this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2024
367 points (99.7% liked)

World News

39329 readers
2280 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] NocturnalMorning 99 points 1 week ago (4 children)

The fuck guys? Why are we trying so hard to fuck ourselves into corner? It's not like we have a backup plan. This is the only planet we have.

[–] filister 14 points 1 week ago (3 children)

But what about Mars, Musk will say /s

[–] NocturnalMorning 25 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

Mars would be really difficult to live on even if we could get there. My senior design project in college was a mission to mars. The main issues we ran into were radiation on the journey there, radiation on the surface (Mars has a thin atmosphere nd no magnetic field), that means we would need to find caves underground. And Lastly, and probably most importantly, supply lines to Mars would have to be sent ahead of time, and we basically have to just hope everything goes according to plan.

Seems like Elon Musks idiotic dream is to piss away the planet we have so he can get rich. I'd love to make space travel more affordable, and common, but that's just not the reality we live in.

p.s. I realize you were joking. It just happens to be a topic I know a little bit about.

[–] SlopppyEngineer 16 points 1 week ago

That always bugs me. To live on Mars you'd need basically a perfect food production, recycling system and economic system to make it all happen. Why don't we make that happen here on Earth first is before using a place a hundred million miles away as an experiment? You're only the richest man in the planet being buddies with soon to be the most powerful man on the planet (again), so not much of an excuse except "don't wanna".

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago

And that's aside from all the demons that'd need killing.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I think the most important insight is that you can achieve the same result with far less effort if you stay on Earth.

On Mars, you're basically building survival shelters with no trade network to rely on in a ~~hostile~~ downright deadly environment. In a place where we don't even know how to get there, and how to bring all the stuff we need, and many more unknowns.

It might just be that the same effort can achieve more on Earth. And no matter how bad Earth becomes in terms of climate, toxicity, heck even if atmosphere AND oceans fully turn into dead zones, it's still far more suitable than Mars (you mentioned two important factors), and the transport problem is nonexistent or already solved.

[Edit, emphasis: Even assuming decades of nuclear winter after WW3, it's still far more practical to build a bunker shielded against radioactivity on Earth. On Mars, you'd had to do a similar thing.

Interestingly, this argument becomes stronger the more Earth is made uninhabitable. Because any Mars colony would heavily depend on reliable supplies from Earth for decades, if not longer. Which becomes increasingly harder / more unreliable the worse the situation on Earth becomes. At some point on the scale of how bad things can become, we cannot sustain space travel any longer.]

I hope we colonize Mars some day, but it makes zero sense as a means to escape an ecological catastrophe, since Mars is orders of magnitude worse and orders of magnitude harder.

This extremely high entry barrier might possibly seem as a good thing for people who are super rich and afraid of other humans, since it makes it practically impossible for all the poor and desperate to attempt to raid their luxury bunker. Best moat ever. But again, for the same budget you can easily get an automated army of killer machines which rivals most nations, if you simply stay on Earth.

[–] FuglyDuck 3 points 1 week ago

So… you don’t need to find caves. Just bring some excavators, and some prefab-structures and bury them.

This would then let you set up some place with useful resources (light for solar power, ice for drinking and stuff.

Personally, though, I vote we send Musk to the other Sister Planet. The one that’s full-on angry-goth-girl, complete with the sulphuric acid. Don’t judge, as far as planets go, she’s freaking hot.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

No matter how bad it gets on earth, it will still be easier to survive on earth than Mats or Venus or the moon or wherever.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

I think sending him there is likely to help.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

American religion¹ is an apocalyptic death cult.

1 — Not to be confused with christianity (or its offshoots), which is also a death cult, but generally less focused on the apocalypse, sports, money, greed as a virtue, malls, advertisements, and so on.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Christianity was literally started as an apocalypse cult. Maybe it isn't as focused on it now (though it isn't a small part), but it is an apocalypse cult.

[–] Kbobabob 4 points 1 week ago

The planet will be perfectly fine. It will likely get even better once most life is dead, again.