Comment by ericmay | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ericmay | Hacker News Reader

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The car one is the most frustrating for me just because global warming is but one of the many problems associated with car-only infrastructure in countries such as the United States.

Your point about bunkers is kind of interesting. If society collapses the bunkers are really pointless. I think deep down the “rich people” building them know that. It’s just the same kind of silly doomsday prepping that regular folks do. 50 guns? Patagonia provisions? Plastic tubs of rice? All the same phenomenon.

What I find so bewildering is that since the early 1900s the “rich people” seem to have lost their minds a bit more or perhaps just hate themselves and society.

We went from a notable history of great public works to satisfy the ego, libraries to the glory of mankind, beautiful commissioned artwork and sculptures, and more to… well… “my name on a hospital/university”, effective altruism, bigger yachts and doomsday bunkers, and sprawling McMansions filled with boring bowling lanes for boring people.

Of course this is a generalization and, I think a lot of good work is going in to funding research projects and things like space exploration (making fun of wealthy people trying to launch rockets is way too nihilistic for my taste). But on the whole it really seems like our civilization hates itself and the actions of the wealthy seem to reflect that quite clearly.

The bunkers are in New Zealand in the hopes that a rich island stable democracy will not undergo complete societal collapse even if much of the world does.

Although, if society doesn't collapse I'm not sure if the bunkers are all that useful, maybe for the stockpile of tradable goods? Or as a castle?

> We went from a notable history of great public works to satisfy the ego, libraries to the glory of mankind, beautiful commissioned artwork and sculptures, and more to… well… “my name on a hospital/university”, effective altruism, bigger yachts and doomsday bunkers, and sprawling McMansions filled with boring bowling lanes for boring people.

I'm not all that convinced we aren't just remembering the nicer parts of turn of the century wealthy philanthropy instead of their gold toilets. And effective altruism is at least supposed to be helpful in a different way.

> Of course this is a generalization and, I think a lot of good work is going in to funding research projects and things like space exploration (making fun of wealthy people trying to launch rockets is way too nihilistic for my taste). But on the whole it really seems like our civilization hates itself and the actions of the wealthy seem to reflect that quite clearly.

Oh yes. But the "I want to run away from this doomed planet" is way too obvious. But aren't a bunch of the tech billionaires at least somewhat techno-optimists?

To be fair to space exploration, Elon has by far the best bunker plan. He knows there are a couple decades left until shit really hits the fan. As you say bunkers on earth aren't all that promising, but what if you could make a self-sustaining colony on another planet, far away from societal collapse.

You know what's even less promising than a bunker on Earth? A bunker literally anywhere else in the observable universe. In fact, we could nuke the entire surface of the earth and it would probably still be easier to establish a self-sustaining colony on the resulting radioactive wasteland then on the Moon/Mars/Venus.

There is a very good reason why Earth is, and will continue to, sustain a great diversity of life and the rest of space is sterile.

Building a nice place on Earth to ride out climate change would be a lot simpler. But it also puts a massive target on your back. If society collapses, everyone will want in on your little Garden Eden, and no amount of fortification will be able to keep millions of people out. Nuking the entire surface of the Earth would solve that issue, but is generally frowned upon. Better to just build your bunker far, far away where most people can't get to it.

You see self-sustaining colonies outside of Earth in our lifetime? Wouldn't they need a massive industrial base, a variety of resources, large populations, etc to not need Earth?

Aren't you exactly describing Elon's proclaimed plans for a mars colony? Not a tiny lab like NASA would build, but an industrial base with thousands of inhabitants.

Is his plan realistic? Hard to tell. It's far beyond anything we have ever done, and financing such a plan is going to be challenging to say the least. And technologically we are also decades out. So I guess he better hurry up. But that's a different goal post that the one I set, a plan doesn't have to be easy or have probable success in order to be better than the other bunker plans.

Don't we need millions of people for a viable industrial Martian civilization? Honest question don't know.

Also, we haven't even been to Mars, unless SpaceX has some single-state to orbit spaceplane plus some fancy interplanetary engines in the works I'm not that optimistic. And who is going to finance this?

Honestly building a Fallout vault to wait the worst out seems easier.

The current idea of how to get there depends on launching Starships to earth orbit, refueling them completely using a bunch more Starships, and then going to Mars. In terms of energy required it should work out, but I have no clue how he is planning to pay for it beyond a small NASA colony.

On the other hand Mars hasn't been stripped of easily accessible resources in the same way Earth has been over the last couple thousand years. As an obvious example, Mars's surface is covered in so much iron ore that it dominates the color of the landscape. Iron isn't worth enough per pound to bring it back to earth, but if they find deposits of more valuable materials there might well be a mining opportunity that pays for the whole endeavour. Nothing brings in money, people and resources like a gold rush.

I don't know anything about Martian geology but wouldn't you need a large amount of travel around the planet to acquire everything an industrial civilization needs like resources for solar or nuclear power because it's lacking the easily accessible fossil fuels Earth had. And is it cost effective to mine on Mars and export? I thought using asteroids for that was easier.

And honestly, I don't think Musk is planning to do it, my opinion it's 60% marketing strategy 20% wishing for government funding for a small science mission 20% wishing the Mars colony happens somehow.

Calling Mars our back-up planet is beyond foolish. If humans cannot manage Earth, they certainly cannot manage the airless, frozen radioactive desert that is Mars. Do you think that these Martian colonist will be substantially wiser than Earthicans? Consider Mr. Musk's recent behavior before you answer that question!

I didn't call it our back-up planet, I called it Elon's back up planet.

Humanity will survive climate change. Our society may not, and that's what people try to insure against with bunkers or space colonies. To achieve that goal, the bunker or colony only has to be stable for a couple decades, maybe a century if you include the wish for a better life for their children.

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