[arethuza]

"They can never hope to be self-sustaining until either astronomically large amounts of time or astronomically large amounts of energy are spent."

That might be true, but if we could divert even a small part of the global arms industry to something as constructive as colonizing a new world then I suspect we might help things here as well as achieving something wonderful.

Edit: "Oh yes. Fuck yes. All my yesses"

Can I second this. I remember reading Zubrin's "The Case for Mars" and getting quite enthusiastic about actually being a Martian colonist :-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_for_Mars

[fractal618]

We could do the impossible if we stopped fighting each other.

[robryk]

Pesky Nash equilibria.