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nfe wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Sometimes we literally do things just to prove we can.

Could we have some examples of these from the modern scientific era? Things that had no profit motive, no propaganda use, no specific and defineable public value etc. Pure 'let's have a go' reasons and absolutely nothing more. I'm genuinely stumped trying to think of anything. Funding councils have largely killed that as a viable motive, much to their shame.

If you are looking for some sort of motivation for mankind to attempt to colonise the stars I don’t think it gets much bigger than ‘complete and utter, guaranteed extinction if we dont’?

I’m sure there are examples of us doing things for the sake of it with only the most vague public value tied to it but I’m not at my computer right now so can’t find a funny one. I’ll do a search later.

Peregrine are you seriously claiming for a second you know more about this than the late Stephen Hawking?! Incredible. And stop strawmanning, it’s painfully obvious and the sign of a weak argument.

Under current economic conditions jobs create wealth, this is an evidencable fact.

 Peregrine wrote:

Nonsense. Robots are already capable of tasks way beyond what humans can do, and they're only going to get better. And we're talking about high-end scientific robots designed for a specific purpose, not that "robot" tool your company bought on ebay and hasn't maintained in a decade because maintenance costs money and makes the annual budget look bad.

I've yet to see these super robots you keep speaking of, can you give any examples?

however I do agree that colonizing mars is not a realistic prospect in the immediate future.

We should strive to get people on the surface though, on a return trip. baby steps.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
If you are looking for some sort of motivation for mankind to attempt to colonise the stars I don’t think it gets much bigger than ‘complete and utter, guaranteed extinction if we dont’?

Alternatively, who cares if we could theoretically go extinct in millions of years? Who cares if we could technically save some humans with the same genes even through the vast majority of people are killed?

Peregrine are you seriously claiming for a second you know more about this than the late Stephen Hawking?! Incredible.

Unlike you I know what an appeal to authority fallacy is.

Under current economic conditions jobs create wealth, this is an evidencable fact.

No, successful business ideas create wealth. Jobs alone do not. Telling someone "your job is to dig a hole and then fill it in, and repeat 8 hours a day forever" is not creating wealth.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
And stop strawmanning, it’s painfully obvious and the sign of a weak argument.

Peregrine has so many straws that California Law Enforcement has him on their wanted list.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I've yet to see these super robots you keep speaking of, can you give any examples?

The ones we're already sending to Mars.

And his reliance on questionable diversionary critical thinking tactics is painfully evident. An appeal to authority, like an appeal to nature, is not a fallacy 100% of the time, especially in debates of a scientific nature.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I've yet to see these super robots you keep speaking of, can you give any examples?

The ones we're already sending to Mars.

https://www.army-technology.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2017/09/CUTLASS-large.jpg


thats just this, but in space.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I bet when that mars rover goes t*ts, they just turn it off and on again remotely.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
And his reliance on questionable diversionary critical thinking tactics is painfully evident. An appeal to authority, like an appeal to nature, is not a fallacy 100% of the time, especially in debates of a scientific nature.

It is a fallacy when your argument is nothing but "LOOK STEVEN HAWKING LOL", without any apparent understanding or explanation of his arguments. It's literally just "a famous scientist said you're wrong", a textbook fallacy.

I bet when that mars rover goes t*ts, they just turn it off and on again remotely.

Or just keep using one of the other 15 copies of it they sent for the same payload cost as a human mission. It's certainly better than what happens when something goes wrong on a human mission.

(Hint: the humans die.)

 Peregrine wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:
This is one of the most ignorant things I have ever seen. The fact that you do not think there is any scientific motive to going to a planet and observing it on the ground is another indication you have no clue what you are talking about.

That observation can be done by robots. And you can launch a lot of robots for the payload capacity used up by a human mission.

Hey yeah, lets keep shooting precious irreplaceable resources like low-background steel to other planets where we will apparently never go and be able to retrieve for no apparent reason because going there means nothing.

Brilliant.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

nfe wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Sometimes we literally do things just to prove we can.

Could we have some examples of these from the modern scientific era? Things that had no profit motive, no propaganda use, no specific and defineable public value etc. Pure 'let's have a go' reasons and absolutely nothing more. I'm genuinely stumped trying to think of anything. Funding councils have largely killed that as a viable motive, much to their shame.

If you are looking for some sort of motivation for mankind to attempt to colonise the stars I don’t think it gets much bigger than ‘complete and utter, guaranteed extinction if we dont’?

Almost certainly not within the lifetimes of most species (very unlikely within the lifetime of any species we know of so far) and my position throughout has been that it is staggeringly unlikely that we will embark upon interstellar travel within thousands of years. So no worries on this front.

I’m sure there are examples of us doing things for the sake of it with only the most vague public value tied to it but I’m not at my computer right now so can’t find a funny one. I’ll do a search later.

I'm not, so please do. There will be lots of odd things discovered due to anomolies or curious things that happened as a side-effect of another project, or as a proof of concept to support another, but research carried out purely because somebody wants to say 'see, it works!' - that is going to be exceedingly rare.

Under current economic conditions jobs create wealth, this is an evidencable fact.

Actually demonstrably untrue - in certain instances - so it's reasonable to reject the blanket statement, I think. Many jobs actively lose money for the employee (see benefit/work cause and effect in actual England, man [teehee]) and many others cost more in pay than they generate in wealth (see many occupations created to massage enployment figures in China, for instance).

 Dreadwinter wrote:
Hey yeah, lets keep shooting precious irreplaceable resources like low-background steel to other planets where we will apparently never go and be able to retrieve for no apparent reason because going there means nothing.

Brilliant.

Why can't you retrieve it? If you can send humans there it's even easier to send a robot return mission or several.

 Peregrine wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
And his reliance on questionable diversionary critical thinking tactics is painfully evident. An appeal to authority, like an appeal to nature, is not a fallacy 100% of the time, especially in debates of a scientific nature.

It is a fallacy when your argument is nothing but "LOOK STEVEN HAWKING LOL", without any apparent understanding or explanation of his arguments. It's literally just "a famous scientist said you're wrong", a textbook fallacy.

I bet when that mars rover goes t*ts, they just turn it off and on again remotely.

Or just keep using one of the other 15 copies of it they sent for the same payload cost as a human mission. It's certainly better than what happens when something goes wrong on a human mission.

(Hint: the humans die.)

the inference is of stephen hawkings work, VS your statements on the subject, and as such is not an appeal to authority. Its getting to the stage where your appeal to critical thinking arguments are becoming logical fallacies in their own right.

Anyone can look up fallacies on wikipedia. I've actually studied critical thinking academically. But I guess thats appealing to my own authority right?

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
And stop strawmanning, it’s painfully obvious and the sign of a weak argument.

Peregrine has so many straws that California Law Enforcement has him on their wanted list.

Strong. Peregrine feels like a meme of how other 40k players see general Dakka Dakka posters.

I’m not sure whether his posts are actually brilliant satirical comedy or real.

I think I’m going to believe the former from now on. Less painful for all.

There were times in the autonomous vehicle thread where it seemed I was debating a worthy opponent, which is rare and something I relish. good points were certainly raised, however, The reliance on shooting down relevant points with weak logical fallacy statements, coupled with ad hominem attacks dissapointed me greatly.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
the inference is of stephen hawkings work, VS your statements on the subject, and as such is not an appeal to authority. Its getting to the stage where your appeal to critical thinking arguments are becoming logical fallacies in their own right.

Anyone can look up fallacies on wikipedia. I've actually studied critical thinking academically. But I guess thats appealing to my own authority right?

It is an appeal to authority because you are relying entirely on Hawking's name, not his arguments (which you haven't even bothered to quote).


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 An Actual Englishman wrote:
I’m not sure whether his posts are actually brilliant satirical comedy or real.

I could say the same about a lot of your posts. I read them and I find myself thinking "no, this can't be real, nobody can be that clueless about science and engineering". Unfortunately I then remember that yes, lots of people are in fact that clueless, and you just seem to be one of them.

nfe wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Sometimes we literally do things just to prove we can.

Could we have some examples of these from the modern scientific era? Things that had no profit motive, no propaganda use, no specific and defineable public value etc. Pure 'let's have a go' reasons and absolutely nothing more. I'm genuinely stumped trying to think of anything. Funding councils have largely killed that as a viable motive, much to their shame.

Wouldn't the entire Large Hadron Collider project fall under that heading? The entire field of particle physics offers very little profit, and no practical application that I'm aware of.

 Gitzbitah wrote:
Wouldn't the entire Large Hadron Collider project fall under that heading? The entire field of particle physics offers very little profit, and no practical application that I'm aware of.

Not really. The LHC is a carefully planned project with a clearly defined goal based on legitimate scientific research, even if the financial payoff is not immediately obvious. It's much more comparable to sending robot probes to Mars, where we have a scientific goal and accomplish it as directly and efficiently as possible. We didn't build the LHC because "LOL LETS MAKE A HUGE THING AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS".

nfe wrote:

Almost certainly not within the lifetimes of most species (very unlikely within the lifetime of any species we know of so far) and my position throughout has been that it is staggeringly unlikely that we will embark upon interstellar travel within thousands of years. So no worries on this front.

But still a guarantee and something we want to avoid as a species, so still relevant.

I'm not, so please do. There will be lots of odd things discovered due to anomolies or curious things that happened as a side-effect of another project, or as a proof of concept to support another, but research carried out purely because somebody wants to say 'see, it works!' - that is going to be exceedingly rare.

I already know what’s going to happen here, I’ll suggest something like; ‘scientists actively created a 2 headed (or no headed) mouse in a lab’ and you’ll try and justify it with wild leaps of logic that I’ll disagree with. Let’s not waste both of our times. Let’s also remember that establishing a colony on Mars is the rather large proof of concept for questions such as ‘can humans exist on another planet long term and self sufficiently?’ and ‘can we terraform a planet as hostile as Mars to suit our needs?’

Actually demonstrably untrue - in certain instances - so it's reasonable to reject the blanket statement, I think. Many jobs actively lose money for the employee (see benefit/work cause and effect in actual England, man [teehee]) and many others cost more in pay than they generate in wealth (see many occupations created to massage enployment figures in China, for instance).

You are ignoring things like ‘tax’ and ‘inflation’ that prove my statement or you misunderstand and believe I am referring to personal wealth. You are also discussing microeconomic principles for what is undoubtedly a macroeconomic statement. It is true and evidencable under current economic conditions.

Those jobs that people do instead of seeking benefits in England generates wealth for the country as a whole. Those jobs that people do in China that pay more than they generate in revenue still provide growth to the economy because that person then goes out and spends their not-so-well earned yen on goods and services. I’m not talking about the individual, business or personal and you seem to be confusing the distribution of wealth with the creation of wealth.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Gitzbitah wrote:
Wouldn't the entire Large Hadron Collider project fall under that heading? The entire field of particle physics offers very little profit, and no practical application that I'm aware of.

Not really. The LHC is a carefully planned project with a clearly defined goal based on legitimate scientific research, even if the financial payoff is not immediately obvious. It's much more comparable to sending robot probes to Mars, where we have a scientific goal and accomplish it as directly and efficiently as possible. We didn't build the LHC because "LOL LETS MAKE A HUGE THING AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS".

No one has claimed that scientists want to set up a colony on Mars because “LOL LETS SET UP A COLONY ON MARS”. The claim has always been that there is an economic/scientific benefit to doing so, most obvious of which is that it proves that we can establish life on another planet.

The only way to prove that we can do this is to do it. In just the same way that the LHC helps prove other scientific theory with regards particle physics. How can you be so oblivious to the fact that your defence of the LHC also proves the value of going to Mars?!

You’re fallacies are unravelling before us Peregrine.

 Gitzbitah wrote:

nfe wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Sometimes we literally do things just to prove we can.

Could we have some examples of these from the modern scientific era? Things that had no profit motive, no propaganda use, no specific and defineable public value etc. Pure 'let's have a go' reasons and absolutely nothing more. I'm genuinely stumped trying to think of anything. Funding councils have largely killed that as a viable motive, much to their shame.

Wouldn't the entire Large Hadron Collider project fall under that heading? The entire field of particle physics offers very little profit, and no practical application that I'm aware of.

It's not a project (though building it was), it is a machine and series of laboratories built to facilitate many projects with specific reseach questions nost of not all of which will have had to demonstrate their value at length.


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 An Actual Englishman wrote:

nfe wrote:

Almost certainly not within the lifetimes of most species (very unlikely within the lifetime of any species we know of so far) and my position throughout has been that it is staggeringly unlikely that we will embark upon interstellar travel within thousands of years. So no worries on this front.

But still a guarantee and something we want to avoid as a species, so still relevant.

To the topic, not to this specific conversation. I haven't disagreed with the premise anywhere.

I'm not, so please do. There will be lots of odd things discovered due to anomolies or curious things that happened as a side-effect of another project, or as a proof of concept to support another, but research carried out purely because somebody wants to say 'see, it works!' - that is going to be exceedingly rare.

I already know what’s going to happen here, I’ll suggest something like; ‘scientists actively created a 2 headed (or no headed) mouse in a lab’ and you’ll try and justify it with wild leaps of logic that I’ll disagree with. Let’s not waste both of our times.

You could try and be more polite. The presumption of 'wild leaps of logic' is a rather condescening presumption about my rhetoric - I do recall similar pop psychology predictions and assumptions from you before on another topic and believe it to be a bit unhelpful. I think it's worth conversing in good faith, no? The question is a genuine one because I have quite a lot of experience with funding applications.

Let’s also remember that establishing a colony on Mars is the rather large proof of concept for questions such as ‘can humans exist on another planet long term and self sufficiently?’ and ‘can we terraform a planet as hostile as Mars to suit our needs?’

Please don't conflate my with Peregrine. I've said nothing about Mars. I think there are valid research goals in colonising another planet in our solar system.

Need to rush, but suffice to say I understand the distinction between household and national economics, but it is entirely possible for the economic input required to generate and sustain an occupation to outweigh its return for the economy. Mars colonists would be an example.

Fair enough. Other than the costs involved then, what would be the difference between founding a colony on Mars in order to study the possibility of humans living on other planets (giving it a clear, definable scientific goal that cannot be accomplished by robots), and the Higgs Boson project?

Neither one will have any appreciable impact on our lives. There isn't any practical result from the LHC, nor does it produce a profit.

It's one of those intermediate step projects that we need if we want to send humans out into space.

Most of the opposition to this analogy seems to boil down to LHC is science! Mars colonization is science fiction.... but I didn't see any benefits of the LHC listed, or the Higgs Boson project.

Mars One projects its budget at 6 billion to put 4 people on Mars.https://www.mars-one.com/faq/finance-and-feasibility/what-is-mars-ones-mission-budget

Finding the Higgs Boson cost 13.25 billion.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/07/05/how-much-does-it-cost-to-find-a-higgs-boson/#25af50f03948

 Gitzbitah wrote:
Mars One projects its budget at 6 billion to put 4 people on Mars.https://www.mars-one.com/faq/finance-and-feasibility/what-is-mars-ones-mission-budget

Mars One is a blatant scam, not a real project. To put their "budget" into context, the Apollo program cost ~$25 billion in 1970s dollars. Claiming a much more difficult Mars mission on $6 billion in 2018 dollars is utter lunacy. Kind of like making a big PR show out of recruiting astronauts for a nonexistent Mars mission...

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
If you are looking for some sort of motivation for mankind to attempt to colonise the stars I don’t think it gets much bigger than ‘complete and utter, guaranteed extinction if we dont’?

You could say that's a motivation, but any extinction that is best averted by moving to another planet entirely is of a time frame that isn't going to be relevant for probably thousands of years. And, well... We're kind of already facing a likely threat to current civilisation in the form of global warming and there we've got the means to handle it, it's just that the political and economic system is mainly in the hands of precisely those least interested in doing anything. Once again we have to consider what "mankind" is even supposed to mean. Life isn't a space-based 4X game. If our current system somehow developed a way of getting to other planets it would either be to leave billions of the powerless to suffer and die on a boiling pile of trash or to send rightless workers out to strip the planet system and beyond of anything valuable for their masters to sell to further fuel the system. I mean c'mon, how many millions lack access to clean water and to electricity even with our technology? How many go hungry despite the overproduction of food? The miraculous powers of industrial agriculture and production have already been subverted to serve not those who need but those who own. A research base on Mars won't change that.

Rosebuddy wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
If you are looking for some sort of motivation for mankind to attempt to colonise the stars I don’t think it gets much bigger than ‘complete and utter, guaranteed extinction if we dont’?

A research base on Mars won't change that.

Nope and I never said it would.

If you’d read my previous posts you’ll note that I brought up the fact that there are plenty of people without access to clean water, security, jobs etc.

Again, this thread is specifically about the possibility of a colony on Mars and Musk to a lesser extent. If you want to discuss the geo-political landscape and what needs to change to save mankind I recommend making another thread.

I lost all respect for musk after the whole trapped Thai boys submersible debacle. As a seemingly highly lauded public figure, his online activity was massively unprofessional. He deserved that libel lawsuit.

nfe wrote:
I've said nothing about Mars. I think there are valid research goals in colonising another planet in our solar system.

Well the topic is specifically regarding Mars so it might be worth mentioning it? If you think there are valid research goals in colonising the planet we are in agreement and I see no point discussing the ‘have we ever done something for the sake of it in the “modern age”(whatever that is)’. It’s completely irrelevant and a waste of time.

Need to rush, but suffice to say I understand the distinction between household and national economics, but it is entirely possible for the economic input required to generate and sustain an occupation to outweigh its return for the economy. Mars colonists would be an example.

You didn’t seem to understand the distinction from your previous post. You’re going to have to cite why you believe the occupation of ‘Mars colonist’ would outweigh its input into the economy. I disagree.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

nfe wrote:
I've said nothing about Mars. I think there are valid research goals in colonising another planet in our solar system.

Well the topic is specifically regarding Mars so it might be worth mentioning it?

I'll respond to those parts of a thread that I wish to, thanks. That said, I will acknowledge and respond to every part of a post directed at me.

If you think there are valid research goals in colonising the planet we are in agreement and I see no point discussing the ‘have we ever done something for the sake of it in the “modern age”(whatever that is)’. It’s completely irrelevant and a waste of time.

It's completely relevant because it has been cited repeatedly as a reason why science should (or would) pursue a Mars colony (and interstellar travel). Let's call it the last 50 years. I'll say again, it's a genuine question. I have a lot of experience in research funding and I'd be very interested in projects that were greenlit on a 'let's see if we can' - it'd be really useful, actually.

Need to rush, but suffice to say I understand the distinction between household and national economics, but it is entirely possible for the economic input required to generate and sustain an occupation to outweigh its return for the economy. Mars colonists would be an example.

You didn’t seem to understand the distinction from your previous post. You’re going to have to cite why you believe the occupation of ‘Mars colonist’ would outweigh its input into the economy. I disagree.

I actually think the onus is on someone suggesting that there is economic wealth to be created in getting someone to Mars, keeping them alive, and either getting them home or keeping them alive forever to suggest how that might be manifested.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
The problem is, the aggressive and angry way you post them makes people NOT want to agree with you even when you're right.

If you see that someone is right and want to disagree out of spite because they weren't nice enough to you then the problem is with you. Perhaps you should try to work on that?

The problem isn't you or me, the problem is human nature.

But hey, if you want to be an argumentative and irritating person no one wants to be around, it's your life. Not going to get much gaming action that way, though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
The problem with discussing anything with Peregrine, I have quickly learnt, is that he will not accept anything that doesn’t validate his own opinion.

There have been countless great reasons raised here as to why we should expect Mars to one day be colonised and because it doesn’t suit his rhetoric he can’t accept any of those points. He also presents his opinions as facts and states things with an air of superiority - both of which are incredibly patronising and in my opinion; rude.

Either way it seems discussing anything with him is a matter of futility and akin to banging your head against a wall.

I completely agree that many of his statements here are wrong but I’m losing interest responding to him to be honest. Anyone with a vague interest in this topic knows that it’s not only possible we one day colonise Mars but also likely given that there is an interest. Humans don’t prescribe to the hyper logical, almost robotic thought process that Peregrine claims. Sometimes we literally do things just to prove we can. Not to mention the multitude of benefits colonising Mars would offer, both in terms of scientific advancement and potential profit.

You know what? You have a great point. Why should we engage him if he's just going to be an annoying troll when we have the tools to remove him from our portion of the discussion?

Good bye, Perigrine. I'm done bouncing my head off your brick wall.

@Vulcan, the ignore button is a thing of beauty

Rosebuddy wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
If you are looking for some sort of motivation for mankind to attempt to colonise the stars I don’t think it gets much bigger than ‘complete and utter, guaranteed extinction if we dont’?

You could say that's a motivation, but any extinction that is best averted by moving to another planet entirely is of a time frame that isn't going to be relevant for probably thousands of years. And, well... We're kind of already facing a likely threat to current civilisation in the form of global warming and there we've got the means to handle it, it's just that the political and economic system is mainly in the hands of precisely those least interested in doing anything. Once again we have to consider what "mankind" is even supposed to mean. Life isn't a space-based 4X game. If our current system somehow developed a way of getting to other planets it would either be to leave billions of the powerless to suffer and die on a boiling pile of trash or to send rightless workers out to strip the planet system and beyond of anything valuable for their masters to sell to further fuel the system. I mean c'mon, how many millions lack access to clean water and to electricity even with our technology? How many go hungry despite the overproduction of food? The miraculous powers of industrial agriculture and production have already been subverted to serve not those who need but those who own. A research base on Mars won't change that.

I don't necessarily disagree with you here but the technology we would develop in building a colony on another planet would hopefully end up benefiting people here on Earth as well. New ways to produce drinkable water and harvesting food would go a long way in helping poor nations get by.

Sure it would be nice if we could fix the problems on our own planet before looking to the stars but unless there is a massive political upheaval just around the corner it seems unlikely as the world becomes more nationalist by the day...

As I said earlier, the problems on this world are largely due to resource scarcity and (short of developing infinite energy and replicators) cannot be solved strictly on this planet. Even tapping the resources in space won't solve all the problems here, but it might start easing some of them.

I'm updating this thread with a perspective from a former astronaut, via the BBC.

One of my favorite parts was where both Astronauts interviewed talked down the ability to accomplish the mission and the uselessness of said mission. Sentiments, by the way, that were leveled against THEIR mission to the Moon.



Get all the fossilized moonwalkers you want to say it's not feasible, but that doesn't change the fact that as tech advances, it becomes more plausible than possible, and will soon be probable.