[hacker42]

> failing to appreciate the subtleties in how progress is made

What are these subtleties? Why is it better to invest energy into space instead of sustainability? It's just heartbreaking that we can't remotely get as excited about sustainability as we can about romantic memes of curiosity and history books. Is the 'subtlety' that we just got to accept this as a fact about human nature and hope for sustainability as a byproduct?

[mikeash]

There seems to be plenty of excitement when big announcements are made for things like solar power, nuclear energy, energy storage, non-hydrocarbon transportation, and other such things. Lots of work is going into those things already, a big chunk of it being done by the same guy pushing Mars here.

[hacker42]

I am not seeing it. People are following the super stimuli of rockets, history etc. while further contributing to pollution and resource depletion. We need a culture that is satisfied with much less, one that overcomes the tragedy of the commons. Tesla might contribute a bit in that regard, but SpaceX is outright opposed to it. If you want to convince people of the future, there are more effective and reliable ways of doing that (for example science, cryonics, education etc.).

[varjag]

Cryonics requires constant power to the fridges for years, its carbon footprint is terrible.

[hacker42]

AFAIK it's not so bad at large scale and with brains only.