Is it time for us to start working on leaving the planet?

[ryan]

Before you answer the title, please read the following.

There are some of us in this world who understand that the world is never going to be safe for us as long as there are conflicting interests in geopolitics, religion and other ideologies.

I never realized how detrimental geopolitics was and is until I studied some history. Even to this day geopolitics is a huge cause of wars, tension and many other ugly things. Israel and Palestine, Russia and Georgia/Ukraine, Iraq and Kuwait; Norway, Canada, Russia and the North Pole; American natives and America; U.S. military needing to occupy Saudi Arabia to help Kuwait while angering powerful people like Osama Bin Laden, and the list goes on and on. Nobody is totally right, and nobody is totally wrong in all of these examples.

The point is that all of these problems seem to be closely related to geopolitics. This, of course, is something that a space colony or space colonies will not solve but at least help ease.

Religion, nothing else needs to be said.

Finally, there are other extreme ideologies that result in conflicting behaviors and conflicts within societies. KKK, God Hates Fags group, gangs, Hell's Angels - let them stay in hell unless they denounce their association with the group, terrorists, etc. are just a few examples.

Imagine space colonies, and within each colony there would be similar ideologies. I actually believe that the people who are not beholden to this Earth and are interested in pursuing and living in peace and progression rather than being stuck in their destructive religions and whatnot will only need one or only a few kinds of space colonies.

As for technology, I saw, http://space.io9.com/the-space-station-now-has-manufacturing-capability-1663507012/+riamisra and it made me realize that we don't have much of an excuse not to start working on a space colony. I also think that with proper 3D printers, we would be able to recycle almost everything with the Sun's input as energy to do it.

Remember, this isn't going to be perfect. But we see how good life is here in Canada and the U.S. even though it is not perfect. War on our soils is looming, and it seems to be that many of the reasons are geopolitical.

So is it time to start working on a space colony?

 

[Bronzeage]

Why do you think things would be any better on another planet?

Here's a practical idea. Find an inhospitable place on Earth, somewhere it is nearly impossible for humans to survive. Perhaps Antarctica, or some high desert plateau. Set up a mock space colony in one of these places, just to see how it works out.

This is not a new idea, except the colonies were on another continent, not another planet.

 

[ryan]

Why do you think things would be any better on another planet?

Here's a practical idea. Find an inhospitable place on Earth, somewhere it is nearly impossible for humans to survive. Perhaps Antarctica, or some high desert plateau. Set up a mock space colony in one of these places, just to see how it works out.

This is not a new idea, except the colonies were on another continent, not another planet.

I am asking if it is time to start work on leaving the planet. Please read the whole OP; you will get a better feel for what I want to talk about.

 

[Mageth]

I'll see if I can squeeze working on leaving the planet into my busy schedule working on extending life.

 

[rousseau]

The predominant idea behind venturing into space, as I understand it, is to extend the reach of human life outward into the universe, not ease population pressures. This won't solve the problems you mention, it will just mean that the same problems still exist on earth, while we create new problems elsewhere in the universe.

I think it would be a better idea to put our resources toward making the earth itself more habitable, then worry about sending some of our population into space.

 

[Valjean]

All it would take is one paranoid or ambitious demagogue to curdle your homogenized colony.

 

[ryan]

The predominant idea behind venturing into space, as I understand it, is to extend the reach of human life outward into the universe, not ease population pressures. This won't solve the problems you mention, it will just mean that the same problems still exist on earth, while we create new problems elsewhere in the universe.

I think it would be a better idea to put our resources toward making the earth itself more habitable, then worry about sending some of our population into space.

But think about it this way rousseau; our existence here on Earth is also the problem for much of the population and biosphere. We have progressed so far beyond many societies and other species that it isn't natural for us to integrate into the planet anymore. A responsible society realizes this, and should take it upon themselves to let them the rest evolve naturally - like we did.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

It's time to start working on it, but it will be centuries at a minimum before space colonies go an iota towards solving any problems on Earth or have any value beyond narrow scientific concerns. It won't be like going across the Atlantic to America where you could, essentially, just hop off the boat and start living. Everywhere that you could get to would be less hospitable than the least hospitable places on Earth and you'd be completely reliant on the technology that you bring with you without any backup plan to bail you out in the case of emergency.

Even if you have a space colony devoted to a specific ideology, that specificity won't last beyond the first generation and then the new people living there will rework it according to their own ideas. It doesn't matter if you build a space station devoted to peace and harmony if your grandkids decide that they want to take the cool shit that the guys on the neighbouring space station developed. It doesn't matter if you build a Mormon utopia if your grandkids decide that everyone who doesn't accept Allah as the One True God needs to be strapped to a rocket and shot into the sun. It doesn't matter if you create a society dedicated to Biblical fundamentalism if you forget to disable the science books on the server and all your children become atheists. Saying that those dissidents can just go and live on another space station would be about as rational and valid an argument as saying that if Americans don't like George W Bush they can just move to Canada. The space station / colony will be their home and they will reshape the customs and beliefs of their home as they see fit as opposed to what some dead ancestors wanted the place to be like.

 

[Bronzeage]

Why do you think things would be any better on another planet?

Here's a practical idea. Find an inhospitable place on Earth, somewhere it is nearly impossible for humans to survive. Perhaps Antarctica, or some high desert plateau. Set up a mock space colony in one of these places, just to see how it works out.

This is not a new idea, except the colonies were on another continent, not another planet.

I am asking if it is time to start work on leaving the planet. Please read the whole OP; you will get a better feel for what I want to talk about.

I did read your post, and many others like it. Why do you think a journey through space will change human nature, or do you think the selection process will somehow filter out unharmonious types?

We've already solved the engineering obstacles to getting humans into space. It is expensive and there is very little in the way of useful materials, close at hand. If you really think this is a solution, you should address the practical problems of colonizations, which are first, the financing of the endeavor, and second, surviving in an inhospitable environment. If you want to start work on leaving the planet, those are the immediate problems.

 

[ryan]

All it would take is one paranoid or ambitious demagogue to curdle your homogenized colony.

Sure, but every country faces this potential problem too. The colony/ies would be designed to minimize these potential problems as much as possible. We learn from our mistakes in the past and will continually try to avoid new mistakes.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

We learn from our mistakes and will continually try to avoid new mistakes.

You and I have read very different history books.

 

[PyramidHead]

Somebody's watched Interstellar.

I don't agree that isolating people based on their ideologies is healthy in the long run, because new generations of people will not necessarily share the ideology of their parents. It also stifles creativity by limiting people's interaction with individuals who espouse other ideas. Finally, within a group of likeminded people, humans will find a way to divide themselves. Imagine the first Christians, who dreamed of a place where everybody is Christian. Now, such a place could have hundreds of distinct denominations. Over time, the probability of a sub-ideology splintering off approaches 1, obeying a kind of cultural entropy.

I am always suspicious of plans to engineer away our problems from the top down. What do you do with people in a space colony who no longer share the ideology of everybody else there? What if their point of view doesn't correspond to any available space station? Do you give them a spaceship and send them on their way?

 

[Bronzeage]

Somebody's watched Interstellar.

I don't agree that isolating people based on their ideologies is healthy in the long run, because new generations of people will not necessarily share the ideology of their parents. It also stifles creativity by limiting people's interaction with individuals who espouse other ideas. Finally, within a group of likeminded people, humans will find a way to divide themselves. Imagine the first Christians, who dreamed of a place where everybody is Christian. Now, such a place could have hundreds of distinct denominations. Over time, the probability of a sub-ideology splintering off approaches 1, obeying a kind of cultural entropy.

I am always suspicious of plans to engineer away our problems from the top down. What do you do with people in a space colony who no longer share the ideology of everybody else there? What if their point of view doesn't correspond to any available space station? Do you give them a spaceship and send them on their way?

One of the things discovered by the settlers of the New England colonies, was the difficulty of keeping uniformity of belief in the second and third generation. All attempts to strengthen and unify the faith of the citizens by raising the standards and requirements to be accepted as God's "elect", simply discouraged people from even trying. The result was each American born generation was more dissolute and worldly than the one before.

 

[bilby]

We have been working on leaving the planet since at least the early 1930s. Most of the people who started this work were adherents to some pretty unpleasant ideologies; there is nothing whatsoever to suggest that an off-world colony would be better, politically, than any on-world colonies have been.

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEJ9HrZq7Ro[/YOUTUBE]

"And what is it that put America in the forefront of the nuclear nations? And what is it that will make it possible to spend 20 billion dollars of your money to put some clown on the moon?

Well, good old American know-how, that's what. As provided by good old Americans like Dr. Wernher von Braun".

 

[Keith&Co.]

Sure, but every country faces this potential problem too. The colony/ies would be designed to minimize these potential problems as much as possible. We learn from our mistakes in the past and will continually try to avoid new mistakes.

So, you're basically saying that the only chance of survival is to get off Earth.
So whoever doesn't make the cut for a colony or a generation ship will stay on Earth and die.
Well, that's easy, then. Just start killing off the people here that don't fit in to your ideal population of humanity. It's the same thing, right? Just faster? Less expensive?
Some quick artificial selection, slaughter anyone who disagrees with you and you'll have the perfect human civilization.

For a generation or two.... Maybe three.

How do you think that'll turn out in four or five hundred years, though? Is it going to remain perfect? Will it be sustainable? Or might there be problems down the line?

Is there anything you can think of that would make this method work differently on a spaceship?

I think any human population will come up with new ideas, or be attracted to old ideas that are 'prohibited.' Probably BECAUSE they're prohibited. You'd be better off getting humanity to change as a whole than try to filter out bad elements, whether you kill them off or just leave them behind to die.

 

[ryan]

It's time to start working on it, but it will be centuries at a minimum before space colonies go an iota towards solving any problems on Earth or have any value beyond narrow scientific concerns. It won't be like going across the Atlantic to America where you could, essentially, just hop off the boat and start living. Everywhere that you could get to would be less hospitable than the least hospitable places on Earth and you'd be completely reliant on the technology that you bring with you without any backup plan to bail you out in the case of emergency.

As the colonies grow so will the scientific and technological advancements.

Even if you have a space colony devoted to a specific ideology, that specificity won't last beyond the first generation and then the new people living there will rework it according to their own ideas.

Install a constitution, and nationalize it.

It doesn't matter if you build a space station devoted to peace and harmony if your grandkids decide that they want to take the cool shit that the guys on the neighbouring space station developed. It doesn't matter if you build a Mormon utopia if your grandkids decide that everyone who doesn't accept Allah as the One True God needs to be strapped to a rocket and shot into the sun.

Why doesn't that happen in the U.S. It doesn't happen because how the U.S. was engineered. The founding fathers of Canada and the U.S. took many things into consideration like religious extremism and freedom of religion, something that was not new to anyone.

It doesn't matter if you create a society dedicated to Biblical fundamentalism if you forget to disable the science books on the server and all your children become atheists. Saying that those dissidents can just go and live on another space station would be about as rational and valid an argument as saying that if Americans don't like George W Bush they can just move to Canada.

When people are brought up in certain paradigms, cultures, societies, etc. they typically don't stray from the "norm". Some do, but a sociological adaptive radiation is to be expected as with other populations of life that evolve. They can get together peacefully and do their own thing as long as they don't break the laws. Then they will one day leave the colony to start there own colony. But this may not ever happen happen if the colony works well.

The people willing to walk away from Earth are going to be progressive in nature. They will not let their religions get in the way of the new nation. Conservative type people will naturally want to stay on Earth. They just have that mindset.

 

[ryan]

I am asking if it is time to start work on leaving the planet. Please read the whole OP; you will get a better feel for what I want to talk about.

I did read your post, and many others like it. Why do you think a journey through space will change human nature, or do you think the selection process will somehow filter out unharmonious types?

I think that when people are happy and comfortable, they will be peaceful. We know this because religions are mixed in many countries that do not kill each other.

The superpowers and many other rich countries are giving off too much "social, political and economic pollution" for these other countries to have a chance like Canada and the U.S. did. We both gained power relatively quick and never looked back. We were lucky because the French, Spanish and English totally weakened each other which allowed our independences to go much more smoothly than if they didn't battle each other so much, well at least ours went smoothly.

If China and Russia become the next superpowers, then we will probably end up in civil wars, religious conflicts and other scrambles for power.

We've already solved the engineering obstacles to getting humans into space. It is expensive and there is very little in the way of useful materials, close at hand. If you really think this is a solution, you should address the practical problems of colonizations, which are first, the financing of the endeavor, and second, surviving in an inhospitable environment. If you want to start work on leaving the planet, those are the immediate problems.

I addressed this when I mentioned in the OP that 3D printers will let us reuse material. We may not need much more than we leave with.

 

[ryan]

We learn from our mistakes and will continually try to avoid new mistakes.

You and I have read very different history books.

No no no, it all evolved over the last 600 years. The Western World went through a continuous evolution. Much of the social structures that exist today came from structures that worked in the past and because structures that didn't work did not last.

You absolutely must see the big picture of the evolution of the Western world and some other parts of the world from the 1400's until now. Things really did get better.

 

[ryan]

Somebody's watched Interstellar.

Interstellar, are you serious? How about every 2nd sci-fi book and movie ever created and not Interstellar? If anything, you should have said something like Elysium.

I don't agree that isolating people based on their ideologies is healthy in the long run, because new generations of people will not necessarily share the ideology of their parents.

I don't know anyone who is anti-American. Although we hear about 1 or 2 that are, but they usually have a past connection to another part of the world.

It also stifles creativity by limiting people's interaction with individuals who espouse other ideas.

Thank god the early settlers did not care about stifling creativity. It all depends on what you value I guess. Nobody is going to force you on to the colony - I don't think.

Finally, within a group of likeminded people, humans will find a way to divide themselves. Imagine the first Christians, who dreamed of a place where everybody is Christian. Now, such a place could have hundreds of distinct denominations. Over time, the probability of a sub-ideology splintering off approaches 1, obeying a kind of cultural entropy.

Then let it divide. My may reason to leave is the unresolvable geopolitical problems.

I am always suspicious of plans to engineer away our problems from the top down. What do you do with people in a space colony who no longer share the ideology of everybody else there? What if their point of view doesn't correspond to any available space station? Do you give them a spaceship and send them on their way?

Well, this wouldn't happen in the first generation because these people would still have a nation to go back home to. Not to mention that they would be idiots and totally weak people who can change a major part of their belief system in a few years. The second generation should have no reason to want to change if they are happy at all - if nobody is happy, then whole damn thing will be over with anyways. But if some people in the second generation are not happy, then hopefully they can go back to Earth or if there is enough of them, they can work on leaving the colony with their own colony.

 

[ryan]

We have been working on leaving the planet since at least the early 1930s. Most of the people who started this work were adherents to some pretty unpleasant ideologies; there is nothing whatsoever to suggest that an off-world colony would be better, politically, than any on-world colonies have been.

If you read my OP, you would know that the point is that progressive minded people are a cancer on those who aren't and vice-versa. It is only fitting and obvious that progressive minded people are more capable and have more of an interest in leaving.

The world will have one less ideology to fight. Let Earth be for conservative minded people because is where they would naturally want to be anyways.

But if conservative minded people want to leave too, by all means nobody should stop them.