By all rights, this should be something I am deeply passionate about. I’ve been in tech/engineering my entire adult life and was obsessed with NASA as a kid. I even live on the east coast of Florida and can sometimes see the launches/landings over the ocean. But I just… don’t care at all. I’m not suffering from depression or any other malaise, and generally things are fine. But I haven’t clicked on a single link or looked at a single image. I know this has not been the case for many, many people, so I’m wondering what might be different about this launch (or really the whole program in general), and curious if anyone else has found themselves feeling the same.
It’s more than that. The thought of us doing something incredible like establishing a permanent moon base feels more depressing than inspiring these days because enshitification will be baked into it right from the planning stages
If the Untied States manages to survive the mess it is in, it will probably declare ownership of the moon and declare anyone else who manages to land there illegal aliens…including actual aliens
I have become very cynical of tech over the past several years and am strongly opposed to any sort of space colonization.
Me to. Theres a podcast called “tech won’t save us” that i hate listening to because it reminds me how much we have lost.
I get your sentiment but that’s exactly why we need space colonization.
There is a thing called translatio imperii which means that empires aren’t created nor destroyed, they just move from one location to the next, always on the frontline of humanity.
If we don’t get spaceflight, the US will stay an imperial entity for eternity. Only if space colonization succeeds, mars can become the next empire which means that the US stops being one, interestingly.
That’s complete and utter bullshit.
“Frontline of humanity” what does that even mean, historically? Humanity has always been spread across the earth.
I see absolutely no evidence for this historically, what I see is just people in the Middle Ages trying to brand themselves as the successors to Rome for PR.
The idea of Mars becoming an “empire” is pure fantasy. We can’t even begin to talk about the lack of natural resources when there’s literally no air. Maybe in 40,000 years or something, but not on any foreseeable timescale.
This is straight up magical thinking. You might as well say that someone has to sacrifice a virgin goat on the night that the stars are in alignment for the US empire to end. There is zero logical or causal connection between those things, and empires don’t just last “eternally” unless somebody casts the right magic spell.
Similarly, the NYT predicted in 1903 that it would take “one million to ten million years for humanity to develop an operating flying machine” (airplane). The wright brothers achieved the first powered airplane flight sixty-nine days later. Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Machines_Which_Do_Not_Fly
You might want to think about this.
A technological breakthrough could make Mars colonization feasible. It might even be possible for it to be self-sustaining. Who knows?
But an empire? That’s utterly ridiculous. You might as well say that the thing that the American empire will last eternally unless and until we genetically engineer a race of intelligent dragons who will replace it with a dragon empire, and if anyone expresses skepticism of that fantasy, you could just as easily point to “people didn’t think the Wright Brothers could fly.”
One wrong skeptic a hundred years ago doesn’t mean every fantasy is going to happen. There’s countless predictions that didn’t come true.
Fuck that. Saying empires are inevitable is a lot like saying fascism is inevitable. Maybe it’s true but you shouldn’t identify with the thing and make it’s purpose your own
Thats actually a perfect explanation that I think is inline with this
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/YfhA3KWLtFqBeFnpb/my-specific-singularity-timeline-to-utopia
Class warfare will be the foundation it’s all built on. Any tech developed for the moon, Mars, whatever - anything we gain in knowledge in return - is going to go to benefit rich fuckers, not you. One day there will be more space tourists. Rich people, not you. Maybe one day Man will even colonize another world. Rich people, not you.
Maybe they will take us along as servants? Oh, no, they will build robots for that…
In case we’re not familiar with the cultural/economic backdrop of Bladerunner, etc.:
spoiler
all humans that could afford to leave the planet had done so long before the period the first movie was set in, and those humans that couldn’t quietly, secretly turned into unpaid, unwitting sublime training nodes for each new model of replicant —until said trainees failed to recall their synthetic origins, and could replace the humans without any blowback, scrutiny, or awareness of it at all, really. 😶
This is not scifi. This is where those fucknuts are aiming our species. 🥲
Plus, space travel mainly benefits the super rich.
Ay?
Do you mean only the super rich will be able to travel?
The only travel anyone will be doing in the next 100 years or more will be going to the moon to squeeze into a tiny smelly hab module to figure out how to avoid getting regolith in your ass crack.
I think space travel will be the exclusive reserve of hard core science nuts.
Even in say 500 years. Will there be a “colony” on Mars with anything more than a dozen science nerds? I doubt it.