[MaxfordAndSons]

I mean, Musk himself is very upfront about the risks involved, especially for the first few waves of colonists. And indeed, there would likely be very little personal upside for them, even if they survived the grueling initial period. But you're making a false equivocation: considering the colonists personal risks in leaving against the species shared risk in staying. If there's even a small chance of success in establishing a self-sustaining colony off of Earth (and I don't think you can argue that success is inconceivable/vanishingly improbable), then any degree of personal risks levied on individual colonists are "worth it" from the species level perspective, which is precisely the perspective taken to justify the mission.

[erikpukinskis]

> If there's even a small chance of success in establishing a self-sustaining colony [...] then any degree of personal risks levied on individual colonists are "worth it" from the species level

No, the risk v reward curve has to be better than an equivalent risk v reward curve for a terrestrial species survival project to justify the mission.

I would argue that just about any PhD in epidemiology, disaster relief, or geopolitics will have a risk/reward curve far better than any Mars mission.

People keep making this argument that, absent any other information, a two planet species is more robust than a one planet species. But that's not the choice we're facing. The choice is a two-planet species versus a more prepared one-planet species.

[carleverett]

> The choice is a two-planet species versus a more prepared one-planet species.

That's not the choice. Those two options are not mutually exclusive.

[erikpukinskis]

Sure they are. Every engineer working on a Mars mission is not working on sustainability/stability engineering.

[i2amsam]

Well, there are a couple engineers currently working on things which are not sustainability/stability engineering.

[XorNot]

Those problems on earth stopped being engineering issues a long time ago. See the current US election.

[lmm]

I think no amount of geopolitics PhDs will reduce the chance of wiping out humanity through nuclear war more than Mars colonization does.

I think it may take some time - centuries even - for colonizing Mars to "pay off" in terms of reduced extinction risk. But I think in the long term - say 500 years from now - we will indisputably be safer as a species if we started colonizing Mars 500 years ago than if we didn't. And if we don't start now, then when?

[erikpukinskis]

There is no vaguely plausible scenario where humanity goes extinct through deployment of the current nuclear arsenal. I would put the probability at zero.

I would increase that number if someone could tell a story with even a whiff of truth about how it could happen.

[sgt101]

There's a big failure of game theory (and ists) with respect to MAD; unwinding it as a dominant game would be a Ph.D for sure...