Mars or a border wall?

[Grenartia]

Mars all the fucking way. The only wall I'd support involves boxing in Trump and his cronies for life (preferably on Phobos or something, don't want to taint humanity's second home, and don't want to taint its natural heritage (the moon)).

Space Prison for Trump et al., would probably only be a few billion (certainly don't need to pay guards or anything, since it'll be in space, and so if he gets out, he's just going to die in the cold, hard vacuum), and the rest for Mars.

[Petrolheadia]

Mars all the fucking way. The only wall I'd support involves boxing in Trump and his cronies for life (preferably on Phobos or something, don't want to taint humanity's second home, and don't want to taint its natural heritage (the moon)).

Space Prison for Trump et al., would probably only be a few billion (certainly don't need to pay guards or anything, since it'll be in space, and so if he gets out, he's just going to die in the cold, hard vacuum), and the rest for Mars.

Putting a man in prison in the middle in nowhere for his political views?

Love it. I fucking do.

[Grenartia]

Mars all the fucking way. The only wall I'd support involves boxing in Trump and his cronies for life (preferably on Phobos or something, don't want to taint humanity's second home, and don't want to taint its natural heritage (the moon)).

Space Prison for Trump et al., would probably only be a few billion (certainly don't need to pay guards or anything, since it'll be in space, and so if he gets out, he's just going to die in the cold, hard vacuum), and the rest for Mars.

Putting a man in prison in the middle in nowhere for his political views?

Love it. I fucking do.

I don't advocate it because of his political views, I advocate it because he's a criminal scumbag.

[Militant Costco]

We could just go to Mars, open up a Taco Bell, call it Mexico and build a wall around it and say we accomplished both tasks.

That's what I expect a NASA under Trump would do.

[Salus Maior]

Border Mars.

[Petrolheadia]

Putting a man in prison in the middle in nowhere for his political views?

Love it. I fucking do.

I don't advocate it because of his political views, I advocate it because he's a criminal scumbag.

Ah.

Still, a better use of that money would be, say, refunding Trump "University" graduates.

[Coalition of North American States]

To the Stars!

[Greater Cesnica]

Who the fuck would choose the wall? Mars for the win!



Buzz Aldrin approves.

[United States of Red Dawn]

If they need volunteer citizens to go to Mars and live in a colony at some point, I think I would go as long as it isn't permanent. Maybe I'll be a miner 49ner.

[Imperializt Russia]

I don't advocate it because of his political views, I advocate it because he's a criminal scumbag.

Ah.

Still, a better use of that money would be, say, refunding Trump "University" graduates.

When we space-imprison Trump though we can just seize his assets and do it anyway.

[The Goggles]

Anything but Mars. I firmly believe that we should finish exploring this planet before we go trying to explore other planets.

Why do you believe this?

I've always found the ocean more interesting than space.

[Imperializt Russia]

Why do you believe this?

I've always found the ocean more interesting than space.

Well, you're weird and you're wrong, but the utility that can be found through space travel is far greater than looking deeper into the oceans.

[USS Monitor]

I've always found the ocean more interesting than space.

Well, you're weird and you're wrong, but the utility that can be found through space travel is far greater than looking deeper into the oceans.

Nah, the ocean is awesome. The fact that it's full of living things means it offers more opportunities to learn about biology and a higher likelihood of discovering something medically useful. Having a more thorough understanding of all parts of Earth's ecosystem might help us to protect it more effectively as well.

[Imperializt Russia]

Well, you're weird and you're wrong, but the utility that can be found through space travel is far greater than looking deeper into the oceans.

Nah, the ocean is awesome. The fact that it's full of living things means it offers more opportunities to learn about biology and a higher likelihood of discovering something medically useful. Having a more thorough understanding of all parts of Earth's ecosystem might help us to protect it more effectively as well.

I don't think that's particularly the case. Certainly, the only parts of the oceans remaining unexplored are the deepest depths. They're fairly isolated from ocean warming and other elements of climate change, and terrestrial life already holds enough mysteries to try and unlock for medical utility.

It'd be interesting, but far greater utility would be provided in the long run from exploration of further celestial bodies.

[The Emerald Legion]

Well, you're weird and you're wrong, but the utility that can be found through space travel is far greater than looking deeper into the oceans.

Nah, the ocean is awesome. The fact that it's full of living things means it offers more opportunities to learn about biology and a higher likelihood of discovering something medically useful. Having a more thorough understanding of all parts of Earth's ecosystem might help us to protect it more effectively as well.

Why protect it when we can escape it?

[Sjealla]

M A R S

[Marilyn Manson Freaks]

Obviously Mars.

[Imperializt Russia]

Nah, the ocean is awesome. The fact that it's full of living things means it offers more opportunities to learn about biology and a higher likelihood of discovering something medically useful. Having a more thorough understanding of all parts of Earth's ecosystem might help us to protect it more effectively as well.

Why protect it when we can escape it?

Hi there Nikki Haley.

[New Rogernomics]

Why not a border wall on Mars, to keep the microbes out?

[Discoursepan]

That's only true for economies who have a constant supply of spare economic capacity to create new jobs. And that's only true in industrial economies like those in China and the developing world (And the western world several decades ago). In economies with a shortage of spare work places and industry the opposite is true. In those societies immigration drives down the price of labor by competing for the same, limited and insufficient supply of jobs thus driving medium income and demand down. This in turn has a negative effect long term as it drives down the incentive to expand the economy by opening new businesses.

TLDR if you are already growing than more people means faster growth. If you are NOT growing than more people means even less growth.

That doesn't sounds quite right to me. Surely with more consumers, the supply of jobs increases as well as businesses expand to meet the demands of the increased market.

You can oversaturate some segments of the economy (unskilled labor, for instance), because the creation of jobs proportional to demand, when it happens, doesn't automatically create the jobs most suited to whoever comes in.

There are other complications as well. Real estate doesn't increase proportionally to labor, for instance.

[Discoursepan]

Who the fuck could even believe that more people in an economy decreases its' value...it's not like it's literally a piece of bread.

Let me know when immigration increases the amount of land in a country.

Also, it matters a lot which immigrants you bring in, something the mass migration side only too eager to sweep under the rug. Maybe if we made you and the others take out insurance on the immigrants you'd have a better understanding.

Especially when the mass immigration side is all about "but they're poor! it's SO UNFAIR to keep them out!"

But let's be clear - all this stuff about immigration helping people is a sideshow.

You cannot solve global poverty through immigration so long as the net population growth in poor countries exceeds about 2-10 million per year.

The only way to actually solve global poverty is to increase the economic production of the countries from which mass migrations are underway, and cut their birthrates to something much closer to replacement level. At that point most of them won't want to leave anyway.

Too bad "we have to respect their culture" is, in many ways, incompatible with that.

[The Greater Siriusian Domain]

Mars. Problem is it's going to cost a lot more if you want to do things right. Most plans I've seen seem to be along the lines of "send a really big lander and hope everyone's OK with being cramped in it for several months while waiting for the next transfer window back to Earth". For a mission of this size, it would likely be better to establish a sort of orbital spaceport in orbit around the planet, establish ice mining operations to produce fuel, and then start building a large ground base and outposts at points of interest. But that's going to cost a lot more than 50 billion USD.

[Greed and Death]

Why not both ?

[Catochristoferson]

I wouldn't mind a Mars program. As long as Elon Musk has nothing to do with it than it's fine.

But we live under a capitalist system so it's most likely going to be the case that Elon Musk pours billions into Mars colonization or something.

[Omega Cyber-collective]

Mars, then build a wall ring around the sun to collect energy.