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Fresh starts are available right here on Earth to anyone willing to hike into the woods, build a cabin, and hunt for food. It's a tough life, and very few choo
by timschmidt 3y ago
Fresh starts are available right here on Earth to anyone willing to hike into the woods, build a cabin, and hunt for food. It's a tough life, and very few choose it.
Living on Mars, on the other hand, will require a much higher degree of dependence on others as there are no woods, no food to hunt or farm, and nothing but rock from which to make necessities. Colonizing Mars or a moon will require a great deal of interaction with all the social and technical constructs that anyone wanting to "start over" is seeking to distance themselves from.
- jvanderbot 3y agoThis (you can just build a cabin) was true in colonial Europe, and yet we had a lot of settlers in USA. I think it's an illogical desire, but one core to our being and based on the perceived reward of having "everything the light touches" rather than whatever you are left with, plus gov, etc. I only say this in case we weren't clear on each other's scale argument. Building a cabin and going for a hike is very different from building a new society from scratch. I do think both are desires but the second is the one I'm talking about.
- timschmidt 3y agoI agree with you. The comparison to sailing across oceans in wooden ships to the 6mo journey to Mars is one I've made before. But also people were encountered in the Americas in every trip over that I'm aware of, and in both the sailing and spacing varieties feels more to me like a society extending it's reach than starting over. Maybe I'm wrong.
- quantified 3y agoIf you want to be Martian, live in the woods, build a cabin, and eat yeast. Not enough game and wild resources to sustain many people anymore in many places.