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We will achieve artificial general intelligence before any sort of permanent Mars settlement is meaningfully viable. It would make sense to develop the capacity

We will achieve artificial general intelligence before any sort of permanent Mars settlement is meaningfully viable. It would make sense to develop the capacity to terraform the Earth out of climate change before worrying about making Mars habitable anyway.

Loughla 2y ago
I believe artificial general intelligence is the only way our species survives. We may end up just as cleaners for the power supply, or as a collection of past oddities, but it will save us from destroying ourselves.
yinser 2y ago
That’s the kind of attitude that leaves you caught with your pants down in the other dozen scenarios that wipe out humanity. No one, including Elon, is saying to write off earth. It’s just within our capability now to colonize and prepare mars as a plan B.
- atleastoptimal 2y ago
  The resources needed to colonize Mars are best suited devoted to preventing the most probable threats to humanity. A large underground bunker with nuclear power would be more viable as a plan B than a Martian colony in a time frame of the next 30-50 years or so. For Mars to be a unique contingency in the event of complete destruction of every human on earth, thousands of problems would have to be solved to make Mars viable. The engineering force to solve those problems would make Earth 100x more resistant to catastrophe.
  - yinser 2y ago
    Large meteor strike. Your move.
    - dredmorbius 2y ago
      What are the odds? What are the odds of a successful Mars mitigation?
    - atleastoptimal 2y ago
      Underground bunkers are immune to giant meteors. Also it wouldn't kill every human, it would simply just screw up most of humanity and lead to a dark age. Every mass extinction in geologic history triggered by a meteor took thousands of years to kill off the species they did. Humans would adapt over such a time frame.
      - yinser 2y ago
        Tell me you've never read about mass extinction events without telling me you've never read about mass extinction events.
        atleastoptimal 2y ago
        please explain how a meteor would guarantee the extinction of humankind, and if so, over what time frame this would occur. I think you're overestimating the severity of a large meteoric impact on a geologic time scale. Mass extinctions occur over thousands of years. Homo sapiens' ancestors survived every one of them so far, by definition.
        dredmorbius 2y ago
        At a sufficient magnitude, a meteor might well liquefy the Earth's crust, or cause seismic shocks sufficient to damage even the deepest bunkers. That said, such an event might well cause problems on a (far more generally vulnerable) Mars colony as well (e.g., ejecta subsequently impacting Mars). And the odds of such an event are quite low. Most killer asteroids would disrupt the biosphere, and quite considerably, but not significantly rearrange the Earth's structure itself. The one time that's happened which we are reasonably confident of is the hypothesized Theia impactor, roughly the size of, erm, Mars, which is thought to have impacted the proto-Earth as the latter was forming 4.53 billion years ago, and forming the Moon as a consequence. Other cosmic events such as a gamma ray burst or rogue star disrupting solar system orbits would have impacts affecting Mars as well, and even a well-established self-sufficient Mars colony would not be a sufficient mitigation. (I'm generally not in the "Mars as a lifeboat from Earth" camp.)

Loughla 2y ago

I believe artificial general intelligence is the only way our species survives. We may end up just as cleaners for the power supply, or as a collection of past oddities, but it will save us from destroying ourselves.

yinser 2y ago

That’s the kind of attitude that leaves you caught with your pants down in the other dozen scenarios that wipe out humanity. No one, including Elon, is saying to write off earth. It’s just within our capability now to colonize and prepare mars as a plan B.

atleastoptimal 2y ago
The resources needed to colonize Mars are best suited devoted to preventing the most probable threats to humanity. A large underground bunker with nuclear power would be more viable as a plan B than a Martian colony in a time frame of the next 30-50 years or so. For Mars to be a unique contingency in the event of complete destruction of every human on earth, thousands of problems would have to be solved to make Mars viable. The engineering force to solve those problems would make Earth 100x more resistant to catastrophe.
- yinser 2y ago
  Large meteor strike. Your move.
  - dredmorbius 2y ago
    What are the odds? What are the odds of a successful Mars mitigation?
  - atleastoptimal 2y ago
    Underground bunkers are immune to giant meteors. Also it wouldn't kill every human, it would simply just screw up most of humanity and lead to a dark age. Every mass extinction in geologic history triggered by a meteor took thousands of years to kill off the species they did. Humans would adapt over such a time frame.
    - yinser 2y ago
      Tell me you've never read about mass extinction events without telling me you've never read about mass extinction events.
      - atleastoptimal 2y ago
        please explain how a meteor would guarantee the extinction of humankind, and if so, over what time frame this would occur. I think you're overestimating the severity of a large meteoric impact on a geologic time scale. Mass extinctions occur over thousands of years. Homo sapiens' ancestors survived every one of them so far, by definition.
        dredmorbius 2y ago
        At a sufficient magnitude, a meteor might well liquefy the Earth's crust, or cause seismic shocks sufficient to damage even the deepest bunkers. That said, such an event might well cause problems on a (far more generally vulnerable) Mars colony as well (e.g., ejecta subsequently impacting Mars). And the odds of such an event are quite low. Most killer asteroids would disrupt the biosphere, and quite considerably, but not significantly rearrange the Earth's structure itself. The one time that's happened which we are reasonably confident of is the hypothesized Theia impactor, roughly the size of, erm, Mars, which is thought to have impacted the proto-Earth as the latter was forming 4.53 billion years ago, and forming the Moon as a consequence. Other cosmic events such as a gamma ray burst or rogue star disrupting solar system orbits would have impacts affecting Mars as well, and even a well-established self-sufficient Mars colony would not be a sufficient mitigation. (I'm generally not in the "Mars as a lifeboat from Earth" camp.)