Ask HN: What super projects could unite humanity?
For context, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1742606
What kind of world changing super project could humanity solve that would unite us towards a common goal?
What kind of world changing super project could humanity solve that would unite us towards a common goal?
Think of it: godless, drug-using communists in space!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture
[NB I've always suspected that Iain M. Banks is a Special Circumstances agent - installing an author to write "fiction" about themselves is exactly the kind of sneaky thing the Culture would do]. ;-)
I know what I would do given the choice!
what I think should unite us is the understanding that this tiny blue dot in the middle of Milky Way is the only thing that keps us alive, so we need to strive to keep it so for as long as possible while searching for other ways to survive in space on a large scale.
And unfortunately, it's unlikely to become a popular political position either.
Imagine a chance to route defense spending to space research and exploration - it's the geek dream!
I think that enemies you can see and anthropomorphise are more powerful, however, so I imagine a humanoid alien or terminator would be a better unifier than an invisible bacteria or global warming, even though all could be considered a common threat to humanity.
Differences are good, disagreements are good, and diversity is good. Including differences in goals, values, priorities and everything else.
If you have some serious differences and if you want to avoid conflicts, you probably shouldn't keep pushing to unite. You probably should separate. Like, you know, if a family can't agree on some important set of issues, they probably shouldn't always try to find a compromise (which might as well be bad for all sides), or apply force to silence the weakest side. They would probably be much better off if they get divorced, and let each side to form a family with someone who shares their views.
I think the same logic applies to countries, and to disagreements about any serious issue -- like, i don't know, taxes, global warming, foreign affairs, gay marriage, controlled substances, etc etc.
So, tldr: I'd rather look for something to separate humanity, it tries too hard to get united.
For issues like global warming/pollution, it doesn't help to separate. If the US pollutes less and China picks up the slack, the earth will be just as warm (including the US). Separation is a great solution to some problems, but it doesn't solve the problem of how to pay for global public goods (it deals with local ones nicely, however).
I refuse to choose B, and I'm going to fight back if anyone chooses B wrt me.
If the issue was Lex Luthor destroying the western US to make midwest property values go up, would you suck it up, or would you advocate forcing him to stop?
The end result here will be just as catastrophic. We can't let people go their own way because they don't "believe" in science. It won't make it any less true.
If you had some Lex Luthor powers, and there were 4 billion people destroying, I don't know, the ozone layer and forests, and refusing to believe in "science", and if your only way to stop them was to use your huge robot army and your giant space lasers as a military force against them -- would you do that?
If you had some Lex Luthor powers, and there were 4 billion people hell bent on killing you, and the only way you could stop them was to use your huge robot army and your giant space lasers as a military force against them -- would you do that?
I suppose the fundamental question here is: to what extent can you exercise your actions of self interest if they mean countering similar actions by others?
And no, the fundamental question is "why would someone think that ozone layer or forests etc belongs to them" (because if it doesn't, they are not in position to decide if it should be kept or destroyed).
Do you have the right to defend yourself against an indirect attack? Here's another ridiculous scenario to think about - let's say you're diabetic, and some group of thugs is destroying all the world's supply of insulin. It doesn't belong to you, but you definitely need it. What would you do?
This doesn't work for a few narrow issues. If you dump oil into your oceans, it floats into my oceans and you are forcing me to deal with polluted waters. If you allow piracy (the "arrr, matey" kind), the pirates rob everyone rather than just people in your locality. In cases like this, force will be used no matter what. There is no getting around it.
Look, I'm almost as libertarian as they come. I'm not even making a pro-AGW argument, since I'm unconvinced of AGW myself. I'm just pointing out that you need to fully think through your position - it's a great proposal, but doesn't solve every problem.
(Note: I don't even intend that as a harsh criticism. Rothbard's intellectual contributions are fantastic, and his hammer worked quite well for many things. Just not everything.)
I doubt you will get much more than about 20% of humanity to agree to anything at any given time. Extraterrestrial invasion? Nope, a bunch will just see them as gods and their own death as a journey to heaven? Another bunch will try to negotiate, another bunch will try to blast them into nonexistence?
Global catastrophe? See above.
And then there's the problem of who you're talking about. You can't e.g., reach everyone in every little town in India, Central Africa and South America. So if their "leaders" agree, does that mean that they agree? Look at all the disagreement that happens with people and their elected officials in the US all the time.
Sorry dude, we're doomed to all die alone.
- It's a government plot to get us to pay more taxes and remove personal freedoms
- It is God's will and trying to do anything to stop it is evil
- I'll be OK if I dig a deep enough hole and take enough food, guns and ammo
- Who cares, I'm going to make sure I enjoy the next ten years
How is 40s/50s technology high tech ?
It's not like we could get a Saturn-5 out of storage, fuel it up, stick a Tsar Bomba on the top and hope for the best.
Sending them to defeat asteroid might be even more devastating than not sending them though.
[NB I do know that the SS-25 could do fractional orbits.]
Now whether or not such a solution would actually work is another matter. The original comment however was "extremely high tech such as H-Bombs on rockets". Both are examples of tech that's decades old.
So we have the technology to get a large enough device far enough out into the solar system quickly enough for it to make a difference and to engineer all of this within a limited timescale? I don't know about that....
I went to JET last year, which was amazing to see, but I couldn't help but get the nagging feeling that we won't see tritium/deuterium fusion hit mainstream within our lifetimes.
Mind you, once it does reach mainstream that will change everything. Hopefully there won't be a race to mine helium 3 from the moon.
So keep up the work on that zombie-creating parasite!
The opposite is true. The world is now the safest it's ever been. It's also the wealthiest and offers the most opportunities.
Therefore humans are unlikely to get united to colonize a new planet few light years away. That's not in human nature.
Also check Monkey Sphere: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbars_number
> asteroid collusion
How long do you want that unity to last? the moment the question of commercialising the output of the project comes up, the competition will come out in the open and the unity will break.
Also, is it really required for the whole humanity to unite to take up a project that can affect humanity? Most of technologies and resources that can enable such a project are in the hands of a very few nations.
Also we need much, much faster transportation, like trains that can travel around the world in 3-4 hours. This way we can see our "neighbors" much more often and no longer have a sub-concious fear of the unknown.
Granted, there's many things that can't be made this way, but it's also an approach that doesn't lead us down a malthusian path of wanting nothing either.
It's odd to think that it's already a saturated market.
In fairness, I did think of one that could qualify, the vaccination of Polio.
Moon base
Space Elevator
That's cheap! Any modern developed country could send a crew to Mars in 10 years. However, nobody has done it because nobody has devoted the resources to that cause.
The bank bailouts were around $700 billion, for comparison.
Space travel is cheap compared to the rest of what we do.
Re the bailout figure: this is slightly misleading. This isn't money that's just been "spent". It's been invested - in purchasing assets and equity from the bailed out institutions. These institutions are largely expected to buy back these investments at a later date netting the US govt a profit (some already have). Additionally of course, the cost of NOT bailing out the banks may have been much, much more. So I don't think it's a comparable number.
Could you cite where you heard $1 trillion? Nobody in the last 50 years has suggested it would cost anywhere near that much.
Sure, the bank bailouts were a bad example. But you gave an even better one! The Iraq War cost hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars.
Oh wait, we recently achieved that...