Thread

1. I_dream_of_Geni · 1790469671 · focus · HN ↗

   OK... Serious question here: we find "life" (algae?) on one of Saturn's moons or one of Jupiter's moons. So, we spend ~$50 Billion (arguably much more) and find "life". So? Why is this important to people? There isn't one chance in (place your own word here) that we can do anything about it or even send humans there. Seriously want to know what people really think...

   1. dzink · 1790472330 · focus · HN ↗

      Because of statistics. If we can find life, potentially started independently or pollinated in a couple of planets close to each-other, then life is everywhere and we may be in a dark forest of intelligent or hidden native predatory beings waiting to wipe us out if we squeak or show up elsewhere. If it's not as frequent, then we can keep exploring to look for it and more human-habitable spots.

      1. rafram · 1790473325 · focus · HN ↗

         I have a premonition that even if extraterrestrial life is discovered, and even if intelligent, hostile extraterrestrial life is somehow discovered, humans are not going to leave it alone.

         After all, everyone involved can just say it's inevitable! If we don't do it, someone else will.

         1. lazyasciiart · 1790497960 · focus · HN ↗

            No, but you might explore differently once you know there are other people everywhere and they might be stronger than you.
         2. flyinglizard · 1790498027 · focus · HN ↗

            Having an external common enemy might do us good.

            1. LightBug1 · 1790505743 · focus · HN ↗

               In the movies.

               In reality the existential crisis will be used as a means for control, exploitation, and corruption ...

               c.f. USA, Israel, UAE as spring-to-mind obvious examples for hints and tips as to how this plays out.

               It's also interesting that your mind goes immediately to common enemy instead of some alternative.

         3. nkrisc · 1790507002 · focus · HN ↗

            It’s the same, lame, self-fulfilling excuse that gets used for every bad thing someone does dressed up as a necessary thing.

            You can see it right now with AI barreling forward. If we don’t develop it, someone else will, so we will ensuring it happens.

            Of course we can never prove or disprove their claim of “someone else will” because they went ahead and did it.

            1. trimethylpurine · 1790524127 · focus · HN ↗

               You can't prove that walking through walls is impossible but you are an idiot if you keep trying. It hurts. That's called inductive reasoning.

               We've never seen a case where some government in some country doesn't work as hard as possible to ensure that they have the biggest possible weapon. So you should believe someone is doing that. (Point in fact, we know of several governments currently trying to achieve nuclear, aerial, and AI superiority today.)

               You can check out why scientists use this same philosophy in modern discovery and belief systems by catching up on the subject of "the philosophy of science." You'll find some 5,000 years of scientific debate and conclusions that roughly culminate in the above system of belief.

               1. nico · 1790527057 · focus · HN ↗

                  In the case of weapons development, it's not about whether someone will do it or not. It's about whether that is a good reason/excuse to then do it yourself

                  So, if someone else is going to develop something very harmful, is the best solution to develop something equally or more harmful? Or are there maybe other better solutions to this problem?

                  1. trimethylpurine · 1790528628 · focus · HN ↗

                     There might be, but we've never seen one. The culture with the lesser weapons is subjected to inferior quality of life when compared to the oppressing culture in all cases in history.

                     So, it might be worth entertaining whether you can convince everyone in your culture to be subservient?

                     Here again, historically that's never happened, so it's not worth believing. And that's just to check if there's a better solution. You might arrive at an even worse outcome.

                     Revolutions require even bigger weapons, despite sometimes having better long term outcomes. How many people have to die to test our theory?

                     Genghis Khan created centuries of peace horrifically with bigger guns. The Ottoman Turks similarly did. The US, now. And many more cases that we know of. All of these examples coincidentally allowed multiculturalism, and even more, they enforced it as a matter of law. Just as an interesting side point.

                     Life is terrible in all cases in history where it's not clear who has the biggest guns. That's always been the demarcation of the beginning of a new regime at the cost of millions of lives.

                     Revolutions are horrible. That's what we know for sure.

                     1. trimethylpurine · 1790536631 · focus · HN ↗

                        I want to clarify my side point. I brought up multiculturalism because I think these societies find that to be a requirement for peace once they've established military superiority.

                        I want to clarify that because I could see someone taking that statement to mean that multiculturalism is inherently wrong, which is the opposite of what I'm saying.

                     2. rsynnott · 1790543409 · focus · HN ↗

                        Huh? There have been lots of extremely nasty things which there has been implicit or explicit international agreement not to develop and/or deploy, and this has largely held. Weaponised nerve agents, most biological weapons, salted nuclear weapons (the doomsday machine from Doctor Strangelove, essentially), extremely large nuclear weapons...

                        1. trimethylpurine · 1790551542 · focus · HN ↗

                           Agreement? Never happened.

                           Sadam Hussein? IRGC? United States?

                           When?

                           It's never happened. The US itself doesn't abide by Geneva convention. Let alone other UN members.

                           You're living in pretense, I'm sorry to point out.

                           The world is run by terrorists. The only question is which terror group you want to retain power.

                           Personally, I like the multiculturalism that the US champions, and the Turks used to, and the Khan dynasty used to, and Persia used to. And only because it's the most likely recipe for the longest track record for peace.

                           Like it or not, history doesn't agree with your optimism as much as you and I wish it did.

               2. nkrisc · 1790548596 · focus · HN ↗

                  I’m well aware of why people do it, that doesn’t change my feelings about it or my opinion of it.

                  Developing the more heinous weapons before the other guy is the pragmatic thing to do, but it doesn’t give you the moral high ground.

                  > (Point in fact, we know of several governments currently trying to achieve nuclear, aerial, and AI superiority today.)

                  And why are they doing that? To get it first since others will do it anyway.

                  1. trimethylpurine · 1790629484 · focus · HN ↗

                     So, honest question, that being the case, is the best solution to let them gain superiority, exercise revolution at the cost of millions of lives, and then hope they don't kill you and your countrymen?

                     I think making seemingly moral short term decisions that result in maximum casualties is not actually moral. It's stupid, and wrong.

                     Creating an arms race by letting someone who isn't the current leader gain an advantage ensures that a power struggle will ensue. It implies revolution in all known cases in history.

                     The moral high ground you're referring to should result in the best outcome. It doesn't arise from a guy standing at the top of a hill by himself shouting that he's the most moral guy while getting us all killed in the course of violent revolution. That's just megalomania.

                     They're very similar. One relies on rational thinking about actual expected outcomes, the other relies on one's own opinion about right and wrong.

                     You have to be careful because it's deceivingly easy to be the latter and end up an accidental megalomaniac that kills us all.

                     See history for countless examples.

                     You mentioned your feelings. I'm glad you did. Your feelings are nearly always a guide to bad outcomes. I'd trust you more as a leader if you instead relied on your rational faculties to guide us to good and moral decisions and outcomes.

                     And I'm confident that you'd find that your self doubt is diminished when you can self reflect on your decisions and find in all cases that they were made using the best information at the time, instead of how you felt about them at the time.

      2. semi-extrinsic · 1790502694 · focus · HN ↗

         Or maybe it's so boring that the math of the universe (practically achieavable time to travel to another solar system) makes the galaxy a set of distinct systems, where 1 in X has an intelligent species which has achieved orbit, but with no transit in between.

         It's not a cool concept to write scifi books about, but it may still be the reality we live in.

         The most likely situation (by many orders of magnitude) is that the only practical way of getting to another star system, even in the far far future, is a generation ship travelling 50+ years one way with a significant risk of people dying from organ failure or cancer along the route. This would represent a 1000x speed improvement over current tech and is only a factor of 10x slower than lightspeed.

         It is entirely unfeasible for any company or even government to spend money on such a project. Even if the ground on the other planet is strewn with diamonds and gold and the elixir of eternal life, you are looking at ~200 years before any ROI can be realised.

         1. [deleted] · 1790504162 · focus · HN ↗

            [deleted]

         2. Brian_K_White · 1790515119 · focus · HN ↗

            It only takes 5 years to communicate with the nearest star, and communication alone is worth doing.
         3. slfnflctd · 1790518227 · focus · HN ↗

            > the only practical way of getting to another star system, even in the far far future, is a generation ship travelling 50+ years one way with a significant risk of people dying from organ failure or cancer along the route

            1) The first mission would almost certainly be a set of robotic probes (especially in light of recent developments)

            2) As controversial as it may be, we could genetically engineer descendants who are better suited for space travel

            3) Cybernetics hold the potential to preserve the biological human 'essence' (brain and nervous system) while minimizing the amount of living material requiring maintenance

            4) Hibernation is still a possibility, or at least we haven't ruled it out yet

            When you're looking at long enough time spans - which we should have available if we manage to avoid extincting ourselves - many more possibilities emerge beyond simply "put a bunch of regular humans as we currently are into a tin can".

            1. semi-extrinsic · 1790579738 · focus · HN ↗

               None of these points solve the underlying economic problem. You would not get any ROI for hundreds of years, at which point the people who made the huge investment are no longer alive, and the companies/nations may not even exist anymore.

               1. slfnflctd · 1790593895 · focus · HN ↗

                  There is no clear ROI for a whole bunch of the research we do. Yes, the system will likely always be a bit biased toward research that does eventually lead to some sort of profitable enterprise, but any self respecting scientist turns a blind eye to that in favor of purely learning new things.

                  1. semi-extrinsic · 1790612702 · focus · HN ↗

                     I have no argument against the case that scientists may one day send a probe to travel to other solar systems. Probably it will be unmanned.

                     This does not extrapolate to a dark forest scenario.

               2. AngryData · 1790632987 · focus · HN ↗

                  I don't think we need a profit motive. Egyption pyramids would never pay off, and im willing to bet a lot of their construction was just for the cool factor and "look at what we can do collectively because we have so much excess of time and goods!"

                  History is full of monuments and art who's only purpose was to be cool. And sending humans to another solar system would be a pretty cool monument to humanity.

                  It is more of a PR problem really to convince people to contribute.

         4. api · 1790518680 · focus · HN ↗

            I’m willing to bet that figuring out how to survive cryostasis is easier than building any kind of starship. We can already do it with some organs and many tissues.

            Do that first. It has huge medical benefits too, so it’s dual use not just for space flight.

      3. paimapi · 1790538488 · focus · HN ↗

         or it could be that the pan-spermia theory bears out and we are downstream products of ejected extremophiles that survived a space trip through the relatively short solar system

         there's far too much unknown about the origins of life to say we even have a basic guess as to the probabilities of life

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