the heck you're supposed to be right about, except the totally vague, handwavey "tradeoffs exists". Ok, fine. Tradeoffs exists. Are you happy now? But that doesn't really get us anywhere or change anything in the argument. You asked, "How do you plan to provide food, energy, housing, and health care to eight billion people?" Can we feed and house an unlimited number of humans? No. Can we feed and house the current number of humans? Yes, I believe so. We already produce vastly more consumer goods than is necessary for this basic purpose, but we refuse to distribute them equitably. In any case, if for some reason we can't adequately feed and house the current number of humans, the answer is certainly not Mars, which doesn't support human life at all and wouldn't help even a tiny bit to feed or house current Earth humans. The cost of feeding and housing a human on Mars is, as it were, astronomically greater than the cost of feeding and housing a human on Earth. One answer would be population control, strictly limiting new births. There's a tradeoff for you. But as I already said, I don't think the basics are really our biggest problem: "We have rampant, insatiable consumerism..."