This is going to look so embarrassing when I found Edtopia of Ganymede in 2028, just in time for Kamala Harris' third term in the White House.
I'm with you, though. I think the only way we inhabit space is if we re-engineer our biology to survive in space. Despite what transhumanists may think, most people do not want to change the human animal into anything else.
But I also think chatbot's final answer is the correct one. Humans have done a lot of wildly impressive things because it's cool, rather than because we need to do it. Them pyramids don't exist for utility, for example.
“But people weren’t coming here because Europe ran out of room. They were coming here for economic and political reasons. I believe the biggest question facing humanity is how we deal with shifting away from an economy that requires bodies to work while our population continues to grow. But any political solution to that is going to remain easier to accomplish than people leaving Detroit for the moon.”
I mean… literally at any time Europe theoretically could have solved whatever political problems it had. But it didn’t. Because people are terrible. Which is arguably the greatest challenge humanity faces, and much, MUCH harder to engineer away than something as trivial as oxygen generation. Hence my new motto for NASA:
“SPACE: Let’s explore it so we have somewhere to send all the jerks we disagree with!”
I'm so old when I was, chair of a grade school party I made the theme Telstar. And listened endlessly to the Tornados and the skies had less light then and you could lie in the yard and watch Telstar. It went up on top of a Thor-Delta rocket on July 10, 1962. It is still up there.
That you took us from Zep to Morrissey in mere paragraphs alone reconfirms my delight in this newsletter. And thanks for taking me on a side dive into Malthusianism.
You know, for being a space nerd myself, I’d never bothered to think about this. But you’re so right. We have *so many* comforts on earth (like free air! The breathing is easy!) that we’d have to be centuries ahead of where we are now before average people would choose to live in space.
Hostile AF environment with a high chance of dying? For now, only scientists and preppers would get a boner for that. That being the case, Wild West but in space isn’t that far off the mark.
The full time population of Antarctica provides insight to the potential of space which is similar in terms of resource challenges but super far away. How many babies have been born on that continent since it was first populated? I’m going to guess without even looking up the number: “not enough”
I am a creationist but my arguments for earth bound humanity are essentially the same ... we were made for a place dramatically unlike any we’ve discovered in space. Thinking we can lift drop our species to another planet is not rational. If we cannot address the problems of an environment more or less perfectly suited to our needs, how would we ever create a new accommodation in a hostile environment and manage through the unforeseen issues that are certain to arise there? I’d also argue strongly that our number one problem, HUBRIS, will trail after us wherever we go. Seriously outstanding thinking, humanoid dipwads. We are undeniably and I unrelentingly dumb.
Such a fun essay--I especially liked your aside about how Californians are trying to pack the world’s population into Austin.
Personally, I have never understood the desire to live in space. It’s cold, dark, dangerous, and you can’t get good coffee. What’s there to like? Or, as my husband’s shtetl-born grandma would have said, “Why do you want to go to space? Did you lose something there?”
This is going to look so embarrassing when I found Edtopia of Ganymede in 2028, just in time for Kamala Harris' third term in the White House.
I'm with you, though. I think the only way we inhabit space is if we re-engineer our biology to survive in space. Despite what transhumanists may think, most people do not want to change the human animal into anything else.
But I also think chatbot's final answer is the correct one. Humans have done a lot of wildly impressive things because it's cool, rather than because we need to do it. Them pyramids don't exist for utility, for example.
“But people weren’t coming here because Europe ran out of room. They were coming here for economic and political reasons. I believe the biggest question facing humanity is how we deal with shifting away from an economy that requires bodies to work while our population continues to grow. But any political solution to that is going to remain easier to accomplish than people leaving Detroit for the moon.”
I mean… literally at any time Europe theoretically could have solved whatever political problems it had. But it didn’t. Because people are terrible. Which is arguably the greatest challenge humanity faces, and much, MUCH harder to engineer away than something as trivial as oxygen generation. Hence my new motto for NASA:
“SPACE: Let’s explore it so we have somewhere to send all the jerks we disagree with!”
I think England did that a lot.
I'm so old when I was, chair of a grade school party I made the theme Telstar. And listened endlessly to the Tornados and the skies had less light then and you could lie in the yard and watch Telstar. It went up on top of a Thor-Delta rocket on July 10, 1962. It is still up there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryrEPzsx1gQ
That you took us from Zep to Morrissey in mere paragraphs alone reconfirms my delight in this newsletter. And thanks for taking me on a side dive into Malthusianism.
You know, for being a space nerd myself, I’d never bothered to think about this. But you’re so right. We have *so many* comforts on earth (like free air! The breathing is easy!) that we’d have to be centuries ahead of where we are now before average people would choose to live in space.
Hostile AF environment with a high chance of dying? For now, only scientists and preppers would get a boner for that. That being the case, Wild West but in space isn’t that far off the mark.
The full time population of Antarctica provides insight to the potential of space which is similar in terms of resource challenges but super far away. How many babies have been born on that continent since it was first populated? I’m going to guess without even looking up the number: “not enough”
I am a creationist but my arguments for earth bound humanity are essentially the same ... we were made for a place dramatically unlike any we’ve discovered in space. Thinking we can lift drop our species to another planet is not rational. If we cannot address the problems of an environment more or less perfectly suited to our needs, how would we ever create a new accommodation in a hostile environment and manage through the unforeseen issues that are certain to arise there? I’d also argue strongly that our number one problem, HUBRIS, will trail after us wherever we go. Seriously outstanding thinking, humanoid dipwads. We are undeniably and I unrelentingly dumb.
Such a fun essay--I especially liked your aside about how Californians are trying to pack the world’s population into Austin.
Personally, I have never understood the desire to live in space. It’s cold, dark, dangerous, and you can’t get good coffee. What’s there to like? Or, as my husband’s shtetl-born grandma would have said, “Why do you want to go to space? Did you lose something there?”
Take it up with a Space-Grant University.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Space_Grant_College_and_Fellowship_Program