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Comment by lisper | Hacker News Reader

> More likely just not seen yet, our furthest reaching signals are maybe 50 light years away at best

This is the key. On interstellar scales, things move very, very slowly and you have to plan on time scales measured in millennia. IMHO we are doomed simply because we can barely think beyond the next election cycle. (At least that's true for Americans. The Chinese seem to think in terms of decades and, occasionally, centuries.)

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> (At least that's true for Americans. The Chinese seem to think in terms of decades and, occasionally, centuries.)

The Chinese political system is just as short-term-oriented as <insert democracy here> on the whole, and I don't think there has ever been a politician in history who ever thought about workable century-long impacts.

> The Chinese political system is just as short-term-oriented as <insert democracy here> on the whole

Well, the US political system is based on a four-year cycle. In China they're based around a five-year cycle. 25% longer.

Most of the effort goes into eliminating the 5-year cycle and hanging on as long as possible.

The US political system is a two year cycle, as will be demonstrated next month.

An election taking place every two years doesn't mean that political activity or public perception is structured around a two year cycle. Neither of those things is true.

Of course it's a two year cycle, they even have incrementing numbers like 119th Congress.

50,000 years ago (or so) we were a tiny species hanging out in Africa. We didn't think in terms of years, much less decades. This was before we figured out how to measure the length of the year or to predict when the winter would end.

And yet, without any central planning or coordination, we left Africa and colonized Europe, then we headed out across Asia and crossed into the Americas. Plus we sailed from Asia and colonized Polynesia.

Imagine someone saying, "We're doomed because people walk very slowly--it's going to take a thousand years to get to the southern tip of the Americas." And yet, we did.

I think the same thing will happen with space travel and ultimately the colonization of the galaxy.

> Imagine someone saying, "We're doomed because people walk very slowly

I think I may not have made myself clear. The analogy here is not that "we're doomed because people walk slowly". There is nothing that happens here on earth that is even remotely analogous to the constraints that the speed of light imposes on interstellar processes. Even at a leisurely walking pace, a human can circumnavigate the planet in less time than it takes light to reach the nearest star. Human walking speed is blindingly fast (relative to the size of the planet) compared to the speed of light (relative to the distances between stars).

The reason we're doomed is not that we're not walking fast enough, it's because we won't stop walking and take time to think about where we should be going. We just go.

But my point is, "we just go" is exactly how we conquered the Earth. We didn't think, "let's colonize the whole planet!", we just went. We walked from Africa all the way to the tip of South America.

We weren't doomed then and we're not doomed now. We will colonize the solar system and eventually the galaxy.*

* Assuming past performance is indicative of future performance.

> Assuming past performance is indicative of future performance.

Yeah, well, there's yer problem right there. We will not colonize the solar system, and certainly not the galaxy, because we haven't figured out how to stabilize the situation here on earth. Yes, we colonized the planet, but for most of the history our lack of planning was compensated by technological limitations and limits imposed by the laws of physics. Those are mostly gone now, and I'll be a little surprised if civilization doesn't collapse before the end of my life (and I'm in my 60s). I would be very surprised if it lasts to the end of the century, though of course I won't be around to see that.

> But my point is, "we just go" is exactly how we conquered the Earth. We didn't think, "let's colonize the whole planet!", we just went

And not even all of us said that. The majority may have even stayed just a small group probably said “we’re going to check out what’s beyond that hill”.

Spreading out all over the world isn't particularly special. Flies, rats and roaches did as well, for instance, so spreading all over the world is not necessarily a sign of cosmic manifest destiny.

> a human can circumnavigate the planet in less time than it takes light to reach the nearest star

I was surprised by this, but the math checks out (assuming you mean the nearest star other than the sun of course). The circumference of the Earth is about 40000km, at a leisurely pace that's 10000 hours or about 400 days. Proxima Centauri is about four light years away, so the walker has plenty of time for sleep and sight seeing.

Unrelated to the thread... but do you do any writing at all - sci-fi, short stories..? I'm enjoying your take on this.

I really appreciate that! Thank you!

I'm strictly an amateur--my professional life is software engineering. But I have written a few things that may or may not be to your taste:

A Very Short History of Humanity: https://neurohack.com/earthguide/History.html

And if you're into astronomy, you might enjoy my book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591935571/

I am working on a sci-fi novel, but I'm only half-way and it's not that good so far.

That's not the point. It's not walking, it's planning. When all you have are rocks and spears it doesn't matter how far you can plan. When you have nukes and other people's lives in your hands, it does matter. Like, any of the recent wars. What kind of planning went into those stalemates? Evidently none. What about inflation? Still unsolved? Undoing all the green energy efforts made in the past? Well done, apes of Africa, well done.

We also have a tendency to repeat the same mistakes over and over again throughout history, even learning and forgetting cures to diseases, which makes me believe that the duration of our lifespans is a significant limiting factor.

A too-large portion of the population is incapable of learning from something that didn't happen to themselves directly, a smaller subset will even outright deny the existence of things that don't happen to them. Another half the population still believes in ghosts.

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