4 ms·

It's funny to me how as Hacker News commentors, we tend to approach coding in a mostly pragmatic, efficient way. As engineers. Yet when it comes to space, we fa

It's funny to me how as Hacker News commentors, we tend to approach coding in a mostly pragmatic, efficient way. As engineers. Yet when it comes to space, we fall for the romance. I love that idea, but the problem is that it's not realistic. There is very little that happens in space with regards to scarce resources that could not also be solved here on earth, for cheaper. I am not suggesting humanity should be banned from space. But to borrow a line from another great scifi show - what has humanity done to earn our place in the stars? How have we treated what we have already been given? What have we done with this? Is there any - and I ask, any, - indication here on this planet that says we will treat what we find out there with any more or less respect than how we treat this planet? This isn't about fixing earth. It's about fixing ourselves. The problem isn't the earth. And if the problem is us, then our problems go with us wherever we go. We have to fix the way we treat the universe around us first.

MattPalmer1086 3y ago
It's funny to me that you talk about pragmatism and efficiency, but you ultimately make a moral and emotive argument that we should fix ourselves before we go anywhere else. My question to you is simply why do we need to fix ourselves first? Seems illogical and unlikely. Fundamentally, space doesn't care if we treat it with respect or not.
- superultra 3y ago
  I realize that it can seem superficially that I am making an emotive or moral argument but that isn't it at all. Ethics aside, we have to acknowledge that the way we interoperate with our environment is fundamental to our survival of the species, which is in turn what makes it therefore ethical and moral. We aren't going to find ourselves out there, any more or less than Europeans did when they crossed the ocean to find what was to them the New World. If we don't fix how we interoperate as a species with our lived environment, we will die. There is no magic solution in space. We either fix ourselves - we change how we interoperate with the environment - or we die. Going into space solves nothing.
  - MattPalmer1086 3y ago
    That may be so, but people who want to go to space aren't doing it to stop us damaging the environment, any more than people who built the Large Hadron Collider or filmed all the Marvel super hero films are. They are doing it because it's possible and they want to do it. You don't single them out as unproductive in your quest to fix the planet. Why?

MattPalmer1086 3y ago

It's funny to me that you talk about pragmatism and efficiency, but you ultimately make a moral and emotive argument that we should fix ourselves before we go anywhere else. My question to you is simply why do we need to fix ourselves first? Seems illogical and unlikely. Fundamentally, space doesn't care if we treat it with respect or not.

superultra 3y ago
I realize that it can seem superficially that I am making an emotive or moral argument but that isn't it at all. Ethics aside, we have to acknowledge that the way we interoperate with our environment is fundamental to our survival of the species, which is in turn what makes it therefore ethical and moral. We aren't going to find ourselves out there, any more or less than Europeans did when they crossed the ocean to find what was to them the New World. If we don't fix how we interoperate as a species with our lived environment, we will die. There is no magic solution in space. We either fix ourselves - we change how we interoperate with the environment - or we die. Going into space solves nothing.
- MattPalmer1086 3y ago
  That may be so, but people who want to go to space aren't doing it to stop us damaging the environment, any more than people who built the Large Hadron Collider or filmed all the Marvel super hero films are. They are doing it because it's possible and they want to do it. You don't single them out as unproductive in your quest to fix the planet. Why?