• originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
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      4 months ago

      our planet could easily be wiped by a number of things. if we dont plan for a planetary catastrophe out of our control, our species is doomed.

      • subignition@fedia.io
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        4 months ago

        a planetary catastrophe out of our control

        You’re still describing climate change. Science fiction ideas are fun to think about but our own inability to live harmoniously with nature is going to kill us off before any of those problems become relevant.

          • variants@possumpat.io
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            4 months ago

            I was kind of surprised that comet that’s been visible at night was only discovered like a year ago. Crazy to think that would be the warning time of anything coming to hit us

            • LavenderDay3544@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              There are black holes that travel at the speed of light. If one were to pass through our astronomical neighborhood we would never see it coming and it would end our existence so instantaneously that it would be like our species and planet never existed.

        • LavenderDay3544@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          And you have your head stuck so far up your ass you think climate change is the only threat to the habitability of the Earth when one solar flare gone wrong or object striking the Earth or black hole travelling at the speed of light passing sufficiently close could erase humanity from existence and we would never see it coming. None of these things are fiction and all of them are completely within the realm of possibility. Modern astronomy has documented examples of all of these things happening. In fact the leading theory right now is that the Earth and moon existing as they do is the result of the collision of two objects typically referred to as Gaia and Theia. Theia broke off pieces of Gaia and those eventually came together to form the moon while the rest became the Earth.

          As of right now the only thing preventing our species from going extinct due to any of a very large number of astronomical events is luck. But you have no guarantees that that luck will last forever and humanity needs a backup plan.

          • subignition@fedia.io
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            4 months ago

            Uh, nope, you’re putting words in my mouth. It’s not realistic to worry about mitigating that kind of stuff when we can’t even prevent ourselves from cooking ourselves, and several of the things you listed don’t even have plausible technical solutions right now. Nice try, though.

      • SanndyTheManndy@lemmy.kya.moe
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        4 months ago

        Humanity can easily survive a KT extinction event. Sure, 99.999% of us will die, but tens of thousands will still survive.

        • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
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          4 months ago

          huh? why do people have this innate ability to underestimate what we might be capable of? why do you think its impossible for us to become masters of our own genome?

          not getting off this rock means our species is doomed regardless of how ‘perfect’ we keep earth.

          • ltxrtquq@lemmy.ml
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            4 months ago

            why do people have this innate ability to underestimate what we might be capable of?

            Because we can see what we’re currently capable of in terms of climate change, and the outlook is pretty bleak

            why do you think its impossible for us to become masters of our own genome?

            Because even in the best case scenario, this is dangerously close to eugenics

            not getting off this rock means our species is doomed regardless of how ‘perfect’ we keep earth.

            If we can’t keep earth livable, an entire self-regulating planet that’s been livable for hundreds of millions or billions of years, what are our chances of keeping anywhere else livable?

      • Umbrias@beehaw.org
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        4 months ago

        there is not a single thing that could wipe out a deep sea habitat that wouldnt also wipe any space colonies. but i dont see anybody arguing for that, despite being far more achievable and practical. also, there is no feasible way for space colonies to be self sufficient anywhere in the near future, so wiping out earth also wipes out space colonies relying on it for supplies. this argument aboOt survivability is absurd.

        • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
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          4 months ago

          a rogue planet hitting this one would. i would expect a space faring race to want to move not only to the outskirts of the solar system, but possible attempt venturing to a new one. perhaps multiples.

          but go ahead, keep thinking small for some reason. technology never advances dontcha know.

      • superkret@feddit.org
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        4 months ago

        our planet could easily be wiped by a number of things.

        Most likely by us, while we waste our limited resources on useless things like spaceships

        if we dont plan for a planetary catastrophe out of our control, our species is doomed.

        Oh no, how will the universe ever recover from this tragedy?

        • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
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          4 months ago

          Oh no, how will the universe ever recover from this tragedy?

          yep, this is what people resort to when they dont have a real point. ‘so what?!’ pfft

    • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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      4 months ago

      If the colonization strategy is the Moon then Mars, I expect humanity would have the technology needed to colonize Mars easily while terraforming occurs.

      The problem with an O’Neil Cylinder is bringing up enough processed material to build one.

      • FrogPrincess@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        The problem with an O’Neil Cylinder is bringing up enough processed material to build one.

        One possible solution is a moon base. The moon is full of titanium and iron.

        And then you could launch the stuff out of a weaker gravity well with no air resistance.

        • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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          4 months ago

          I don’t see the application of an O’Neil Cylinder within the Earth and Mars gravity wells given how expensive they would be to build next to better places to grow crops.

          If one does get built, I would expect it in orbit around Jupiter or Saturn to support activity there.

  • SkavarSharraddas@gehirneimer.de
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    4 months ago

    If we can’t manage to keep Earth’s ecosystem thriving to support us, we certainly won’t be able to create a new self-sustaining ecosystem elsewhere. And without that, there’s no chance of any non-Earth settlement being able to sustain a healthy human society and culture long-term.

    Without some serious (currently impossible) terraforming, Mars colonies are limited to deep caves or heavily shielded buildings, no outside to relax, nowhere else to go. Have a look at the list of crimes in Antarctica, a similar situation where people are stuck together, that’s not a good environment for mental health, and it will be worse farther away. A Mars colony (edit: or space station) owned by a private company will be a corporate prison, the inhabitants are 100% dependent on that company - who would voluntarily put their lives into the hands of the whims of some narcissistic hoarder with no empathy or regard for workers?

    • KevinFromSpace@lemmy.mlOP
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      4 months ago

      If we can’t manage to keep Earth’s ecosystem thriving to support us, we certainly won’t be able to create a new self-sustaining ecosystem elsewhere. And without that, there’s no chance of any non-Earth settlement being able to sustain a healthy human society and culture long-term.

      I’m unconvinced that pulling back from space programs will make Earth’s ecosystem thrive.

      A Mars colony (edit: or space station) owned by a private company will be a corporate prison, the inhabitants are 100% dependent on that company - who would voluntarily put their lives into the hands of the whims of some narcissistic hoarder with no empathy or regard for workers?

      Agreed. That would be a super-weird concept, like a country owned by a private corporation.

      • SkavarSharraddas@gehirneimer.de
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        4 months ago

        I’m unconvinced that pulling back from space programs will make Earth’s ecosystem thrive.

        My point was more or less the opposite: Anyone interested in space exploration should also be interested in keeping Earth well livable, because that is needed for its success.

  • AntiOutsideAktion [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    Bonkers question. Can’t even figure out living on Earth sustainably and you want to talk about doing it without gravity, an atmosphere or an ionosphere?

    • frauddogg [null/void, undecided]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      Not a bonkers question, it’s actually totally predictable if you have an accurate read for both the White urge to despoil the frontier, and the depths of techbro narcissism. They just want to be the first to bust their load somewhere new, no matter what it takes, no matter whose resources they have to spend, no matter what they leave behind. Colonizer-assed cracker techbros always leave shit behind.

      This is what the space-age (hwhite) colonizer’s future looks like: every planet now has ring arrangements of dead satellites, empty fuel pods, blown-apart thrusters, and other assorted human-make space junk. Rings of garbage for all nine, dead vessels (crewed by now, long-dead, pressganged “conscripts” [because “conscript” causes less riots than “undesirable”]) hanging in high planetary orbits like macabre baby mobiles, and a still-smoldering coal where Earth used to be.

      I have no fucking respect for it.

      • FrogPrincess@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        Only two things are infinite: the universe and Seppos’ ability to bring up race in any convrsation.

        • xj9 [they/them, she/her]@hexbear.net
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          4 months ago

          As long as there are white people, we have to keep having this talk. At some point they’ll realize that white is a caste and hopefully give it up.

          • FrogPrincess@lemmy.ml
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            4 months ago

            Westerners try to accept that the rest of the world exists challenge: impossible

            Don’t you have a democracy you should be overthrowing?

            • frauddogg [null/void, undecided]@hexbear.net
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              4 months ago

              bazinga smuglord jagoff

              Don’t you have natives of your own to be ceding your land back to, then going the fuck back to Britain afterwards? Settlers are settlers, no matter what white country they illegitimately live in. America, Britain, Australia, France, Spain, Belgium, the Nordics, all of you are exactly the same.

              https://readsettlers.org

                • Nakoichi [they/them]@hexbear.net
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                  4 months ago

                  No you’re just a settler brain dipshit that gets uncomfortable getting called out, the fact you are an Aussie calling someone else westerner is fucking rich lmao.

  • xj9 [they/them, she/her]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    I don’t think capital can sustain projects of this magnitude. Space is too harsh of an environment for delulu. We can hardly grapple with the idea that our actions on earth have consequences because of our condition. I like space stuff and I even like to create designs of starships, but I don’t think we’re in a position to reach for the stars just yet. Even if I’m wrong, we can’t allow space fascism get started either. There is probably life out there and if space capitalism finds them, they’ll try to pull another indigenous genocide and invent new forms of xenophobia to justify it.

    None of our problems are technological. We have massive people problems. Building a new billions of dollar machine or trillions of dollar space station isn’t going to disrupt the imperial core. The Gray Techno Fash won’t suddenly become humanists because space.

    Space life can be fun to think about, but techno futurism is a liberal fetish and tends to result in liberal fantasies if you don’t decolonize your mind.

    https:///readsettlers.org tbh

  • absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz
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    4 months ago

    If we can do B, A doesn’t provide many benefits.

    A 1km diameter, 30km cylinder would provide enough area to feed ~140k people. 95km^2 of space.

    That is assuming no imported food etc, based on 7000m^2 per person which is almost 2 acres each.

    140k people is a small city.

    • IHave69XiBucks@lemmygrad.ml
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      4 months ago

      Habitats are risky and not as good as planets imo. It would be trivially simply to sabotage one and kill everyone inside. Just vent atmo into space, poison the air/water, and even a accidental fire could kill everyone who doesnt manage to flee… Planets not so easy. Some of the same attacks work but u can just walk elsewhere.

      plus in a habitat your not really thinking of psychological effects. Its been shown for example that humans needs to see big bodies of water regularly to not get stressed out. So youd need to devote significant space onboard to just that. Plus imagine never seeing the mountains again, or a sunset, or the ocean. The earth is intrinsically linked to our evolution and many of its features are far too big to have on a habitat. I mean not to mention all the microbiomes we interact with unknowingly on earth all the time.

      While habitats might be an ok solution for some people there are definitely things we will always need a planet for and imo a planet will always be superior in quality of life.

    • Saleh@feddit.org
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      4 months ago

      140k people is about the amount of people living in a 1km radius around you, if you live in some inner city area.

      • absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz
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        4 months ago

        You could have most people in a relatively small area with the rest for farming.

        There would be little need for the equivalent of roads, almost all travel would be walk or bike. The longest distance between two points is less than 34km. If the main settlement is in a ring around the middle of the cylinder, it is less than 17km to any point.

  • whotookkarl@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    We should be exploring both options, exploration can often lead to unexpected discoveries and technological advancement.

      • frauddogg [null/void, undecided]@hexbear.net
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        4 months ago

        You’re so fixated on whether you can that you will never stop to question if you should. What, are you going to frack asteroids until they become space junk? Utterly violate another planet to its core for all its worth the way you’ve done the Earth, just to bail out like the deadbeat developer humanity has proven itself as? Disgusting, parasitic, over-consumptive, self-centered, practically narcissistic-assed question out of you.

    • lunar_solstice@lemmy.ml
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      4 months ago

      What’s your definition of ‘pollute’? I don’t really get how the verb ‘pollute’ can apply to non-biological planets; to me the word means something like ‘putting matter in places where is disrupts ecosystems’. I think the book about Gaia has a definition like this too.

        • FrogPrincess@lemmy.ml
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          4 months ago

          Classic troll move of refusing to engage when someone points out you’re making no sense.

        • serenityseeker [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          4 months ago

          I think this is the Gaia quote they’re talking about –

          The very concept of pollution is anthropocentric and it may even be irrelevant in the Gaian context. Many so-called pollutants are naturally present and it becomes exceedingly difficult to know at what level the appellation ‘pollutant’ may be justified. Carbon monoxide, for example, which is poisonous to us and to most large mammals, is a product of incomplete combustion, a toxic agent from exhaust gases of cars, coke or coal-burning stoves, and cigarettes; a pollutant put into otherwise clean fresh air by man, you might think. However, if the air is analysed we find that carbon monoxide gas is to be found everywhere. It comes from the oxidation of methane gas in the atmosphere itself and as much as 1,000 million tons of it are so produced each year. It is thus an indirect but natural vegetable product and is also found in the swim-bladders of many sea creatures. The syphonophores, for example, are loaded with this gas in concentrations which would speedily kill us off if present in our own atmosphere at similar levels.

          Almost every pollutant, whether it be in the form of sulphur dioxide, dimethyl mercury, the halocarbons, mutagenic and carcinogenic substances, or radioactive material, has to some extent, large or small, a natural background. It may even be produced so abundantly in nature as to be poisonous or lethal from the start. To live in caves of uranium-bearing rock would be unhealthy for any living creature, but such caves are rare enough to present no real threat to the survival of a species. It seems that as a species we can already with stand the normal range of exposure to the numerous hazards of our environment. If for any reason one or more of these hazards should increase, both individual and species adaptation will set in.


          What is your definition of pollution tho? How can there be pollution on a lifeless rocky planet?

          • frauddogg [null/void, undecided]@hexbear.net
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            4 months ago

            Again, I don’t do “quibbling definitions with sophists”, and honestly this just reads as techno-woo made to justify leaving dead rovers and broken satellites in our wake. “Oh, it was already there in trace amounts so we can just leave our toys scattered around the playroom.” If I had that kind of laissez-faire attitude towards say, Yellowstone, I’d be put out of the park and banned for life. The fuck happened to ‘leave no trace’?

    • FrogPrincess@lemmy.ml
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      4 months ago

      Neither. We can’t even unfuck Earth, where in that did we earn the privilege to pollute the cosmos?

      What kind of weird Abrahamic mental model is going on here? We need to morally prove ourselves to Jehovah and he will decree we have “earned” the “privilege” to go to some rocks? Makes no sense.

  • infuziSporg [e/em/eir]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    I’m not sure that fitting Earthlike habitats in giant spaceships would make sense without limitless exponential growth. Wouldn’t it be more feasible to put something on the surface of a planet?

    No matter how advanced our technology gets, we are not going to get around the basic constraints on energy.