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Ernie Muppari posted:it's probably because the idea of rigorous debate, much less on the internet, is laughable
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Jun 23, 2015 02:23
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rudatron posted:Yeah, comparing spaceflight to jello or some other bullshit was pretty dumb on your part. Actually it was a masterful demonstration of the stupidity of all your arguments, and you are better for having heard it. It may take some time to percolate, but as an optimist,
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Jun 23, 2015 02:24
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Tezzor posted:Actually it was a masterful demonstration of the stupidity of all your arguments, and you are better for having heard it. It may take some time to percolate, but as an optimist, Is Middle Management that boring that you have time to be on the Internet? And think up bad Jello analogies?
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Jun 23, 2015 02:25
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Tezzor posted:Actually it was a masterful demonstration of the stupidity of all your arguments, and you are better for having heard it. It may take some time to percolate, but as an optimist, why would you waste your time on optimism when all it does is allow you to be disappointed?
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Jun 23, 2015 02:27
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Tezzor posted:Actually it was a masterful demonstration of the stupidity of all your arguments, and you are better for having heard it. It may take some time to percolate, but as an optimist,
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Jun 23, 2015 02:28
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GlyphGryph posted:Why do you think that is, Tezzor? Why? I assume it's largely because of a lack of genuine intelligence, coupled with years of D&D moderation choices which have allowed for far looser standards of conduct for those uncritically spewing orthodoxy than those critical of it.
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Jun 23, 2015 02:29
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Tezzor posted:I assume it's largely because of a lack of genuine intelligence, coupled with years of D&D moderation choices which have allowed for far looser standards of conduct for those uncritically spewing orthodoxy than those critical of it.   Go on....
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Jun 23, 2015 02:31
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rudatron posted:You never did answer why you thought people climbed mountains, or what you thought the word 'reactionary' means and how your use of it was correct. Sorry, I was probably probated during that time. People climb (difficult) mountains for personal satisfaction, fame and meager glory in their social circle. I explained what reactionary meant and how it applies to guys who look to the discredited fantasies of the past as blueprint to the future.
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Jun 23, 2015 02:34
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Hmm yes, satisfaction fame and glory sounds like pretty good reasons for spaceflight. But your head-canon for what makes a 'reactionary' is unfortunately unsatisfying and very wrong. If you're going to demand that everyone follow your own made up definitions of words, you could at least make them interesting.
rudatron fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Jun 23, 2015 |
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Jun 23, 2015 02:38
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you know what hasn't been discredited? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gO7uemm6Yo
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Jun 23, 2015 02:41
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Tezzor posted:People climb (difficult) mountains for personal satisfaction, fame and meager glory in their social circle. So, in other words, people do things that achieve a lot less and get just as much kudos as the manned space program. So what is your point? We should do nothing that won't boost profits next quarter?
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Jun 23, 2015 02:44
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CommieGIR posted:So what is your point? We should do nothing that won't boost profits next quarter? Forget about profits next quarter, if one of you guys in this thread could post a compelling potential practical reason for space colonies and space travel that wasn't on its face half-baked or flawed, it would be a great accomplishment. So far space colonies have been pitched as a solution to global warming or an asteroid strike, but at just a cursory glance the idea seems to be pretty stupid. An average 13 degree drop in global climate following a huge asteroid strike is somehow a compelling reason to rocket people to Mars where the climate is more unfriendly and the atmosphere more poisonous to life? silence_kit fucked around with this message at 03:18 on Jun 23, 2015 |
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Jun 23, 2015 03:11
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silence_kit posted:Forget about profits next quarter, if one of you guys in this thread could post a compelling potential practical reason for space colonies and space travel that wasn't on its face half-baked or flawed, it would be a great accomplishment. No, better yet, tell us why we shouldn't. C'mon now. Give us a well reasoned and well rounded argument about why we should stay here no matter what. That this is it. That the Earth is all we need and the universe is pointless and worthless. C'mon now.
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Jun 23, 2015 03:15
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CommieGIR posted:No, better yet, tell us why we shouldn't. C'mon now. Give us a well reasoned and well rounded argument about why we should stay here no matter what. That this is it. That the Earth is all we need and the universe is pointless and worthless. The highlighted part is my unironic position on the universe.
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Jun 23, 2015 03:26
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CommieGIR posted:So, in other words, people do things that achieve a lot less and get just as much kudos as the manned space program. CommieGIR posted:No, better yet, tell us why we shouldn't. C'mon now. Give us a well reasoned and well rounded argument about why we should stay here no matter what. That this is it. That the Earth is all we need and the universe is pointless and worthless. Who do you mean by "we"? Nothing is stopping individual groups of humans from organizing the Race to Mars. There's a difference between that and making it a social imperative put on all society to fulfill. Keep in mind that mountain climbing is privately funded. The race to the south pole was a private venture for both the British and Norwegian expeditions, financed with private backers and only receiving some public grants for the stuff that was of scientific value (the emperor penguin embryos and weather observations of the British expedition; the norweigian expedition made a point to only go to the pole and back without doing science stuff). There are many ways to achieve satisfaction, fame and glory, and people like to seek it in many different ways. I don't think that the endeavor for it should be of a national character or be a source of national pride; you're not the one doing it, and group pride is often used as a distraction for more directly satisfying people's needs. After all, when it comes to your statement against "the Earth being all we need" as an argument for funding space colonization (out of a desire for continuation after personal death)... well, I don't think people here would agree with the direct state funding of specific religious organizations - perhaps they'd agree with only funding those particular efforts of organizations that have a demonstrable public benefit, like poor relief. At most, as it is, tax-exempt status is given to those organizations to make it easier to exist, knowing that there are often benefits from putting a bunch of people together who have a similar purpose stated to be in the public good and letting them do their thing. (Obviously there are some ways this goes awry and gets gamed, but that's another topic) If pride or a need for legacy after death is the main concern, no one is stopping anyone from doing what... *looks up name* Christof Handelsblatt did by getting Red Bull to sponsor a faster-than-sound space dive. If scientific knowledge is the concern, then you shouldn't factor pride into plans and go for what'll allow you the most findings you can get out of your funding. If you want to cite economic benefits to it, then do that. But the argument to fame and pride as a call for complete societal backing is flimsy in my eyes. Rodatose fucked around with this message at 03:49 on Jun 23, 2015 |
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Jun 23, 2015 03:38
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CommieGIR posted:No, better yet, tell us why we shouldn't. C'mon now. Give us a well reasoned and well rounded argument about why we should stay here no matter what. That this is it. That the Earth is all we need and the universe is pointless and worthless. I'm not ideologically committed to that position, which is why I sort of egged on the space posters in this thread to propose some kind of practical benefit to space colonies and space travel. It's just that so far all of the benefits and proposed technologies are totally half-baked--just thinking about them for a minute reveals huge flaws! Doing something that could be done on earth much better, way more easily, way more cheaply, but in space isn't really compelling to most people. You are going to have to find something that a lot of people think is so great and so awesome that outweighs all of the huge drawbacks.
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Jun 23, 2015 03:41
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silence_kit posted:I'm not ideologically committed to that position, which is why I sort of egged on the space posters in this thread to propose some kind of practical benefit to space colonies and space travel. It's just that so far all of the benefits and proposed technologies are totally half-baked--just thinking about them for a minute reveals huge flaws! eradicating every problem faced by the human race forever that's what my proposal would do
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Jun 23, 2015 03:57
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Rodatose posted:Keep in mind that mountain climbing is privately funded. The race to the south pole was a private venture for both the British and Norwegian expeditions, financed with private backers and only receiving some public grants for the stuff that was of scientific value (the emperor penguin embryos and weather observations of the British expedition; the norweigian expedition made a point to only go to the pole and back without doing science stuff). Must be why the NFL is a Tax Free group. Actually it must be why so many of these tax free groups are gaming the system and coming away billionaires. Here's the thing: Arguing that funding Space Exploration accounts to waste basically means we'd have to start ranking every possible expenditure of the governments of the world on how much of a waste they are, and according to your views, would largely be based on conjecture and opinion. I really don't look forward to your idea of how exploration should work.
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Jun 23, 2015 04:44
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did you not see the part of the post where I talked ways where it historically worked (you know, since the space race doesn't really make up the historical norm) also did you not parse the last paragraph e: you also didn't really answer my question of what you meant by "we." Rodatose fucked around with this message at 04:58 on Jun 23, 2015 |
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Jun 23, 2015 04:50
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Rodatose posted:did you not see the part of the post where I talked ways where it historically worked (you know, since the space race doesn't really make up the historical norm) By we, I mean Humanity. I did see that part, my point was that you have bigger fish to fry than hunting down the Manned Space Program as a waste of funds or time.
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Jun 23, 2015 05:04
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CommieGIR posted:By we, I mean Humanity. Do you not see how attributing your specific goal to all people, and casting all others who disagree as people missing the true meaning of life as a bit wrongheaded? Especially considering you're the person with the most posts in the jesus thread from how much you complain of those intolerant, overdefensive zealots? You're also not parsing it right if that's your point
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Jun 23, 2015 05:10
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Rodatose posted:Especially considering you're the person with the most posts in the jesus thread from how much you complain of those intolerant, overdefensive zealots? Yes yes, the Space Program is comparable to Christian Fundamentalists. Got it.
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Jun 23, 2015 05:16
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silence_kit posted:Forget about profits next quarter, if one of you guys in this thread could post a compelling potential practical reason for space colonies and space travel that wasn't on its face half-baked or flawed, it would be a great accomplishment. If you could stop misrepresenting people, that would be great, and if it would kill you to do so, that would be even better.
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Jun 23, 2015 05:18
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CommieGIR posted:Yes yes, the Space Program is comparable to Christian Fundamentalists. you're coming at it from a stance of "because it provides a good motivation" with the unspoken "...and that is why it should be established in State" without noticing that it's only a motivation to some. Rodatose fucked around with this message at 05:31 on Jun 23, 2015 |
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Jun 23, 2015 05:25
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Rodatose posted:no, I said do you see how that's wrongheaded to make everyone go along with your particular aspirations for humanity's legacy when you argue against it in the jesus thread im not sure how it is since, sadly for me, nobody in this thread is in position to make anyone do anything, much less dictate the future of humanity
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Jun 23, 2015 05:29
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Rodatose posted:no, I said do you see how that's wrongheaded to make everyone go along with your particular aspirations for humanity's legacy when you argue against it in the jesus thread Ah....ahahahaha....HAHAHAHAHA Rodatose posted:you're coming at it from a stance of "because it provides a good motivation" with the unspoken "...and that is why it should be established in State" without noticing that it's only a motivation to some. You should probably go convince all those scientists and engineers it isn't worth it. Just to be safe.
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Jun 23, 2015 05:31
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Ernie Muppari posted:im not sure how it is since, sadly for me, nobody in this thread is in position to make anyone do anything, much less dictate the future of humanity if you put your mind to it, you can make anything happen
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Jun 23, 2015 05:32
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It would be really cool if there was a way to have industrial civilization without environmental depredation on a horrendous scale, but we need to be realistic here, and not fetishize technology. Space travel and living in space is the only way to really end our assault on the natural world. Ending capitalism would slow matters, but a real solution must be found with the spacenoid.
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Jun 23, 2015 05:33
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Rodatose posted:if you put your mind to it, you can make anything happen incorrect
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Jun 23, 2015 05:33
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CommieGIR posted:Ah....ahahahaha....HAHAHAHAHA
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Jun 23, 2015 05:37
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Ernie Muppari posted:incorrect I'm sure there are people you can talk to who have things that you can use to make it happen, probably. like, viruses? fire? big bombs? if you wanted to, and put in enough elbow grease, maybe you wouldn't dictate the future of humanity, but you could at least steer it in a certain direction. All you have to do is think positive! e: put yr eyes to the shining example of hitler and realize what just one man can do when they buckle down and try. "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," as they say 
Rodatose fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Jun 23, 2015 |
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Jun 23, 2015 05:41
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Rodatose posted:I'm not arguing against what other people find meaning in and saying "you shouldn't like this!!!!" I'm arguing against you making what you find meaning in a priority over all else and casting the alternative as "pointless and worthless." What priority? I never said PRIORITIZE the Manned Space Program. I said keep funding it, which considering how little it gets, makes it an extremely low priority. I'm not saying dump all money into it, but we could probably afford to give it more than $0.0025 (roughly what it gets, since it is half of NASA's portion of the $0.005 from each tax dollar). But the issue at hand, the issue of THIS thread, is about a guy who thinks we shouldn't even do that.
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Jun 23, 2015 05:45
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silence_kit posted:Forget about profits next quarter, if one of you guys in this thread could post a compelling potential practical reason for space colonies and space travel that wasn't on its face half-baked or flawed, it would be a great accomplishment. Okay, okay, I'll get serious for a minute. There are a variety of not just potential but actual and ongoing benefits to space exploration, and space colony/space travel provide all of the existing benefits but moreso. In a particular order: 1. It inspires people to become scientists and engineers and explorers. It's certainly not the only thing that can, but there's a reason so many in technical and scientific fields are often excited about space. These people tend to be driven by the ideas of possibility, and nothing opens up a mind like that as much as feeling like you're being part of a people who are actively engaged in pushing the frontier. Rockets, explosions, stars, distance lands and distant worlds, the possibilities of an incredible future, these are not meaningless in terms of human progress. Space travel and space colonies certainly aren't the only way to achieve this, but it's honestly one of the best ways - it's big, it's flashy, it's got huge reach. Even if we never actually accomplish anything in space, we gain something by the mere striving in the minds of many of our brightest. 2. There actually are great opportunities for both discovering new knowledge and acquiring new means of production out there. Of course, some people like Trezzy and maybe you don't believe knowledge is inherently valuable. Hell, there are people who still don't see the practical purpose of cars and computers and junk because those things don't touch on or help what those people see as inherently valuable. But for those who do see knowledge as inherently valuable, manned space exploration allows us to acquire lots of knowledge a lot quicker than we otherwise would. As of yet, and probably not for quite a while longer, there's no substitute for boots on the ground (as it were). The mere act of space travel and space colonization would also push us to learn new things and solve complex challenges on the way to the destination, and might have a great many unexpected surprises like it has throughout history. I'm not going to say these surprises will make life any better here on earth for the people who hate space, but for the people who value knowledge, yeah, there's practical benefits. 3. Those who value money also have quite a few opportunities in space. Maybe it will turn out these opportunities simply can't be seized in a reasonable way, but the first person to harness an asteroid full of precious metals and a way to deliver them down to earth at below cost is probably going to make back far more than they put into it... assuming it can be done. Space based manufacturing also has some potential, both for further exploring space and for building things that couldn't be built on earth. You may have noticed that my numbering scheme is going in order of "increasingly speculative" at this point, in terms of practical benefits. An orbital construction platform capable of building energy gathering satellites from space based resources and then beaming that energy down to earth has been floated as one of many potential futures for energy generation. It's speculative, of course, but it's more likely to succeed with a permanent human presence in space to act as a base of operations - if we can manage a self-sustaining colony, we have the options of bringing the costs of many pie in the sky ideas way down thanks to no longer being dependent on earth resources and no longer confined by being at the bottom of earth's gravity well. One of the reasons to push into space is that we simply don't know whether or not this stuff will be worthwhile, the the potential benefits are significantly larger than the cost of checking. 4. The most speculative of all, there is a very real possibility that if we committed to truly spreading and pulled it off, we will eventually encounter signs of intelligent alien life. Again, this is a question of values, but the knowledge that we are not truly alone in the universe is of huge value in and of itself. From a practical perspective, we learn what else could have been, and perhaps acquire a great deal of technological advancement we might have been blind to if left to our own devices. Even the outcome is speculative here, but the result are potentially hugely practical, if unknown and far, far in the future.
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Jun 23, 2015 06:04
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Well, for my part, I think that actual space colonization is pretty impractical. After all, space is pretty inhospitable! BUT but but, that's not the end of it! Our industrial processes are quite destructive to the earth's environment. If there could be some means of offworlding all of our industry, all of the worst excesses of industrial civilization, that would be the best solution, I think, for the long-term benefit of humanity. So, we could begin with asteroid capture, or with creating some kind of self-sustaining industrial production chain in lower Earth Orbit. The main problem, really, is the high energy cost of having to constantly rocket stuff up into space, which is what makes it impracticable at this point. But once the system reaches a critical threshold: once we have sufficient industrial infrastructure already in orbit, such that automated factories could build spaceships, refuel them, send them on missions, repair them, and so on -- all without having to reach escape velocity each time -- that is when we'll reach the point where space becomes an attractive option for offworlding our economy. We'll have almost limitless energy from exploiting the sun, unthinkable material abundance from asteroids and comets, everything basically right at our fingertips! In that happy future, we could basically just start to really scale down our exploitation of the planet. We'll just receive shipments of manufactured goods at the spaceport, being dropped from orbital factories. No more strip mines on Earth. No more smog-belching factories, wastelands of soil contaminated by heavy metals, no more need of global warming inducing oil and coal power plants. That would solve a huge problem right there! We might even be able to grow food off-world and so therefore reduce our impact on the earth's natural ecosystems by scaling down agriculture and mass factory-farms. So, while I don't necessarily support human space colonization per se, space exploitation seems a necessary precondition for maintaining a modern civilization sustainably on earth, to start making heavy inroads into moving our industrial processes off-world.
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Jun 23, 2015 06:36
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DrSunshine posted:Well, for my part, I think that actual space colonization is pretty impractical. After all, space is pretty inhospitable! BUT but but, that's not the end of it! Our industrial processes are quite destructive to the earth's environment. If there could be some means of offworlding all of our industry, all of the worst excesses of industrial civilization, that would be the best solution, I think, for the long-term benefit of humanity. So, we could begin with asteroid capture, or with creating some kind of self-sustaining industrial production chain in lower Earth Orbit. Can we flush Space Libertarians out the airlock at least?
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Jun 23, 2015 06:44
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edit: nvm
silence_kit fucked around with this message at 07:14 on Jun 23, 2015 |
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Jun 23, 2015 07:08
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First off, "space colonization" is a project that's technically beyond us at the moment. So, again, arguing pros and cons is fine but sort of weightless. Even if we were unanimous that Mars Base Alpha was mandatory, it would take twenty years to realize anything more than an Apollo style flags and footprints mission. Like I said before, our generation's Great Task is the terraforming of Earth. But anyway: The main function of space exploration is scratching a spiritual itch. Here's a nice short video, made by a space nerd, with a voiceover by Carl Sagan. It gives a nice overview of that dimension. At the very least you should appreciate the visuals, which are essentially true to life. But I understand many people don't think that's worth anything. More "practically," but still many decades or centuries out, there's the possibility of radically new social and economic systems. Colonies would be starting from pretty close to a blank slate. A fresh start, especially if we could figure out how to make closed and self sufficient ecosystems - a group of people could just decide to split off and try something new and hopefully good. So there's another Great Project there. Still more practically, on the scale of years or decades from now, geared up space exploration could serve as a release valve for the war economy/MIC of the US, much of which centers around the aerospace industry. The US Navy knows as much about compact nuclear power plants as anyone, and those will probably end up being important. So, swords to plowshares and all that. In fact, this already happens - the US, via shared maintenance/construction of the ISS, helps prop up the Russian aerospace industry so all their Smart People don't end up losing their jobs and building weapons for countries we don't like. There's appreciable good that comes from international partnerships in space. US/Russian relations during the Crimean Annexation could have dipped a lot lower, but Americans and Russians live together in space, and since the retirement of the Space Shuttle we rely on them for ferrying people back and forth. Our astronauts go over there to train, theirs come here. There's a strong partnership that both sides are pretty loath to abandon. It's not much of a bright spot, but it is there. Future space exploration could/should be even more heavily based on international partnerships. A dickwaving space race 2.0 with China wouldn't do as much good as joint exploration missions. Again, the notion of diverting our war economy without crashing it.
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Jun 23, 2015 07:25
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GlyphGryph posted:Okay, okay, I'll get serious for a minute. He talked about benefits, as in things that he, personally, will be able to take advantage of, preferably in the next quarter 
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Jun 23, 2015 13:07
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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There are a lot of great reasons to go to space. For example: 1. I want to spend other people's money on my primitive religious sentiment. 2. There are great opportunities. These are purely hypothetical and in fact generally counterfactual to everything we know scientifically about space, but see 1. 3. Those who value money will find great opportunity in space. See 2. 4. A fantasy that requires the breach of fundamental laws of nature. See 1 and 2.
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Jul 7, 2015 18:55
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GlyphGryph posted:Okay, okay, I'll get serious for a minute. 1) We have more scientists and engineers than we know what to do with. 2) Can make a much better argument that we should explore the ocean first. Money is limited for these sorts of things, manned space exploration is flashy but there's much better uses of the money. 3) Will be done without people in space. In general there's no good reason at all to put people up there given advances in robotic technology. 4) Will not be done by manned space exploration. I really don't think people here "get" the laws of physics or how loving big space is. The "save the human race" is a big clue the person you are talking to hasn't the slightest clue about the actual realities of space travel. There is quite literally nothing within 100's of lightyears that is better for people than earth regardless of whatever the hell we do to it. Underground cities would be a bagillion times easier than whatever the gently caress space nuts are proposing.
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Jul 7, 2015 19:09
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