Re:SpaceX's Valuation Climbs to $25B with New Funding Round
by lz400 on Friday April 13, 2018 @04:43AM
(#16828101)
I think we'll achieve singularity level mind uploading before anyone physically goes to any other planet. And, to be honest, makes a lot more sense to do it that way. Carrying humans around, with limited lifespans and feeble bodies, makes space travel wasteful and stupid. All those problems dissapear once people are only software. I even think trying is a waste of time, I wished Musk was focused on brain research, not rockets.
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Re:SpaceX's Valuation Climbs to $25B with New Funding Round
by ben_w on Friday April 13, 2018 @05:37AM
(#16828347)
Disagree. The tech to reach Mars has already been invented, and while the cost needs to decline Musk has a plan to get there from here; conversely nobody yet knows how much we have yet to learn about brain function in order to make the simulations people instead of p-zombies (or even non-functional, not sure which is worse), and right now (despite Musk’s brain interface side project) full brain scanning requires death.
Further, the only estimate I have for how much processing power will be needed to simulate a human brain in real time is 10^19 flops, which means Moore’s Law needs to carry on for another 25 years just for the hardware to beat Musk’s Mars ticket price.
Re:SpaceX's Valuation Climbs to $25B with New Funding Round
by lz400 on Friday April 13, 2018 @08:11AM
(#16829197)
One thing is having the technology to send a rocket to Mars, another thing to have a completely functional and self-sustaining colony, that doesn't depend on Earth supplies and that offers the possibility of a life that is not just growing potatoes and looking at rocks from the habitat's window. I suspect we're hundreds of years from the latter.
Re:SpaceX's Valuation Climbs to $25B with New Funding Round
by ben_w on Friday April 13, 2018 @08:44AM
(#16829422)
That’s reasonable, but you did originally say “physically goes to” rather than “colonises”.
Re:SpaceX's Valuation Climbs to $25B with New Funding Round
by lz400 on Saturday April 14, 2018 @07:51AM
(#16836939)
I think it's possibly the same or similar. I don't buy the pioneering mission with people who go knowing that they're not going to get back and possibly die of radiation exposure. I think nobody is going up there until there's a lot more tech in place, at least at the level of The Martian, ie: knowing how to get them back and guaranteeing survival
Re:SpaceX's Valuation Climbs to $25B with New Funding Round
by trixie_ on Friday April 13, 2018 @05:05AM
(#16828198)
A single ballistic missile sub has the potential to nuke 192 cities in a single go.
Better hope your singularity/mind uploading stuff happens before then. Maybe if there were some people left on Mars after the nuclear holocaust we would of had a better chance.