Should Humanity expand to the Stars? II

[Torrocca]

Yes, definitely. Conquer the universe!

[Northwest Slobovia]

Yes, definitely. Conquer the universe!

Oh, you just want all the stars to be red, not just most of them.

[Torrocca]

Yes, definitely. Conquer the universe!

Oh, you just want all the stars to be red, not just most of them.

Universal equality, after all.

[The Liberated Territories]

I've always been a strong proponent of space travel. The final frontier, literally speaking - ripe for our taking.

[Torrocca]

I've always been a strong proponent of space travel. The final frontier, literally speaking - ripe for our taking.

Well, technically, we haven't opened up a way to travel into the multiverse... so more like the penultimate frontier.

[Bruke]

We should definitively expand, by encouraging government agencies to do the exploring, and private companies to build the infrastructure and provide some funding. Kinda like a public-private partnership.

[Edwerlantin]

Why is this even a question? It's obviously YES!

Keeping humans on one planet isn't very great. We'd die from one asteroid or a supervirus, or some other world-ending thing. Maybe a terminator. So, yes. Plus, Mars looks cool and it's for men.

[Northwest Slobovia]

I've always been a strong proponent of space travel. The final frontier, literally speaking - ripe for our taking.

Well, technically, we haven't opened up a way to travel into the multiverse... so more like the penultimate frontier.

Wait, Portal to the Multiverse isn't actually...?

On topic: I have a bad feeling the Fermi Paradox rules out cheap, easy FTL. This is hardly a new observation, but a germane one. On the other hand, close to the speed of light isn't bad, at least if people are patient.

[United Imperial Systems]

Wh---Why bother asking?
Obviously we should! It will safeguard us from asteroids and other cosmic events,

There are cheaper and far easier ways to do that, if that's all you want.

More importantly, the compatible environment issue (in my last post) is a big problem, and likely the big problem. We need some place to go before we get all excited about going.

Compatible environment isn't going to be a big deal with advanced technology.
Are there easier ways of defending from asteroids? Maybe, but there are many more disasters waiting to happen, it shocking how we even got so far.
So yes, we should star colonizing planets that are close today, to learn how to do it for planets tomorrow, when we will really need it.

[Constitutional Technocracy of Minecraft]

Well, technically, we haven't opened up a way to travel into the multiverse... so more like the penultimate frontier.

Wait, Portal to the Multiverse isn't actually...?

On topic: I have a bad feeling the Fermi Paradox rules out cheap, easy FTL. This is hardly a new observation, but a germane one. On the other hand, close to the speed of light isn't bad, at least if people are patient.

We could, in the very far future, travel to other universes via wormholes. And I think that a sufficiently advanced alien race would develop some form of FTL such as the Alcubierre warp drive.

[Salandriagado]

2-if we did, what happens when we meet intelligent aliens with less tech then us? Do we wipe them out and take their planet from them?

Based on our track record so far, this seems plausible (with "technology" referring specifically to the weapon-applicable variety):

Given the distances and plausible technology for building starships (sub-light), our ability to project power over long distances matters more. It doesn't really matter if the US has ten armored divisions and the locals have just pointy sticks, if we have no ability to move lots of armed soldiers over many light years.

That's trivial, though: you just don't slow your rocket down when it gets there.

2) If we're at roughly equivalent levels of technology, get into an ultimately pointless war over something irrelevant, and either die, commit genocide, or proceed to step 3 or 4 as appropriate.
3) If they're technologically inferior to us but still useful as slaves, enslave them.
4) If they're no use as slaves, commit genocide and maybe keep a few in a zoo.

All of these make the big assumption of compatible environments. (I'm going to ignore all the obvious problems with slavery.) There's really no reason to worry about people who can't live where we can and vice versa. Or even won't live. (Humans can live in the Sahara and the Antarctic with enough equipment, but very few even bother to try.)

Compatible environments seems unlikely. Mars is theoretically in the Sun's "habitable zone", where water is potentially liquid.* But it's much colder, and has a little more than a third of the gravity. If there were Martians, they likely couldn't live here because Earth has almost three times their normal gravity, and probably wouldn't want to because it's so much hotter. It's not clear we can, for example, have children on Mars and have them develop normally, and even if we can (and we hand-wave the existance of air we can breath) we will always need some sort of technology to keep us warm.

*: "Habitable zone" is loosely defined as where a planet's black-body temperature would be between 0℃ and 100℃, making the assumption of an Earth-like atmosphere, which we don't know. That definition puts Venus just inside the Sun's habitable zone, but it's just a touch warmer than that. Because of the definition, it's more likely there are "habitable" worlds where it's too hot for us, because we can't survive for any length of time without very fancy cooling if the outside air temperature above 50℃ (122℉).

They don't, in fact: we can (and given our track record, probably will) do all of the above regardless of whether we can live there. Hell, the slavery approach is more likely if we can't live there.

[Constitutional Technocracy of Minecraft]

Given the distances and plausible technology for building starships (sub-light), our ability to project power over long distances matters more. It doesn't really matter if the US has ten armored divisions and the locals have just pointy sticks, if we have no ability to move lots of armed soldiers over many light years.

That's trivial, though: you just don't slow your rocket down when it gets there.

All of these make the big assumption of compatible environments. (I'm going to ignore all the obvious problems with slavery.) There's really no reason to worry about people who can't live where we can and vice versa. Or even won't live. (Humans can live in the Sahara and the Antarctic with enough equipment, but very few even bother to try.)

Compatible environments seems unlikely. Mars is theoretically in the Sun's "habitable zone", where water is potentially liquid.* But it's much colder, and has a little more than a third of the gravity. If there were Martians, they likely couldn't live here because Earth has almost three times their normal gravity, and probably wouldn't want to because it's so much hotter. It's not clear we can, for example, have children on Mars and have them develop normally, and even if we can (and we hand-wave the existance of air we can breath) we will always need some sort of technology to keep us warm.

*: "Habitable zone" is loosely defined as where a planet's black-body temperature would be between 0℃ and 100℃, making the assumption of an Earth-like atmosphere, which we don't know. That definition puts Venus just inside the Sun's habitable zone, but it's just a touch warmer than that. Because of the definition, it's more likely there are "habitable" worlds where it's too hot for us, because we can't survive for any length of time without very fancy cooling if the outside air temperature above 50℃ (122℉).

They don't, in fact: we can (and given our track record, probably will) do all of the above regardless of whether we can live there. Hell, the slavery approach is more likely if we can't live there.

By the time we are able to travel to planets with alien civilisations on them, we would have no need for slavery since we could probably make whatever we want with nanotechnology. Heck, we'll probably have all turned into AI by then.

[Socialist Czechia]

Only in shtyle.

[Salandriagado]

That's trivial, though: you just don't slow your rocket down when it gets there.



They don't, in fact: we can (and given our track record, probably will) do all of the above regardless of whether we can live there. Hell, the slavery approach is more likely if we can't live there.

By the time we are able to travel to planets with alien civilisations on them, we would have no need for slavery since we could probably make whatever we want with nanotechnology. Heck, we'll probably have all turned into AI by then.

Ah, the "absurd optimism" approach.

[Constitutional Technocracy of Minecraft]

By the time we are able to travel to planets with alien civilisations on them, we would have no need for slavery since we could probably make whatever we want with nanotechnology. Heck, we'll probably have all turned into AI by then.

Ah, the "absurd optimism" approach.

In the Victorian era, many people believed space travel was outright impossible

[Pax Nerdvana]

Ah, the "absurd optimism" approach.

In the Victorian era, many people believed space travel was outright impossible

That doesn't really surprise me too much. The Victorians had all sorts of odd beliefs.

[Constitutional Technocracy of Minecraft]

In the Victorian era, many people believed space travel was outright impossible

That doesn't really surprise me too much. The Victorians had all sorts of odd beliefs.

Just showing how people believe that some technologies are impossible, only for them to be developed surprisingly soon after. In fact, as most scientists think on a timescale based around their employment, "the far future" may mean 20 years and "never" may mean 50.

[Salandriagado]

Ah, the "absurd optimism" approach.

In the Victorian era, many people believed space travel was outright impossible

That's not an argument.

[Purpelia]

Ah, the "absurd optimism" approach.

In the Victorian era, many people believed space travel was outright impossible

They also wrote stories about sending men to the moon using cannons.

[The Etheri]

I believe we are alone in the Galaxy (not the universe), so there is no reason not to explore further, especially because our planet can't last forever.

[Purpelia]

I believe we are alone in the Galaxy (not the universe), so there is no reason not to explore further, especially because our planet can't last forever.

If we weren't alone that'd be even more of a reason to go out and expand. After all when conquistador inevitably meets savage we don't want to be the savage.

[Ammaroth]

My head says absolutely we should. It would be a truly incredible scientific achievement and could potentially secure the long-term survival of humanity for potentially millions of years to come. However, my heart says that we make a big enough mess of our own planet so why should we expand to other planets just to mess those up as well? Human nature is human nature no matter what planet you're on and as history proves, human nature is a very violent thing indeed.

[Pax Nerdvana]

I believe we are alone in the Galaxy (not the universe), so there is no reason not to explore further, especially because our planet can't last forever.

If we weren't alone that'd be even more of a reason to go out and expand. After all when conquistador inevitably meets savage we don't want to be the savage.

If we are utterly alone in the Universe, which I think unlikely, there will be no one to compete with, and we'll have all of the resources to ourselves.

[Dooom35796821595]

If we weren't alone that'd be even more of a reason to go out and expand. After all when conquistador inevitably meets savage we don't want to be the savage.

If we are utterly alone in the Universe, which I think unlikely, there will be no one to compete with, and we'll have all of the resources to ourselves.

We've shown ourselves to be quite capable of competing with our our own species, it's sharing we're not good at.

Earth vs Mars! There can be only one!

[The Black Forrest]

Hannity should stay on fox and leave the good races alone.