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Well, what about things that are low-likelihood but have happened in the past? For example, the asteroid impact ~65 m. years ago. There's other relatively highe

by gnarmis 11y ago

Well, what about things that are low-likelihood but have happened in the past? For example, the asteroid impact ~65 m. years ago. There's other relatively higher likelihood events that could cause modern civilization to collapse, like pandemics, runaway global warming, etc. You don't need an asteroid impact to destroy modern civilization, so the list of threats is longer -- any threat that kills billions, or causes critical failure of institutions (an extremely destructive global war), or destroys the ability to build large scale, stable civilizations. It isn't just about lives either, it's about protecting the institutions that are a critical part of modern civilization and that requires protecting lives plus other stuff, so it's even more fragile. Anyway, it's not like I'm considering 'moving to Mars' against 'staying on Earth and rebuilding'. You could totally rebuild on Earth and also have a separate colony on Mars that's self sufficient and not affected by the same disaster. I'm saying you could gain an ability to survive threats that you couldn't otherwise if you stayed only on Earth. If something destroyed modern civilization on Earth, well guess what, if you have a self sufficient colony on Mars, modern civilization would not have been completely destroyed. There's other benefits too. Developing tech to survive independently on another planet, ability to transport non-trivial materials to another planet, getting access to the nearby material wealth (autonomous asteroid mining perhaps? spit balling), and all that new science and technology and trade and opportunity for international collaboration. There's positive value in setting something like this up.

ufmace 11y ago
I'm not saying we shouldn't try to colonize Mars eventually, but keep in mind that even after a nuclear war, major asteroid impact, pandemic, runaway global warming, or almost any other catastrophe we can dream up, Earth would still be more habitable than Mars is. Absent the Sun going Nova or something knocking us out of orbit somehow, there will be some parts of Earth that are still safe. Even if we end up needing to build some kind of underground sealed habitat to live on Earth, we still won't need to compensate for as many things as we would to build equivalent-size habitats on Mars. And we'll already have an enormous industrial infrastructure in place to do it with, and we won't have to ship things across 2 gravity wells and a 9-month space journey.
- gnarmis 11y ago
  True, absent the consideration of enclosed habitats on Mars that are self sufficient. But I see your point, it's easier to survive on Earth in many such scenarios, perhaps even unaided by tech, and on Mars you absolutely need to rely on tech. But still, the existence of such a colony on Mars would be valuable. Civilization gets another shot, in this hypothetical case.
AndrewKemendo 11y ago
Well, what about things that are low-likelihood but have happened in the past? In every single one of those cases, including the Cretaceous–Paleogene asteroid situation, you would be better off on earth than on mars as it is today by a mile. Building a giant anti-asteroid system, or a mine-shaft system (a la Dr. Strangelove) would be infinitely better and cheaper solutions to the asteroid problem than MOVING TO MARS. There have been pandemics in the past - Black Plague anyone - and we seem to have recovered fine. Earth based global warming is a joke compared to the atmoshpheric CO2 density of mars (95%!) - the fact that global warming is always brought up as a case to go to mars is proof positive that no one has really thought this stuff through. I'm all for exploration and big shot dreams and stuff, but lets stop with the delusion that moving even one person to a completely uninhabitable place - as in almost anywhere on earth would be easier to live in, including under the ocean - 140,000,000 miles away is a practical idea. and all that new science and technology and trade and opportunity for international collaboration. As someone building future technology I call bullshit on the "spin-off" argument as a reason for doing something. The idea that "maybe some practical technology will come from it" is not a good reason to do anything. Using that logic we should be perpetually at war as nothing has moved technology further and faster than war.
- gnarmis 11y ago
  Let's downshift. > In every single one of those cases, including the Cretaceous–Paleogene asteroid situation, you would be better off on earth than on mars as it is today by a mile. In that hypothetical, Earth is what's hit by such an event. Let's say you have a self-sufficient colony of Mars of around 10,000 people. Let's say a civilization-destroying and mass-dying event happens on Earth. Would you be better off on Mars or on Earth? That's the argument that was constructed; that's the value of such an option if it did exist. A conditional, hypothetical argument, but whatever. > but lets stop with the delusion that moving even one person to a completely uninhabitable place - as in almost anywhere on earth would be easier to live in, including under the ocean - 140,000,000 miles away is a practical idea. Not arguing that we have all the tech already, thus making it a practical idea today. But arguing that if it did exist, you would be better off than if it didn't. Also, not arguing for terraforming Mars or anything like that. Enclosed habitats of some kind, perhaps. Not arguing for not also developing the ability to live in extreme environments on Earth (like in the ocean). > The idea that "maybe some practical technology will come from it" is not a good reason to do anything. Using that logic we should be perpetually at war as nothing has moved technology further and faster than war. Green field, long shot projects don't have a good reason to be worth doing? Not arguing 'hey, drop everything and work on this project'. Also, not arguing 'there are no direct technological benefits of X, but look at these positive after effects'. I was specifically mentioning that beyond the fact that a backup is valuable, there are other direct benefits of the attempt to build such a backup. There's the industry that might develop around it and all of that economic benefit, new technology and science in not just the stuff needed to survive on Mars but also to transport materials to Mars and cheaper launch of materials into LEO and safe transport of humans over perhaps even a dozen light minutes.

by gnarmis 11y ago

ufmace 11y ago

I'm not saying we shouldn't try to colonize Mars eventually, but keep in mind that even after a nuclear war, major asteroid impact, pandemic, runaway global warming, or almost any other catastrophe we can dream up, Earth would still be more habitable than Mars is. Absent the Sun going Nova or something knocking us out of orbit somehow, there will be some parts of Earth that are still safe. Even if we end up needing to build some kind of underground sealed habitat to live on Earth, we still won't need to compensate for as many things as we would to build equivalent-size habitats on Mars. And we'll already have an enormous industrial infrastructure in place to do it with, and we won't have to ship things across 2 gravity wells and a 9-month space journey.

gnarmis 11y ago
True, absent the consideration of enclosed habitats on Mars that are self sufficient. But I see your point, it's easier to survive on Earth in many such scenarios, perhaps even unaided by tech, and on Mars you absolutely need to rely on tech. But still, the existence of such a colony on Mars would be valuable. Civilization gets another shot, in this hypothetical case.

AndrewKemendo 11y ago

Well, what about things that are low-likelihood but have happened in the past? In every single one of those cases, including the Cretaceous–Paleogene asteroid situation, you would be better off on earth than on mars as it is today by a mile. Building a giant anti-asteroid system, or a mine-shaft system (a la Dr. Strangelove) would be infinitely better and cheaper solutions to the asteroid problem than MOVING TO MARS. There have been pandemics in the past - Black Plague anyone - and we seem to have recovered fine. Earth based global warming is a joke compared to the atmoshpheric CO2 density of mars (95%!) - the fact that global warming is always brought up as a case to go to mars is proof positive that no one has really thought this stuff through. I'm all for exploration and big shot dreams and stuff, but lets stop with the delusion that moving even one person to a completely uninhabitable place - as in almost anywhere on earth would be easier to live in, including under the ocean - 140,000,000 miles away is a practical idea. and all that new science and technology and trade and opportunity for international collaboration. As someone building future technology I call bullshit on the "spin-off" argument as a reason for doing something. The idea that "maybe some practical technology will come from it" is not a good reason to do anything. Using that logic we should be perpetually at war as nothing has moved technology further and faster than war.

gnarmis 11y ago
Let's downshift. > In every single one of those cases, including the Cretaceous–Paleogene asteroid situation, you would be better off on earth than on mars as it is today by a mile. In that hypothetical, Earth is what's hit by such an event. Let's say you have a self-sufficient colony of Mars of around 10,000 people. Let's say a civilization-destroying and mass-dying event happens on Earth. Would you be better off on Mars or on Earth? That's the argument that was constructed; that's the value of such an option if it did exist. A conditional, hypothetical argument, but whatever. > but lets stop with the delusion that moving even one person to a completely uninhabitable place - as in almost anywhere on earth would be easier to live in, including under the ocean - 140,000,000 miles away is a practical idea. Not arguing that we have all the tech already, thus making it a practical idea today. But arguing that if it did exist, you would be better off than if it didn't. Also, not arguing for terraforming Mars or anything like that. Enclosed habitats of some kind, perhaps. Not arguing for not also developing the ability to live in extreme environments on Earth (like in the ocean). > The idea that "maybe some practical technology will come from it" is not a good reason to do anything. Using that logic we should be perpetually at war as nothing has moved technology further and faster than war. Green field, long shot projects don't have a good reason to be worth doing? Not arguing 'hey, drop everything and work on this project'. Also, not arguing 'there are no direct technological benefits of X, but look at these positive after effects'. I was specifically mentioning that beyond the fact that a backup is valuable, there are other direct benefits of the attempt to build such a backup. There's the industry that might develop around it and all of that economic benefit, new technology and science in not just the stuff needed to survive on Mars but also to transport materials to Mars and cheaper launch of materials into LEO and safe transport of humans over perhaps even a dozen light minutes.