4 ms·

sigh. Ok, let me explain why this attitude is not just stupid, but evil. It's stupid because it's simply text completion on a GPT-2 level. There's already an a

sigh. Ok, let me explain why this attitude is not just stupid, but evil. It's stupid because it's simply text completion on a GPT-2 level. There's already an association between space travel and carbon, so you hear space travel and just go "yes, but global warming". No thought was put in either acquiring the association in the first place, nor in deciding if this is a good moment to use it. And definitely no fact checking. It's a mix of stupid and evil because this kind of text completion turns the public discourse in an echo chamber of unproductive repetitions, which creates the strangest of paradoxes - like the more climate concerned somebody is, the more likely they are to be against nuclear power. This never happened because anybody made the case for nuclear being bad for climate and people actually believing this claim. There was no case and no claim in the first place - just GPT-2 style reflexes and blind associations. Space tourism bad, bio-fuel good. And it's plain evil because it assumes that we should only dare to dream if we follow the current orthodoxy. It's not even something like "in order to dream we should make sure survival is ensured", because it was never about doing the math or actual tradeoffs. It's simply that some dreams are being painted as dirty and we shouldn't be allowed to have them, ever.

the_only_law 3y ago
> sigh. Ok, let me explain why this attitude is not just stupid, but evil. the words of a religious lunatic.
mmustapic 3y ago
GP is correct, there is no path from the current Virgin Galactic launches to something that is not a very expensive space ride for rich people. They can't launch satellites, they can't make it into orbit, nothing. Only the dream of seeing earth from an altitude of ~80km while expending a tremendous amount of energy. Also, your explanation of why GP attitude is evil is not clear at all. You can dream and still thing that this is stupid. In fact, the dream of a nice earth for all of us is a beautiful dream, much more than a 5 minute ride for a very few. And the inclusion of nuclear power when it was not mentioned in the original post is like a GPT hallucination.
- rg111 3y ago
  > there is no path from the current Virgin Galactic launches to something that is not a very expensive space ride for rich people Lack of farsightedness in this thread is weird! Science doesn't work in a linear manner. When Ramanujan and Hardy were working on Primes, nobody knew some of the work would lead to cybersecurity applications. We cannot be sure that these advancements don't lead to anything significant in the future. The only focus should be on taxing the profits of this company, and also applying a high levy/VAT to the ticket price.
  - deadbeeves 3y ago
    >We cannot be sure that these advancements don't lead to anything significant in the future. We also cannot be sure that this service won't cause huge damage. If we're going to assign value to it based on its unknown potential, we must consider both its possible benefits and its possible detriments.
- radu_floricica 3y ago
  Take a look at "Crossing the Chasm" - just look for the first image google finds. In order for something to become mainstream a few steps usually need to happen. And the first of those steps are the people who will buy or invest no matter the cost. Without them, it's hard to even have an industry. Later, sometimes decades later, price manages to go down enough for mass adoption.
deadbeeves 3y ago
We're not talking about dreaming, though, we're talking about expending actual resources and dumping actual contaminants into the actual atmosphere just to, as the sibling comment puts it, give rich people space rides. Scientific space missions are at least justifiable to some extent because we might learn something useful. This is just a method for money to change hands.

the_only_law 3y ago

> sigh. Ok, let me explain why this attitude is not just stupid, but evil. the words of a religious lunatic.

mmustapic 3y ago

GP is correct, there is no path from the current Virgin Galactic launches to something that is not a very expensive space ride for rich people. They can't launch satellites, they can't make it into orbit, nothing. Only the dream of seeing earth from an altitude of ~80km while expending a tremendous amount of energy. Also, your explanation of why GP attitude is evil is not clear at all. You can dream and still thing that this is stupid. In fact, the dream of a nice earth for all of us is a beautiful dream, much more than a 5 minute ride for a very few. And the inclusion of nuclear power when it was not mentioned in the original post is like a GPT hallucination.

rg111 3y ago
> there is no path from the current Virgin Galactic launches to something that is not a very expensive space ride for rich people Lack of farsightedness in this thread is weird! Science doesn't work in a linear manner. When Ramanujan and Hardy were working on Primes, nobody knew some of the work would lead to cybersecurity applications. We cannot be sure that these advancements don't lead to anything significant in the future. The only focus should be on taxing the profits of this company, and also applying a high levy/VAT to the ticket price.
- deadbeeves 3y ago
  >We cannot be sure that these advancements don't lead to anything significant in the future. We also cannot be sure that this service won't cause huge damage. If we're going to assign value to it based on its unknown potential, we must consider both its possible benefits and its possible detriments.
radu_floricica 3y ago
Take a look at "Crossing the Chasm" - just look for the first image google finds. In order for something to become mainstream a few steps usually need to happen. And the first of those steps are the people who will buy or invest no matter the cost. Without them, it's hard to even have an industry. Later, sometimes decades later, price manages to go down enough for mass adoption.

deadbeeves 3y ago

We're not talking about dreaming, though, we're talking about expending actual resources and dumping actual contaminants into the actual atmosphere just to, as the sibling comment puts it, give rich people space rides. Scientific space missions are at least justifiable to some extent because we might learn something useful. This is just a method for money to change hands.