Comment by adekok | Hacker News Reader

Comment by adekok | Hacker News Reader

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> Musk is doing SOMETHING, at least.

Me sitting in a corner and drinking is doing something. Me burning down my house is doing something. Neither actions are productive.

Is Elon doing something productive? With cheap rockets, arguably yes. With colonizing Mars... it's less clear.

> The technology that SpaceX develops can and will be used for much more than just Elon's particular vision of Mars colony.

Like what?

> Oh, why Mars, why not Moon, or Ceres, or O'Neill cylinders, or lets colonize the Sahara desert first, or lets solve world hunger and poverty (which is a 100% political problem, not technological, BTW)

It's hard to solve political problems, because everyone knows how bad people can be. It's easy to dream about solving engineering problems. People have been doing it for millenia. We just build a bigger / better / faster / cooler thing than what we have right now! See? It's easy!

I find it instructive that most of the "pro" arguments are based on dreams and hope. Most of the "con" arguments are "Have you seen how freaking difficult it is?"

Dreams won't feed you in the cold, dark, airless, nights on Mars.

Charles strauss wrote about other cool applications of the Mars rocket booster here:

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/09/what-els...

And If your reaction to that is "cool, but let's just build it for those reasons", you're missing the point. Mars is basically a platform for tech development and civilization building. In order to survive and thrive out there they are going to have to develop tech that will undoubtedly benefit us at home. Not just in spacecraft but in materials science, biology, computers, you name it.

We wouldnt have GPS, communications, or satellite imagery without the space programs by the time it becomes obvious what benefit it has for us, it will already have been done. Think of what terraforming will teach us about climate change and how to mitigate it's effects on Earth.

This is on top of the reason in which you have a small number of highly educated, highly skilled people allowed to make a new society on a different planet. How much faster do you think they will be able to operate without the ineffiencies of the world today? If a facist religious dictatorship ends up forbidding all technology and destroys the planet and us with it, I'd be glad that we at least have something else continuing the species. In a sense it would actually prevent that scenario from happening because of geopolitics. If your adversary is on a different planet, you better keep up with their tech or they will end up owning you.

So... I said cheap rockets are a good idea, and your best counter-argument is to say "No, cheap rockets are a good idea" ?

> you have a small number of highly educated, highly skilled people allowed to make a new society on a different planet. How much faster do you think they will be able to operate without the ineffiencies of the world today?

How much slower will they work when they don't have quick access to a modern industrial civilization?

> If a facist religious dictatorship ends up forbidding all technology and destroys the planet and us with it, I'd be glad that we at least have something else continuing the species.

I don't really have a rational counter-argument, because that isn't much of a rational position.

My understanding of your position was that we don't need the whole Mars thing in order to accomplish more domestic goals (cheap rockets), and my position is that a Mars program will force us to develop much more advanced tech that will benefit us here than we would have otherwise.

> How much slower will they work when they don't have quick access to a modern industrial civilization?

Give it a couple centuries :) Civilization building is not a short term plan. And the fact that they won't have (easy) access to the rest of the species is part of what will force them to create innovative, home-grown solutions.

> People have been doing it for millenia. We just build a bigger / better / faster / cooler thing than what we have right now! See? It's easy!

You've just described the entire technological progress of humanity. People dreaming about solving engineering problems... and then solving them.

That's a logical fallacy.

People have dreamed about a LOT of things. Probably 99.999% turned out to be bunk. Only a small amount could be turned into something real.

Why is trying to colonize Mars not productive? How do you define productivity?

Spending billions to get a small number of people to a place which will likely kill them is not very productive. Cool, yes. Fulfilling dreams, yes.

And whatever happened to having people support their position with logical arguments? Your comment is largely You need to prove why it isn't a good idea.

No, it doesn't work like that. If you're in favor of society spending billions of dollars on something, it's up to you to demonstrate why that spending is better than the alternatives.

Or, if you're a multi-billionare, spend your own money however you see fit, and don't take advice from random people on the net.

And a side note... these comments seem to be unpopular. I'm not being mean or putting people down. I'm just explaining why Mars is expensive and likely not feaasible.

But there are minimal counter-arguments which address my points. It's much easier to down-vote comments which you don't like, than to engage someone in order to understand why they disagree with you.

> These comments seem to be unpopular. ... I'm just explaining why Mars is expensive and likely not feaasible.

No you're not. I haven't seen you make any attempt explain such things. You currently have four comments under this post, show me any part of any one of them that makes even the slightest attempt to explain such things.

Sure... saying it is expensive isn't much of an explanation as to why. But the why isn't that difficult to come up with.

I've made more detailed comments on the other Mars story (see my comment history).

But whatever my issues, I'm definitely getting downvoted for saying engineering reality is preferable to pipe dreams.

And the counter-arguments of "but people have dreamed for years!" or "no, YOU have to prove why it's unfeasible" are inappropriate.

Similarly, your attempt to call me out on a pedantic detail, but at the same time ignoring the illogical counter "arguments" really is the new HN. Illogic and group-think are becoming more important than reality-based discussions.

> Sure... saying it is expensive isn't much of an explanation as to why. But the why isn't that difficult to come up with.

You're dodging the issue. You said there was no reason for people to criticize your comments because "I'm just explaining why Mars is expensive and likely not feaasible". I pointed out that that claim was completely false. You say "saying it is expensive isn't much of an explanation as to why" - actually, it's no explanation as to why it is expensive, or why it is "likely not feasible".

Then you say "But the why isn't that difficult to come up with" which has nothing to do with the issue of whether you're claim about what you did in the thread is true or not.

> I'm definitely getting downvoted for saying engineering reality is preferable to pipe dreams.

Even if you're getting some of those downvotes for that, look at how loaded such a statement is. What, again, is your justification for calling it a "pipe dream"? And anyway, pleanty of things that were once called "pipe dreams" have become reality.

Also, it's ridiculous to use "engineering reality" as the benchmark - because unless you believe that there's no progress or evolution in our engineering capabilities, then what is "engineering reality" will not correspond to the reality in 5, 10, 15, 50 or 100 years from now.

> Similarly, your attempt to call me out on a pedantic detail

You made a substantive false claim that all you were doing was "explaining why Mars is expensive and likely not feaasible" and I called you out on it. And it wasn't an "attempt". I called you out and you weren't able to show anything that backs up that claim.

> You made a substantive false claim

<sigh> If you're nit-picking over details, it's definitely the new HN. I've had people attack me vociferously over "back of the envelope" calculations being off by a factor of 2. This isn't really much different.

And what would be your reaction if my previous comment had said "I'm just explaining that Mars is expensive and likely not feasible" instead of why?

Given the level of outrage you're showing, I'll bet you would have had a pretty similar response, as you showed here

The point is that you're not arguing against the "substantive false claim" I made. You're arguing from an emotional position that I said bad things about your dreams. A subject which is emotionally important to you.

> And anyway, pleanty of things that were once called "pipe dreams" have become reality.

And as I said earlier, most pipe dreams haven't become reality. Appealing to "dreams can become reality" is just false logic. People who down-vote counter-arguments, or argue in favor of such statements are just upset that a cynic like me points out most dreams don't become reality.

So... will you admit that your argument is based on nonsense? Or can you only see the speck in someone else's eye, while ignoring the plank in your own eye?

> Also, it's ridiculous to use "engineering reality" as the benchmark

Ah yes, because no one has any idea how to to it today, we will rely on magical technology (i.e. pipe dreams) which will be available in 100 years.

I like hope as much as the next person, but you're pretty much admitting that colonizing Mars is a dream, and isn't based in reality.

It's clear you have no intention of actually engaging with what people have said or playing by the standards of fair argumentation. I'm not going to waste any more of my time trying to engage with you

i.e. I engage with what you've said, admit your point that I mispoke, and point out errors in your position.

Your counter-argument is then "No YOU'RE a bad man! I'm taking my toys and going home".

That's... not convincing. And pretty much proves my point that I've hit an emotional position. One which can't be addressed rationally. And which provokes an irrational response.

"It furthers one to have some place to go." - I Ching

(I KNEW we shoulda stayed in Africa. All that travelling to achieve... winter.)

It's fine to have unpopular opinions. I'm not bashing on it. The way I see it is, at some point in the future we will have to expand. I don't see any reason why we should not try to at least develop part of the technology now. I understand the argument that, right now, the technology is pretty expensive and we might not get too much out of it. But surely we will have to do it at some point in the future. I think it's nice someone is willing to put the time and effort to at least try. As far as I know, neither of us will have to put a dime into the project. I completely respect your opinion, but it's hard to understand why it is so bad for a guy to spend billions in a technology that will be fundamental in the future.

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