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You've alluded to "things which are optimal for humanity" and "our current problems". Could you elaborate? What do you think is optimal for humanity? Which c

by avz 12y ago

You've alluded to "things which are optimal for humanity" and "our current problems". Could you elaborate? What do you think is optimal for humanity? Which current problems are more significant than planetary-level challenges like global warming and confinement of our specifies to a single planet? These put the existence of our civilization at risk. I would really love to hear which other problems are more significant than those.

hueving 12y ago
Cut the melodrama. Your post reeks of first-world privilege. Confinement of our species to a single planet is much lower priority than the suffering caused by violent governments, starvation, diseases, and drug problems. Colonizing another planet might be optimal for spreading of our species, but it does little to reduce the suffering here. Global warming is a problem. However, making luxury electric cars is a drop in the bucket compared to convincing China and India to crack down on things like unfiltered coal power plants.
- avz 12y ago
  It'd be great if we could first make everyone on this planet happy and then move on to the next one, but it's just not going to work that way. Long tail of human unhappiness will be very hard to eliminate. Your mix of problems is highly heterogeneous. Starvation and diseases are serious challenges we have in fact been making a lot of progress on. However, they pose more limited and localized danger than global warming or planetary confinement and so must be given a lower priority. Violent governments and drug problems are political and so out of scope. Gating space exploration on all politician playing nice and all people staying clean and sober is the best way to doom the project. Making electric, environment friendly cars be perceived as luxury and something one can aspire to is a small step in the right direction. Also, they're luxury because the technology is expensive. Cells phone began as luxury product, too. Eventually, they'll become mainstream.
  - hueving 12y ago
    Violence and starvation are not a 'long tail' of human happiness. The market that can afford Teslas is much further down the tail than people subject to these problems.

by avz 12y ago

hueving 12y ago

Cut the melodrama. Your post reeks of first-world privilege. Confinement of our species to a single planet is much lower priority than the suffering caused by violent governments, starvation, diseases, and drug problems. Colonizing another planet might be optimal for spreading of our species, but it does little to reduce the suffering here. Global warming is a problem. However, making luxury electric cars is a drop in the bucket compared to convincing China and India to crack down on things like unfiltered coal power plants.

avz 12y ago
It'd be great if we could first make everyone on this planet happy and then move on to the next one, but it's just not going to work that way. Long tail of human unhappiness will be very hard to eliminate. Your mix of problems is highly heterogeneous. Starvation and diseases are serious challenges we have in fact been making a lot of progress on. However, they pose more limited and localized danger than global warming or planetary confinement and so must be given a lower priority. Violent governments and drug problems are political and so out of scope. Gating space exploration on all politician playing nice and all people staying clean and sober is the best way to doom the project. Making electric, environment friendly cars be perceived as luxury and something one can aspire to is a small step in the right direction. Also, they're luxury because the technology is expensive. Cells phone began as luxury product, too. Eventually, they'll become mainstream.
- hueving 12y ago
  Violence and starvation are not a 'long tail' of human happiness. The market that can afford Teslas is much further down the tail than people subject to these problems.