[TangoTrotFox]

Our species will have problems to overcome for as long as we exist. And doing what has never been done before will generally be ranked low by many, simply because we tend to be incapable of predicting the effects of that which has never been done. Consider the what the internet and all digital communications are today. At the most basic level an immense amount of time, energy, and money was spent being able to transmit a signal that could be reliably recognized as a 1 or 0 between two people connected by a line. In many ways it's nothing but an extremely fancy, extremely expensive, version of a tin cup telephone. Yet of course this technology, of being able to transmit a 1 or 0, would end up transforming practically every single facet of life for everybody on this planet. To have predicted such a thing would have, not that long ago, been seen as quite hyperbolic.

In my opinion colonizing Mars will begin to create a revolution in humanity in terms of resources, freedom, growth, and potential. I could get into why, but now isn't the place. The great thing is that capitalism enables people to decide for themselves what is likely to produce the greatest benefit and pursue that. Bill Gates seems to believe that solving malaria in Africa is going to be something that might help revolutionize society. And the great thing is that all of these actions are happening simultaneously, rather than mutually exclusively. And so indeed we'll get to see which efforts, if any, end up as tin cup telephones - and which end up as the next internet.