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Comment by goatlover | Hacker News Reader

You're also free to critique an idea that's been put out there in public. The so called free market of ideas where people get to express their opinions on said idea. Or do you only want to see cheerleading? Because not all ideas are good, or feasible, or appropriate for now. The might be ahead of their time, and so forth.

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My dictionary defines "critique" as "a detailed analysis and assessment of something." That is not what I'm seeing here, nor is it what I'm arguing against.

I have no problem with people arguing against SpaceX's Mars plans, either on the basis that the plan is infeasible, or that he should be doing something else. I have a huge problem with people arguing against it on the basis that the commenter doesn't like it and the whole idea is dumb.

I just want to see an intelligent conversation.

Juxtapose this desire against the fact this is in reply to a user named "goatlover" and it's hard not to laugh.

What, do you have something against goats?!

I know, right? Maybe we can engineer a hardy Martian goat that can eat the algae that puts oxygen into the air. Martian goats produce C02 and fertilize the soil. Now you have a source of dairy and meat for our future colonists. Imagine kids in the future, growing up dreaming of being goat herders on Mars.

And then after many generations, those goat herders, having long since lost their spacefaring technology, will create a few different and competing religions. A couple thousand years later, when Martians develop more advanced technology and even manage to send Martian people to their moons Phobos and Deimos in primitive spacecraft, they'll still be arguing about which of those religions is correct.

I think you'd want the goat to consume CO2, not produce it. There's already plenty of CO2 there. Other than that, your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Kids, hell. As long as I could get a good enough price to make sure my folks were well looked after, I'd sell my indenture tomorrow to go and be a goat herder on Mars.

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