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[Frumple]

There is always conquering space. Space has a lot of stuff we haven't started even exploiting yet! And living space! Minerals, Hydrocarbons, water, solar-energy, adventure! It's like Imperialism without the part where you hurt people. But no one lives in space! Yet! See? Everyone benefits!

Space Imperialism is the way forward people.

There's just that teensie problem with near every part of it being inherently inimical to human life :V

And hey, the oceans have, like. Most of that already! We could colonize that. They filmed parts of a TV series about that in florida, actually.

We wouldn't even have to worry about killing the dolphins or whatever after our topside nincompoopery acidifies/deoxygenates the thing to the point they're all dead anyway.

[SalmonGod]

Plus, it's just really fucking strange logic.

Problem:  We can't stop ourselves from making our own planet inhospitable to life
Solution:  But we can totally go to a planet that is already inhospitable to life, and make it work

[misko27]

The advantage is that there are no entrenched interests in space. Entrenched interests have tripped up kings, emperors, and presidents. Everyone from the ruthless autocrat to the the noble aristocrat, and from the naive idealogue to the populist democrat, all have rightfully feared the might of the special interest. Without them, there's a whole world of stuff we can do.

[SalmonGod]

You'd have to explain to me further how moving into space intrinsically means leaving all our sociological baggage behind.  Otherwise, I'm still stuck on the logic that our solution to a problem is to instead solve a more advanced form of the same problem.

[Frumple]

Plus, it's just really fucking strange logic.

Problem:  We can't stop ourselves from making our own planet inhospitable to life
Solution:  But we can totally go to a planet that is already inhospitable to life, and make it work

No, no. The idea generally isn't so much to make other planets particularly hospitable as have them to off, uh. Orbit, I guess. All the inhospitable shit we're doing here. And maybe finding the few that's already livable. Outside of (generally romanticized) dome colonies and whatnot, I guess. A kind of "Imagine if we could take that small plastic continent we're building in the pacific and just toss it into the sun" thing. Or maybe figure a way to dump it all on venus or something and throw in a bunch of that plastic eating bacteria or whatever the hell.

Personally I just want to know we've actually got the option to try ready and rarin' to go if/when we actually happen to irreparably wreck this planet or it gets hit with a giant space rock or whatever. Never a good idea to have all your eggs in the same basket and all that. It's brainfuckingly stupid to me any of us is actually considering not even trying. Like, sure, it's not instant, and expensive, and etc., etc., etc. But it's like living in the middle of a flood plain and not having flooding insurance. Or stilts or some crap, I'unno, whatever works to get the point across.

Basically the idea is we do the space thing so we actually have the option to stop shitting in our back yard. Right now we don't really have other yards to shit in.

[Descan]

to be fair, the main thing we're doing to earth would make mars slightly MORE livable than it is now

[SalmonGod]

Basically the idea is we do the space thing so we actually have the option to stop shitting in our back yard. Right now we don't really have other yards to shit in.

This I can understand better than actually colonizing space.  Just doesn't work as much better than one part of a much larger spectrum of actions.  Like it would be great if we could mine rare metals from asteroids instead of Africa.  Chucking our most toxic waste off-planet... sure maybe.  Just solves a very limited range of problems.  Space-based solutions to just about anything else is getting back into the same type of problematic thinking as colonization.

And I'm sure you're aware of that... just responding in general to the sentiment.

But yeah... long-term, we should absolutely work on lofty space goals.  Bad shit could happen to our planet that wouldn't be our fault, and we should be prepared.  No disagreement there.

[Culise]

Plus, it's just really fucking strange logic.

Problem:  We can't stop ourselves from making our own planet inhospitable to life
Solution:  But we can totally go to a planet that is already inhospitable to life, and make it work

No, no. The idea generally isn't so much to make other planets particularly hospitable as have them to off, uh. Orbit, I guess. All the inhospitable shit we're doing here. And maybe finding the few that's already livable. Outside of (generally romanticized) dome colonies and whatnot, I guess. A kind of "Imagine if we could take that small plastic continent we're building in the pacific and just toss it into the sun" thing. Or maybe figure a way to dump it all on venus or something and throw in a bunch of that plastic eating bacteria or whatever the hell.

Personally I just want to know we've actually got the option to try ready and rarin' to go if/when we actually happen to irreparably wreck this planet or it gets hit with a giant space rock or whatever. Never a good idea to have all your eggs in the same basket and all that. It's brainfuckingly stupid to me any of us is actually considering not even trying. Like, sure, it's not instant, and expensive, and etc., etc., etc. But it's like living in the middle of a flood plain and not having flooding insurance. Or stilts or some crap, I'unno, whatever works to get the point across.

Basically the idea is we do the space thing so we actually have the option to stop shitting in our back yard. Right now we don't really have other yards to shit in.

Indeed.  It's worth remembering that even before modern capitalism, before modern technology, human subsistence living was still adequate to deforest continents, exterminate uncountable species, and generally wreck "natural" ecologies (I use the quotes because I think most people don't really recognize that humans themselves support rather significant ecologies as well, and have ever since the development of urbanization) all the world over.  The problems with "carrying capacity" (itself quite nebulous; estimates go upwards of twice the present world population) is that it's as much a local as it is a global concept, and moreover, one strongly tied to technology as well.  Much of the modern desertification of the Sahel, for instance, could be resolved not by telling people to off themselves, which they're unlikely to do in either case, but rather to adapt more modern and efficient agricultural methods to local conditions, just as the Dust Bowl was resolved by better agricultural methods and tree breaks.  The worst nightmare of Malthus was never realized due to technology and the ongoing development of new resources.

The advantage is that there are no entrenched interests in space. Entrenched interests have tripped up kings, emperors, and presidents. Everyone from the ruthless autocrat to the the noble aristocrat, and from the naive idealogue to the populist democrat, all have rightfully feared the might of the special interest. Without them, there's a whole world of stuff we can do.

Oh, but you do realize that the major issue in challenging space is the high start-up cost, right?  That is the one of the ultimate powers that make entrenched interests powerful: that no one else can come in to challenge them.  Let's say the domain of Earth was that of 140 countries, great and small.  Let's say there were...oh, let us be ungenerous and suggest anyone with a nominal GDP over 1 million USD as a nation with economic significance: that seems to give us 15 countries.  How many have been to space?  How many to the moon?  There have, in all the years space has been open to us, been only three countries - no, three entities, to include companies like Space-X - that have accomplished the task of putting a living person in space and bringing them back; those same three are the only ones who have set up any sort of permanent space station in orbit.  It is not a matter of hopping on a ship and sailing to the New World, and let us be frank: these were managed by entrenched interests as well, for all that the New World was as free originally of the sort of (European, naturally, but rather ill-defined) "entrenched interests" you seem to disdain.  Moreover, I fear libertarian dreams of utopia in space are dreams.  Survival in such a harsh and unyielding environment is likely to be one that encourages authoritarianism, hierarchical structure, and strict obedience to regulation and guidelines.  It's not a place where you can manage anything greater than a small commune based on egalitarianism without very careful social management, a task which must be considered and undertaken nonetheless due to the potential threat inherent in unrestrained authoritarianism. 

Besides, entrenched interests include "kings, emperors, and presidents."  Oh, the names may change, but movers and shakers have always existed, those who hold power and seek to retain it, whether that power is held by the gold of wealth, the steel of armies, the coal that fuels industry, or the incense of ceremony and religion.  The mass exploitation of space will bring us some old, and some new faces, but it won't change us the way you seem to hope it will.  It may change the world; it won't change people. 

[Max™]

Back to politics: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/hillary-clinton-deplorables-debate-227996

Seems like a good tactic to get people discussing something besides "zomg email" there.

to be fair, the main thing we're doing to earth would make mars slightly MORE livable than it is now

Mars has a 95% CO2 atmosphere, need a lot more than however many gigatons we're pumping out here to do anything there.

[Rolepgeek]

A dictator isn't good (though I don't particularly believe in democracy), but it is at least comforting that there's no getting away with it. I see every person who goes out of their way to sped lies, misinformation, and denialism. I see everybody who insists on having ten children and refuses to use a recycling bin because that's liberal shit. They don't have to believe me, but hey, eventually there's just what's gonna happen. Call it my own preemptive solace for collapse conditions.

Fuck people for wanting kids and control of their lives, right? The part that scares me is that you'd basically rather have a dictator (and we're not just gonna assume it's a benevolent one) than have the environment get worse than it is. And it will get worse, but that doesn't mean it won't shift. You see people you think are being vile human beings for either not dropping everything that might be making the problem worse, or people who are following the incentives given them, and think 'fuck those guys for not helping'. I see the people who are trying to help but are just one person and think 'why the fuck does this gotta affect them'. Almost no one is evil. Almost everything is broken.

FURTHERMORE on this point though, what makes you think that the dictator would fulfill the promises of fixing things? Ever? Once things are better, their whole platform for power is lost. Power corrupts. There's even been studies that find that you lose the empathy and ability to care about other people when you feel powerful and individualistic. You don't need other people anymore, after all.

On a similar note, trees love the current state of things. When they aren't being cut down. More CO2 means easier time growing.

Most of the CO2 is out of their reach and has to be destroyed by sunlight. This also only applies to C3 plants.

Which is most of them. Also, while some CO2 gets real high in the atmosphere, sure, it's heavier than air in general, it sinks. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v288/n5789/abs/288347a0.html
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100628124327AAGYWzy

Also, yes, you are correct, it only applies to C3 plants, aka the vast majority of them that aren't crops.

Wait, so what's wrong with fracking? Releases methane into the air, can go wrong if proper protocols aren't taken, it can cause small earthquakes (which to me seems like it's just releasing the existing tension, since the reason it happens is essentially lubrication).

Poisons groundwater, don't know how the hell you're just dismissing earthquakes, is an obvious diversion from actual sustainability just like "clean coal", nobody actually knows the health effects of fracking fluid because it's proprietary. Seriously, you get all up in arms about human rights abuses and you don't think destabilizing faultlines counts? All faults have existing tension. They're faults. They always have tension. But a dead fault can go for a very long time without causing trouble, and now in Oklahoma we've gone and woken them up. Or rather, irresponsible fucking companies have. Bet they wouldn't be so eager if they had to pay earthquake damages from now until heat death.

So, the degree to which it poisons groundwater, in the few fracking cases where they aren't drilling in rock below the groundwater table, the studies about how much that affects people in the concentrations you'd find it at? Doesn't do shit. Do you know what chemicals are used in fracking? An anti-bacterial and a friction reducer, and a whole lot of water. Used to be done with actual chemical gels which just happened to be really expensive. But they would have been used more as we ran out.

And it only destabilizes a faultline if you're looking at it like the faultline wasn't going to end up sliding at some point anyway. It allows it to slide. It doesn't add energy to the equation. It makes it less likely to build up tension for a HUGE earthquake that would actually be devastating, which would eventually come anyway. I dunno about a 4.6 magnitude earthquake being more than a nuisance (yes I know people's stuff break and it's dangerous for old people). I mean, yeah, they should probably pay damages when it happens, but it ain't common.

I'm talking about the danger of innovation here, what some people refer to as "Moloch". If we could attain power by child sacrifice, even if we didn't necessarily agree with child sacrifice, we would. We would practically be forced to if anybody did agree with child sacrifice, in order to keep up with them. That is the danger of innovation.

See, that's the advantage of coordination mechanisms. We can also use military force, instead. If it generated literally terrawatts of power per child, yes, we would have to to compete. But if it was just marginally better, The God of Cooperation is quite capable of beating the God of Cancer. Like, I'm not sure what your point here is. Innovation is a double-edged sword? It can sometimes bite us back, but the alternative is to not innovate. Is that what you're suggesting here, or...? Like, first off, by innovations, I mean things like Uber. Small scale stuff that just increases productivity and creates new markets and things like that. Not 'literally magic'.

Jesus does not have every climatologist in the world supporting him.

Only every second Christian.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Fuck people for wanting kids and control of their lives, right?

Yeah, fuck them, in fact. You're not the only person in the world, you know. We're all stuck here together in a very precarious position that will define all future humans lives. What an individual wants has no bearing if it jeopardizes that. There's seven billion humans in the world, a person's childish desires for a giant family that is actually a swirling drain of resource depletion isn't as important.

As for it being control, please. If reveling in your their ignorance and inflicting it on everybody else is how people control their lives then maybe they really should have it controlled for them.

The part that scares me is that you'd basically rather have a dictator (and we're not just gonna assume it's a benevolent one) than have the environment get worse than it is. And it will get worse, but that doesn't mean it won't shift. You see people you think are being vile human beings for either not dropping everything that might be making the problem worse, or people who are following the incentives given them, and think 'fuck those guys for not helping'. I see the people who are trying to help but are just one person and think 'why the fuck does this gotta affect them'. Almost no one is evil. Almost everything is broken.

FURTHERMORE on this point though, what makes you think that the dictator would fulfill the promises of fixing things? Ever? Once things are better, their whole platform for power is lost. Power corrupts. There's even been studies that find that you lose the empathy and ability to care about other people when you feel powerful and individualistic. You don't need other people anymore, after all.

I don't believe in the cause of a dictatorship. It's just what's probably going to happen when the ball gets rolling. As I stated before.

The morality or effectiveness of it is not why I brought this up. Just the grim satisfaction of motherfuckers getting theirs, even if it also falls on the rest of us.

Which is most of them. Also, while some CO2 gets real high in the atmosphere, sure, it's heavier than air in general, it sinks. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v288/n5789/abs/288347a0.html
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100628124327AAGYWzy

Also, yes, you are correct, it only applies to C3 plants, aka the vast majority of them that aren't crops.

None of this changes the fact that most CO2 reduction is just going to come down to time in the sun. We've recorded the effect of how ppm changes between summer and winter, and while it's certainly distinct it goes (IIRC) from 415 to 389 ppm. Meaningful. But not a solution.

So, the degree to which it poisons groundwater, in the few fracking cases where they aren't drilling in rock below the groundwater table, the studies about how much that affects people in the concentrations you'd find it at? Doesn't do shit. Do you know what chemicals are used in fracking? An anti-bacterial and a friction reducer, and a whole lot of water. Used to be done with actual chemical gels which just happened to be really expensive. But they would have been used more as we ran out.

This is just plain wrong. You don't know what materials are used in fracking fluid unless you work for the companies who own the proprietary. And I'm sure people's taps going up in flames is just red propaganda or something.

You know, in my glorious state they also passed a law that lets companies drill sideways under your land to obtain mineral resources under it. Just an aside of how clean and upstanding of a business this is.

And it only destabilizes a faultline if you're looking at it like the faultline wasn't going to end up sliding at some point anyway. It allows it to slide. It doesn't add energy to the equation. It makes it less likely to build up tension for a HUGE earthquake that would actually be devastating, which would eventually come anyway. I dunno about a 4.6 magnitude earthquake being more than a nuisance (yes I know people's stuff break and it's dangerous for old people). I mean, yeah, they should probably pay damages when it happens, but it ain't common.

If I am immoral beyond words then you are reckless beyond them. Literally aggravating stable faultlines and not caring, I don't even have anything to say if you don't see why this is a stupid, stupid fucking thing to do. Yeah, I'm sure it'll stop at "just little shakes". Do you support dropping little artificial hurricanes on New Orleans too? For the first time I say this completely unironically, lo and behold the hubris of mankind.

See, that's the advantage of coordination mechanisms. We can also use military force, instead. If it generated literally terrawatts of power per child, yes, we would have to to compete. But if it was just marginally better, The God of Cooperation is quite capable of beating the God of Cancer. Like, I'm not sure what your point here is. Innovation is a double-edged sword? It can sometimes bite us back, but the alternative is to not innovate. Is that what you're suggesting here, or...? Like, first off, by innovations, I mean things like Uber. Small scale stuff that just increases productivity and creates new markets and things like that. Not 'literally magic'.

Please stop focusing the example. My point, my original point before we got tracked off here is that innovation is not a solution to anything, ever. Innovation increases certain options we have available to us. That's it. Sometimes we get a smallpox vaccination and sometimes we get a suitcase nuke. Whether any innovative potential is ever actually used depends entirely on the economic and societal circumstances. Hence why we could have long ago massively improved our sustainability but have not, while people continue to cling to "innovation will save us"

Jesus does not have every climatologist in the world supporting him.

Only every second Christian.

Do I even have to say it?

[saigo]

Fuck people for wanting kids and control of their lives, right?

Yeah, fuck them, in fact. You're not the only person in the world, you know. We're all stuck here together in a very precarious position that will define all future humans lives. What an individual wants has no bearing if it jeopardizes that. There's seven billion humans in the world, a person's childish desires for a giant family that is actually a swirling drain of resource depletion isn't as important.

I would posit that we might not need to address overpopulation directly. People who are wealthier and better educated have fewer children statistically, so wealth redistribution and socialised education might solve it indirectly.

Jesus does not have every climatologist in the world supporting him.

Only every second Christian.

Do I even have to say it?
[/quote]
Only half of Christians support Jesus? Shouldn't it be all of them?

[SalmonGod]

Only half of Christians support Jesus? Shouldn't it be all of them?

That's a surprisingly difficult question, depending on how you interpret what it means to support Jesus...

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

So, the degree to which it poisons groundwater, in the few fracking cases where they aren't drilling in rock below the groundwater table, the studies about how much that affects people in the concentrations you'd find it at? Doesn't do shit. Do you know what chemicals are used in fracking? An anti-bacterial and a friction reducer, and a whole lot of water. Used to be done with actual chemical gels which just happened to be really expensive. But they would have been used more as we ran out.

This is just plain wrong. You don't know what materials are used in fracking fluid unless you work for the companies who own the proprietary. And I'm sure people's taps going up in flames is just red propaganda or something.

You know, in my glorious state they also passed a law that lets companies drill sideways under your land to obtain mineral resources under it. Just an aside of how clean and upstanding of a business this is.

Has anybody bothered to send a sample of their water to a laboratory for analysis? Is there no record of water quality and composition from before fracking for comparison?

And it only destabilizes a faultline if you're looking at it like the faultline wasn't going to end up sliding at some point anyway. It allows it to slide. It doesn't add energy to the equation. It makes it less likely to build up tension for a HUGE earthquake that would actually be devastating, which would eventually come anyway. I dunno about a 4.6 magnitude earthquake being more than a nuisance (yes I know people's stuff break and it's dangerous for old people). I mean, yeah, they should probably pay damages when it happens, but it ain't common.

If I am immoral beyond words then you are reckless beyond them. Literally aggravating stable faultlines and not caring, I don't even have anything to say if you don't see why this is a stupid, stupid fucking thing to do. Yeah, I'm sure it'll stop at "just little shakes". Do you support dropping little artificial hurricanes on New Orleans too? For the first time I say this completely unironically, lo and behold the hubris of mankind.

Indeed.

[Max™]

Annihilating ~40 kg of mass by converting half of it into antimatter should be in the area of a Teraton of TNT equivalent, so you could definitely get a lot of useful energy out of child sacrifice with less... extreme methods, but you could also use said magitech to accomplish better returns without going quite as far into cheesy villain land.