> We cannot terraform Mars in 2023. But we couldn't even fly to space in 1923, and we might be able to terraform Mars in 2123. Every passing year brings some new development, and these developments compound our abilities.
This does sound reasonable to me. What does not sound reasonable is cutting corners today in the name of "technological innovation" for something that we might be able to do in the future we are currently destroying.
The young naive person that I am thinks that in reality, this is mostly for defence purposes, to put military bases and equipment in space.
If colonization there will be, it will be only for rich people, which will pay a lot of money to get irreparable DNA damage while reading Icarus in space. Kind of funny when you think about it.
> Also, here you are mixing two different sorts of questions. Fixing Earth's climate is mostly a political question, not a question of technology.
I guess what made me angry here. This attitude is exactly why the planet is in the state it is right now. I'm not even talking about fixing, I'm talking about not destroying. You kids - if any - will have to fix the damages caused by SpaceX, but you can prevent it now.
> It might be harder than future terraforming of Mars because you need to bring many important nations on board, and humans are notoriously bad at large scale cooperation. On Mars, there are no nuclear superpowers opposing your plans.
I believe the complete opposite of your statement: it's easier to take care of our planet than terraforming another one, and on Mars there will definitely be nuclear superpowers opposing your plans. But I guess we will never agree on that.
> I am 45 and I grew up in an industrial city; both the air and the water there have become a lot cleaner during my lifetime
The place you grew up at was degraded by industrialization. It would have been cleaner today if it wasn't for that. Irreparable changes have been made. I'm about half your age and I'm disgusted by the state the planet is in right now. I understand, old people do not care about a future they won't live in. But I'm going to suffer from micro-plastics more than you. You had access to more natural landscapes than I ever will. I have every right to be angry at old people for screwing up our homes and bodies.
> because a richer
Ah, the 1% is richer, that makes it more okay! But me, little 99% guy, I got screwed by inflation. The U.S. economy is stronger than ever my little Ethiopian fisherman, what are you crying about? Go raise funds making an unprofitable startup or work for a defence contractor to build machines to kill little brown kids remotely, you'll make good money to buy a McMansion, a Tesla, and play golf on artificial grass with friends you secretly hate.
> and more developed society can afford better protections.
What protections? Against the various cancers that are more and more common? Against the mental decay I see in my young peers, caused by social media? Against the huge floating pile of trash in the sea? Against the coral reef that's mostly lost by now? Against the constant threat of the atom bomb, great technological innovation brought to you by the same friendly agencies financing SpaceX nowadays? The protection I want is protection of the environment. I don't care about your money and your materialism, it'll never buy love and community.
> Also, judging someone's else's interests as "delusions" is pretty rude. Who are you to distribute such labels to others?
I believe the idea that we can colonize Mars is delusional. How are we supposed to terraform a planet when we can't even fix our own? Who do I have to be to be allowed to have this opinion? What is rude about that? Would you find it rude to call flat earthers delusional? At least flat earthers are not causing irreparable damages to our round planet.
What is this technological progress bringing to humanity? SpaceX is a private company making private research using public funding and peoples delusions with space exploration.
Maybe we won't need to colonize some other planet if we don't trash our current planet to save shareholders some dollars in the name of "technological progress" .
I'm pretty sure they're referencing John Hanke, who used to work for the U.S. govt, founded Keyhole through funding from In-Q-Tel (CIA's VC), which ended up spawning Niantic.
It seems they're actively working with the NGA, NSA, DIA, and CIA. It could be just for 3D geo-spatial tech, or it could be for sharing data. It's secret and it doesn't look like conclusive evidence of data sharing has been published. My personal belief is a little bit of both is going on.
I worked for a YC company called Anima App [1] that begged us through multiple @here pings to "boost" their posts on HN, Reddit, LinkedIn, etc... It never really worked on HN, the posts would just get buried, but it did kinda work on Reddit.
I'm already paying criminals every time I pay my taxes. Hell, even when I fill up my car with gas, or when I buy meds. If you really want to live ethically and not pay criminals, you have to be autonomous.
The real crime here is preventing me from opening my third eye!
That's a personal attack and that's against the spirit of this website. Please do not do that.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> We cannot terraform Mars in 2023. But we couldn't even fly to space in 1923, and we might be able to terraform Mars in 2123. Every passing year brings some new development, and these developments compound our abilities.
This does sound reasonable to me. What does not sound reasonable is cutting corners today in the name of "technological innovation" for something that we might be able to do in the future we are currently destroying.
The young naive person that I am thinks that in reality, this is mostly for defence purposes, to put military bases and equipment in space.
If colonization there will be, it will be only for rich people, which will pay a lot of money to get irreparable DNA damage while reading Icarus in space. Kind of funny when you think about it.
> Also, here you are mixing two different sorts of questions. Fixing Earth's climate is mostly a political question, not a question of technology.
I guess what made me angry here. This attitude is exactly why the planet is in the state it is right now. I'm not even talking about fixing, I'm talking about not destroying. You kids - if any - will have to fix the damages caused by SpaceX, but you can prevent it now.
> It might be harder than future terraforming of Mars because you need to bring many important nations on board, and humans are notoriously bad at large scale cooperation. On Mars, there are no nuclear superpowers opposing your plans.
I believe the complete opposite of your statement: it's easier to take care of our planet than terraforming another one, and on Mars there will definitely be nuclear superpowers opposing your plans. But I guess we will never agree on that.