[cynicalpeace]

Phenomenal choice. While 80 years is nice- it's a blip on the timescale of history.

I personally think we're a button click away from going back to the stone age. I know others will disagree, but it's not something you wanna take a gamble on.

I think it's one of the reasons we have to be self sustaining on other heavenly bodies.

And also why wars or proxy wars between nuclear powers are extremely foolish and should be stopped with great urgency.

[palata]

> I think it's one of the reasons we have to be self sustaining on other heavenly bodies.

I think this is a very naive take.

* We can't really live on another planet in the solar system. * Look at how far the next star is and realise that we won't get there anytime soon (probably at all). * What's the point of surviving on another planet, without any other species? * Without considering the risk of nuclear war, we are in the process of destroying life on Earth.

The resources we put on that project are mostly wasted. We should try to live on Earth, I hear it's a nice place.

[seabass-labrax]

I don't personally believe we should colonize other heavenly bodies because of a potential nuclear apocalypse, but the negation of that is no reason to abandon space travel either. Every time we have launched a mission into deep space we have learnt more as a species about what makes Earth 'tick'. We can also do a lot without actual space travel - maybe if more people had heeded the observations of the greenhouse effect on Venus in the 60s, for instance, we would have less of an issue cleaning up our own atmosphere now.

I'm not confident that our place is in the stars, but it would be narrow-minded not to give living out there a go.

[palata]

> maybe if more people had heeded the observations of the greenhouse effect on Venus in the 60s

We know pretty well what's happening on Earth and we have for decades. It's not like we just realised 5 years ago that we have a problem. We have not done anything (and we still aren't), but we knew, that's for sure.

> I'm not confident that our place is in the stars, but it would be narrow-minded not to give living out there a go.

In terms of survival as a species, anything that's not about solving our biodiversity and climate problems is a loss of time. I'm fine if some people work on it (just like it's good to have people working in art), but a lot of those researchers and engineers working on space exploration may actually be more useful to the species if they worked on the actual problems we have.

[nyc_data_geek1]

This precisely. We're in fact nowhere close to a sustainable off world human habitat, with all the inputs/outputs such requires, not to mention the ecosystem needed to sustain such in perpetuity.

If people are really interested in perpetuating "the light of consciousness" among the stars, they'd be working themselves to death to make life sustainable here on Earth, where we're from, which still presents far more hospitable conditions relative to anywhere else in the Universe we've so far identified. Say you're a billionaire with such an interest - wouldn't your funds be somewhat better directed ensuring we don't annihilate ourselves in a mad max hellscape locally, before we suffocate in the void when the O2 machine breaks down and we can't source replacement parts because Earth is now a wasteland?

The Great Filter is us, and so far, doesn't look like we're making it past.

[cynicalpeace]

I think this is a very naive take.

We could live on Mars. Just a matter of time. Let engineers iterate.

We would obviously bring species here at home with us to Mars. And then new species would flourish too.

[Manuel_D]

I don't think people understand just how un-feasible life on Mars would be. It's got 1% of the atmospheric pressure as Earth. It's -65 degrees Celsius. It'd be more feasible to try colonizing the Moon or Antarctica.

[cynicalpeace]

We have permanent presence in Antarctica. Depends on your exact definition of "colony", but a narrow definition of it is barred by international treaty, I think.

Moon is definitely a great first step. I originally said "other heavenly bodies".

You sound like someone in 1900 saying "We can't fly, we're too heavy" or "We can't be in space it's got 0% atmospheric pressure".

[Manuel_D]

Antartctica has a permanent presence that's totally dependent on regular supplies delivered from other continents. They don't grow their own crops, have their own industry.

We couldn't fly until the early 1900s, primarily because we didn't have engines with power to weight ratios sufficient for heavier-than-air flight. The concept of flight via the Bernoulli principle was known for a long time, and when engines improved people did start flying.

The lack of atmosphere on Mars largely prohibits any self sufficient colony. Colonies could be limited to pressurized habitats. But again, at that point we might as well focus on colonizing the moon which is much closer. I guess if we have a mechanism to somehow pump mars full of air, colonization would become more feasible. But it's a lot harder to work around the law of conservation of mass, than it is to improve internal combustion engines. No, it's not like people doubting the feasibilityy of heavier-than-air flight.

[porbelm]

We have an atmosphere.

[layer8]

Don’t forget the radiation.

[palata]

> It'd be more feasible to try colonizing the Moon

And just as useless.

[dsign]

>> I think it's one of the reasons we have to be self sustaining on other heavenly bodies.

This is not a joke. But every time anybody brings it up a mob shows up saying that we must make it work here on Earth, and we should all go to hell if we can't. But we only need a few madmen in power for the rest of us to not matter.

[fifilura]

I imagine that if you can colonize other planets you can also target them with nuclear weapons.

It is like saying that the solution to all problems is colonizing Antarctica.

[Manabu-eo]

It's much easier to intercept said nuclear weapon because instead of minutes you would have months to do it. And attacking Mars outside the few months every two years that have the most favorable transfer windows would also be much more difficult. It's a non-trivial advantage.

Of course, if you have nuclear weapons already on Mars that can be remotely triggered from Earth this doesn't apply, but hopefully we can avoid that...

[fifilura]

TBH I think this whole discussion - that fixing Mars should be easier than fixing Earth - is some proof that a lot of hacker news commenters are already aliens from Mars.

[cynicalpeace]

Yes- but raises an interesting problem of nuclear energy. Might be very important/useful in space.

The book series "The Expanse" does an amazing job of showing what a war in space would look like, and the role of nuclear energy.

Interestingly, nukes become small fry compared to slinging asteroids at planets.

[layer8]

The point is that making it work on Earth is orders of magnitude easier than making it work on Mars (or wherever). And by that I don’t mean that it’s easy by any stretch, but that establishing a self-sustaining colony on another planet is so much harder. In addition to the extremely challenging extraterrestrial environment (much more challenging than anything we have on Earth, including in the case of terrestrial nuclear catastrophe), all the problems that we have on Earth due to human nature will travel with us to any other planet if we don’t manage to solve them here.

[dsign]

>> The point is that making it work on Earth is orders of magnitude easier than making it work on Mars (or wherever)

I disagree.

There are folk who know the physics and the engineering of putting a colony in, say, the Moon. That knowledge is theoretical to an extent, since we haven't done it before. But we don't need any new physics or even radically new engineering. So, you get a bunch of engineers, give them 10% of the West's budget, and you are good to go. It should be said that whatever it costs to put a self-sustaining colony outside of Earth will be an investment. Even if, for whatever reason, you can't trade heavy commodities with that settlement, you are creating a blueprint. Next time somebody wants to spend $XXXXXXX in weapons or a trade war, they may consider to instead use your blueprint and go somewhere where they can live the way they want.

Now think about some other problem, like say, avoiding a nuclear war with Putin. You could give him Europe or a chunk of it an hope he would be sated. Or you could try to forcibly remove Putin from power. If you succeed, you would have turned his entire nation into a decided enemy of the West for at least a century, not less willing to use nuclear weapons. You could invade Russia--again, risking nuclear annihilation in the process--, occupy the country and destroy their nuclear stock. That's going to be 30% of the West's budget at least, and a huge human toll. The reconstruction effort will be 20% of the West's budget for many decades, and you will need to rebuild that country or their resentment will cost you dearly. What about China and Taiwan, and a few decades from now, China vs Australia and China vs India? What about global warming and ecological collapse?

I think you are failing to see the staggering complexity of "making it work on Earth", and the fact that we only need to fail once.

[defrost]

> I disagree.

Of course you do, you've followed that with

Yet Another Hand Waving Away Challenges Of Self Sustaining Off Earth Colonies.

Even if there was a self sufficient colony on Mars, it's tiny and all the other problems remain; non European colonies on Earth didn't eliminate issues at home and they were vastly simpler to establish than off planet colonies for a host of reasons you've skimmed over.

[timeon]

Point is that if we can not behave on Earth how can we do it in other place.

[addaon]

> Point is that if we can not behave on Earth how can we do it in other place.

If we have a 90% chance of behaving in any given century, we are doomed on earth. If we have a 10% chance of behaving in any given century, a continuous heritage is possible in a galaxy (re-)populated by slowships.

[palata]

Except that the current state of physics says that we just can't possibly reach another galaxy. Period.

[addaon]

> Except that the current state of physics says that we just can't possibly reach another galaxy. Period.

Yes, that's exactly why my comment limited itself to discussion of population of /this/ galaxy.

[palata]

The next star is already way too far for our theory. You may as well study telekinesis.

[fragmede]

it's an open question as to how interplanetary politics will actually go. it's possible that ancient squabbles between countries will carryover, but hopefully they won't, which means that a terrorist's nuclear bomb causing MAD on Earth wouldn't necessarily carryover to MAD on a terraformed Mars and Lunar colonies, as we saw with the Russians who boarded the ISS in blue and yellow. But even if it doesn't, Earth being hit by an asteroid is another scenario that being a multi-planetary species would prevent our extinction in.

[protomolecule]

>as we saw with the Russians who boarded the ISS in blue and yellow

That's just the colors of one of the top Russian universities from which all three cosmonauts had graduated. [0]

[0] https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Московский_государственный_тех...

[throw0101c]

> it's possible that ancient squabbles between countries

Don't forget with-in countries.

If another planet becomes another 'country', they'll have internal disagreements.

[palata]

> But every time anybody brings it up a mob shows up saying that we must make it work here on Earth

Yeah, we must. As in: it's not rational to even consider that becoming self-sustaining on other heavenly bodies is an alternative.

It's fun, it's interesting, it's many things. But it's not an alternative.

[kortilla]

Of course it’s an alternative. A self sustaining colony could be the only thing that survives a massive pandemic.

[palata]

Well if it was possible, it would be an alternative. But it's not, period. Counting on it happening in your life time is simply preposterous. But you know what might collapse during your lifetime? Our civilization. Pretty likely.

[kortilla]

> But it's not, period.

Said every dipshit Luddite 50 years ago about basically everything we enjoy on a day to day basis.

[palata]

Says everyone who actually checks what 4.25 light-years means and understands that this is actually the closest star.

But I'm always happy to be classified as "disphit" by people who apparently replace their lack of physic knowledge with some kind of faith.

[hollerith]

You mean 50 years ago when many were proclaiming that there would be whole cities in space by now? You mean that 50 years ago?

(Even more were proclaiming it 70 years ago.)

[mordae]

Stone age? Hardly. More like 18th century.

I am more worried that we do not have that many attempts at rebuilding, because coal and oil are finite. OTOH a slower 2nd iteration might actually work better than this one.

[cynicalpeace]

"I know others will disagree, but it's not something you wanna take a gamble on."

Far more important than 18th century vs stone age debate is the fact that there are people in charge that would lead us down either path.

[verisimi]

> there are people in charge that would lead us down either path

Must you follow?

[cynicalpeace]

Would love not to. But I'm not the decider whether we head down the path of nuclear armageddon.

[bonzini]

If we lost access to electricity, we'd be completely screwed; we can't even get drinkable water in many places without electricity.

For example where I live there is water around 10-20m depth, but it's polluted (it may be usable for agriculture but not for human consumption); you'd have to dig a well over 100m below the surface.

[generic92034]

The standards for what is fit for human consumption might drastically change in a post-apocalyptic scenario, though.

[kortilla]

Boil it

[throw0101c]

> I personally think we're a button click away from going back to the stone age.

One reason to use less oil now is to perhaps preserve it in case we need to 'reboot' civilization in the future in case of a future cataclysm.

We were only able to reach beyond (near-)subsistence living because of cheap energy, first coal and later petroleum. All the easily accessible stuff is now kind of gone, so if there's another collapse (which may be more likely to be global in nature: see pandemics), then depending on how much knowledge we lose it could be hard to get back to the say level without the previously cheap/easy energy.

In past collapses (Europe: Western Roman Empire, Black Death) we were able to eventually recover because we at a simply technological level that could keep going even with the loss of a lot of knowledge.

> I think it's one of the reasons we have to be self sustaining on other heavenly bodies.

I think this will be impossible given advanced countries can't even be self-sufficient on Earth.

Is there oil on those heavenly bodies? Probably no, so you're importing your lubricants and seals/o-rings. Advanced fabs? No? Well you're importing your electronics. What kind of silica is there, because if you don't have the right kind of sand, you're mot making your own solar panels. How much radioactive material (uranium, plutonium, thorium, etc) is around if you want to try nuclear power.

[palata]

> I think this will be impossible given advanced countries can't even be self-sufficient on Earth.

And that's only after you've passed the fact that it's impossible for us to reach the next star.

[lutorm]

There is so much coal... I wouldn't worry about running out of that.

[throw0101c]

> There is so much coal... I wouldn't worry about running out of that.

It's not just about quantity, but accessibility: early coal was on the surface in the UK, and when they depleted that they had to create pumps to drain the mines—which led to all sorts of discoveries when it comes to pressure, which got translated into steam engine advancements.

In the past you could almost literally stick a straw in the ground in parts of the US and suck oil out of the ground. You have to go further afield in many cases now.

[fifilura]

> And also why wars or proxy wars between nuclear powers is extremely foolish and should be stopped with great urgency.

The strict interpretation of that foreign policy is that any nuclear nation is free to invade any non-nuclear nation and abuse its citizens.

Where do you draw the line? If for example an ally is invaded by a nuclear nation. Should you intervene or just call peace?

Does the rule-of-law between countries have any relevance?

[cynicalpeace]

You're claiming "wars or proxy wars between nuclear powers" are not "extremely foolish" and should not "be stopped with great urgency"?

[fifilura]

Yes but how?

Obviously the invader is not going to stop the war and say "this was foolish". So it is up to all other nations to bow down and let them have their piece of the world.

[EasyMark]

So like usual I offer up "what's your alternative" ? Is it to ignore Russian's invasion of countries? Ignore Iran's chaos it wants to sew constantly in the Middle East? It's easy to say "just be peaceful" but history shows that countries are not peaceful towards one another, they constantly want to take other's resources, or force their way of life on others, or settle some vague issue they have with another country (or people there). I think most people would love if countries would just stop attacking others. right now we don't have the tech to live on "other bodies", that is pie in the sky. I would love if nation-states just stopped the nonsense and were good to one another and their inhabitants, but that has never been the case.

[quotz]

Irans wants to sew chaos? The whole conflict with Iran started because the US and UK installed a puppet government (Pahlavi) so they can control the oil. After Pahlavi was ousted, the religious extreme took control, and cut ties with the west as a result. Its more like the west wanted chaos and started this whole mess

[cynicalpeace]

It's this same mentality that got us in trouble in literally all conflicts of the past 40 years. One day it's gonna get us blown up and I hope it's not over the Donbas.

[exoverito]

The CIA was actively involved in the Maidan revolution, which sought to pull Ukraine out of Russia's sphere of influence and into the EU / NATO. Obviously this is antagonistic towards Russia, especially when they have so few natural barriers to defend against invasion of their land. Look at how quickly the Wagner group reached Moscow after defecting from the Ukrainian front.

If the shoe were on the other foot, and China had supported a revolution in Mexico and was setting up military bases, the American government would not take it lightly. The US would cook up some reason to wage war against Mexico as a continuation of the Monroe Doctrine. These wars are not about good and evil, as much as it's about empires and power.

[cynicalpeace]

You realize achieving a compromise is not simply "ignoring" or surrendering to Russia?

Putin and Biden haven't spoken in years. I would say you're proposing ignoring the situation until it becomes even more of a powder keg in a decade or two.

Alternative is accepting some territorial losses, compromising, soldiers go home. Doomsday clock ticks back to 5 minutes to midnight.

You're acting as if this is the first time anyone has annexed territory. Do I like it? No. But you gotta manage with the cards you're dealt and that territory is not worth decades long conflict with two major nuclear powers.

[aguaviva]

You realize achieving a compromise is not simply "ignoring" or surrendering to Russia?

Depends on the degree of compromise.

What kind of compromises do you think Ukraine should make at this point in order to win "peace" with Russia?

Specifics needed please, especially in regard to: (1) the proportion of currently occupied territory Ukraine would need to grant permanent recognized sovereignty to Russia on; (2) the proportion of the the estimated 1T in material damage caused to Ukraine that Russia would need to pay before sanctions are lifted; and (3) the matter of some 20k abducted citizens, mostly minors that Ukraine asserts (with a high degree of credibility) are currently behind held by Russia?

Because it's the specifics that matter.

(BTW, future NATO status is mostly symbolic at this point; items (1)-(3) are what really matter).

[anigbrowl]

Alternative is accepting some territorial losses, compromising, soldiers go home.

This is just machtpolitik.

[tredre3]

> I think it's one of the reasons we have to be self sustaining on other heavenly bodies.

But who will inhabit those other bodies? Humans? The same species that destroyed earth in your scenario? What makes you think that living on Mars would suddenly make everybody peaceful and enlightened?

[mihaaly]

Humanity en masse are superficial ignorant pretentious idiots. They are so pretentious that they pretend they are not pretentious and they care a lot ('It is utmost important for us [arbitrary lie here]'). Except Trump kind of people. They honestly and proudly announce that they give no fuck about anyone but themselves.

[psychoslave]

>Humanity en masse are superficial ignorant pretentious idiots.

Oh I see how I can perfectly fit this role sure, I tell you so as the most humble entity that universe ever spawned.

It was of the outmost importance for me to deliver this lie: I don't care about anyone, humanity can go extinct, self included, and it doesn't trigger any emotion in me.

[dahfizz]

Yeah, this is also a big concern of mine. Nuclear weapons haven’t been used since ww2, but there also hasn’t ever been total war between two nuclear powers.

The current climate in Russia and the Middle East may change that.

[matthewfelgate]

The current situation will not lead to nuclear war.

[walrushunter]

Yeah, we should just stop all wars. Great idea! How has nobody thought of this before???