4 ms·

I know there are people who see it this way and feel like this. It presumes a couple things: - that intelligent thought (or in other belief structures, spirit,

by hosh 4y ago

I know there are people who see it this way and feel like this. It presumes a couple things: - that intelligent thought (or in other belief structures, spirit, consciousness, etc) are the only thing of value worth propogating - that by escaping the gravity well, we can also escape the problems we wrought by bad design. We’re more likely to carry the problems forward. Our so-called “intelligent thought” have problems built into how we approach the design, so like running away from our shadows, it will come up wherever we go. And, if we are aware of the bad design, why wouldn’t we just fix it while we’re here on this planet?

abakker 4y ago
because fixing things costs money. Even when it saves money. Money is the catalyst that allows anything to happen, and not enough people have enough of it to turn good ideas into good designs into good products.
- Alupis 4y ago
  And flying to another planet that happens to be completely inhospitable is somehow cheaper or easier? When you realize there are no hospitable planets, besides earth, within our solar system - you will realize there is no escaping the problems we have created here on earth. No, they must be solved, not avoided. There is no future where any of us alive today, or for many, many generations (dozens, maybe hundreds or thousands, if it's even possible) will be capable of traveling to another system with potentially hospitable planets.
  - esafak 4y ago
    Besides, how could terraforming Mars be easier than fixing our problems?
    - echelon 4y ago
      > Besides, how could terraforming Mars be easier than fixing our problems? We don't need to terraform Mars to our incredibly fine tuned biology. What comes next will evolve beyond our limitations. Humans are a stepping stone. Just a blink of an eye in an infinite time scale.
      - ethanbond 4y ago
        What? There is no reason to think humans are "a stepping stone," there are plenty of dead-ends in evolution. There's certainly no reason to think that putting biological things on Mars will in any way cause them to evolve into Mars-robust creatures. Evolution is a slow, slow, slow random walk throughout which nearly all conditions have to be nearly-perfect.
        echelon 4y ago
        Natural selection is a metaheuristic maximizing on the landscape of fitness topology, available energy resources, etc. It relies upon biological constraints, such as existing genes, organs, and biological functions available. It cannot make fantastic leaps quickly that would require significant backtracking. I'm not suggesting putting biological organisms anywhere. I'm suggesting that at some point in the future an AI will be able to rapidly modify its own substrate independent of biology, metabolic inputs, and genetic inheritance. That it won't be subject to information loss due to death or other physical constraints. That it will much more quickly be able to build support systems for itself to harness energy and raw materials wherever it goes. Unless we kill ourselves in the near future, these systems will likely emerge and will likely proliferate faster than us. They're not going to be stuck on earth with us. There are abundant energy resources and building materials in the solar system and greater galaxy beyond.
  - kiba 4y ago
    Too many people make it a dichotomy between staying here and colonizing. Why not both?
    - Alupis 4y ago
      Colonize Mars all you want - but Mars dies when Earth dies; they are both tied to the same sun and will suffer similar fates.
  - abakker 4y ago
    That wasn't the comparison I was making. For the record, I'm all for fixing problems, but the OP asked why they were not being solved, so...yeah, money. is it a satisfying and good answer? no. Is it enough of the answer to have explanatory value, I think so.
    - Alupis 4y ago
      I would assert a great deal of perceived problems are not being fixed because not everyone agrees they are problems, or agrees to what extent they are problems, or agrees on the solutions. HN is quite a bubble, and we often form an echo chamber that strongly agrees with itself.
alpinemeadow 4y ago
Isn’t is interesting that as a species we don’t have a way to understand where are we in our lifecycle? As a human I can understand life stages and where I am relative to other individuals. I can plan my life accordingly and of course there may be unexpected events but on average I know I have maybe 70-100 years to enjoy life. As a species we have no idea if we peaked or we are in our infancy… one thing that will probably happen is that we too will cease to exist as a whole at some point. I wonder what this does to us as a group, not having that perspective.
- echelon 4y ago
  > As a species we have no idea if we peaked or we are in our infancy There are so many possible outcomes. It can be true that humanity will peak, yet intelligence will continue to grow and expand beyond humans. Any outcome where humanity is the utmost pinnacle of intelligence likely means that we do not stray beyond our gravity well. That earth-evolved intelligence will never reach the greater galaxy beyond. It falls far short of earth's potential. I hope humanity is not the peak. There's so much more that lies beyond us. In a greater developmental timeline, we could be just amoebas. That's exciting to contemplate, even though we can barely fathom it.
  - ChatGTP 4y ago
    I hope humanity is not the peak. So what if it was ? I don’t really understand this ultra-intellectual viewpoint. A planet is just fine being a planet, we don’t need to out glasses on planets and have them reading Shakespeare to make the universe a special place ? I’m sure they will happen on its own anyway if it’s desirable. In a similar way, an amoeba doesn’t really need intelligence, it just does what it does until it can’t do it anymore and a new one comes a long. Maybe that’s a fine thing and in some ways, it’s own form of intelligence. Doesn’t need to mess with everything and crate ecology crisis for itself. The way we’re going, the amoebas will likely outlive us and probably any computer systems we produce. So it’s yet to be proven our intellect is really all that valuable longer term.
- dataangel 4y ago
  You can compare to other species

by hosh 4y ago

abakker 4y ago

because fixing things costs money. Even when it saves money. Money is the catalyst that allows anything to happen, and not enough people have enough of it to turn good ideas into good designs into good products.

Alupis 4y ago
And flying to another planet that happens to be completely inhospitable is somehow cheaper or easier? When you realize there are no hospitable planets, besides earth, within our solar system - you will realize there is no escaping the problems we have created here on earth. No, they must be solved, not avoided. There is no future where any of us alive today, or for many, many generations (dozens, maybe hundreds or thousands, if it's even possible) will be capable of traveling to another system with potentially hospitable planets.
- esafak 4y ago
  Besides, how could terraforming Mars be easier than fixing our problems?
  - echelon 4y ago
    > Besides, how could terraforming Mars be easier than fixing our problems? We don't need to terraform Mars to our incredibly fine tuned biology. What comes next will evolve beyond our limitations. Humans are a stepping stone. Just a blink of an eye in an infinite time scale.
    - ethanbond 4y ago
      What? There is no reason to think humans are "a stepping stone," there are plenty of dead-ends in evolution. There's certainly no reason to think that putting biological things on Mars will in any way cause them to evolve into Mars-robust creatures. Evolution is a slow, slow, slow random walk throughout which nearly all conditions have to be nearly-perfect.
      - echelon 4y ago
        Natural selection is a metaheuristic maximizing on the landscape of fitness topology, available energy resources, etc. It relies upon biological constraints, such as existing genes, organs, and biological functions available. It cannot make fantastic leaps quickly that would require significant backtracking. I'm not suggesting putting biological organisms anywhere. I'm suggesting that at some point in the future an AI will be able to rapidly modify its own substrate independent of biology, metabolic inputs, and genetic inheritance. That it won't be subject to information loss due to death or other physical constraints. That it will much more quickly be able to build support systems for itself to harness energy and raw materials wherever it goes. Unless we kill ourselves in the near future, these systems will likely emerge and will likely proliferate faster than us. They're not going to be stuck on earth with us. There are abundant energy resources and building materials in the solar system and greater galaxy beyond.
- kiba 4y ago
  Too many people make it a dichotomy between staying here and colonizing. Why not both?
  - Alupis 4y ago
    Colonize Mars all you want - but Mars dies when Earth dies; they are both tied to the same sun and will suffer similar fates.
- abakker 4y ago
  That wasn't the comparison I was making. For the record, I'm all for fixing problems, but the OP asked why they were not being solved, so...yeah, money. is it a satisfying and good answer? no. Is it enough of the answer to have explanatory value, I think so.
  - Alupis 4y ago
    I would assert a great deal of perceived problems are not being fixed because not everyone agrees they are problems, or agrees to what extent they are problems, or agrees on the solutions. HN is quite a bubble, and we often form an echo chamber that strongly agrees with itself.

alpinemeadow 4y ago

Isn’t is interesting that as a species we don’t have a way to understand where are we in our lifecycle? As a human I can understand life stages and where I am relative to other individuals. I can plan my life accordingly and of course there may be unexpected events but on average I know I have maybe 70-100 years to enjoy life. As a species we have no idea if we peaked or we are in our infancy… one thing that will probably happen is that we too will cease to exist as a whole at some point. I wonder what this does to us as a group, not having that perspective.

echelon 4y ago
> As a species we have no idea if we peaked or we are in our infancy There are so many possible outcomes. It can be true that humanity will peak, yet intelligence will continue to grow and expand beyond humans. Any outcome where humanity is the utmost pinnacle of intelligence likely means that we do not stray beyond our gravity well. That earth-evolved intelligence will never reach the greater galaxy beyond. It falls far short of earth's potential. I hope humanity is not the peak. There's so much more that lies beyond us. In a greater developmental timeline, we could be just amoebas. That's exciting to contemplate, even though we can barely fathom it.
- ChatGTP 4y ago
  I hope humanity is not the peak. So what if it was ? I don’t really understand this ultra-intellectual viewpoint. A planet is just fine being a planet, we don’t need to out glasses on planets and have them reading Shakespeare to make the universe a special place ? I’m sure they will happen on its own anyway if it’s desirable. In a similar way, an amoeba doesn’t really need intelligence, it just does what it does until it can’t do it anymore and a new one comes a long. Maybe that’s a fine thing and in some ways, it’s own form of intelligence. Doesn’t need to mess with everything and crate ecology crisis for itself. The way we’re going, the amoebas will likely outlive us and probably any computer systems we produce. So it’s yet to be proven our intellect is really all that valuable longer term.
dataangel 4y ago
You can compare to other species