> Instead of parroting what you read on social media, how about doing a bit of critical thinking on this

Totally unnecessary. That gratuitous dig doesn't advance your argument at all.

> What about all the resources going into video games, sports, movies, music, amusements parks, television, weapons systems, desserts, travel and vacations, etc?

That doesn't seem like it's u/paxys issue to address. The person they responded to made a _very_ strong claim: "The single most important job humanity has is to get our eggs into more than one basket".

It seems entirely consistent with both the original argument and the reply that humans could have two very important jobs to address (climate change, and becoming multi-planetary) and still have resources to dedicate to all those other things you describe.

> Do you make the same tired comments when those industries are brought up?

I would make a similar argument that u/paxys made if the amusement park industry claimed that building amusement parks was the single most important job that humanity had. Similarly, for sports, video games movies, or most other industries. Claiming the mantle of "the most important job humanity has" is a very big claim.

> And that's not even getting into the fact that multiple things can be done by humanity at once.

u/paxys didn't say that we could only address one thing at a time. They were disagreeing with the claim that becoming multiplanetary is the single most important job humanity has. Disagreeing with which singular job we have is the "most important" one makes absolutely no claim as to how we should be dividing our time.

Ultimately, I actually agree with the original poster that becoming multiplanetary and multistellar is an important feat we should be aggressively perusing. But I also think surviving any extinction-event filters that may come along the way is equally important.

> Totally unnecessary

Good point, I should have restrained myself here.

The rest of your comments would be fair, except that u/paxys said the following:

> There is enough time to think about colonizing the stars after that.

Which clearly indicates that we should not be working on space travel until AFTER we've solved humanity's problems.

> There is enough time to think about colonizing the stars after that.

I didn't read it as indicating that we should fully postpone humanity's problems. For example, the next few sentences read:

> The world isn't going to end because his next launch is a month late due to pesky safety regulations or whatever else. This effort is going to play out over many generations and centuries.

That indicates to me that the delay the person is considering is on the order of the delay imposed by FCC regulations (i.e. months or years), not "start working on it after we've solved humanity's problems".

But that's just how it reads to me

Those comments were added after I responded. In fact it's still being edited. This was the entirety of the comment I responded to:

> The single most important job for humanity right now is to save this one planet we have from destruction. There is enough time to think about colonizing the stars after that.

The nation with the largest amount of military force and nuclear weapons, as well as control of the globally used & prized currency ($ USD), and even the universal language of the skies (well, maybe you could say it's England's language, but the central power of the U.S. is the reason it's the language of the skies), has around 1/3rd of it's nation that actively would like to see at least an other 1/3 of it's nation die, and said other 1/3 really only wants to get things like nationwide enforcement of basic human rights (like in all other, I think, 32 of 33 highly developed nations do), and to actually embody the meaning of "welfare state" that the U.S. has been defined as for... idk how long tbh, but for quite some time - Along with a want for the aforementioned 1/3rd not wanting to literally kill them.

And they're simply unable to come to any understanding, after decades of botched discourse.

I don't see how some group of people focusing on space travel as a way to potentially divert the end of humanity as something that bad

This whole "whatever I don't like and/or understand isn't worth doing" philosophy is just not interesting. Humanity is not a hivemind. We can do more than one thing. History has countless examples of innovation in one area leading to breakthroughs in another. Just make your own contribution to humanity where you can, we will be fine.

That's true most of the time. Where it falls down is in cases where it's not "we".

There's plenty of orgs doing worthwhile and important space exploration.

There's a bunch of individuals destroying this planet who want to go to space and are selling a nice colonists fantasy to get backing.

You're right that it's not either or: let's continue supporting viable space efforts. But let's not be naive about it.

Your comment sounds like you should be supporting SpaceX. SpaceX is one of the only orgs that has re-used orbital class rockets for useful payloads.

I am. SpaceX is cool (as is the OP article).

This particular thread of comments is specifically about Mars colonisation.

GP: >> The single most important job humanity has is to get our eggs into more than one basket.

OP: > The single most important job for humanity right now is to save this one planet we have from destruction.

You're arguing with nobody's point.

I'm arguing with this:

> There is enough time to think about colonizing the stars after that.

Which directly states that problems should be worked on serially - that space travel should be worked on AFTER we solve other problems.

Yes we can do multiple things at once. In the thread you joined we are discussing the single most important thing. So what really is your point here?

Your comment clearly indicates that we should hold on on space travel until after other problems are solved.

"Clearly" is a bit too much, given that you've had to comment multiple times to people who didn't read it that way.

Can you explain what you meant by that comment then?

You said that GP "clearly" intended one thing, yet I've seen you in two other threads with people who did not share your reading of those words.

It's fine to state your own reading of what they said and respond in kind, but dictating that your reading is universal when your comment is directly under evidence that it is not is a big leap.

It's basic English dude, let's not complicate it. It's very easy to see what was meant by that, and it's a common sentiment all over the internet that these "space barons" should reallocate their resources towards saving the planet.

If you insist on using 3rd party interpretation rather than 1st party intent to decide the meaning of a statement, I've got 16 upvotes on my comments here so others seem to be reading it the same as I.

But we don't need to vote to understand what "until after" means. It's not esoteric philosophical language - my 6 year old would understand it.

>If you insist on using 3rd party interpretation rather than 1st party intent to decide the meaning of a statement, I've got 16 upvotes on my comments here so others seem to be reading it the same as I

"Argument by upvote" is weak, especially in a forum where I can't actually see your comments vote totals.

Also, you are not the first party, so why do you feel so confident in being able to claim sole interpretation of "1st party intent."

They clearly meant that that space colonization was such a far off goal, that the difference in intensely focusing on it and moderately focusing on it won't cause measurable differences in our lifetime.

Or they didn't, I'm not a mind-reader, but I've given just as much evidence to back up that claim as you have yours.

I don't know first party intent, which I why I asked the user directly in this exact thread, but instead you responded. They still haven't said what they mean.

> They dwarf everything put into space exploration

If you want to make it into a discussion about comparing & contrasting impacts, you're going to have to take the collective impacts of those pushing the space-colony agenda: everything from perpetuating individual road transport & UK airline companies to the largest "bookstore" in the world and lots in between.

Space exploration is an extremely important and worthy scientific endeavour & orgs like NASA have been criminally underfunded for decades.

What is absolutely not worthwhile and shouldn't even uttered in the same breath as the history of efforts on ISS and similar, is a bunch of budding space cowboys sending phallic representations of themselves into orbit on PR missions and hiding their own destructive impact on our planet behind a colinist fantasy so thin only a complete scientific illeterate would fall for it.

SpaceX has contributed positively to benign public missions by being a contractor, but all the marketing bullshit outside of that around Mars is demonstrably nonsense.

> a bit of critical thinking

Indeed.

Who looks at a rocket and thinks "Hmm, I bet the engineers could have gone with a more efficient design, but they decided to go with a dick?"

Like do people really think that there's better shapes to go with? And if people really believe this, what part of our public education system failed them most? Because my money is on critical thinking.

Well if you're really looking for alternative shapes, one of the Mars fantasists I was alluding to actually went to space recently in a rather flat triangular vehicle. Which is of course completely irrelevant when one is evoking a male ego megaphor and not opening an engineering discussion on aerodynamics. I would have hoped critical thinking could also help with that distinction in topics.

Fwiw, I'm at least glad that single word seems to be the only part of the comment above you found objectionable.

Lol, the last time NASA built a space plane to do real work in space, it was grossly inefficient than the previous giant dick it replaced, wildly more dangerous, and NASA had to attach it to three other dicks just to get it to space.

Face it man, people making fun of dick shaped rockets are seeing dicks where no one else is seeing them and calling themselves clever.

"Lol", "Face it man", you're laser-focused in on a tiny, fairly irrelevant detail of my comment while very ardently ignoring the substantive points. No-one cares what shape the rockets are.

Fwiw the space plane I was referring to above was SS2, not a NASA vehicle. But yes, I agree, it is unlikely to be good for doing "real work in space". Which is the actual substantive point here, irrespective of vehicle shape.

Just to repeat since you seem to have missed it in my comment above: the phallic comment was not, I repeat NOT a literal commentary on rocket design. Yes, good rockets are long and cylindrical. Not what I was referring to.

You really want me to speak to your point where you claim Jeff Bezos is starting a space tourism business for the explicit purpose of hiding Amazon's environmental impact, all while doing it with giant dicks?