NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we are

[2takesfrakes]

Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

"Littered?" Seriously? The amount of artificial objects on the Moon and Mars combined would fit in one Walmart store.

From Apollo 11 - 17, what was the total hours on the Moon? A day and a half, maybe? In that brief time, we managed to dump, like ... what? 11 metric tonnes of trash on the planet? Not too shabby for a couple day's work! Imagine if we'd stayed a whole year! Good thing the Moon has those plentiful, fathoms-deep craters to fill up, like natural-made landfills.

>>SNORT!!!<<

 

[Dukhat]

Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

"Littered?" Seriously? The amount of artificial objects on the Moon and Mars combined would fit in one Walmart store.

From Apollo 11 - 17, what was the total hours on the Moon? A day and a half, maybe? In that brief time, we managed to dump, like ... what? 11 metric tonnes of trash on the planet? Not too shabby for a couple day's work! Imagine if we'd stayed a whole year! Good thing the Moon has those plentiful, fathoms-deep craters to fill up, like natural-made landfills.

>>SNORT!!!<<

I'm totally not seeing your point here.

 

[2takesfrakes]

Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

That's OK. Let's just chant, instead:

"nerds.
Nerds!
NERDS!!
NERDS!!!"

 

[Dukhat]

Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

Ah, I get it now. You're making nonsensical comments just for the sake of making nonsensical comments. Ok then, keep calm and carry on.

 

[Mudd]

Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

JarodRussell is right (which may be a completely original English sentence).

 

[RAMA]

Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

That whole romance with the idea humans need to go to space to survive... Sigh. Earth is, and will always be, the most human-friendly planet in our reach. Mars, and any other planet in our proximity, is DEAD. You have to live in airtight bunkers, go out in spacesuits. Even if our planet was hit by a catastrophe like a supervolcano, Earth would still be a friendlier environment than that. If you can build autark colonies on Mars and Venus, you can build autark colonies on a catastrophy Earth.
Then that talk about terraforming. We can't even purposely terraform our own planet.

In fact, there are several good reasons to leave the Earth.

Societies needs are exponential: While humanity is likely to level off in population at around the 10-11 billion mark (see Hans Rosling's UN data analysis) the needs of an ever-increasing economic civilization will rise, and this will tax the planet. Inherent in this, is the need for both resources and space. Space has both in abundance. Eventually, man's exponential nature will level off...BUT only because of the next paradigm..man living in space. Then a new paradigm will start the cycle over again. Humanity will then again need more of each.

Survival: Spreading out the human race to survive very real, statistically probable catastrophes has been recommended by the most intelligent people on the planet.

If we are doomed by our own hand with global warming, all the more reason to leave and hope we learned the lesson.

Philosophical level. Humanity exists in it's surroundings of space, evolved on a single planet but part of a universe that shares all of it's elements and mechanisms. The idea that we will not travel in space when our technological level allows it, seems incredibly narrow and near-sighted. We have always expanded and will continue to do so. The solar system allows for us to be there.

Far future: If the Singularity happens, or anything similar to it at any time, then eventually intelligence will spread. We or someone else will convert everything to intelligent matter, thereby quantifying the universe. The ultimate in survival may well be a way to survive an end to the universe or travel to another one..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmable_matter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computronium

 

[Yminale]

Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

"Littered?" Seriously? The amount of artificial objects on the Moon and Mars combined would fit in one Walmart store.

When have you last been in a Walmart store. Every store literally is a mountain of trash.

Which has nothing to do with the point I was trying to make.

Actually your supported instead of refuted the previous poster. Hence I mentioned the average size of Walmart.

 

[Yminale]

Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

No need to worry. The people who will do the heavy lifting will have a much more optimistic outlook toward humanity. They will be worth saving even if some others who benefit from the effort will not.

The people who will most benefit from space colonization will be the 1%. We're talking about the scum of human civilization. Yeah I feel so optimistic now.

 

[Yminale]

Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

Societies needs are exponential: While humanity is likely to level off in population at around the 10-11 billion mark (see Hans Rosling's UN data analysis)

human society doesn't necessarily need to be exponential. A policy of depopulation could allow human society to reach 500 million easily. We already seeing this in Europe, Japan and even China.

Survival: Spreading out the human race to survive very real, statistically probable catastrophes has been recommended by the most intelligent people on the planet.

The improvement to survival will be marginal until the development of interplanetary travel.

Philosophical level. Humanity exists in it's surroundings of space, evolved on a single planet but part of a universe that shares all of it's elements and mechanisms. The idea that we will not travel in space when our technological level allows it, seems incredibly narrow and near-sighted. We have always expanded and will continue to do so. The solar system allows for us to be there.

There is already a precedent for decreased exploration, the Earth's oceans. We know more about the moon than our oceans and humanity doesn't seem to have a huge huge urge to explore.

Far future: If the Singularity happens, or anything similar to it

If HAL wants to explore space, let him. His concerns have no bearing on us.

 

[sojourner]

Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

Survival: Spreading out the human race to survive very real, statistically probable catastrophes has been recommended by the most intelligent people on the planet.

The improvement to survival will be marginal until the development of interplanetary travel.

You realize that's an argument for, not against further developing space travel?

 

[RAMA]

Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

Societies needs are exponential: While humanity is likely to level off in population at around the 10-11 billion mark (see Hans Rosling's UN data analysis)

human society doesn't necessarily need to be exponential. A policy of depopulation could allow human society to reach 500 million easily. We already seeing this in Europe, Japan and even China.

Survival: Spreading out the human race to survive very real, statistically probable catastrophes has been recommended by the most intelligent people on the planet.

The improvement to survival will be marginal until the development of interplanetary travel.

Philosophical level. Humanity exists in it's surroundings of space, evolved on a single planet but part of a universe that shares all of it's elements and mechanisms. The idea that we will not travel in space when our technological level allows it, seems incredibly narrow and near-sighted. We have always expanded and will continue to do so. The solar system allows for us to be there.

There is already a precedent for decreased exploration, the Earth's oceans. We know more about the moon than our oceans and humanity doesn't seem to have a huge huge urge to explore.

Far future: If the Singularity happens, or anything similar to it

If HAL wants to explore space, let him. His concerns have no bearing on us.

Sorry, but humanity already is, doesn't matter if you think it doesn't have to be. The economic numbers from the UN also refer to the point I made. The teething problems with industrializing developing countries like China (in which over 100 million people have been brought out of poverty in recent history) also demonstrate it...they are skipping generations of technologies in some cases and not learning from the process, hence incredible air pollution. The information is out there, so hopefully they fix the problem as well.

It is obvious if you energetically direct a depopulation program you could undo what is happening, but humans naturally are developing this way. I don't see a directed depopulation program anymore do you??

Marginal survival is better than none. It will also have to be planned. There are also multiple ways to do it, and the tech may be there in 20-30 years to do something more comprehensive.

Human beings are more frightened by natural competition than the hazards of space in my opinion. I think we feel we can conquer the elements in space but are not comfortable in the sea with it's already huge panoply of life. It's psychological in my opinion. I also think a lot of people believe we already "know" the ocean, partly because satellite imagery has shown us the depths of it.

A Singularity can also encompass human derived artificial intelligence. Obviously you haven't been paying attention.

RAMA

 

[gturner]

Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

Any suggestions on how to get the human population down to 500 million? Should we use mass sterilizations or an engineered virus? What about populations that refuse to comply and somehow combat our best efforts at exterminating them with the chemical or biological methods?

And while we're at it, shouldn't we take this as an opportunity to further improve mankind's genetics by picking the survivors from the brightest and healthiest 5 percent of the current population, ones with no criminal record, no trace of resistance to authority, and no heritable genetic problems?

 

[Jedi_Master]

Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

Any suggestions on how to get the human population down to 500 million? Should we use mass sterilizations or an engineered virus? What about populations that refuse to comply and somehow combat our best efforts at exterminating them with the chemical or biological methods?

And while we're at it, shouldn't we take this as an opportunity to further improve mankind's genetics by picking the survivors from the brightest and healthiest 5 percent of the current population, ones with no criminal record, no trace of resistance to authority, and no heritable genetic problems?

Seems legit.

I do think humans ought to try to get a handle on running THIS planet before trying to go run some other ones. Exploration is fine, and beneficial, but colonization is not the best use of resources when people are still starving to death.

 

[Yminale]

Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

Any suggestions on how to get the human population down to 500 million?

It's as simple as providing reliable birth control with increased education and economic opportunities to women in the third world.

 

[gturner]

Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

How is starving to death a problem instead of the goal? I hadn't thought of reducing the human population by wiping out important crops with plant vectors, but I'm open to the idea. Of course I'm not in charge of setting policy, but I always like to think of clever ways of implementing it. The current White House science advisor once pushed for putting some kind of chemical surreptitiously onto the money or government checks to cause mass sterility in the US population, to keep our numbers down, but obviously our primary goal should be wiping out other country's populations first, because if we wipe out ourselves at the start, who would be left to ensure that everybody else dies too, especially those troublesome Africans where mail service is horribly slow and inefficient?

Perhaps the best long-term solution to the problem is to let the 1 percent move to their space colonies, taking with them carefully screened and selected plant and animal species (with very few insects and no parasites), and then have them completely exterminate almost all life on Earth by blocking out the sun until a total freeze happens, then thawing and reseeding the planet with only the organisms we like.

If we fail to do that, any colony we establish or alien planet we terraform would forever be subject to the threat of a disease, parasite, plague, or destructive insect arriving from Earth, where there are four billion years of badness evolved to exploit weaknesses in our genes and immune systems. A veritable Pandora's box of evils lurks on this planet, and it makes little sense to exterminate the current human population while leaving almost all of those evils intact.

Or we could let SpaceX, Blue Origin, Xcor, and other companies just go about their business, develop space, and not kill anyone or anything. Hrm... Commit mass genocide using all the tools of science, or just let folks fly off to space and do whatever suits their fancy? How to choose, how to choose...

 

[Yminale]

Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

It is obvious if you energetically direct a depopulation program you could undo what is happening, but humans naturally are developing this way. I don't see a directed depopulation program anymore do you??

UN population figures have always been wrong. Europe and Japan are depopulating. Many countries have birth rates under the replacement rate. The largest birth rates occur in Sub-Saharan Africa which sadly will be dealt with by global climate change. We are already moving in that direction. We just need to remove the few remaining obstacles (like the Catholic Church and right wing conservative Christians).

Marginal survival is better than none.

Not if you factor in the cost. We deal with this in medicine all the time. If I increased your chance of survival by 1% but it cost you 1 million dollars would you do it.

A Singularity can also encompass human derived artificial intelligence. Obviously you haven't been paying attention.

HAL is a human derived AI. If you are talking about transcendence/uploading the human mind than no offense but you are talking fantasy that may never occur. Your argument is no better than saying we should explore space because the magic space ponies tell us to.

 

[gturner]

Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

Any suggestions on how to get the human population down to 500 million?

It's as simple as providing reliable birth control with increased education and economic opportunities to women in the third world.

Why would they care about increased economic opportunities if they can't have kids? I'm sure there's a simple solution to that, and I do rather like the idea of making the system voluntary, at least at first.

Of course the right-wing and various fundamentalists won't go for the policy, so the initial cohort leaving the gene pool will all be good progressives and the poor people who are desperate enough to fall for food in return for "reliable" birth control. Then, once those are too old to breed and finally die off, the rest of us will sit back on the beach and listen to Rush Limbaugh telling us what a true work of genius the policy was.

 

[Yminale]

Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

Why would they care about increased economic opportunities if they can't have kids?

You misunderstand, women who have more economic opportunities have LESS kids not NONE. The replacement rate is 2.1 children per couple but western countries have somewhere between 1.4 to 1.7 children per couple. Have a birth rate less than 2.1 and your population begins to shrink.

 

[gturner]

Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

UN population figures have always been wrong. Europe and Japan are depopulating. Many countries have birth rates under the replacement rate. The largest birth rates occur in Sub-Saharan Africa which sadly will be dealt with by global climate change. We are already moving in that direction. We just need to remove the few remaining obstacles (like the Catholic Church and right wing conservative Christians).

Don't forget to remove the biggest obstacle first, those evil Jews who survived the last socialist attempt at making this a better planet through genocide.

And global climate change won't affect Sub Saharan Africa at all, except perhaps to make it a bit more lush through increased rainfall. The population of Africa already hugs the equator, where all the heat is, because life loves being warm and wet.

 

[Yminale]

Re: NASA chief touts deep space exploration: We can only survive if we

Don't forget to remove the biggest obstacle first, those evil Jews who survived the last socialist attempt at making this a better planet through genocide.

Genocide? I'm talking about political resistance to access to birth control (ironically Catholic countries birth rates are declining).

And global climate change won't affect Sub Saharan Africa at all,

Unless these people to learn to eat sand, it will affect them. Desertification is spreading and will be made worse by global climate change. Droughts and famines will be made worse by decreases in rain fall and tropical diseases will spread north.