tsa posted:

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.

GlyphGryph posted:

I don't think the anti-space people here "get" that it's actually possible to take a long view of things.

Space is big, but time is long. It's possible to think we should get started even if we think it will take a long time to do certain things.

Anosmoman posted:

“I think the US government should spend 500 billion to sequence genomes of plants because one day genetic engineering will allow us to grow pineapples in Greenland and design new food crops which will finally end food scarcity.”

The problem is that if the person I'm talking to doesn't think those are plausible predictions she's now in opposition to me. I have sabotaged my own argument by putting focus on the merits of growing citrus fruit on the Arctic circle instead of what it should be about : learning about biology and genetic engineering.

This is the problem when people use cities on Mars or insurance policy, O'Neil cylinders, Dyson Spheres, industrial scale space mining, generation ships etc etc as a justification to do things now. If I don't think those things will ever happen your arguments have, in my mind, instead painted the whole endeavour as an expensive folly. Predictions about the future application of technology – which we know is a largely futile exercise – obfuscates the subject and makes your position more difficult because you now have to prove something you logically can't prove instead of just making the case that space research can be worthwhile on its own merits. These arguments can and do work against your position.

We can make bold predictions about the sweeping changes robots, genetic engineering, materials science, AI and so on and so on will have on human society and how they may or may not solve existential problems facing us but in reality it's just guesswork. We simply don't know. We can talk about the ways society might change but it's not a sensible justification for undertaking specific avenues of research.

Anosmoman posted:

“I think the US government should spend 500 billion to sequence genomes of plants because one day genetic engineering will allow us to grow pineapples in Greenland and design new food crops which will finally end food scarcity.”

The problem is that if the person I'm talking to doesn't think those are plausible predictions she's now in opposition to me. I have sabotaged my own argument by putting focus on the merits of growing citrus fruit on the Arctic circle instead of what it should be about : learning about biology and genetic engineering.

This is the problem when people use cities on Mars or insurance policy, O'Neil cylinders, Dyson Spheres, industrial scale space mining, generation ships etc etc as a justification to do things now. If I don't think those things will ever happen your arguments have, in my mind, instead painted the whole endeavour as an expensive folly. Predictions about the future application of technology – which we know is a largely futile exercise – obfuscates the subject and makes your position more difficult because you now have to prove something you logically can't prove instead of just making the case that space research can be worthwhile on its own merits. These arguments can and do work against your position.

We can make bold predictions about the sweeping changes robots, genetic engineering, materials science, AI and so on and so on will have on human society and how they may or may not solve existential problems facing us but in reality it's just guesswork. We simply don't know. We can talk about the ways society might change but it's not a sensible justification for undertaking specific avenues of research.

Modest Mao posted:

Humans are, with 100% certainty, going to end as a species on this planet and this planet alone.

Anosmoman posted:

The problem is that if the person I'm talking to doesn't think those are plausible predictions she's now in opposition to me. I have sabotaged my own argument by putting focus on the merits of growing citrus fruit on the Arctic circle instead of what it should be about : learning about biology and genetic engineering.

Tezzor posted:

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.

quote:

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.

GlyphGryph posted:

Since the opposition here was already demanding some concrete results as a starting point for thinking the activity "not worthless", you're basically saying here that there's absolutely no way to convince them because they won't believe anything we say anyway.

Which certainly seems to be the case, yeah.

blowfish posted:

Your analogy (like every other anti space stuff analogy) in this thread is poo poo because the US government and other governments have, in fact, spent money on sequencing genomes under the assumption that sequencing genomes will be hard and expensive and take forever but will eventually have benefits. The result is that nowadays you can sequence a barcode for $3, a mitochondrial genome for like $15, and a whole eukaryote genome for a couple grand (bloated plant genomes are still a bit pricy but we're getting there and yet stuff like the African Orphan Crops Consortium are already a thing for people who like sequencing genomes in their spare time). Recall that when the human genome project was starting, everyone projected we'd have sequenced like a few percent of the human genome in the year of our lord two thousand and fifteen.

e2: however you do have a point in that researching cool stuff is a reward in and of itself

GlyphGryph posted:

Since the opposition here was already demanding some concrete results as a starting point for thinking the activity "not worthless", you're basically saying here that there's absolutely no way to convince them because they won't believe anything we say anyway.

Which certainly seems to be the case, yeah.

Modest Mao posted:

Humans are, with 100% certainty, going to end as a species on this planet and this planet alone.

Anosmoman posted:

The first argument is about the immediate, direct benefits of the project. The second is something that we may simply never do and a lot of people don't think we will or should. I'm just saying that if we want to get as many people on board with research in space the focus should be on the research and not hypothetical future applications of it. It's like justifying the human genome project by saying then one day we will have super strength and eternal life. Well poo poo, maybe we will, but I still say that it would be better to focus on more immediate benefits.

I think there's many benefits. It's just not as sexy as Star Trek though.

Motto posted:

tsa posted:

1) We have more scientists and engineers than we know what to do with.

tsa posted:

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.

quote:

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.

quote:

4) Will not be done by manned space exploration.

quote:

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.

GlyphGryph posted:

Right, to add to that "Since the opposition here was already demanding some concrete results as a starting point for thinking the activity "not worthless", there's absolutely no way to convince them because they won't believe anything we say anyway and we shouldn't even try, because attempting to do so may alienize people who are not yet in opposition to us."

From a rhetorical point of view, I agree with you. Although I don't think anyone who who finds "a speed boost to research, an increase however slight in the opportunity to profit off something, and if we do it long enough and hard enough maybe even an increased chance of finding extraterrestial life" as completely impossible and entirely implausible is probably already firmly in the "opposition no matter what the cost" camp.

Anosmoman posted:

unironically lamented that we hadn't built the Battlestar Galactica

Anosmoman posted:

Obviously you can use whatever arguments you want but I think some have the opposite effect on a lot of people – it certainly did on me. Anyway, peace out and prosper.

down with slavery posted:

+1 for investing in to underground cities

let's make The Time Machine a reality

Modest Mao posted:

Rodatose posted:

your first post itt should have been "Space Travel is Boring"

Modest Mao posted:

we should spend all the money on researching how to make a time machine. think of all the accidental discoveries and how much cooler rich white people's lives will be if we succeed. It also means humanity will exist at two points in time, protecting us from population collapse

Modest Mao posted:

Humans are, with 100% certainty, going to end as a species on this planet and this planet alone.

CommieGIR posted:

Bold claim. I'm a huge warming alarmist, but I don't think we'll end. Maybe regress a lot, but probably not end.

Ernie Muppari posted:

all of us, all life, will end one day

Armani posted:

I feel you on this

But you gotta get out of bed some days, dude

Maybe go look at pictures of planets, it's super cool

Ernie Muppari posted:

incorrect

Armani posted:

Have a macro response

Ernie Muppari posted:

the orion nebula too, will one day cease to exist

Weltlich posted:

And it's got a ~1300 year head start on us, so we'd better get our asses in gear.

GlyphGryph posted:

So you're saying we shouldn't focus so much on manned space travel so much as doing everything we can to hurry our local region of space into oblivion, before that damned Orion Nebula beats us to it?

Truly, a noble goal.

GlyphGryph posted:

Since the opposition here was already demanding some concrete results as a starting point for thinking the activity "not worthless", you're basically saying here that there's absolutely no way to convince them because they won't believe anything we say anyway.

Which certainly seems to be the case, yeah.

You haven't said what you'd prefer to spend money on that isn't what you consider a primitive religious sentiment, which presumably would be "anything you agree with".

You also appear to be pretty ignorant and short-sighted. It's okay though, you won't ever have to go to space, but you're not actually making much of a case for why other people shouldn't. You haven't even explained why they shouldn't be more than happy to use your money to do it, or why we should care if you don't want them to.

Tezzor - why shouldn't we take all your money and spend it on space? Please justify your argument in terms we would care about, in a way that isn't just based on your own "primitive religious sentiments" or some sort of transient bullshit that will retroactively never have matted a mere hundred years from now.

Tezzor posted:

In terms you care about, were you to take all my assets you could certainly enrich yourself or some subgroup you like far more directly and effectively than you would via investing it in toys you don't own and hoping that some technologies that you have to purchase fall out of the process

Tezzor posted:

In terms you care about, were you to take all my assets you could certainly enrich yourself or some subgroup you like far more directly and effectively than you would via investing it in toys you don't own and hoping that some technologies that you have to purchase fall out of the process

CommieGIR posted:

I love that Tezzor's entire argument still circles it wagons around the Libertarian debate point of "Taxes are theft and gubamint spent my money on something I personally object to"

GlyphGryph posted:

Well taking his most recent argument into account, he's actually fine with us stealing his money, so long as we spend it on things that aren't space.

CommieGIR posted:

I love that Tezzor's entire argument still circles it wagons around the Libertarian debate point of "Taxes are theft and gubamint spent my money on something I personally object to"

GlyphGryph posted:

You're the one obsessed with technologies we have to purchase falling out being a prequisite of spending on space, not us, so that part fails the "in terms we would care about" bit.

This "enriching oneself" bit may have something behind it, but the reasoning, implying spending it on space would be done somehow in an attempt to "enrich" ourselves, is kind of weird, since we obviously don't want to spend money on space travel to make ourselves wealthy. That would be pretty absurd. On the other hand, one group I particularly like is Space Scientists, Space Engineers, and other associated Space People. So spending it on space would be directly enriching a subgroup I like pretty effectively.

I'm pretty comfortable, and though I wouldn't turn down taking all your money for myself to pay off some loans or something, if given then option to do that or be a part of a group that has collectively agreed such seizings would go towards space instead... I'd probably pick the group. I'm not a particularly selfish person. Of course, I'd probably be willing to be part of a group that put that money towards lots of things I considered to be in line with my primitive religious sentiments, like libraries and schools and physics and even the ocean research people like to bring up so much.

So, try again.

Also, would you actually be more okay with me taking your money and spending it on myself than on space?

Tezzor posted:

No, of course not, but you asked me to couch it in terms you care about. It's nicely indicative that the people you care about are space scientists, however. Who else could possibly need the money?

Tezzor posted:

It's nicely indicative that the people you care about are space scientists, however. Who else could possibly need the money?

Tezzor posted:

No, of course not, but you asked me to couch it in terms you care about. It's nicely indicative that the people you care about are space scientists, however. Who else could possibly need the money?