As the legend George Carlin once said, “the planet is fine, the people are fucked”. Although most animals and a bunch of plants are fucked too.

Now that being said, I don’t think that means we should start colonizing Mars or that things would be any better out there.

[1]: https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/earth-lost-60-per-cent-of-...

I don't think humans will be around long enough to deflect an asteroid that's big enough to do this, as it could easily be hundred or thousands or tens of thousands of years before it might get hit by one big enough to do this again.

When I was young I would assume we would be around that long, but I don't see a path to escaping our own destruction (possibly not total, but 90% or more of the total population, probably) within the next few hundred years at most, possibly sooner.

And if you get to the point in which you can terraform mars then fixing the earth would be again far easier unless all biomass somehow dies and there is no atmosphere left and earth somehow loses its magnetic field.

At best mars might serve as a temporary lifeboat but even then if you have the technology to sustain life on mars you would be better off building protected habitats on earth.

Yes, “humanity” will be in the universe, but they will not be one homogenous culture. What’s the probability that Martian humans will get jealous of Earth’s vast and plentiful resources in 100 - 200 years, and they wage open nuclear and biological war on Earth to wipe out all Earthling humans? Based on what I know about humans, the probability this happens approaches 1 as time moves forward.

And how will they evolve? What will they look like in 1000 years? 1 million? We don’t know of any alien species now, but if we send humans out into the stars we will essentially be creating a new evolutionary branch of spacefaring humanoid aliens. What kind of aliens will they be? The friendly kind that sends scientists to other planets to study their ways? Or will they be warlike aliens from Independence Day, roaming the cosmos like Genghis Khan and consuming all in their path? Again, based on what I know about humanity, we will be both, but the latter could show up one day and just destroy Earth.

Personally I think none of this will happen. We will wipe ourselves off Earth before we can support autonomous space colonies. Likely we will fuck things up here and then our space colonies will shrivel and die from lack of supplies.

Imagine an alternate history where Britain never let colonists go to the Americas on the assumption that either Britain would collapse before the colonies became self-sustaining or the colonies would become belligerent and conquer Britain. Now extrapolate out what the actual alternate-history would have likely been, and whether those concerns would have been wise or foolish.

History is filled with correct pessimists as well. Has anyone ever been wrong by predicting that humans competing for resources on a frontier will come into violent and deadly conflict with one another?

I realize it’s not a particularly deep or insightful thing to say, but there seems but be an unchecked optimism in these threads, one that builds a narrative of humanity spreading to the stars and filling the universe with our light. Meanwhile on Earth Prime we have famine, genocide, war, and an unquenchable need to consume and multiply. If Corona were sapient it would be making the same argument - we must spread to the stars to continue our existence! No one really stops to ask “why?”. Why should we spread to the stars? Why is the continued existence of our species important to the universe? Doesn’t this line of reasoning make humanity no better than a virus?

Imagine humanity coming across a planet filled with sapient alien trees. Completely defenseless and they have no concept of war. What would humans do at first chance? Slaughter them and use them for fuel or building materials. Is spreading the idea and practice of genocide across the universe really what’s best for anyone? What’s the other side of it? Is there an argument for why we should do this thing that isn’t grounded in selfishness?

It's important to us, which is the only criterion worth a damn when deciding what we should do.

Specifically, the continued existence of at least some members of the human species is probably the only ethical axiom that every single human on Earth can agree on. If you openly disagree - if you embrace the extinction of the human race as a personal goal - well I can only say that we are irredeemably enemies, and I will seek your destruction with proportionate effort to my estimate of your likelihood of succeeding, and I do not think I will be alone.

(This is not to say I do not also consider sapient alien trees worth preserving.)

But of course you're right - it would be extremely unethical to say the least to actually retaliate in a MAD scenario. This fact is well known and widely discussed.

You mean like the ones who were warning about how the world was woefully unprepared for a global pandemic? Or the ones who were warning about climate change?

Wouldn’t it be far cheaper for a Mars civilization to exploit the resources of the asteroids rather than bother earth? It’d be enormously uncomfortable for Mars adapted people to spend any time on earth. So if it’s neither economic to exploit earth resources nor would it be possible to enjoy a conquered earth, why ever bother? I guess if it’s possible for a 007 style mad scientist scenario to emerge it approaches 1 given enough time, however it could be so much time that the sun blows up or humanity spreads to other stars.

Once you have the ability for individuals to launch multi ton payloads on escape velocity, you have the ability for individuals to launch multi ton payloads at earth. While such an individual could target Mars and Earth, the implication of the technology level of a self sustaining mars base is that mankind will be spread throughout the solarsystem (at least the asteroids, venus clouds, mars, moon and earth), and at that stage wiping out the species becomes even harder.

An important plot point in Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" https://www.amazon.com/Moon-Is-Harsh-Mistress-audiobook/dp/B...

Depends on the resource. If they want milk and chicken for example, it might be better to get that from Earth.

> It’d be enormously uncomfortable for Mars adapted people to spend any time on earth.

They could breed a race of human slaves to work on Earth.

> I guess if it’s possible for a 007 style mad scientist scenario

I’m thinking more along the lines of a Martian Hitler scenario.

If we have a self-sustaining Mars colony as a given then wouldn’t it be more likely they have at least artificial substitutes for such things? I find it hard to believe we’d have total war erupting over what would essentially be artisanal foods. This is especially true if they’d only get delivery once every 26 months or so, and, if they were advanced enough that the relative position of the planets were no object then they’re even less likely to need anything Earth had or for Earth to have a monopoly on anything worth waging total war over.

> I’m thinking more along the lines of a Martian Hitler scenario.

Hitler got started in his conquests by securing land and resources lost or unavailable to Germany. What would motivate a Hitler in a self-sustaining Mars colony?

I don't think I stipulated to that. Sorry if I did, I didn't have that in mind.

> Hitler got started in his conquests by securing land and resources lost or unavailable to Germany. What would motivate a Hitler in a self-sustaining Mars colony?

That particular Hitler did, but others through history came to power through different means and circumstances. All that's required is the right mixture of psychopathy and narcissism, mixed with power and you've got yourself a budding Hitler. I think psychopathic narcissists are very good at finding power, so it's not really a question of "if" but "when" a psychopathic narcissist becomes in charge of Mars colony, and whether or not the guardrails of the society would hold (as they have in some Earthly societies when Hitlers have come to power) or if they would crumble and yield to an authoritarian dictator (as happened in Germany and other places where Hitlers took over).

Yes, going out into the stars sounds great and all, but one of the implications of that is that we spread human pathologies, which includes fascism and Nazism. That's basically the Empire in Star Wars. I just think that we have to be realistic and recognize that could happen sooner rather than later. What if Mars colony goes full fascist and decides they want to ethnically cleanse Earth for no other reason than they believe them to be inferior and impure? It's not like it hasn't happened before.

Wouldn't just buying stuff they need from Earth be much cheaper than exterminating all people on Earth and then repopulated with some new genetically engineered human species?

Moreover, wars and conquest are not rational endeavors that are undertaken after a careful cost/benefit analysis. WWII wasn’t exactly cost effective for anyone who started that war.

Anyway, the way I see it playing out would be that Earth, realizing they are Mars’ one and only lifeline, will do its best to squeeze Martians for everything they’ve got. It won’t be a mutually beneficial trading relationship between peer nation/planets, but an exploitive one where one party has much more power than the other. Probably a lot like Africa’s place in the world. Unfair and exploitive deals will be cut that reflect the power imbalance, which will brew resentment and envy, and ultimately conflict. This is how you start irrational wars.

There are lots of available resources on earth in abundance that aren't on asteroids. But yeah, they wouldn't be after metals

No, as Humanity is not a homogeneous culture here on Earth. We'll diverge as we make colonies a couple light-hours and we'll diverge a lot more when our worlds are separated by light-years and people and goods take centuries to go from one world to another. Hopefully we can invent some form of FTL travel or, at least, communication so we are less disconnected.

OTOH, wars get really complicated when the fleet takes a century to arrive at its destination, carrying 100 year old weapons.

Yes given infinite time we know humans are extinct. We will not survive the heat death of the universe. But i don't think this truism says much about whether or not creating a self sustaining colony on Mars will increase the longevity of our species.

The chances of some type of existential interplanetary war between Mars and earth is so much lower than than an existential earth war. It's really difficult to wage any type of meaningful war across planets. They're really far apart, and it's really expensive to leave Earth.

If the time it would take for a colony to not just self-sustain but grow is less than the time it will take before Earth's economy and industry become unstable, colonization doesn't help with single point of failure.

Look at what COVID and a handful of bad weather events have done over the years to major economic sectors and industries. The chip shortage is in part due to water shortage in Taiwan. Flooding a while back caused huge hard drive shortages. Etc.

Now imagine instead of the problem being "make enough pickup trucks", it's "put a bunch of electronics and equipment on a rocket and send it to a colony, or people start dying."

Talk of colonization efforts right now is like building a garage for the Ferrari you're going to buy some day. You just have to convince the HOA in your trailer park to accept the plans, and figure out how to use your lawnmower to bring home the lumber from Lowes...

Let's worry about colonization when we've sorted out how to live sustainably on this planet, and feeding/clothing/housing and medically caring for everyone who needs it...

This is dangerous because we don’t know how much of a window we have for doing these things. We have the capability to get into space and out of Earth’s gravity well now, but there’s no guarantee that we will continue to. It’s not hard to imagine that as part of efforts to “solve Earth’s problems”, the launch industry becomes restricted to satellite launches only and atrophies to a point where taking a crew beyond Earth’s orbit can’t be done without a decade+ of relearning.

Its better to continually develop these capabilities and make use of them so the field is always moving forward and more entities gain them, making them harder to lose.

We have enough people and resources to do that alongside environmental disaster prevention efforts… it’s just a matter of political will. If you ask me, the biggest problem that is in most dire need of solving at this particular moment is actually obstruction of environmental reform coming from powerful corporate entity superpolluters — chiefly, manufacturers, ocean cargo shippers, airlines, and the the oil industry that feeds all of them.

Someone in a trailer park isn't likely to ever get that Ferrari, so your scenario kinda begs the question that we're never going to be in a position to reach Mars after fixing the earth.

But I think your scenario is flawed anyway. We aren't living in a trailer park, we're in Holland and the dykes are breaking for the last time. Some of us (you, in my analogy) want to try and fix them again. Others (me, etc) want to build boats and send a colony elsewhere.

The plans aren't mutually exclusive. But it's foolish to do only one.

But more importantly, a Mars colony would require an incredibly stable society on earth. Because it would take decades and massive amounts of money — and that ain’t happening in the midst of societal collapse due to a failure to solve our problems here at home.

I’m a fan of space exploration, and I don’t think we should hit the breaks on it. But I don’t think we should be delusional to think there’s any realistic chance of it solving problems here on earth fast enough. Me must find a way to live sustainably here over the next few centuries.

The problem with Earth isn't Earth, it's us. Going to Mars isn't going to change everything about humans that has made us hellbent on destroying ourselves. It'll definitely be cool and exciting, and sure, maybe it'll offer some protection against a once-every-billion-years asteroid, but that is not the threat we face today. The threat we face today is ourselves. Going to another planet isn't going to fix that; it's just going to move the problem to a new place. At this stage in our development, thinking that colonizing Mars is going to solve our problems is like someone who has had a string of bad relationships thinking that maybe the next one will magically work out despite having taken absolutely no stock of themselves.

BUT we can still insure against more than one scenario. Having home on another planet seems easier than changing whole humanity so we should at least try.

E.g: 1. Maybe we would have carried on with more risky nuclear test in the past? 2. Maybe less people would care about global warming on earth?

These questions came to mind while reading your comment. Not sure if they make sense.

I can see what you're saying for the first generation of people who go from Earth to Mars. I don't see that scenario for the majority of people eventually born there, and subsequent generations. Just like how I know relatively little of my European ancestors who came to the US, and I've never been there, and that's on the same planet with international travel relatively cheap compared to the first ones over. Some people will be born there and never leave or know anything other than Martian life except what they read or view on some video. Some will be able to travel back and forth. I don't think most will.

Do you give up on US problems just because you have lost relatives in Europe? No. Do your lost relatives in Europe give up on European problems because a lost relative moved to the US? No. Neither of us has ever met them, but I can still confidently say "no" because that's just not how people work. We have plenty of things to worry about, a mars colony altering basic psychology shouldn't be one of them.

With that logic, no country would have ever let explorers leave their country to begin with.

Either way a lot of people end up dead on both sides. They are the poor, children, colonists, and indigenous peoples. Importantly, they are not members of the aristocracy, so no lessons are ever learned by elites as to why empire building is a bad idea.

There's a chance the data center where I host my offline backups could be destroyed at the same time as my house. Does this mean I should stop wasting my time and effort on off-site backups?