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LordIlthari t1_j0fpyuq wrote

Reply to comment by TripleATeam in We should dismantle Mars, not colonize it. by [deleted]

  1. What history? It’s a dead rock with no life on it, let alone sentient life.

1a. Mercury is significantly harder to dismantle due to rapidly spinning next to the sun. You can’t build static structures there because they’d be melted.

  1. We should also exploit the asteroid belt. I’m mostly titling this this to capitalize on the Mars colonization trend. Also it gets people’s attention and I dislike planets for being inefficient. Also, spin gravity.

  2. We aren’t monkeys. Ideally we will become increasingly distinct from nonsapient life, most likely transitioning to becoming more mechanical since metal lasts longer than meat, and means we won’t need to waste space and mass on growing food.

  3. When I talk about colonizing Mars, I don’t mean a few scientists, I mean the rather ridiculous ideas of dome cities or the hideously inefficient idea of terraforming

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TripleATeam t1_j0fra5n wrote

  1. Do you think anything without life is without value? There's value in studying Mars more than using it as parts. By the time we get that desperate, I would hope we're far beyond the solar system. And if Mars isn't colonized by then I would eat my sock.
    1. I have a hard time believing we get the technology to literally destroy a planet entirely before we have less melty metals.
  2. So this is really just to get people's attention? To rally them for the "demolish our next door neighbor" plot several hundred years ahead of time?
  3. My guy, I understand we're not monkeys. It was the simple way to say our brain is specifically wired. If you're suggesting we figure out a way to bypass all our natural instincts and predispositions from evolving on a big rock, then why bother colonizing the Solar System at all? Send the better humans to every other galaxy in generation ships and have them do it over there.
  4. Do you realize that the technology to demolish an entire world (let alone a technical demo and passing it by all legislation required to do so) would take far longer than just starting to colonize? It might be inefficient, but so were steam engines and coal plants. Still brought about the modern world as we know it. Humans start inefficiently and maximize efficiency later.
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LordIlthari t1_j0fry95 wrote

  1. I regard life as more valuable than non-life, and human life as the most valuable form of life. The destruction of non-life to maximize life is therefore acceptable. Also, this is not a question of desperation, but one of optimization.

1a. Valid point. We should still dismantle both because both are currently not in their most useful states.

  1. More or less. I desire to see humanity become a K4 civilization. I will die long before that. I wish to push things in the right direction. Becoming a K2 civilization is a necessary step.

  2. We should do both. We should go to every star in the universe and turn every last dead rock into places where life can flourish so that the cosmos becomes filled with sentient life and as much of it as possible because sentient life is inherently valuable.

  3. Agreed. Inefficient solutions are the steps to efficient solutions. However, maintaining a goal of a more efficient solution will allow us to reach it sooner rather than later.

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