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Comment by keiferski | Hacker News Reader

I’m sure I’ll be called crazy for this, but the true solution to oppressive societal forces is personal space travel and colonization. When it becomes possible for a small group of people to fund their own “opt out” and escape into outer space, individuals will regain some bargaining power.

Obviously this won’t happen for centuries. But on the timeline of “future human existence”, it’s really not very long at all. I see this as an inevitable outcome of technological development, even if the Private Ownership of Spacecraft War of 2346 is bloody. That gives me hope for the future.

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How is that any different from someone deciding to opt out from society and move to... I dunno, the mountains? There's still a lot of places on Earth that are sparsely inhabited or completely uninhabited.

Still under the authority of a state. Escaping to Patagonia doesn’t really let you avoid governmental surveillance, just makes you less of a target.

Besides that, one shouldn’t have to be a hermit in order to avoid oppression.

But how is it different if you're a space hermit?

I suppose because the cost to reach you is greatly increased, meaning the cost to exercise authority is greatly increased, so actual authority is greatly deceased.

Right now the cost for the government to send their agents to "the mountains" is trivial, the most remote you could possibly get is "a few hours commute and a helicopter ride". The government is more than willing to pay that price in important cases.

I think they imagine that space travel can increase that price to "months or years" and "expensive vehicles that support people during that time". Rather like how much it would have cost to send government agents to remote places hundreds of years ago.

(Personally I'm not particularly convinced, the number of habitable rocks in the solar system is small. Living not on a rock means you need to import resources. Maybe if we get interstellar travel).

Living in the mountains, where I live, is about $2k per month just for rent

>I’m sure I’ll be called crazy for this, but the true solution to oppressive societal forces is personal space travel and colonization. When it becomes possible for a small group of people to fund their own “opt out” and escape into outer space, individuals will regain some bargaining power.

Besides the infissibility for billions to do so in the next 2-3-5 centuries at least, it will probably also be the total opposite if/when it happens.

Those space colonies won't be like roaming around in some empty earth. It will be like living in some very close knit community on Earth, when everybody is monitored and depends on everybody else don't doing something stupid/suicidal to put the colony in danger...

>I see this as an inevitable outcome of technological development

Why would it be inevitable?

There are big show stopping issues which are only handwaved away atm with "but, progress" (as if technological development is boundless and creativity can bypass any hard constraint).

Some issues as so hard physics problems, that (BS like "Alcubierre drive" aside) would mean the best we could ever do would be "generation ships".

By inevitable, I mean that space travel will become affordable enough to be personal, and that this is a question of time, not physical limitations.

We’re also talking about hundreds or thousands of years here. It seems totally reasonable to me to assume that a private spaceship priced at ~$500,000 in 2021 dollars will exist by say, 2500.

>By inevitable, I mean that space travel will become affordable enough to be personal, and that this is a question of time, not physical limitations.

Saying "a question of time, not physical limitations" however is the handwaving of physical limitations "because technology will advance" thing I wrote about.

Why would it be a question of time?

How is time gonna make "faster than light" travel possible, or bring the closest stars any closer than many light years?

If anything time has shown that space travel capability can go worse and languish completely for decades just as easily as some external force (like the Space Race in the Cold War, or easy excess credit to fund things like SpaceX today) makes it so -- it's still been 40+ years since we last went to the moon, and the US had let languish the capability to launch people into ISS for decades...

Why is faster than light travel necessary? Plenty of space in our own solar system.

Regarding technological development, again, on a long enough timeline, I don’t think it’s much of a concern. Technologies will continue to develop, quickly or slowly. It hasn’t even been a century since we walked on the moon. Deriving trends from this short period of time is not particularly relevant.

>Why is faster than light travel necessary? Plenty of space in our own solar system.

Between one unhabitable planet and another, plus some gas giants, etc., where's that plenty of space? Unless we also handwaving terraforming into the equation too (as we'll do with carrying any significant number of people via spaceships as opposed to small scientific missions, the 9+ months travel time, space radiation, lack of resources to eat/drink/breath there, etc).

  Plenty of space in our own solar system

assuming close enough to the sun to derive significant energy - why wouldn't the earth-based government have the technology to track you just as easily as they could on earth?

After all, what can you hide behind floating in space, fully illuminated by the sun?

by "personal spaceship" Do you mean something to carry you from earth surface into space (escape gravity well);

or something in which you can travel and survive living in space (mobile space habitat).

How will you overcome the lack of gravity causing muscle/bone-density loss?

assuming you camp out near the sun and derive power from solar - how do you get food and oxygen? you'll have to assume extreme air, water recycling, and some way of producing food.

> oppressive societal forces is personal space travel and colonization

Why do you think colonies in space will be different and not see “societal forces” emerge?

Of course human societies will still have issues. But the option of exiting will exist, as will the option of just going off on your own.

The article had this but that stood out to me:

“It isn’t possible for everyone to live on principle; as a practical matter, many of us must make compromises in asymmetrical relationships, without the control or consent for which we might wish.”

Even if you could just “go off on your own into space”, you will likely need to transact with other humans in order to survive. Put differently, I think while it is an “option” in principle, it isn’t in reality.

The ability to walk away is perhaps the single most effective negotiation tactic. Simple as that.

In MBA land they call it BATNA. Best alternative to a negotiated agreement.

I think you are correct.

The more accessible opting out becomes, the more leverage regulator people will have when negotiating with the dominant social order.

Space travel like this is down the road, but it’s only a long road if you are thinking in terms of your own finite existence.

Also, opting out is in demand. From a more immediate perspective, I think that there is a lot of room for innovation around personal privacy and opting out. No system created by humans is permanent. More surveillance means that humans will create systems to subvert it or render it useless. This has already happened in many ways.

A system is nicer to its people when they are there voluntarily. These changes will also work to improve the quality of life of those in the system as well as those outside of it.

I won’t call you crazy, but I will call you naive. Modern civilization was what brought us centralized states and corporations. And yet we always seem to think that that next hill, just over the horizon is where everything will flip on its head and we will be back to some mythical past where we could roam wherever we please—all enabled by technology of course.

New World 2.0 isn’t coming.

I don’t see the early 19th century as a “mythical past”, nor did I say big changes were “just over the horizon.”

Space is quite literally limitless from a human perspective; to assume that somehow human beings will make zero progress on space travel 500 or 1,000 years from now seems naive to me.

I didn’t say something about the progress of space travel. I made an observation about how technological progress and centralization are correlated. And I don’t think societies in the age of space travel (with the technology that that entails) will be less centralized than what we have now.

But I don’t think technological process and centralization are necessarily correlated. It’s more like they go in cycles.

The progression from trains to cars is a good example. At first you had highly centralized, expensive transport. Then cars developed and became decentralized.

On a longer timeline, consider technologies like writing, or paper. Initially highly centralized, now so ubiquitous that we don’t even recognize them as technologies.

I’m basically just saying that on a long enough timeline, the chances that space transportation is controlled by a central authority seems nearly impossible.

Are you familiar with Sealand? It was basically the same idea, but in international waters

Most of these sort of attempts have been either poorly planned or deliberate shut down by nation states (like the ones near Italy and Thailand.)

I’d also imagine it’s far less exciting to live on a floating platform in the ocean than out in space. Certainly the marketing materials will be more appealing.

Good point, you could do it now, far more cheaply, and far more safely than going into space.

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