Reply to: Terraform Mars ?

[evilagent]

well maybe we can leave the nay sayers here on earth grubbing around in the sand looking for liquified dinosaur and starting wars over whose imaginary friend is best....

while the enlightened from society can continue to grow the species on a number of different planets.

My favourite scene is in The Matrix when agent Smith describes to Morpheus that humans aren't mammals, but act as if it were a virus, destroying everything it moves to, instead of living in symbiosis with its surroundings.

[d000hg]

well maybe we can leave the nay sayers here on earth grubbing around in the sand looking for liquified dinosaur and starting wars over whose imaginary friend is best....

while the enlightened from society can continue to grow the species on a number of different planets.

Ah, the kind of enlightened society which dictates what everyone has to think. I'm fairly sure a few rulers have tried to create such "utopia" before, Stalin springs to mind

[SpontaneousOrder]

well maybe we can leave the nay sayers here on earth grubbing around in the sand looking for liquified dinosaur and starting wars over whose imaginary friend is best....

while the enlightened from society can continue to grow the species on a number of different planets.

I know it is kicking the can down the road - and the ultimate fate of the universe is heat death (assuming a consistent expanding universe) but as that is far in the future and maybe by then we will have gained enough intelligence to even get around this.

However if we all stay on this rock and become extinct we do not even give ourselves that chance and so the attitude based around is pretty lame.

newsflash... you'll be dead. You're building castles in the sky (which is 'pretty lame').

[original PM]

well maybe we can leave the nay sayers here on earth grubbing around in the sand looking for liquified dinosaur and starting wars over whose imaginary friend is best....

while the enlightened from society can continue to grow the species on a number of different planets.

I know it is kicking the can down the road - and the ultimate fate of the universe is heat death (assuming a consistent expanding universe) but as that is far in the future and maybe by then we will have gained enough intelligence to even get around this.

However if we all stay on this rock and become extinct we do not even give ourselves that chance and so the attitude based around

"And as far as the species is concerned - while I might value human progress, the species will always come second to myself. "

is pretty lame.

[DiscoStu]

If I go to Mars will I be safe when WWIII starts? Can I take my 700 tins of beans with me?

[SpontaneousOrder]

The linked to article was a Swiftian attempt to point out that spending vast amounts of money to achieve a result for future generations that was highly speculative is not only dumb but pointless. a bit like terraforming earth by decarbonisation
thats how I read it anyhow

In that case you just quoted me out of context (which was in turn quoting OPM about preservation of the species & protecting future generations from the ball-ache of obliteration).

The way you read it would definitely be less insane too

[EternalOptimist]

More likely an echo of it going right over your own head...

OPM supposes that we *should* work to ensure the survival of the species. As David Hume pointed out - you can't get an 'ought' from an 'is'.
For that reason it's even questionable whether we should do so to protect future generations from the suffering of anhilation - but lets take that tack anyway...

All stars have a life-span, and even the material universe itself has a lifespan. So kicking the can down the road - arguably - only increases the scale of the eventual human destruction and suffering, as when that happens there will be far more human beings inhabiting whichever locale happens to be meeting it's end - and assuming we ever manage interstellar travel - everyone full stop.

So for that reason, the argument to ensure the survival of the species is largely aesthetic.

The linked to article was a Swiftian attempt to point out that spending vast amounts of money to achieve a result for future generations that was highly speculative is not only dumb but pointless. a bit like terraforming earth by decarbonisation
thats how I read it anyhow

[Spartacus]

Er, the only sensible way is to drop comets onto Mars from the Oort Cloud*.

And after the dust has settled, wait a couple of millennia.

Ask Threaded if it worked or not.


*It's a bit of a bugger if your aim is off mind.

Threaded caused the problem in the first place. He went back in his time machine to make sure that Mars was nice and ready for us now, got a bit carried away with the bombardment and wrecked the place.

[SpontaneousOrder]

whooosh

thats the point, that is. going right over your 'ead

More likely an echo of it going right over your own head...

OPM supposes that we *should* work to ensure the survival of the species. As David Hume pointed out - you can't get an 'ought' from an 'is'.
For that reason it's even questionable whether we should do so to protect future generations from the suffering of anhilation - but lets take that tack anyway...

All stars have a life-span, and even the material universe itself has a lifespan. So kicking the can down the road - arguably - only increases the scale of the eventual human destruction and suffering, as when that happens there will be far more human beings inhabiting whichever locale happens to be meeting it's end - and assuming we ever manage interstellar travel - everyone full stop.

So for that reason, the argument to ensure the survival of the species is largely aesthetic.

[d000hg]

Interesting this - we are probably the first generation to really recognise and understand that human life could be wiped out by a natural event.

And yet that argument of yours as in do I care i hear a lot.

And so when our great great great (etc) grandchildren are watching the impending doom unfold and the end of human life is near they could quite rightly point the finger at us and call us a bunch of short sighted narrow minded tw@s for being so incredibly selfish and short termist to have doomed the human race to extinction.

Do you think when our great great great (etc) grandchildren are watching the impending doom unfold it will be much consolation to them that people on another planet are safe?

Do you think the species has some sort of responsibility to perpetuate itself?

With our level of technology I think it would take something very serious indeed to make extinction a real possibility. e.g literally destroying the planet, not just making the outside world uninhabitable.

[EternalOptimist]

When the final blow comes it won't matter where you are. It all comes down to kicking the can just a little bit further.

whooosh

thats the point, that is. going right over your 'ead

[SpontaneousOrder]

the more people will not be on the Earth when the final blow comes.

When the final blow comes it won't matter where you are. It all comes down to kicking the can just a little bit further.

[original PM]

well the sooner we start to colonize other planets / solar systems the more people will not be on the Earth when the final blow comes.

it is again short sightedness trying to say that it will only be open to the select few or it will be 'forced' relocation of societies rejects

[GreyWolf]

I notice the article doesn't say a lot about how to go about terraforming, other than "we know how to do it".

If we were to do it, there's practical limits on the numbers of people we could send. Which means we'd need some kind of breeding programme - i.e. send lots of young women and a small number of lucky men. And we'd want to be selective about it; we don't want the descendants of riff raff colonising a new planet. Seems like a good oppurtunity to start a new race of genetically superior "super-men" and leave old Earth (or "Earth Classic") to the dregs.

Colonisation is usually done with society's rejects - look at Australia and the US.

[SpontaneousOrder]

and ensure the continued survival of the species.

Why?

You might like the idea, but that says nothing about what other people should think on th ematter.