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I'm not sure you realize this, but your comment is exactly why colonizing Mars is a worthy adversary. It requires doing things far beyond our knowhow, which his

I'm not sure you realize this, but your comment is exactly why colonizing Mars is a worthy adversary. It requires doing things far beyond our knowhow, which historically is the best way to actually get something done – inspire towards an impossible goal and humanity can make it happen. You generally don't make technological leaps by pursuing things you know you can do already. Even if we don't make it happen, we are guaranteed to learn a plethora of useful things along the way. Needing "a lot of money and time" is irrelevant. Money is a fiction and time we have in spades. Would we instead prefer the brightest minds of humanity spend more of their days optimizing algorithms that encourage other humans to sit on their asses consuming ads? Or maybe it would be better if, instead of designing Martian space-suits, we spend more time designing fast-fashion clothing meant to be worn once or twice, basking in hitherto unimagined heights of navel-gazing.

marcosdumay 3y ago
> Would we instead prefer the brightest minds of humanity spend more of their days optimizing algorithms that encourage other humans to sit on their asses consuming ads? If I had to allocate them, I'd put them working on renewables, useful carbon capture, and artificial "slow organics" like wood. But then, the great thing about markets is that they can see more broadly than me. (And the bad thing is that they can't see as far.) Anyway, if we decide to invest on space exploitation (instead of just exploration), I'd bet on asteroid mining much before planet colonization. Settling down on a planet seems to be a completely useless action.
- fastball 3y ago
  We just established that we would need to invent a lot of new and useful things to make a Mars colony work. How is inventing new and useful things a useless action? > If I had to allocate them, I'd put them working on renewables, useful carbon capture, and artificial "slow organics" like wood. All of these things would probably be worked on as part of Mars colonization, no? It's just the Mars colony excites smart people. Working on solar on earth, with loads of fossil fuels and an associated lack of appreciation for your work, is much less exciting. Someone who fixes solar panels on Earth is making minimum wage. Someone who fixes the solar panel array at the Mars Colony is a hero.
vkou 3y ago
> I'm not sure you realize this, but your comment is exactly why colonizing Mars is a worthy adversary. It requires doing things far beyond our knowhow, which historically is the best way to actually get something done – inspire towards an impossible goal and humanity can make it happen. You can say the same thing about literally any other hard problem, most of which have a far better ROI, and are still not getting much traction. There's a reason nobody's built a moon base.

marcosdumay 3y ago

> Would we instead prefer the brightest minds of humanity spend more of their days optimizing algorithms that encourage other humans to sit on their asses consuming ads? If I had to allocate them, I'd put them working on renewables, useful carbon capture, and artificial "slow organics" like wood. But then, the great thing about markets is that they can see more broadly than me. (And the bad thing is that they can't see as far.) Anyway, if we decide to invest on space exploitation (instead of just exploration), I'd bet on asteroid mining much before planet colonization. Settling down on a planet seems to be a completely useless action.

fastball 3y ago
We just established that we would need to invent a lot of new and useful things to make a Mars colony work. How is inventing new and useful things a useless action? > If I had to allocate them, I'd put them working on renewables, useful carbon capture, and artificial "slow organics" like wood. All of these things would probably be worked on as part of Mars colonization, no? It's just the Mars colony excites smart people. Working on solar on earth, with loads of fossil fuels and an associated lack of appreciation for your work, is much less exciting. Someone who fixes solar panels on Earth is making minimum wage. Someone who fixes the solar panel array at the Mars Colony is a hero.

vkou 3y ago

> I'm not sure you realize this, but your comment is exactly why colonizing Mars is a worthy adversary. It requires doing things far beyond our knowhow, which historically is the best way to actually get something done – inspire towards an impossible goal and humanity can make it happen. You can say the same thing about literally any other hard problem, most of which have a far better ROI, and are still not getting much traction. There's a reason nobody's built a moon base.