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No matter how bad we fuck our planet, it’s still paradise compared to what else is out there. Elon Musk wants to go to mars, but Antarctica is much more amenab

by eloff 4y ago

No matter how bad we fuck our planet, it’s still paradise compared to what else is out there. Elon Musk wants to go to mars, but Antarctica is much more amenable to life and nobody wants to live there. I understand it’s about having a backup plan for humanity. I think we could do it cheaper on Earth. I also don’t think we need one. It would be nearly impossible to make humans extinct at this point. We’re too adaptable and there’s too many of us. Civilization could fail, but humans would endure. We could get slammed by a giant asteroid that could kill 95% of the biomass on the planet, and we’d still survive in little pockets. We could nuke ourselves until the planet flows in the dark, but we’d still survive in places that were spared. Civilization is much more fragile.

L_226 4y ago
> nobody wants to live there Speak for yourself, I and many people I know would leap at the opportunity. As an Australian I have already considered applying for a rotation with the Australian Antarctic Division, and I will likely do so in the future when my life circumstances allow. With regards to your comment about bolide impact - you do realise that there is a non-zero probability of an impact that will destroy the actual crust of the Earth and remove the ability for _any_ life to exist on the planet right?
- lgl 4y ago
  Agreed. Way too many people seem to think that any asteroid impact would be similar to a thermonuclear device and could somehow be "survivable", which would only be true for relatively "small" asteroids. The reality is that a large enough or fast enough mass hitting not only Earth but any of it's neighboring planets could completely destabilize the solar system on a (literally) planetary scale. So even our fear of asteroids hitting earth is already too modest as we should really worry about them hitting any planet, especially the inner ones.
  - z3c0 4y ago
    On the other side of things, celestial objects are not flying around at random. They have trajectories typically leading away from us, and the odds for one to suddenly veer through what is mostly a void to hit another spec of dust are just as astronomically small as surviving the impact, should it actually happen.
- eloff 4y ago
  By non zero you mean effectively zero though. Those kinds of impacts happened early in the history of the solar system. They’re not impossible, as there are still objects that size out there, but something would have to sling them towards the Sun. Arguably were most at risk only during the next few centuries. After that our space capabilities will probably make us nearly immune to fast moving rocks from space.
- sangnoir 4y ago
  Visiting Antarctica and living there are 2 completely different things. The smae goes for Mars: I'm sure plenty would love to visit

by eloff 4y ago

L_226 4y ago

> nobody wants to live there Speak for yourself, I and many people I know would leap at the opportunity. As an Australian I have already considered applying for a rotation with the Australian Antarctic Division, and I will likely do so in the future when my life circumstances allow. With regards to your comment about bolide impact - you do realise that there is a non-zero probability of an impact that will destroy the actual crust of the Earth and remove the ability for _any_ life to exist on the planet right?

lgl 4y ago
Agreed. Way too many people seem to think that any asteroid impact would be similar to a thermonuclear device and could somehow be "survivable", which would only be true for relatively "small" asteroids. The reality is that a large enough or fast enough mass hitting not only Earth but any of it's neighboring planets could completely destabilize the solar system on a (literally) planetary scale. So even our fear of asteroids hitting earth is already too modest as we should really worry about them hitting any planet, especially the inner ones.
- z3c0 4y ago
  On the other side of things, celestial objects are not flying around at random. They have trajectories typically leading away from us, and the odds for one to suddenly veer through what is mostly a void to hit another spec of dust are just as astronomically small as surviving the impact, should it actually happen.
eloff 4y ago
By non zero you mean effectively zero though. Those kinds of impacts happened early in the history of the solar system. They’re not impossible, as there are still objects that size out there, but something would have to sling them towards the Sun. Arguably were most at risk only during the next few centuries. After that our space capabilities will probably make us nearly immune to fast moving rocks from space.
sangnoir 4y ago
Visiting Antarctica and living there are 2 completely different things. The smae goes for Mars: I'm sure plenty would love to visit