>Massive coral die off from ocean acidification.
>Rising sea levels salinating farm lands.
>Rising sea levels causing saltwater contamination of aquifers.
>Falling fish populations due to above factors as well as over fishing and pollution
And then we have the space-people telling us that Terraformed Mars is achievable/desirable/affordable when I'm not even sure my family will be able to grow food on our land in 40 years.
I'm sorry. You won't. It won't get better. Please move before everyone starts moving.
Like you’re right, the inertia of established countries probably holds us back a lot, but I’m unsure that we have evolved sufficiently to do better. It’s possible to imagine, but it doesn’t seem like an obvious outcome just yet.
See for example
The Better Angels of Our Nature: A History of Violence and Humanity, by Steven Pinker https://www.amazon.com/Better-Angels-Our-Nature-Violence/dp/...
Or the first chapter of Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World, by Rutger Bregman https://www.amazon.com/Utopia-Realists-Build-Ideal-World/dp/...
But it has also gotten much much worse in others (environmental destruction, military capability).
We can't just focus on one aspect and neglect the other. One doesn't take away the magnitude of the other. The magnitudes of the bad as well as the good are both enormous.
Who is doing that? I said "That's not to say there aren't big issues, or no things that have gotten worse, but there's a clear and very strong overall trend."
When you look at the magnitudes it's clear that overall the direction is overwhelmingly in the positive direction.
You say it has "gotten much much worse in others (environmental destruction, military capability)". I agree in the case of environmental issues. But if you're talking about wars and violence (and in what other sense could military capabilities be bad?) things have gotten much better not worse.
No, we are quickly and increasingly progressing towards depleting all our means for life on Earth. And our current response to that is massively inadequate. This nullifies all other progress.
> and in what other sense could military capabilities be bad
With more military power it becomes easier to oppress and harder to revolt against bad politics. Democracy relies in some part in the potential of people to revolt.
All our means for life? That's hyperbole.
It's a serious problem, but it doesn't allow you to pretend that all that progress hasn't happened and hasn't made a difference to people's lives.
> With more military power it becomes easier to oppress and harder to revolt against bad politics. Democracy relies in some part in the potential of people to revolt.
It's unclear what you're referring to. Are you saying there has actually been greater oppression because of greater military power? That this has increased over time?
And you'd start a settlement on Mars just because you don't like some of the social systems?
just buy yourself an island from a govt somewhere, that would be cheaper and far more manageable.
- One is that it is a hell of a lot harder to cheat on Mars than it is in the remotes of Earth. Once you establish the outpost, its not like you can just call in a maintenance team and have assistance at your door within a few days. This forces teams to find ways to make it work. This also makes it much harder for changes in leadership to cancel the mission.
- The other is that developing tech for extraordinarily hostile remote environments tends to produce more potent solutions because the cost of not being sustainable is so much greater.
- Near identical day/night cycles to Earth, and it even has seasons.
- Extremely calm weather. One thing some may not know is that the 'sand storm' used to create the precipitating disaster in 'The Martian' was intentionally faked. Mars minimal atmospheric density means a hurricane would feel like a slight breeze. That a hard sci-fi book had to turn to complete fiction to create a disaster scenario speaks for itself.
- Extensive mineral and elemental resources. Another issue 'The Martian' got wrong was accidental. One of the big problems that was solved in the movie was finding water. This was before Curiosity discovered there's water everywhere. You can get about a liter of water from a single cubic foot of Martian soil. And of course the atmosphere is loaded with CO2. That's not only what plants crave, but you've also got great potential there for something like the Sabatier reaction which combines CO2 and hydrogen to produce methane (which can be used, among other things, as rocket fuel) with water as a byproduct. Of course you can even just split the CO2 into carbon monoxide and oxygen -- this will be one of the critical experiments on MOXIE, part of NASA's Mars 2020 rover. We haven't been able to discern the exact mineral resources, but there's no doubt they're there - and vast.
- It's big. The surface area of Mars is oddly enough near identical to the land area of Earth above sea level.
- Comparable temperatures. The moon ranges from -260 to +280 degrees fahrenheit. By contrast Mars ranges from -195 to 70 degrees. And there are seasons. That -195 on Mars is during winter on the poles, granted that 70 degrees is on the equator during summer. But in general there are many places on Mars where the temperature would regularly be quite reasonable at many times.
There are many other reasons as well. These are mostly just off the cuff, though it's obviously a topic I'm invested and interested in. By contrast when you look at places like the Moon, really it's only benefit is that its close to Earth. But in terms of potential and environment, the Moon is to Mars, as Mars is to Earth.
- Very dense rich atmosphere, carbon dioxide 96.5%
- The pressure at its surface is equivalent to that at a depth of nearly 1 km under Earth's oceans; while it is 20 times less dense than fluid water
- It is the closest planet to Earth and has similar mass and size
- It has stable constant surface temperatures everywhere at any time around 450 C
Most semiconductors will not work in this conditions. This is the problem we may need to solve first.
Once all the techs have matured on the Moon then Mars is just a longer trip.
He writes "It is ultimately much easier to journey to Mars from low Earth orbit than from the moon".
His argument is completely different and unrelated and not the point at all. No-one is arguing about where to start a journey to Mars from. The point is that settling on the Moon is an obvious first step.
Yes it is.
What benefit do we get from this?
It means we could go there more frequently. I don't see why that itself is reason enough for it, once you consider all the other pros and cons.
It does not mean it requires less fuel to get there. The fuel requirements are primarily for getting into orbit. Once there it doesn't really matter the distance you travel.
> It is obviously a much better ground to learn to live in a self-sustained way on another planet.
It is not obviously so. The wikipedia link I provided goes into this a bit, and Zubrin goes into much more detail in his book.
If it's so obviously better, why don't you outline the reasons why it's meant to be better.
> The point is that settling on the Moon is an obvious first step.
But you haven't argued this point, aside from saying it's closer to us and asserting that "It is obviously a much better ground to learn to live in a self-sustained way".
I think there's pretty good historical evidence of this. The establishment of the USA is an example.
It can be a good way to, over time, enact change within the established societies.
A similar argument can be made that the unique technological challenges involved will spur innovation that will again help deal with problems in the established societies.