Hacker News Reader

>Space migration: an obscenely expensive way to sideline earth's environmental problems

If I can soapbox for a moment, I think you might be framing space colonization wrong. The big upside to me is that it will give us powerful new capabilities in space.

If we reach the point where Mars has a worthwhile industrial base, Mars becomes the launch pad for just about everything. The weaker gravity combined with the thinner atmosphere (so you can fly vacuum optimized engines from the surface) makes it a good order of magnitude cheaper to launch mass from. For large structures destined for Earth orbit, it would eventually make sense to build them on Mars and fly them into Earth orbit.

By analogy, colonizing the Americas was a pretty bad deal at first. The colonies took a ton of support and it was really hard to bring any value back. In hindsight though, it was one of the most profitable ventures ever. New technologies created exponential gains from the raw ingredients found in the new world.

Orbital manufacturing is also pretty important. Made in Space is working on producing ZBLAN fiber optic cable in orbit, because gravity causes artifacts which degrade signal quality[0]. This seems like a narrow niche but I think it's not. Think about microchip fabs and turbine blades. There are a lot of high value high tech processes that could likely be improved by either the removal of gravity, or the choice of arbitrary levels of artificial gravity <1g on rotating structures. Interplanetary radiation is an issue now, but it's one that can be solved with a bigger mass budget.

I suppose my main point is that this isn't space migration, it's colonization, with all the profit-motive and empire building that word usually comes with.

[0]: http://www.madeinspace.us/projects/fiber/

>If we reach the point where Mars has a worthwhile industrial base, Mars becomes the launch pad for just about everything. The weaker gravity combined with the thinner atmosphere (so you can fly vacuum optimized engines from the surface) makes it a good order of magnitude cheaper to launch mass from. For large structures destined for Earth orbit, it would eventually make sense to build them on Mars and fly them into Earth orbit.

But you could say the same of the moon, right?

I haven't looked into the moon too much, but if I recall correctly it has a much less diverse selection of resources than Mars does.

That said, I don't think it's an either or situation. Industry on either body will inevitably be just about 100% robotic, so at the point where we're harvesting a given resource from Mars it very well may make sense to also get it on Luna. In particular, metal deposits from large asteroid strikes are probably worthwhile.

I'd love to see some literature on fuel production (pref methalox for ITS) on the moon. I have no idea whether there's sufficient resources, but if there are that could certainly be useful.

Yes, but Mars is easier to live on than the moon, because it has an atmosphere, it's a lot warmer and terraform-able.

And can't be easily blown up by nukes. Seriously. Sagan himself sat at a committee that actually considered it for "national security" reasons, and iirc, found it 'feasible'.

> Space migration: an obscenely expensive way to sideline earth's environmental problems

What‽‽‽ There are so, so many reasons for space migration that have nothing to do with earth's environmental problems – assuming you mean global warming/dimming/<things humans are affecting>. Asteroid. Super volcano. Gamma ray burst. Magnetic field reversal. Pandemic. Super fungus. Artificial super intelligence. Nuclear war.

Our understanding of life, geology, climatology, astronomy, etc., has improved much in the last 6000 years, but at a fundamental level, we are extremely rudimentary. We don't really know what's normal on a galactic/universal scale.

It's like saying having a failover server is just an expensive way to sideline taking good care of your primary server. Huh? No, having a backup plan is what you do when something is important, because shit happens. On a long enough timeline, shit that you can't predict always happens.

> There are so, so many reasons for space migration that have nothing to do with earth's environmental problems. Asteroid. Super volcano. Gamma ray burst. Magnetic field reversal. Pandemic. Super fungus. Artificial super intelligence. Nuclear war.

I understand everything on that list with the exception of magnetic field reversal. Can you explain why it's so bad?

When Earth's magnetic field reverses (it's periodic and we're overdue), it does not protect from solar radiation for a while, making the outdoors toxic and destroying most electronics as a result.

Regarding LE. It's not like it's a particularly new idea. Look how much our life expectancy has increased in just the last few hundred years. I would imagine that 100 years ago, there were those saying the same thing. That anyone who felt the need to use new-fangled drugs like penicillin were just afraid of a Judeo-Christian afterlife.

Isn't LE more about increasing longevity than increasing life expectancy? That is, we don't have people living to be 200 years old; people's maximum lifespan seems relatively unchanged from 100 years ago (or even several thousand years ago if you go by 120 year limit in the Bible)... we just have a higher percentage of people who reach old age.

Bible has most of Adam's descendants living 600-900 years. It's not really a reliable source for history.

Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. The Bible is not one book, and it had many authors. There are plenty of historical reference that have been corroborated by archeological findings. You don't need to believe everything to believe something.

Edit: I'm also not suggesting that 120 years of age is some sort of divine limit, but it does hint at the sort of lifespans the people at that time considered were possible.

Second edit: I mixed my sources up. The 70-80 years that a psalmist mentions is probably a more likely standard old age.

In the part where the whole Noah/flood thing happened, it says that humans' lifespans would be limited to 120 years (after Adam etc).

But that is not the point... no matter whether you take the Bible literally or not (I don't), at the very least it suggests that at the time of the writing there was some observation of 120 years as being a reasonable upper bound for human lifespan.

Alternatively it's interpreted as a prophecy of his plan to wipe out mankind in a flood in 120 years, which is the subject of the rest of the chapter. This is more consistent with Genesis recording Noah's descendants, like their forebears, living multiple centuries.

As such, Genesis is far better evidence for the idea that its authors believed that human lifespans could extend centuries beyond the ages they actually lived to and died at.

> Maybe drugs are not as awesome as I thought.

I suspect this to be the case. It seems to me that the a key feature with psychedelic drug users and proponents is that they end up discontent with life [1] (and to a degree, with reality). They're often talking about how these drugs helped them see some sort of truths, but as far as I can tell, these truths don't help them interact with reality.

[1] There's a good chance they actually just started out this way and I'm seeing a selection bias.

Hmm I'd quite like to try drugs and am also quite discontent with life.

To be frank, I think most people are discontent. It's the human condition. I see this on a personal level, but there seem to be some polls to back it up [0]. It seems like being discontent could have evolutionary benefit (always reaching for more rather than stagnating).

[0] http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/3354524

Interesting polls.

There might be several different forms of discontent; and that they seem the same to us, but are not very similar underneath. For example, the girl who bing-eats ice cream after her boyfriend breaks up with her is clearly not doing something that would be healthy on a regular basis.

This might be vaguely like physical exercise, where a small amount is good for you, but too much causes your body to break.

Have you considered hunting with sticks?

I think you're right to categorize discontent or 'hireath' as pretty universal.

In "Escape From Reason", Francis Schaeffer said that modern humanity was faced with a total dichotomy: Rationally, there is no meaning, and we are just machines made of atoms. Any meaning (or even freedom) is in a place divorced from rationality. Faced with this, in the 1960s, people (including Leary) took drugs as a way to (hopefully temporarily) escape into irrationality, hoping to find meaning.

But the problem is the dichotomy. Even if you find meaning in the acid trip, you can't ever rationally explain that meaning, even to yourself. You know it happened, but that's all.

> Space migration: an obscenely expensive way to sideline earth's environmental problems

Or maybe some see space as the final frontier and want humanity to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before.

Or, as Elon Musk has said many times, an insurance policy against extinction from any number of unavoidable causes such as disease or a meteor strike.

> Increased Intelligence: Not that helpful in an era when humans are going to have to re-articulate their raison d'etre in the face of superhuman machine intelligence.

Why are you against increased intelligence? Humanity saw increased intelligence throughout the 20th century due to things like getting proper nutrition during childhood. Superhuman artificial general intelligence isn't the only outcome, nor do I think it is the most probable. We're more likely to become one with the machine using AI to augment our own intelligence, much like we do today with computing devices.

> Life Extension: One of the key features of being human is being mortal. It's not just an inconvenience to be done away with.

First of all, life extension != eternal life. Even immortality != eternal life. Nothing lasts forever and on a long enough timeline, you will die and have to make peace with that. You don't have to be afraid of the afterlife to want to live longer. Perhaps you just want to visit another planet or see more than .0000000000000000000000000000000000001% of the universe.

Second and most importantly, we've already been through this. The 20th century added ~30 years to human lifespan. That represented a whopping 61% increase! It's not unreasonable to see these gains continue or even increase with accelerating technology. Arbitrarily mandating that people die at a certain age because of one's personal belief on the meaning of life is savage and barbaric.

Third, you may want to see what humanity evolves into. I'll leave this quote from Battlestar Galactica:

“I don’t want to be human. I want to see gamma rays, I want to hear X-rays, and I want to smell dark matter. Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can’t even express these things properly, because I have to—I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid, limiting spoken language, but I know I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws, and feel the solar wind of a supernova flowing over me. I’m a machine, and I can know much more.

Thanks, I do appreciate the quote, and the clarification on LE.

Why are you against increased intelligence?

I'm not against increased intelligence per se, but I think it's a wrongheaded goal for the times. We don't seem to know how best to use the considerable native and machine-aided intelligence we already possess. I'm not convinced it's translating into better quality of life for all or most. In many domains, solutions are going to be non-technical.

I think a better goal is to prepare against the case in which AI will go on to surpass us once it has achieved our level of (technical) intelligence. (You and I may differ in our assessment of the likelihood.)

In this event, we won't be able to recover the advantage. I think we'll have to argue the case for our value in other terms, such as that we are able to have subjective experiences and relationships, we can emapthize, and can be amazing as poets, philosophers, lovers, and philanthropists.

Maybe it's time to pay more attention to the domains in which we excel at being human.

If AI learns from the de facto "human value system" that it sees in evidence among us, how do we expect to be treated if we become subordinates?

Living by a better value system strikes me as a more important perogative than boosting intelligence, which I view as a commodity market in which we've enjoyed a monopoly. Competition is on the way, and I'm not sure intelligence will seem as profitable as it used to. We need to differentiate and find our human niche.

It's a little bit of a relief that the current crop of SV figures won't be the group of people who hand pick the first space generation.

Though I'd probably say that about anyone (or at least hope I would).

Amen to that. I don't like to see the elites making a break for the life raft.

LE, I think, is optimistic and dismisses the issue of psychological buildup. It's good to have new people come along questioning the status quo and current belief systems. LE ignores to some great extent the role psychological blank slates provide to the progress of a population.

In other words we'll miss out on the intergenerational dynamics and tensions which lead to change and renewal. Old people seldom deconstruct and then rebuild their psychological profile.

I agree that it is good to be able to question the status quo. It's less clear why we should accept that people dying in exactly the way they happen to do at the moment is the correct and only possible solution--as opposed to, say, the use of psychedelics, bioengineering in more curiosity or less fear, or simply consciously acknowledging the issue and building personal skills or social structures to resist current belief systems.

Not too long ago, a key feature of being human was hunting large animals using wooden sticks. I'm pretty happy that we did away with that feature.

The main benefit of research into life extension is imho not the actual life extension, but the necessary health extension. Death is not the bad part, frailty, Alzheimer's and all the other atrocities of old age are.

I guess the paleo and Weston Price crowds would argue that Alzheimers and other degenerative diseases were unknown during the hunting-with-sticks days. (I mention it for the fun irony.)

The operative word here being "unknown", as opposed to "non-existing".

> Space migration:

As far as we know, Earth is home to the only life in the universe. It seems likely that microbial life is abundant, but as yet we lack proof. Animal life may be incredibly rare. Intelligent life, rarer still. A lack of such life is a compelling answer to the Fermi paradox. You seem to have some undefined idea of the purpose of humanity. I am not sure what that purpose would be if not to spread life into a cold, empty universe.

From a more practical point of view, we can't screw up the biosphere or atmosphere of the moon. We probably can't screw up Mars too badly, either, in the short term. Both these places can spare Earth further environmental damage as our demand for resources continues to grow. And what we learn constructing and maintaining artificial biospheres will probably provide new insights into protecting, rehabilitating, and maintaining the Earth.

I am not sure what that purpose would be if not to spread life into a cold, empty universe.

In my view, sending our physical bodies elsewhere is irresponsible unless they are a container for a store of meaning and magnanimity that we've not yet expressed here on earth. It's as irresponsible as the US sending forces to Iraq with nothing to offer except carnage and art lessons about Marcel DuChamp's Toilet. (See Adam Curtis' amazing docu, Bitter Lake.) We acted as envoys of freedom and democracy, but it turned out we lacked the substance.

I'm reminded of Cpt. Adama's speech in which he essentially asked "Who are we? Why do we deserve to survive?"

Your view seems rather undefined from my point of view. I don't know what meaning and magnanimity you would like us to possess before reaching for the stars, but I'm going to suggest two reasons why we should still reach:

1. If you agree that we have the capacity to reach the whatever threshold you're requiring, wouldn't it be irresponsible to let ourselves perish (along with that potential) on Earth?

2. Perhaps becoming a multi-world species is a prerequisite for humans to reach that threshold.

> Space migration: an obscenely expensive way to sideline earth's environmental problems

According to climate scientists, aren't we already beyond the point of no return climate change-wise? And there continue to be strong economic incentives towards trashing the environment even more. If so, Earth's already a lost cause.

Think of it like being on Easter Island hundreds of years ago: The place is rat-and disease-infested, and we're chopping down the last trees. We can choose to either build ships and GTFO or navel-gaze about how great it would be to have a livable environment again.

If you think a gradually warming Earth with a few polluted patches and a small hole in the Ozone layer is becoming inhospitable to human life, just wait until you get into space.

It's more akin to the residents of Easter Island devoting their efforts to reaching the South Pole or building a house under the sea.

I dispute that we're chopping down the last trees. I think it's tough to argue that the earth isn't still the option that's most hospitable to life.

In the Easter Island metaphor, space migration strikes me as the islanders who control most of the resources opting to chop down the rest of the trees to build rafts for themselves. There might be viable options for rehabilitating our ancestral homeland if they'd use their resources differently. But if we let them take remaining resources with them, all bets are off.

> LE is a screwball project for people who secretly are afraid of a judeo-christian afterlife

Not meaning to be contentious but I don't recollect a judeo-christian afterlife being proven.

>Space migration: an obscenely expensive way to sideline earth's environmental problems

That's a pretty stupid comment. Space colonization has a lot of excellent motives, escaping earth's environmental problems are not one of them. To me the rationale would be to continue our species' glorious tradition of exploration, intellectual curiosity and exploiting the limitless resources of the universe.

I think one big advantages of putting a big effort into a, uh, moon-shot like space migration is that it will probably lead to many innovations that we wouldn't see, or that we wouldn't see happen as rapidly.