Will the first pair of boots belong to a human or to a robot?

a reply to: schuyler

I think you're completely misunderstanding my post. I'm not talking about race or ethnicity or snowflakes or whatever. I thought you were referring to an extinction level event when you mentioned the "next asteroid" that we'd better be ready to move or move out of the way of. I don't think it's hard to see that when a real disaster strikes, the wealthy &/or powerful are the first to be evacuated.

Remember the high tech secret nuclear bunkers during the Cold War? Those weren't meant for normal civilians; they were for the most powerful political leaders and insiders. Look at anytime there's a hurricane approaching. It's the poor people who have the hardest time evacuating while the wealthier can afford to leave (literally). When 9/11 happened and everyone was in a panic, President Bush and his entourage were secretly whisked away until things calmed down. Even today's health care has some expensive medical treatments that are only available to those who can afford them.

I simply don't see any of these govts rounding up and evacuating all or even most of its citizens in order to "save humankind". Right now, there are roughly 7.5 billion humans and growing. There's no way we could also have colonies with room and accommodations for the whole of humankind on other planets. Especially not with all of the "cut taxes, low spending, austerity" policies in govts today. Politicians and their supporters alike would never stand for spending all of that additional money for colonies that are strictly for backup plans. They don't even want to spend additional money in poor neighborhoods or to end world hunger or homelessness, now. But they'll suddenly want to build additional emergency accommodations for those people on Mars?

That's why I think it will keep going back to the wealthy and powerful first (when the next asteroid hits). If we can build colonies, then cities, then states throughout the solar system before the next asteroid, then the situation would start to change. But in the case of an extinction level event anytime in the near future, I'd stand by my previous answer.

originally posted by: enlightenedservant
a reply to: schuyler

I think you're completely misunderstanding my post.

I like to use that line, too. But you were RESPONDING to my previous post, which led me to believe you were the one misunderstanding me. You went off on a tangent suggesting the rich and powerful were the first to be "saved" when I wasn't talking about that sort of scenario AT ALL. I wasn't suggesting AT ALL that once an asteroid was to hit everyone would be in a mad scramble to get to Mars. From the very beginning I have been suggesting that we establish a sustainable colony on Mars AHEAD of any potential disaster. In other words: Double our chances of survival as a species. We're never going to be in a position to "save everyone." If it comes down to it, if an ELE asteroid hits Earth, everybody dies. Too bad.

But the Mars colony lives on, potentially to repopulate the Earth. Or Terraform Mars. THAT'S what I was talking about and the main point I was trying to get across. I really couldn't give a rat's patootie about the rich and powerful being the first to survive or any of the political ramifications. As far as I'm concerned, you're the one who missed my point by going off in left field lamenting the rich and powerful, which you appear to still be doing. All I care about is that the species survives, and it doesn't matter much who does and who doesn't.

originally posted by: schuyler

originally posted by: 11andrew34

Overall, I believe humanity should learn to take better care of Earth and really master our domain. Machine life would do amazing things with Mars.

There is that sentiment, of course. But machine life on Mars misses the overall issue. We need a stable, sustainable colony of humans somewhere away from Earth--not robots: humans. When the next asteroid hits, we'd better be ready to move it out of our way or move ourselves out of its way. Eventually, we have to be out of this solar system, too, but that is likely out of the question for our generation. Small steps, but we've got to make them.

I am NOT arguing from sentiment. We do not need an asteroid backup plan any more than we need any other backup plan for an unlikely event that is all but impossible to prepare for currently. The smart move is rolling the dice on an extremely low-risk event for another one or two hundred years until such a time as it is practical to invest in luxury backup systems for extremely low risk events.

Furthermore, what you want isn't even currently possible. Starting an unsustainable Mars colony now will offer no increased likelihood for survival whatsoever as it will be dependent on Earth. In the mean time, we are far more likely to be destroyed in a wide variety of other ways that we need to focus on for now.

Are you familiar with the concept of opportunity cost? Spending so much on an enormously expensive and yet feeble Mars colony would crowd out sensible pursuits and real progress.

While I disagree vehemently that asteroid preparation should be a species wide priority, taking it seriously for a moment, I think that what you really want is ocean habitation and deep underground habitation. Heck, we don't even have a sustainable population in Antarctica. If we can't do it on Antarctica first, then why go all the way to Mars?

There is so much work to do on Earth first that would keep the human species alive through all the asteroid strikes which we can practically do something about. Unlike a sustainable and independent Mars colony, many are near term achievable goals. Beyond the Earth, sustainable orbital habitat would seem far more potentially useful than an extremely remote Martian colony.

I understand that whoever invented the wheel may have dreamed of traveling to other stars, but there are a lot of intermediate steps, most of which can not be skipped, and some of which should not be skipped. What if the inventor of the wheel had instead only dreamed of traveling to other stars?

Robots are first already in our solar system. Maybe we will merge with robots and both of us will set boots at the same time on next planets.