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Comment by cutler | Hacker News Reader

Life on earth is heading for an ecological apocalypse and all we can do is obsess about taking a holiday on Mars (bangs head against wall). Talk about fiddling while Rome burns.

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Seems like that's how humanity works. Just throw more stuff on the problem and hope it goes away. If some thought is put into it, it might actually work.

Garbage landfill? Cover it with some soil and build buildings on top!

Trash in the oceans? Gather it with (more) automated ships!

Water levels rising? Build dams!

Too much CO2 in the air? Use more energy to get rid of it!

Global temperatures getting too high? Build a solar shade for the whole planet (bonus points if it also generates electricity)!

Actually hoping that last two become a reality soon, because we all need it, and the ideas are actually feasible.

To be honest, I don’t get the rush to move to different planets? With the absolute plethora of benefits earth gives us, is it really hard to just save what we have than think about these far fetched ideas. Suppose that due to some way we actually figure out a way to move to Mars, would it be better than leaving what we have? I would rather prefer living rest of my life on the dying planet that is earth than move to other planet.

Did we really need to go to the Americas? When first discovered by Europeans North America was nearly uninhabitable.

Did we ever need to criss the Bering land bridge? Or leave Africa?

When first discovered by Europeans North America was nearly uninhabitable.

When Europeans arrived in North America it was already inhabited.

Didn’t I cover both groups?

I think the real economic case is for asteroid mining. On earth a lot of the rarest elements are trapped in the core, but for asteroids, my understanding is that this same issue doesn't exist.

The optimist in me hopes that if we can learn to live on mars then perhaps we can use that technology to live on earth sustainably.

bruv we've got enough people to work on setting up the lifeboats while bailing out the ship

I think it's easier to terraform Earth than Mars.

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