False dichotomies are knee jerk response to certain flavours of progressive ideas. It's like "we should not go to mars until we've cured poverty/loneliness/inequality/evil on earth." You'll usually find such comments on any space related thread. "Nobody talks about" is almost always untrue. Usually, it's followed by a cliche, something that someone inevitably talks about. Someone always questions whether progress is actually good, even if the progress is something like not dying from cancer.

I don't particularly subscribe to romantic notions of causes worth dying for, but you can still die for a cause if aging isn't a thing. I daresay cannon fodder will exist, in some form... and it will be romanticised in the same way.

Causes worth dedicating life to... that tends to be more useful than dying for causes. In that frame, you have more to give if you have more life.

> "we should not go to mars until we've cured poverty/loneliness/inequality/evil on earth." You'll usually find such comments on any space related thread.

For what it’s worth, I used to find the arguments that we should put the brightest minds on space exploration over eliminating suffering as concrete, but nowadays.. can’t say they those arguments seem as watertight.. saying that as someone whose hands have touched some of these projects. Curious if others feel the same way or have points to make in the opposite direction

I think broad goals like "eliminating suffering" or "fighting poverty" tend to be in a hard to tackle middle ground.

We're better off approaching them either more broadly or more narrowly. IE, we can dedicate resources to tighter goals, like reducing childhood mortality... a horrendous thing that most people suffered for most of humanity. We really made a lot of progress on this.

Alternatively, we can think of it more broadly... advancing as a species, culture and society. In that sense, space travel is a good idea.

Tackling the elimination of suffering head on is likely to resolve to "be a politician/priest/lawyer" or somesuch.

In any case, I think the mistake is thinking of everything as competitive, at a broad level. Rather, people tend to see ambitious, "humanities' first" goals as competitive with "eliminating suffering" or other broad goals. It's rare to hear people think that sports or cinema are competitive with the elimination of suffering.

I would much prefer my longer, cushier life today than dying for some "noble cause" a hundred years ago. Most people probably share this sentiment.

I do not need a cause others find noble. I will make my own. And I do not need anyone evaluating if my life is worth extending. What I need is more quality time with the people I love.

"There used to be noble causes worth dying for."

That sounds a lot like propaganda line from a book of previous victors who got to write the history.

While I think you are not completely off - there were just undertakings that needed sacrifice of human lives - this line of thinking seems to be stained forever through constant cynical abuse by the powers that be and powers that aspire to be.

An opportunity to die is unlikely to ever become in shortage any time soon.

Like what? I can’t think of a greater accomplishment than defeating death.