We stay on this rock, we die on this rock. Confining ourselves to Earth isn't a survival strategy, it's giving up. Rebuttals would be appreciated, though!
Perhaps a counterpoint would be that the opportunity cost of colonizing mars would be better spent by first solving the existential issues here on Earth.
Once we have figured out how to achieve homeostasis on a planet so plentiful in resources as our own, then we could start looking to do so elsewhere in less favorable environments.
Mars is extremely barren and has negligible capabilities for life support.
The biggest issue I can think of is oil running out, but we're on a good trajectory to solving that. Other resources seem either abundant or replaceable. The threat of global nuclear war is problematic but not really solvable by throwing more people at the problem. Overpopulation isn't projected to be a problem. Climate change will be a major inconvenience and costly, but unlikely to be an existential issue.
Of course there's lots of injustice, hunger, disease, murder and torture that would be nice to resolve, but it's not an existential issue for humanity.
I don't think we have any issues like that as a species, as a species we are pretty much thriving. That growth might not be built on the most sustainable principles, but we are slowly getting there.
Short of something super apocalyptic ruining the whole planet for most life (like a big asteroid hitting us), I don't see humanity eradicating itself completely anytime soon, we are quite a sturdy bunch.
> Once we have figured out how to achieve homeostasis on a planet so plentiful in resources as our own
We've had plenty enough time trying to do that, maybe it's time to try a different exercise with more constraints to motivate creativity? Mars could be exactly that.
Well, there's the simple fact (or what seems to be a fact at least, might not be true) that the reality of physics confines us to this rock, more or less. We don't travel faster than light, so at best we can achieve a Mars colony dependent on Earth supplies.
So yeah, I'd rather just focus on developing survival strategies for our rock. But the whole discussion is maybe a bit off topic here too.
A self-sufficient Mars colony isn't easy, but it doesn't seem impossible. And the lack of FTL doesn't really limit us to this solar system either: generational starships with nuclear pulse propulsion [1] could get us to the next star with around 100 years travel time. Not exactly something we want to start tomorrow, but fairly feasable.
Viable long-term survival strategies on Earth have some pretty hard limits. Even if we master famine, disease, our own worst impulses, and asteroids, there's still the expansion of the Sun. Even if we don't expand beyond our own solar system, the technological advances gained in doing so could be invaluable for maintaining our home planet.
The real problem is that wherever we go, there we are. Earth is perfect for us, as evidenced by the fact that we're here. But, we've come up with a system of allocating our abundant resources that is unhealthy for the planet and, ultimately, our survival. Beyond just climate change, we're trashing the planet for money even as we expend precious few dollars on, say, the problem of extinction event level asteroids. There is more raw brainpower being applied to trying to get you to click an ad.
So, we have devised a system that directs our considerable resources (human, natural, and otherwise) almost exclusively per financial incentives and, oddly, there seems to little financial incentive in ensuring our own collective survival.
If we don't evolve in our thinking, we'll just reproduce the same problems wherever we go.
Perfection is a particularly anthropocentric concept. Earth was clearly a local optima, but our very capacity for trashing the planet suggests it was rather shallow. We've changed the fitness landscape like so many bulldozers in a landfill. There's no way to know what lies among the slopes beyond. Maybe we really are stuck here and defending our crapsack position from asteroids is as good as it gets. That just sounds depressing, though.
I expect we won't evolve our thinking, but if we could somehow reproduce the same problems wherever we go enough times, there's an opportunity for evolution and natural selection to operate on our societies at a galactic level. We'd buy ourselves the chance to roll the dice many, many, many more times. There will be misery and suffering along the way, sure, but that's been the cost of our existence thus far.
For one, the dilution of resources to get off this rock might take resources from actually protecting life on this rock, without resulting to anything concrete, and thus just bring our end much closer.
Take a hypothetical epidemic that wipes as all out, and that we could have prevented if only we gave money to more biological/medical research instead of space exploration.
wu-ikkyu|8 years ago
Once we have figured out how to achieve homeostasis on a planet so plentiful in resources as our own, then we could start looking to do so elsewhere in less favorable environments.
Mars is extremely barren and has negligible capabilities for life support.
halomru|8 years ago
The biggest issue I can think of is oil running out, but we're on a good trajectory to solving that. Other resources seem either abundant or replaceable. The threat of global nuclear war is problematic but not really solvable by throwing more people at the problem. Overpopulation isn't projected to be a problem. Climate change will be a major inconvenience and costly, but unlikely to be an existential issue.
Of course there's lots of injustice, hunger, disease, murder and torture that would be nice to resolve, but it's not an existential issue for humanity.
freeflight|8 years ago
I don't think we have any issues like that as a species, as a species we are pretty much thriving. That growth might not be built on the most sustainable principles, but we are slowly getting there.
Short of something super apocalyptic ruining the whole planet for most life (like a big asteroid hitting us), I don't see humanity eradicating itself completely anytime soon, we are quite a sturdy bunch.
> Once we have figured out how to achieve homeostasis on a planet so plentiful in resources as our own
We've had plenty enough time trying to do that, maybe it's time to try a different exercise with more constraints to motivate creativity? Mars could be exactly that.
Asdfbla|8 years ago
So yeah, I'd rather just focus on developing survival strategies for our rock. But the whole discussion is maybe a bit off topic here too.
halomru|8 years ago
1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_pulse_propulsion
QuantumGravy|8 years ago
unclebucknasty|8 years ago
So, we have devised a system that directs our considerable resources (human, natural, and otherwise) almost exclusively per financial incentives and, oddly, there seems to little financial incentive in ensuring our own collective survival.
If we don't evolve in our thinking, we'll just reproduce the same problems wherever we go.
QuantumGravy|8 years ago
I expect we won't evolve our thinking, but if we could somehow reproduce the same problems wherever we go enough times, there's an opportunity for evolution and natural selection to operate on our societies at a galactic level. We'd buy ourselves the chance to roll the dice many, many, many more times. There will be misery and suffering along the way, sure, but that's been the cost of our existence thus far.
coldtea|8 years ago
Take a hypothetical epidemic that wipes as all out, and that we could have prevented if only we gave money to more biological/medical research instead of space exploration.
s_kilk|8 years ago
marcosdumay|8 years ago