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0 pointsglial7y ago0 comments

There's no understanding it because it doesn't actually make sense. Lasting solutions to earth-scale issues like climate change must ultimately be social solutions (regulations, taxes, treaties, and ultimately alignment of incentives). Terraforming Mars seems easier than developing social solutions to some people, so that's what they fixate on. But trying to spread into the solar system because we're afraid of having the hard conversations about social solutions is a gross misapplication of imagination and resources.

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6 comments · 2 top-level

randallsquared7y ago· 2 in thread

The fact that we're using "hard conversations" as a euphemism for large scale violence is a wry comment on just how hard those conversations will actually be.

I don't expect that colonization of Mars or other distant places will save "us", but it might well save many of those who go. There are lots of ways in which places on Mars are less hospitable to human life than places on Earth, but if things get really bad on Earth, the surrounding weather will not be nearly as bad as how other people are reacting.

adrianN7y ago

It will take a really long time before any off-planet colony could be self-sustaining. Just think about how long the supply chains for even the simplest things needed for repairs are. Until then Earth is either fucked due to climate change or we have a local solution to the problem.

fornaxese7y ago

There's also the more strategic aspects of interplanetary exploration. Namely: rendering those places conceptually impractical as a doctrine of area denial.

Area denial isn't just about land mines. It can mean fomenting political unrest among the constituents of a standing, stable, and sustainable Martian colony, so that it's suddenly an unappealing alternative to solving Earth's problems. Don't go there, it's the Salem witch trials and the holocaust all at once. Stay here and fix the biosphere instead.

sathackr7y ago· 2 in thread

I think the point, or at least a parallel point, is that if we have the technology to terraform Mars, then we likely have the technology to terraform earth back to a more habitable environment.

Eventually the situation will be come obvious enough that it can no longer be ignored by half of the West, and most of the developing world.

When that happens, and a solution to the problem becomes a global priority, it will be solved in one manner or another.

JumpCrisscross7y ago

> it will be solved in one manner or another

The closer we get to that point, the worse it will be for those further from resources (political and financial).

glialOP7y ago

Exactly. That's why I think people fantasizing about Mars instead of investing in fixing our current social/media/political situation is a severe misapplication of resources. I'm looking at you, Jeff Bezos.

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