SpaceX vs OSHA
January 11, 2024 3:25 AM Subscribe
“Elon’s concept that SpaceX is on this mission to go to Mars as fast as possible and save humanity permeates every part of the company." CW: Descriptions and a few photos of injuries.
“SpaceX’s idea of safety is: ‘We’ll let you decide what’s safe for you,’ which really means there was no accountability,” said Carson, who has worked for more than two decades in dangerous jobs such as building submarines. “That’s a terrible approach to take in industrial environments.”
Fast forward 20 years, and a drunken, broken-down Musk is sitting in a bar, telling anyone who'd listen that 'we'd have treated you the same if you'd come to our planet'.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 3:57 AM on January 11 [3 favorites]
posted by Cardinal Fang at 3:57 AM on January 11 [3 favorites]
The idea that Mars could ever provide a survivable environment for more human beings than even the most degraded possible result of the worst possible disaster here is delusional colonialist space-opera nonsense that requires its true believers to ignore centuries of ecological research and insight.
Any pro-survival technology even theoretically deployable to or on Mars is always going to be easier to deploy right here, because this is where the water and the magnetic shielding are at and that's before even thinking about the whole gravity well thing.
Terra nullius is a colonial myth, and a belief that humanity could not only survive but thrive in terra that actually was nullius before we got there and "formed" it is just a pioneers and wagon trains fantasy gone multiple kinds of wrong.
If you aspire to serving a life sentence in a Martian prison run by fucking Elon Musk because you think that's kind of cool, don't let me stop you. But I'm never willingly going to help you pay for it, and don't try to sell me this horseshit about "saving humanity" because I ain't buying.
posted by flabdablet at 4:16 AM on January 11 [180 favorites]
Any pro-survival technology even theoretically deployable to or on Mars is always going to be easier to deploy right here, because this is where the water and the magnetic shielding are at and that's before even thinking about the whole gravity well thing.
Terra nullius is a colonial myth, and a belief that humanity could not only survive but thrive in terra that actually was nullius before we got there and "formed" it is just a pioneers and wagon trains fantasy gone multiple kinds of wrong.
If you aspire to serving a life sentence in a Martian prison run by fucking Elon Musk because you think that's kind of cool, don't let me stop you. But I'm never willingly going to help you pay for it, and don't try to sell me this horseshit about "saving humanity" because I ain't buying.
posted by flabdablet at 4:16 AM on January 11 [180 favorites]
Some of these are fucking bananas. People being hit in the head by bits failing during a pressure test should not be able to happen, because nobody should be standing next to a thing being pressure tested. For any reason, ever. With a little bit of professional background in health and safety, I can confidently say that the level of negligence on display here would lead to criminal charges for executives. It sounds like OSHA and CalOSHA are doing virtually nothing. Why?
posted by Dysk at 4:16 AM on January 11 [44 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 4:16 AM on January 11 [44 favorites]
Why?
Fully re-usable regulatory capture technology.
posted by flabdablet at 4:20 AM on January 11 [56 favorites]
Fully re-usable regulatory capture technology.
posted by flabdablet at 4:20 AM on January 11 [56 favorites]
They needed to transport foam insulation to the rocket company’s main hangar but had no straps to secure the cargo. LeBlanc, a relatively new employee, offered a solution to hold down the load: He sat on it.Yes, gross OH&S violation. But also a strong contender for a Darwin Award.
posted by flabdablet at 4:26 AM on January 11 [10 favorites]
Musk doesn't need to have his colony last forever, just longer than Andrew Ryan's Rapture.
posted by zompist at 4:26 AM on January 11 [3 favorites]
posted by zompist at 4:26 AM on January 11 [3 favorites]
"Move Fast and Break People"
posted by pipeski at 4:41 AM on January 11 [32 favorites]
posted by pipeski at 4:41 AM on January 11 [32 favorites]
Terra nullius is a colonial myth, and a belief that humanity could not only survive but thrive in terra that actually was nullius before we got there and "formed" it is just a pioneers and wagon trains fantasy gone multiple kinds of wrong.
I mean yes and no. The European "age of discovery" didn't find any substantive terra nullius but Iceland and New Zealand were settled by humans really recently in a very well-documented way and those human cultures still live there.
My own view in relation to Mars is that the work required to turn Mars into a survivable environment would be immoral. Like Antarctica, just because it is empty of long-term human settlement does not mean that it lacks environmental value as it is.
posted by plonkee at 4:54 AM on January 11 [4 favorites]
I mean yes and no. The European "age of discovery" didn't find any substantive terra nullius but Iceland and New Zealand were settled by humans really recently in a very well-documented way and those human cultures still live there.
My own view in relation to Mars is that the work required to turn Mars into a survivable environment would be immoral. Like Antarctica, just because it is empty of long-term human settlement does not mean that it lacks environmental value as it is.
posted by plonkee at 4:54 AM on January 11 [4 favorites]
The idea that Mars could ever provide a survivable environment for more human beings than even the most degraded possible result of the worst possible disaster here is delusional colonialist space-opera nonsense that requires its true believers to ignore centuries of ecological research and insight.
All the criticisms about the abandoned Mars One scheme still hold true.
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:56 AM on January 11
All the criticisms about the abandoned Mars One scheme still hold true.
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:56 AM on January 11
The European "age of discovery" didn't find any substantive terra nullius
Relevant: Actual European Discoveries
posted by clawsoon at 5:00 AM on January 11 [20 favorites]
Relevant: Actual European Discoveries
posted by clawsoon at 5:00 AM on January 11 [20 favorites]
So I'm thinking the Titian incident, except inverted. Everything and everyone goes out really, really fast.
posted by Naberius at 5:14 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
posted by Naberius at 5:14 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
Musk also became known in California and Texas for ordering machinery that was painted in industrial safety yellow to be repainted black or blue because of his aversion to bright colors, according to three former SpaceX supervisors.
I guess he's unable to see red flags, too
posted by chavenet at 5:18 AM on January 11 [18 favorites]
I guess he's unable to see red flags, too
posted by chavenet at 5:18 AM on January 11 [18 favorites]
I guess he's unable to see red flags, too
Which seems weird given how many of them he carries around with him on the daily...
posted by Mister_Sleight_of_Hand at 5:23 AM on January 11 [9 favorites]
Which seems weird given how many of them he carries around with him on the daily...
posted by Mister_Sleight_of_Hand at 5:23 AM on January 11 [9 favorites]
I don't understand how SpaceX can just not submit required paperwork. For years. At multiple sites. And everybody's... okay with this? DID I MISS SOMETHING??!
posted by Baethan at 5:29 AM on January 11 [21 favorites]
posted by Baethan at 5:29 AM on January 11 [21 favorites]
The government thinks they need him. So he can do whatever he wants. It's horrible.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:29 AM on January 11 [13 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:29 AM on January 11 [13 favorites]
villain most likely to fall off the catwalk over his shark tanks because there's no railing (obstructs his view) or anti-slip tape (garish).
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:30 AM on January 11 [37 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:30 AM on January 11 [37 favorites]
In re Mars: It's not just whether or not a colony could be established on Mars; it's whether a colony large enough to "save humanity" could be established independent of Earth - no resupply of drugs or parts or people. Right now, that's laughable, and unless I am grossly misunderstanding the state of technology it is going to be laughable for quite a while. If you can keep a desperate colony of fifty people surviving but just barely, you're not "saving humanity".
It would be enormously easier to save humanity here first or at least concurrently.
When you look at Red Mars, for instance, they get to Mars with dramatically more powerful technology than we have now. Obviously it's handwavium, but it suggests the things one needs to be able to do to build even a provisional stable colony.
I dunno, this is definitely more of an age of liars and crooks than earlier in my life. Not that there weren't plenty of liars and crooks, but this whole thing of "everyone knows they are lying, they lose court cases, the government criticizes them....and they just keep lying and grifting" is new. It's bad. People worry about "anarchism means chaos" but it's really "the dead shell of the regulatory state means chaos", and that's what we've got.
posted by Frowner at 5:51 AM on January 11 [48 favorites]
It would be enormously easier to save humanity here first or at least concurrently.
When you look at Red Mars, for instance, they get to Mars with dramatically more powerful technology than we have now. Obviously it's handwavium, but it suggests the things one needs to be able to do to build even a provisional stable colony.
I dunno, this is definitely more of an age of liars and crooks than earlier in my life. Not that there weren't plenty of liars and crooks, but this whole thing of "everyone knows they are lying, they lose court cases, the government criticizes them....and they just keep lying and grifting" is new. It's bad. People worry about "anarchism means chaos" but it's really "the dead shell of the regulatory state means chaos", and that's what we've got.
posted by Frowner at 5:51 AM on January 11 [48 favorites]
Iceland and New Zealand were settled by humans really recently
Really recently in geological terms, sure. Recently compared to the advent of the legal concept of terra nullius, not so much.
And in neither case was anything like terraforming required to render the land even minimally habitable; there was plenty of life there already even though none of it was humans.
posted by flabdablet at 5:53 AM on January 11 [9 favorites]
Really recently in geological terms, sure. Recently compared to the advent of the legal concept of terra nullius, not so much.
And in neither case was anything like terraforming required to render the land even minimally habitable; there was plenty of life there already even though none of it was humans.
posted by flabdablet at 5:53 AM on January 11 [9 favorites]
I cannot recall any time in my life would could effortlessly name so many people that the world would be better off with had they not been born. I could just start rattling off names and you'd eventually get bored and tell me to stop.
posted by dobbs at 5:55 AM on January 11 [40 favorites]
posted by dobbs at 5:55 AM on January 11 [40 favorites]
Get your ass to Mars, Elon.
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:58 AM on January 11 [4 favorites]
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:58 AM on January 11 [4 favorites]
In re Mars: It's not just whether or not a colony could be established on Mars; it's whether a colony large enough to "save humanity" could be established independent of Earth - no resupply of drugs or parts or people. Right now, that's laughable, and unless I am grossly misunderstanding the state of technology it is going to be laughable for quite a while. If you can keep a desperate colony of fifty people surviving but just barely, you're not "saving humanity".
It would be enormously easier to save humanity here first or at least concurrently.
So from what I understand of the concept of 'saving humanity', as shared by people who are not Elon Musk, it's essentially the idea that humanity should not have its existence tied to only one planet, in case of a world-ending disaster. The idea of a space colony, a genuinely noble goal, is not to immediately save humanity - obviously it's laughable with current technology. It's to put people up there so that bigger and better technology begins to be developed and we eventually get to the point where it's not as laughable, and then people move on to the stars.
Elon Musk, however, belongs to what I would term a fringe subset of that group of people who think that humanity needs to be saved through space colonization, who largely think that Earth is beyond saving not because it is putting all the eggs in one basket but because it has too many people who aren't smart enough or cool enough or good enough at science or whatever marker the people happen to term. You can immediately tell the science fiction these types of people read apart from other science fiction - it always features a teeming Earth overrun by uneducated people on some form of dole, who can't get jobs, with the few smart few scheming to get to the stars, where the real smart people are. These people are awful. Elon Musk is awful.
But that doesn't mean we need to crack on people who believe in space colonization, many of whom believe in doing it in safe, responsible ways, and as a result work at fucking NASA, not SpaceX.
posted by corb at 6:04 AM on January 11 [43 favorites]
It would be enormously easier to save humanity here first or at least concurrently.
So from what I understand of the concept of 'saving humanity', as shared by people who are not Elon Musk, it's essentially the idea that humanity should not have its existence tied to only one planet, in case of a world-ending disaster. The idea of a space colony, a genuinely noble goal, is not to immediately save humanity - obviously it's laughable with current technology. It's to put people up there so that bigger and better technology begins to be developed and we eventually get to the point where it's not as laughable, and then people move on to the stars.
Elon Musk, however, belongs to what I would term a fringe subset of that group of people who think that humanity needs to be saved through space colonization, who largely think that Earth is beyond saving not because it is putting all the eggs in one basket but because it has too many people who aren't smart enough or cool enough or good enough at science or whatever marker the people happen to term. You can immediately tell the science fiction these types of people read apart from other science fiction - it always features a teeming Earth overrun by uneducated people on some form of dole, who can't get jobs, with the few smart few scheming to get to the stars, where the real smart people are. These people are awful. Elon Musk is awful.
But that doesn't mean we need to crack on people who believe in space colonization, many of whom believe in doing it in safe, responsible ways, and as a result work at fucking NASA, not SpaceX.
posted by corb at 6:04 AM on January 11 [43 favorites]
I think we should prioritize space rock planetary defense over colonization, ya know?
This colonization crap is probably just a cover story for recovery of a trillion-dollar asteroid.
The ol' Emerald Mine redux.
posted by torokunai at 6:07 AM on January 11 [8 favorites]
This colonization crap is probably just a cover story for recovery of a trillion-dollar asteroid.
The ol' Emerald Mine redux.
posted by torokunai at 6:07 AM on January 11 [8 favorites]
We don't even know if there is microbial life on Mars yet. It's entirely possible that it exists, even if it's not exactly probable. And like Carl Sagan wrote, if there is life on Mars, even microbial, then we should "leave Mars to the Martians." He went on to say that there are countless ways humans misuse their own planet so he was alarmed by the potential of us screwing up yet another world.
posted by drstrangelove at 6:15 AM on January 11 [16 favorites]
posted by drstrangelove at 6:15 AM on January 11 [16 favorites]
it's really "the dead shell of the regulatory state means chaos", and that's what we've got
as has been blindingly obvious to anybody with a clue that we would get since finance sharks coined the term "deregulation" as a respectable-sounding euphemism for letting any of them do whatever the fuck they wanted.
I have long been of the opinion that the primary purpose of business is to make shit happen and the primary purpose of government is to limit the damage to the commons that would otherwise result from that. Governments all over the world totally dropped the ball in the Eighties and we have yet to recover from those errors.
the idea that humanity should not have its existence tied to only one planet, in case of a world-ending disaster
has always struck me as the kind of idea that could only persist in the minds of people with no real sense of proportion, but perhaps I have simply consumed too much hot tea and fairy cake.
posted by flabdablet at 6:17 AM on January 11 [15 favorites]
as has been blindingly obvious to anybody with a clue that we would get since finance sharks coined the term "deregulation" as a respectable-sounding euphemism for letting any of them do whatever the fuck they wanted.
I have long been of the opinion that the primary purpose of business is to make shit happen and the primary purpose of government is to limit the damage to the commons that would otherwise result from that. Governments all over the world totally dropped the ball in the Eighties and we have yet to recover from those errors.
the idea that humanity should not have its existence tied to only one planet, in case of a world-ending disaster
has always struck me as the kind of idea that could only persist in the minds of people with no real sense of proportion, but perhaps I have simply consumed too much hot tea and fairy cake.
posted by flabdablet at 6:17 AM on January 11 [15 favorites]
Exhibit A of Musk being allowed to do whatever he wants is Boca Chica and the Starship launches. If I did something that caused a protected wildlife refugee to be showered in chunks of concrete debris AND covered a neighboring town in toxic dust, I'd probably be in prison or at the very least my operation would be shut down for good. The FAA just appears to be rubber stamping his launch approvals at this point. I guess it will take something truly catastrophic (like Starship falling on South Padre) before anything changes.
posted by drstrangelove at 6:20 AM on January 11 [15 favorites]
posted by drstrangelove at 6:20 AM on January 11 [15 favorites]
Governments all over the world totally dropped the ball in the Eighties and we have yet to recover from those errors.
This was not quite as universal as you make it sound, and even within the anglosphere, the difference between the US OSHA and the UK HSE is staggering.
posted by Dysk at 6:21 AM on January 11 [7 favorites]
This was not quite as universal as you make it sound, and even within the anglosphere, the difference between the US OSHA and the UK HSE is staggering.
posted by Dysk at 6:21 AM on January 11 [7 favorites]
As with any extractive process, the damage wrought by deregulation is most obvious in the places where it's been practised for longest.
posted by flabdablet at 6:26 AM on January 11 [5 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 6:26 AM on January 11 [5 favorites]
And like Carl Sagan wrote, if there is life on Mars, even microbial, then we should "leave Mars to the Martians."
You know what, that's right. My gut reaction is "what's a few microbes versus humans", but if the reason for human colonization is longtermism, those microbes have who knows what long term potential.
As this conversation unfolded, I was reminded of a section of James Tiptree's novella A Momentary Taste of Being [ALL the trigger warnings! If you are unfamiliar with Tiptree's work or worried about triggers, look for a review with spoilers].
It's a "save humanity" plot - overpopulation, violence, state failure, humans being terrible - and humanity has gotten itself together to send two spaceships out to look for Earth-like planets, but things on Earth are so bad that the spacefarers worry that there won't be any ability to build colonization ships even if they find a planet. One ship has failed. The second has investigated two potential planets that were no good, but on their third try they....appear to find a paradise. Since this is Tiptree, of course, they have not.
Among other logistical challenges, the captain has to try to keep people calm and focused during the factionalism and chaos after discovery. He gives a speech in which he points out that unknowns will fucking kill you - early American colonists* landed on a very habitable shore and they died and died. They didn't have the right supplies, they didn't understand the weather, they misunderstood all their initial information because it was out of context. His point was that if they had terrible trouble surviving even with assistance from Native people and moderate resupply from England, the risks of settlement on a new planet are enormously greater.
Perhaps the most SFnal part of the whole novella is the fact that this cools people out - once the difficulties ahead are pointed out, people get really focused and don't have infinite faith in their ability to just step onto Planet Paradise. Sadly, there's a really big unknowable unknown and it's kaput for humanity, but really I think quite a lot of Tiptree's work was driven by a desire for death, individual if not universal, so that's where a lot of her work heads anyway.
But the point is, it is going to be bananas difficult to settle a new planet. Difficult in ways that we can't even begin to think about now. It would make far, far more sense to try a modest long-term colony on the moon if we had to do something - at least that would give us more of a sense of the scope of the "this is an airless waste" problem.
*Settlers, some horrible people, some desperate, some foolish; the start of a genocidal project. Tiptree doesn't beat that drum here, but the whole story is "humans are irretrievably fucked up" - that's not an anticolonialist position at all, but she isn't cheering for genocide here.
posted by Frowner at 6:33 AM on January 11 [13 favorites]
You know what, that's right. My gut reaction is "what's a few microbes versus humans", but if the reason for human colonization is longtermism, those microbes have who knows what long term potential.
As this conversation unfolded, I was reminded of a section of James Tiptree's novella A Momentary Taste of Being [ALL the trigger warnings! If you are unfamiliar with Tiptree's work or worried about triggers, look for a review with spoilers].
It's a "save humanity" plot - overpopulation, violence, state failure, humans being terrible - and humanity has gotten itself together to send two spaceships out to look for Earth-like planets, but things on Earth are so bad that the spacefarers worry that there won't be any ability to build colonization ships even if they find a planet. One ship has failed. The second has investigated two potential planets that were no good, but on their third try they....appear to find a paradise. Since this is Tiptree, of course, they have not.
Among other logistical challenges, the captain has to try to keep people calm and focused during the factionalism and chaos after discovery. He gives a speech in which he points out that unknowns will fucking kill you - early American colonists* landed on a very habitable shore and they died and died. They didn't have the right supplies, they didn't understand the weather, they misunderstood all their initial information because it was out of context. His point was that if they had terrible trouble surviving even with assistance from Native people and moderate resupply from England, the risks of settlement on a new planet are enormously greater.
Perhaps the most SFnal part of the whole novella is the fact that this cools people out - once the difficulties ahead are pointed out, people get really focused and don't have infinite faith in their ability to just step onto Planet Paradise. Sadly, there's a really big unknowable unknown and it's kaput for humanity, but really I think quite a lot of Tiptree's work was driven by a desire for death, individual if not universal, so that's where a lot of her work heads anyway.
But the point is, it is going to be bananas difficult to settle a new planet. Difficult in ways that we can't even begin to think about now. It would make far, far more sense to try a modest long-term colony on the moon if we had to do something - at least that would give us more of a sense of the scope of the "this is an airless waste" problem.
*Settlers, some horrible people, some desperate, some foolish; the start of a genocidal project. Tiptree doesn't beat that drum here, but the whole story is "humans are irretrievably fucked up" - that's not an anticolonialist position at all, but she isn't cheering for genocide here.
posted by Frowner at 6:33 AM on January 11 [13 favorites]
Dysk — I don’t know about OSHA, so is it that the HSE still basically functions? I listen to a nice podcast about rail safety that sounds like it does.
posted by lokta at 6:50 AM on January 11
posted by lokta at 6:50 AM on January 11
"humans are irretrievably fucked up"
is not a position I subscribe to. "Human exceptionalism is irretrievably fucked up" is.
The idea that there is some difference between H. sap and the rest of Earthly life so fundamental as to render our own tiny branch of it uniquely deserving of preservation strikes me as wrong to the point of obscenity, and the idea that any amount of "advancement" down the road of technological potency could ever help us come collectively to grips with the ramifications of that wrongness strikes me as ludicrous.
Technology amplifies power, but not the responsible wielding of it. Earthly life is literally billions of times more likely to require saving from our technology than by it.
posted by flabdablet at 6:56 AM on January 11 [10 favorites]
is not a position I subscribe to. "Human exceptionalism is irretrievably fucked up" is.
The idea that there is some difference between H. sap and the rest of Earthly life so fundamental as to render our own tiny branch of it uniquely deserving of preservation strikes me as wrong to the point of obscenity, and the idea that any amount of "advancement" down the road of technological potency could ever help us come collectively to grips with the ramifications of that wrongness strikes me as ludicrous.
Technology amplifies power, but not the responsible wielding of it. Earthly life is literally billions of times more likely to require saving from our technology than by it.
posted by flabdablet at 6:56 AM on January 11 [10 favorites]
is it that the HSE still basically functions?
Mostly, yes. I've worked places where the execs were personally terrified of HSE, and consequently safety was taken very seriously.
posted by Dysk at 6:58 AM on January 11 [5 favorites]
Mostly, yes. I've worked places where the execs were personally terrified of HSE, and consequently safety was taken very seriously.
posted by Dysk at 6:58 AM on January 11 [5 favorites]
"humans are irretrievably fucked up"
is not a position I subscribe to. "Human exceptionalism is irretrievably fucked up" is.
Oh, me neither! On a Tiptree note, the "humans are bad, evolution is bad, the world is bad and it's just how nature works" theme in her work is IMO extremely retrograde and not often critiqued in mainstream feminist SF circles. (It is probably in academic work, but I haven't read much serious critical discussion.)
I would definitely subscribe to a "humans are irretrievably fragile and can't just think our way out of that" position.
posted by Frowner at 7:25 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
is not a position I subscribe to. "Human exceptionalism is irretrievably fucked up" is.
Oh, me neither! On a Tiptree note, the "humans are bad, evolution is bad, the world is bad and it's just how nature works" theme in her work is IMO extremely retrograde and not often critiqued in mainstream feminist SF circles. (It is probably in academic work, but I haven't read much serious critical discussion.)
I would definitely subscribe to a "humans are irretrievably fragile and can't just think our way out of that" position.
posted by Frowner at 7:25 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
Dude got high and watched Total Recall and thought it was a documentary.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 7:29 AM on January 11 [10 favorites]
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 7:29 AM on January 11 [10 favorites]
I'm all for this but only if Elmo is the first to go there.
posted by tommasz at 7:40 AM on January 11
posted by tommasz at 7:40 AM on January 11
> But that doesn't mean we need to crack on people who believe in space colonization, many of whom believe in doing it in safe, responsible ways, and as a result work at fucking NASA, not SpaceX.
Indeed, we do need to "crack on" people who believe in space colonization, if that means "push back against obviously imbecilic commitments of huge piles of money to projects that are definitely never going anywhere." Because Space Colonization, as dreamed of by MiMo SF, is absolutely not going to happen on any timescale relevant to anyone now living, and more likely never.
I say this as an Old Believer who has been disenchanted. My very earliest memories are of sitting in front of a small black and white tube TV waiting out the countdowns for Project Mercury launches. I grew up assuming I would go to space one day: the 2001 prediction for an Earth-orbit station with commercial facilities, served by commercial orbital spaceplane flights, and permanent Lunar settlements, all still seemed plausible when I was a teen, and I expected the jobs would need people like me.
I will forbear to recount the story of my disillusionment, and just outsource the conclusions to cstross at his blog. The argument there holds up well if you adjust the $$ amounts for inflation over the last 16 years.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 7:45 AM on January 11 [16 favorites]
Indeed, we do need to "crack on" people who believe in space colonization, if that means "push back against obviously imbecilic commitments of huge piles of money to projects that are definitely never going anywhere." Because Space Colonization, as dreamed of by MiMo SF, is absolutely not going to happen on any timescale relevant to anyone now living, and more likely never.
I say this as an Old Believer who has been disenchanted. My very earliest memories are of sitting in front of a small black and white tube TV waiting out the countdowns for Project Mercury launches. I grew up assuming I would go to space one day: the 2001 prediction for an Earth-orbit station with commercial facilities, served by commercial orbital spaceplane flights, and permanent Lunar settlements, all still seemed plausible when I was a teen, and I expected the jobs would need people like me.
I will forbear to recount the story of my disillusionment, and just outsource the conclusions to cstross at his blog. The argument there holds up well if you adjust the $$ amounts for inflation over the last 16 years.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 7:45 AM on January 11 [16 favorites]
This is a great time to have just finished reading A City on Mars.
posted by Rudy_Wiser at 7:48 AM on January 11 [5 favorites]
posted by Rudy_Wiser at 7:48 AM on January 11 [5 favorites]
I have a reasonable amount of respect for people who want to go to space because it is there and is exciting and new and an interesting challenge. It's a pretty understandable human impulse to explore, and if we're straightforward about that goal, great. I'm even in favor of bases to aid in that exploration, like the ISS or any sort of moonbase plans we might ever come up with. A research station on Mars or Venus too, maybe, if our technology improves to a point where that challenge is not insurmountable.
Anyone phrasing that exploration as serving humanity's survival, though, is either being disingenuous or is very stupid. The single most survivable place we will be with current or even significantly augmented (like, literally any improvements we can actually theorize) technology is Earth. Period. That remains true in any despoliation-of-earth scenario short of actually sterilizing the surface and blowing off the atmosphere. If we're looking to find a way for humanity to live and thrive in the event of worsening environmental conditions here, our aims should be to either mitigate or adapt to those conditions, because we know what all the options in the Solar System look like, and none of them are going to be a better place.
posted by jackbishop at 7:57 AM on January 11 [8 favorites]
Anyone phrasing that exploration as serving humanity's survival, though, is either being disingenuous or is very stupid. The single most survivable place we will be with current or even significantly augmented (like, literally any improvements we can actually theorize) technology is Earth. Period. That remains true in any despoliation-of-earth scenario short of actually sterilizing the surface and blowing off the atmosphere. If we're looking to find a way for humanity to live and thrive in the event of worsening environmental conditions here, our aims should be to either mitigate or adapt to those conditions, because we know what all the options in the Solar System look like, and none of them are going to be a better place.
posted by jackbishop at 7:57 AM on January 11 [8 favorites]
If you want to know why a manned mission to Mars is a truly terrible idea, I recommend Maciej Cegłowski's 2023 essay Why Not Mars.
posted by verstegan at 8:00 AM on January 11 [11 favorites]
posted by verstegan at 8:00 AM on January 11 [11 favorites]
Whatever you think of space exploration, the real takeaway I got from reading this article is how badly this industry, and especially these employees, need a union. It's like a case study of why employers cannot be trusted to care about workers without one. Even a more robust OSHA (which I am for!) can't protect everyone, but employees on the ground see shit happening and could take action if they had a union.
posted by emjaybee at 8:03 AM on January 11 [26 favorites]
posted by emjaybee at 8:03 AM on January 11 [26 favorites]
Any pro-survival technology even theoretically deployable to or on Mars is always going to be easier to deploy right here, because this is where the water and the magnetic shielding are at and that's before even thinking about the whole gravity well thing.
When researching for one of my books, I found that even creating small, entirely self sustainable biomes here on Earth is not easy, especially if you intend it to last for generations.
You know what I mean, those experiments with setting up a domed area and trying to replicate the nitrogen cycle with plants and animals in a way that's entirely self sustaining.
It's *not easy* even with all the resources we have here on earth.
That difficulty was excellent for creating a story, but the things that make stories fun to read are significantly less fun to experience.
posted by Zumbador at 8:10 AM on January 11 [11 favorites]
When researching for one of my books, I found that even creating small, entirely self sustainable biomes here on Earth is not easy, especially if you intend it to last for generations.
You know what I mean, those experiments with setting up a domed area and trying to replicate the nitrogen cycle with plants and animals in a way that's entirely self sustaining.
It's *not easy* even with all the resources we have here on earth.
That difficulty was excellent for creating a story, but the things that make stories fun to read are significantly less fun to experience.
posted by Zumbador at 8:10 AM on January 11 [11 favorites]
Relevant: in some SpaceX facilities, workers will actually sign a liability waiver .
posted by TreeRooster at 8:10 AM on January 11
posted by TreeRooster at 8:10 AM on January 11
The initial recovery efforts after communications were lost with the OceanGate submersible changed my outlook on human space exploration. It's not that I don't think NASA is a million times better at engineering. It's that I don't want to see any losses happen period. If the very worst happens, I don't want to be sitting here on Earth contemplating what the situation might be like in lunar orbit. I don't want to think about the remoteness and the inaccessibility and what might be going through people's heads.
Apollo 13 is one of my favorite movies, but I wasn't alive when those events happened. I've only ever experienced them with the benefit of knowing that everything worked out in the end.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:19 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
Apollo 13 is one of my favorite movies, but I wasn't alive when those events happened. I've only ever experienced them with the benefit of knowing that everything worked out in the end.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:19 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
I don't understand how SpaceX can just not submit required paperwork. For years. At multiple sites. And everybody's... okay with this? DID I MISS SOMETHING??!
If you look at the chart, you'll note that the years of zero reporting oddly coincide with the years of a certain orange buffoon's presidential term. Just sayin'...
posted by Thorzdad at 8:22 AM on January 11 [6 favorites]
If you look at the chart, you'll note that the years of zero reporting oddly coincide with the years of a certain orange buffoon's presidential term. Just sayin'...
posted by Thorzdad at 8:22 AM on January 11 [6 favorites]
Rudy_Wiser, I’m also reading that, and it’s a very interesting book.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 8:30 AM on January 11
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 8:30 AM on January 11
But that doesn't mean we need to crack on people who believe in space colonization, many of whom believe in doing it in safe, responsible ways, and as a result work at fucking NASA, not Space
NASA wasn't any better until Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee burned to death on the pad on January 27, 1967.
I hate Elon Musk and his associated companies more than all of you, guaranteed, but let's not act as if he invented encouraging and environment of carelessness in the aerospace industry.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 8:30 AM on January 11 [4 favorites]
NASA wasn't any better until Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee burned to death on the pad on January 27, 1967.
I hate Elon Musk and his associated companies more than all of you, guaranteed, but let's not act as if he invented encouraging and environment of carelessness in the aerospace industry.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 8:30 AM on January 11 [4 favorites]
I have a reasonable amount of respect for people who want to go to space because it is there
It isn't, though, is it. Not being there is kind of the point of space.
And yeah, that's facetious. Even so, far too many people have a vague idea of "space" as being a place where all the off-Earth stuff is at, and the natural consequence of that lumping-together is that the insurmountable-because-physics difficulty of access to all but a handful of imaginable destinations goes unnoticed.
The Moon is a place about a light-second away.
Mars is a place about 30 light-minutes away.
Neptune is a place about four light-hours away.
Proxima Centauri is a place about four light-years away.
Space is not a place. It's just verbal shorthand for all of those "aways".
posted by flabdablet at 8:32 AM on January 11 [11 favorites]
It isn't, though, is it. Not being there is kind of the point of space.
And yeah, that's facetious. Even so, far too many people have a vague idea of "space" as being a place where all the off-Earth stuff is at, and the natural consequence of that lumping-together is that the insurmountable-because-physics difficulty of access to all but a handful of imaginable destinations goes unnoticed.
The Moon is a place about a light-second away.
Mars is a place about 30 light-minutes away.
Neptune is a place about four light-hours away.
Proxima Centauri is a place about four light-years away.
Space is not a place. It's just verbal shorthand for all of those "aways".
posted by flabdablet at 8:32 AM on January 11 [11 favorites]
Damnit, someone just explained to me how Elon is a figurehead who has no effect at all on the success or failures of his companies. Now I’m confused.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:35 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:35 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
Inventing an environment of carelessness and the commoditization of an environment of carelessness are two different things.
This colonialism includes the z axis.
posted by MonsieurPEB at 8:36 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
This colonialism includes the z axis.
posted by MonsieurPEB at 8:36 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
I hate Elon Musk and his associated companies more than all of you, guaranteed
I hate him right up to the moon and back.
posted by flabdablet at 8:38 AM on January 11 [8 favorites]
I hate him right up to the moon and back.
posted by flabdablet at 8:38 AM on January 11 [8 favorites]
I worked with the story's author a long time ago, and even then she was one of the best investigative reporters I knew. I'd lost track of her several years ago; so glad to she is still doing great work. Just wanted to note a couple of *chef's kiss* paragraphs that you can write when you a) have the goods on the subject and b) have a knack for twisting the knife:
posted by martin q blank at 8:42 AM on January 11 [27 favorites]
In a written response to questions from Reuters, OSHA did not comment on SpaceX’s worker safety record or its enforcement decisions involving the company. The agency did not address why it never cited SpaceX for failing to report injury data for many years, saying it would be “unfair to draw a conclusion” because it didn’t know “the specifics.” Reuters documented the safety reporting lapses using the agency’s own records....
OSHA and CalOSHA have fined the billionaire’s rocket company a total of $50,836 for violations stemming from one worker’s death and seven serious safety incidents, regulatory records show. (emphasis mine)This is really, really good work.
posted by martin q blank at 8:42 AM on January 11 [27 favorites]
Mr Supermedusa & I were talking about this the other day. We are both firmly in the Not Going To Mars camp. There is little likelihood we will develop the necessary technologies in my lifetime, in the next century even. Its too far, and too many obstacles to 'terraforming' Mars etc.,
We should be terraforming Earth!! take all these smart people and all this money and with the technology we currently HAVE we could make vast improvements to the quality of life for all the 8+ billion people on the planet. we could prepare for the climate changes that are coming, that are already here. but no, we have to let the man babies play out their space-penis fantasies.
If we were going to build an extra place to live, or flee to in a catastrophe, I think a space station is more feasible (like what they do in Seveneves) we already have one. We'd just need more of them, or a bigger one. We have the technology to get there and back. better than the moon, which is covered in toxic dust.
This is a great conversation. I'm enjoying hearing everyone's take on this, lots of well thought-out and considered comments. flabdablet and frowner especially.
posted by supermedusa at 8:43 AM on January 11 [4 favorites]
We should be terraforming Earth!! take all these smart people and all this money and with the technology we currently HAVE we could make vast improvements to the quality of life for all the 8+ billion people on the planet. we could prepare for the climate changes that are coming, that are already here. but no, we have to let the man babies play out their space-penis fantasies.
If we were going to build an extra place to live, or flee to in a catastrophe, I think a space station is more feasible (like what they do in Seveneves) we already have one. We'd just need more of them, or a bigger one. We have the technology to get there and back. better than the moon, which is covered in toxic dust.
This is a great conversation. I'm enjoying hearing everyone's take on this, lots of well thought-out and considered comments. flabdablet and frowner especially.
posted by supermedusa at 8:43 AM on January 11 [4 favorites]
because if we did, like, actually do it, we all know a handful of uberwealthy elites would leave and the planet they'd completely trashed would be left for the poors, the browns, the global south...they don't want to save "humanity" they want to save themselves.
posted by supermedusa at 8:52 AM on January 11 [7 favorites]
posted by supermedusa at 8:52 AM on January 11 [7 favorites]
Musk claims the earth is vastly underpopulated, yet wants to save us from its effects elsewhere, where he is positioning himself to get endless funding. Influencing both the demand for the problem and the supply for the solution is the definition of a con and a grift.
posted by Brian B. at 8:57 AM on January 11 [3 favorites]
posted by Brian B. at 8:57 AM on January 11 [3 favorites]
A reminder that Elon is not interested in saving humanity. What he's interested in is being recognized as the Savior of Humanity while he's still around to enjoy it.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:09 AM on January 11 [14 favorites]
posted by Navelgazer at 9:09 AM on January 11 [14 favorites]
Standing back a bit from the whole "Elon's Mars ideas are stupid, so is space colonization generally" theme and following the "Why didn't OSHA do anything?" thread: OSHA didn't do anything because OSHA has never been resourced to actually perform its mission. Ever.
Because OSHA did not exist until Congress created it late in the first Nixon Administration, and Nixon promptly tried to ignore it to death. Carter was not a whole lot better. Then there was 12 years of Reagan-Bush being actively hostile to the Agency whose mission they were sworn to see properly executed. Then eight years of Bill Clinton not being a whole lot better than Nixon again(1), followed by eight more years of active hostility from the Shrub, then eight more years of neglect, and four years of neglect and hostility.
IDK if Dark Brandon has turned things around any. If so, I haven't heard. But if there's a part of the regulatory State that is more feckless and toothless than OSHA... IDK if I want to hear about it or not. I'm prone to burst of outrage and am not sure how I would handle that.
(1) Not strictly fair to Clinton, who did eventually half-ass through some occupational ergonomics regulations which, had they been allowed to come into force, would have been a positive thing for a lot of American workers. But the relevant people didn't put a high enough priority on it to get the project done before Rs regained control and were able to shitcan the whole effort retroactively. If you have RSI from shitty workplace ergonomics, thank Bill's crew for dropping that particular ball.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 9:11 AM on January 11 [13 favorites]
Because OSHA did not exist until Congress created it late in the first Nixon Administration, and Nixon promptly tried to ignore it to death. Carter was not a whole lot better. Then there was 12 years of Reagan-Bush being actively hostile to the Agency whose mission they were sworn to see properly executed. Then eight years of Bill Clinton not being a whole lot better than Nixon again(1), followed by eight more years of active hostility from the Shrub, then eight more years of neglect, and four years of neglect and hostility.
IDK if Dark Brandon has turned things around any. If so, I haven't heard. But if there's a part of the regulatory State that is more feckless and toothless than OSHA... IDK if I want to hear about it or not. I'm prone to burst of outrage and am not sure how I would handle that.
(1) Not strictly fair to Clinton, who did eventually half-ass through some occupational ergonomics regulations which, had they been allowed to come into force, would have been a positive thing for a lot of American workers. But the relevant people didn't put a high enough priority on it to get the project done before Rs regained control and were able to shitcan the whole effort retroactively. If you have RSI from shitty workplace ergonomics, thank Bill's crew for dropping that particular ball.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 9:11 AM on January 11 [13 favorites]
Damnit, someone just explained to me how Elon is a figurehead who has no effect at all on the success or failures of his companies. Now I’m confused.
It's well known that both SpaceX and Tesla have Elon Management Systems that are designed to keep him out of the actual operations - but they're only so effective if he gets interested in something shiny at the company.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:12 AM on January 11 [6 favorites]
It's well known that both SpaceX and Tesla have Elon Management Systems that are designed to keep him out of the actual operations - but they're only so effective if he gets interested in something shiny at the company.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:12 AM on January 11 [6 favorites]
If we were going to build an extra place to live, or flee to in a catastrophe, I think a space station is more feasible (like what they do in Seveneves) we already have one.
I'd go with "hide under the ocean", personally (also Seveneves).
A manned mission to Mars would be incredibly cool, and I'd like it because of that, but for whatever it's likely to cost we could send a metric ass-ton of probes that would return vastly more science per dollar.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 9:20 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
I'd go with "hide under the ocean", personally (also Seveneves).
A manned mission to Mars would be incredibly cool, and I'd like it because of that, but for whatever it's likely to cost we could send a metric ass-ton of probes that would return vastly more science per dollar.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 9:20 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
Reminder that “manned” missions are not a thing and haven’t been for decades. The term has been “crewed” missions for the entire careers of many astronauts.
posted by rikschell at 9:22 AM on January 11 [22 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 9:22 AM on January 11 [22 favorites]
I worry that the easy out of "we'll go to another planet!" also bleeds impetus from the urgency to fix our earthside problems. why bother tackling climate change when we can just go trash Mars too!
posted by supermedusa at 9:30 AM on January 11 [5 favorites]
posted by supermedusa at 9:30 AM on January 11 [5 favorites]
You have to be really high on your own supply to think that colonizing Mars would be an easier or even preferable solution to just working to fix the problems we have here on Earth.
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:36 AM on January 11 [8 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:36 AM on January 11 [8 favorites]
Aardvark Cheeselog: “I grew up assuming I would go to space one day: the 2001 prediction for an Earth-orbit station with commercial facilities, served by commercial orbital spaceplane flights, and permanent Lunar settlements, all still seemed plausible when I was a teen, and I expected the jobs would need people like me.”As late as 1993, I sat under a full moon in October and still thought we might do it. Orbital habitats and moon bases and such.
posted by ob1quixote at 9:36 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
...OSHA and CalOSHA are doing virtually nothing. Why?
Because there's laws for the poors, and no laws for the rich, duh.
Too bad his rocket doesn't land on his head. Elon's a boil on society's ass.
posted by BlueHorse at 9:49 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
Because there's laws for the poors, and no laws for the rich, duh.
Too bad his rocket doesn't land on his head. Elon's a boil on society's ass.
posted by BlueHorse at 9:49 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
supermedusa: “If we were going to build an extra place to live, or flee to in a catastrophe, I think a space station is more feasible (like what they do in Seveneves) we already have one.”I thought about that this morning in relation to this post. It takes the maximum effort and sacrifice of every human being and no small amount of heroism and in the end they just barely manage to save seven people and it only works out because they had cloning technology that doesn't exist yet. (Setting aside Stephenson's boring descent to a reactionary crank who imagines that even after all of that, the people remaining recreate the worst parts of our current society.)
posted by ob1quixote at 9:49 AM on January 11 [5 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 4:16 AM on January 11
Ooh it was nice being the 100th favorite on this.
In a way I'd rather Musk talk about colonizing Mars and less about white supremacy and fascism — which, in my mind, is what he used to be about publicly ... But now I see it's just the other side of the same coin.
posted by UN at 10:23 AM on January 11 [2 favorites]
Ooh it was nice being the 100th favorite on this.
In a way I'd rather Musk talk about colonizing Mars and less about white supremacy and fascism — which, in my mind, is what he used to be about publicly ... But now I see it's just the other side of the same coin.
posted by UN at 10:23 AM on January 11 [2 favorites]
All for a science mission to Mars. There are so many things that humans can do that rovers can't, like use a fucking shovel. Want to send a geologist and an astrobiologist to Mars in order to answer questions about our solar system's formation and look for microbes? Great, let's do it!
But whenever I hear the phrase "make humanity a multiplanetary species" I mentally substitute "make a corporate eugenics slave colony run by billionaires" and the meaning of the sentence never changes. Musk fanbois scare the shit out of me.
posted by lock robster at 10:33 AM on January 11 [14 favorites]
But whenever I hear the phrase "make humanity a multiplanetary species" I mentally substitute "make a corporate eugenics slave colony run by billionaires" and the meaning of the sentence never changes. Musk fanbois scare the shit out of me.
posted by lock robster at 10:33 AM on January 11 [14 favorites]
> All for a science mission to Mars. There are so many things that humans can do that rovers can't, like use a fucking shovel.
i dunno, the mars sample return scheme could accomplish a lot of the stuff that send-a-shovel-wielding-human could, and although it's gobsmackingly expensive it's still orders of magnitude less gobsmackingly expensive than crewed missions to mars
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 10:41 AM on January 11 [2 favorites]
i dunno, the mars sample return scheme could accomplish a lot of the stuff that send-a-shovel-wielding-human could, and although it's gobsmackingly expensive it's still orders of magnitude less gobsmackingly expensive than crewed missions to mars
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 10:41 AM on January 11 [2 favorites]
> Want to send a geologist and an astrobiologist to Mars in order to answer questions about our solar system's formation and look for microbes? Great, let's do it!
Let's not. I suspect you don't get how much more it costs to send canned apes than robots. I mean, assuming various unsolved technical challenges in keeping the apes alive all come out favorably solvable. The sane response to that cost difference is to answer "OK exactly what do you want to be able to dig with this shovel" and then design a rover that can do that and send it. You'll get the answer before you've figured out how to get the geologist out there and back in one piece.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 10:59 AM on January 11 [7 favorites]
Let's not. I suspect you don't get how much more it costs to send canned apes than robots. I mean, assuming various unsolved technical challenges in keeping the apes alive all come out favorably solvable. The sane response to that cost difference is to answer "OK exactly what do you want to be able to dig with this shovel" and then design a rover that can do that and send it. You'll get the answer before you've figured out how to get the geologist out there and back in one piece.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 10:59 AM on January 11 [7 favorites]
Saw an interesting article yesterday that said the Tesla board was having some issues with Elmo's drug use. And, like, a lot of different substances. Which may account for some things.
Acid, ketamine, ecstasy, coke, shrooms, weed...
Dude looks like crap to be honest. But, when you are a multi-billionaire, you can pay your way out of any addictions I guess. Also, regulations and prosecutions.
posted by Windopaene at 11:18 AM on January 11 [5 favorites]
Acid, ketamine, ecstasy, coke, shrooms, weed...
Dude looks like crap to be honest. But, when you are a multi-billionaire, you can pay your way out of any addictions I guess. Also, regulations and prosecutions.
posted by Windopaene at 11:18 AM on January 11 [5 favorites]
There are so many things that humans can do that rovers can't, like use a fucking shovel.
Even if we assume that's true and a drill doesn't do the job, the choice isn't between one astrobiologist with a shovel and one rover - it's between one astrobiologist with a shovel and a hundred rovers.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 11:20 AM on January 11 [3 favorites]
Even if we assume that's true and a drill doesn't do the job, the choice isn't between one astrobiologist with a shovel and one rover - it's between one astrobiologist with a shovel and a hundred rovers.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 11:20 AM on January 11 [3 favorites]
Yes, gross OH&S violation. But also a strong contender for a Darwin Award.
I mean, if you fall out of your buddy’s pickup truck trying to hold down lumber on the way home from Home Depot, that’s largely on you (though the driver might well be charged).
But if you’re killed at work from a risk you didn’t properly calculate because your employer doesn’t provide basic equipment, that’s absolutely on them.
posted by smelendez at 11:25 AM on January 11 [10 favorites]
I mean, if you fall out of your buddy’s pickup truck trying to hold down lumber on the way home from Home Depot, that’s largely on you (though the driver might well be charged).
But if you’re killed at work from a risk you didn’t properly calculate because your employer doesn’t provide basic equipment, that’s absolutely on them.
posted by smelendez at 11:25 AM on January 11 [10 favorites]
> There are so many things that humans can do that rovers can't, like use a fucking shovel.
Not really, no. The realistic scenario of "humans on Mars" would involve people inside pressurized habs, remotely piloting robots. This isn't the 1850s; nobody's going out with a shovel and a pick-axe and making discoveries.
> Want to send a geologist and an astrobiologist to Mars in order to answer questions about our solar system's formation and look for microbes? Great, let's do it!
Putting human beings on Mars will forever destroy any possibility of determining if life evolved there on its own. Contamination from humans and their waste is inevitable. Further, there is nothing a geologist or biologist could do on the surface of Mars that they couldn't do better, faster, and cheaper on Earth. Indeed, many of the tests and analysis that would be required for novel science can't be done on the surface of Mars, as it requires technology that is too heavy or fragile to be transported. That's if these devices even work at 1/3 g, low pressure (habitats won't be at STP) and with ambient perchlorate microfine dust.
Send robots: they're cheaper, better and last longer.
posted by riotnrrd at 11:26 AM on January 11 [8 favorites]
Not really, no. The realistic scenario of "humans on Mars" would involve people inside pressurized habs, remotely piloting robots. This isn't the 1850s; nobody's going out with a shovel and a pick-axe and making discoveries.
> Want to send a geologist and an astrobiologist to Mars in order to answer questions about our solar system's formation and look for microbes? Great, let's do it!
Putting human beings on Mars will forever destroy any possibility of determining if life evolved there on its own. Contamination from humans and their waste is inevitable. Further, there is nothing a geologist or biologist could do on the surface of Mars that they couldn't do better, faster, and cheaper on Earth. Indeed, many of the tests and analysis that would be required for novel science can't be done on the surface of Mars, as it requires technology that is too heavy or fragile to be transported. That's if these devices even work at 1/3 g, low pressure (habitats won't be at STP) and with ambient perchlorate microfine dust.
Send robots: they're cheaper, better and last longer.
posted by riotnrrd at 11:26 AM on January 11 [8 favorites]
> If you want to know why a manned mission to Mars is a truly terrible idea, I recommend Maciej Cegłowski's 2023 essay Why Not Mars.
I recommend following this recommendation. In addition to the cstross item linked elsethread.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 11:32 AM on January 11 [3 favorites]
I recommend following this recommendation. In addition to the cstross item linked elsethread.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 11:32 AM on January 11 [3 favorites]
From a 2017 iteration of this discussion: "Nobody should go to Disneyland. Other people have gone and we've got lots of pictures."
posted by Gerald Bostock at 11:37 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
posted by Gerald Bostock at 11:37 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
Given Mars's relatively low density of concrete road barriers, crosscutting trailer trucks, junior pedestrians, cyclists and confusing inner-city lane markings, I would expect Tesla FSD to be able to run a Mars rover about as well as any human pilot.
posted by flabdablet at 11:48 AM on January 11 [6 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 11:48 AM on January 11 [6 favorites]
One advantage of trying to terraform or perform geoengineering on a place like Mars is that you don't have to worry about messing things up as much as you would on Earth. If your project ends up rendering some area of Earth uninhabitable, destroying some biome, or killing a bunch of people there will be serious repercussions whereas Mars is already uninhabited and uninhabitable so the stakes are a bit lower. I don't know if that requires sending people over though.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:49 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:49 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
So many killjoy comments about the waste of money and resources on Mars missions. The waste of money and resources on space exploration is a fraction of that wasted on fast fashion, war and guns and bombs, McMansions, useless shiny new gadgets, wasteful consumerism, oversized gas-guzzling SUVs, etc. etc. etc.
Elon and his companies suck in so many ways. The headline story about the safety violations of Space X are absolutely horrifying. No-one should be allowed to get away with that. Such abuse should have been thrown into the dustbin of history a century ago.
But damn, why all the hate on human space exploration because it is not a strictly rational use of resources? So much of what I and you and most people on the planet do and make and buy every day is not a strict rational use of available resources.
posted by fimbulvetr at 11:50 AM on January 11 [9 favorites]
Elon and his companies suck in so many ways. The headline story about the safety violations of Space X are absolutely horrifying. No-one should be allowed to get away with that. Such abuse should have been thrown into the dustbin of history a century ago.
But damn, why all the hate on human space exploration because it is not a strictly rational use of resources? So much of what I and you and most people on the planet do and make and buy every day is not a strict rational use of available resources.
posted by fimbulvetr at 11:50 AM on January 11 [9 favorites]
The waste of money and resources on space exploration is a fraction of that wasted on fast fashion, war and guns and bombs, McMansions, useless shiny new gadgets, wasteful consumerism, oversized gas-guzzling SUVs, etc. etc. etc.
I mean, whenever we have threads on fast fashion, war & guns & bombs, McMansions, etc. people are generally pretty solidly down on the waste of money & resources there as well. This isn't a thread on those, this's a thread on human space exploration & everything that gets bundled into the drive for that. So people are going to talk about that.
posted by CrystalDave at 11:53 AM on January 11 [6 favorites]
I mean, whenever we have threads on fast fashion, war & guns & bombs, McMansions, etc. people are generally pretty solidly down on the waste of money & resources there as well. This isn't a thread on those, this's a thread on human space exploration & everything that gets bundled into the drive for that. So people are going to talk about that.
posted by CrystalDave at 11:53 AM on January 11 [6 favorites]
> I mean, whenever we have threads on fast fashion, war & guns & bombs, McMansions, etc. people are generally pretty solidly down on the waste of money & resources there as well.
Indeed, this is basically an incarnation of the "how dare you talk about problem $X when problem $Y affects so many more people?" bid to shut down discussion.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 11:58 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
Indeed, this is basically an incarnation of the "how dare you talk about problem $X when problem $Y affects so many more people?" bid to shut down discussion.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 11:58 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
No, it is not an attempt to shut down discussion, but you know, as usual MeFi is the place for the worst possible take on any comment.
The thread was about the horrible workplace safety violations of Space X and libertarian capitalist companies. And they are shockingly horrible.
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:01 PM on January 11
The thread was about the horrible workplace safety violations of Space X and libertarian capitalist companies. And they are shockingly horrible.
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:01 PM on January 11
Putting human beings on Mars will forever destroy any possibility of determining if life evolved there on its own.
This is a really interesting point that I'd never considered. Basically, my thoughts on Space Exploration is that it's generally a good thing, and tough for me to imagine a future in which this isn't a part of it (although that's surely in large part due to growing up at the time that I did. How many of us didn't grow up with an understanding that future = space to some degree or another?) I'm all for a crewed mission to Mars if for no other justification than to prove to ourselves that we're capable of it, with all the technological advancements that must be obtained in order to get there a nice side effect. And if someone with more money than anyone should ever have decides to spend it on that, I'm generally ok with that as well.
THAT SAID, there's a big difference between "Getting a crew to Mars someday will be a monumental benchmark in human achievement" and "Let's do whatever we can to get there fast enough for Elon Musk to draw a big X in the red sands." These safety issues are ludicrous, and the sort of thing that can only be the result of nobody saying no to the dumb rich tantrum-throwing baby in the room.
But knowing whether life exists there on its own without our contamination is a Big Thing Worth Knowing. I have no idea whether there will come a point when we could dispositively prove "no" without having Tricorders, and I don't know that the answer is worth holding off indefinitely for, but it's another good reason to focus on rovers for the time being.
posted by Navelgazer at 12:07 PM on January 11 [7 favorites]
This is a really interesting point that I'd never considered. Basically, my thoughts on Space Exploration is that it's generally a good thing, and tough for me to imagine a future in which this isn't a part of it (although that's surely in large part due to growing up at the time that I did. How many of us didn't grow up with an understanding that future = space to some degree or another?) I'm all for a crewed mission to Mars if for no other justification than to prove to ourselves that we're capable of it, with all the technological advancements that must be obtained in order to get there a nice side effect. And if someone with more money than anyone should ever have decides to spend it on that, I'm generally ok with that as well.
THAT SAID, there's a big difference between "Getting a crew to Mars someday will be a monumental benchmark in human achievement" and "Let's do whatever we can to get there fast enough for Elon Musk to draw a big X in the red sands." These safety issues are ludicrous, and the sort of thing that can only be the result of nobody saying no to the dumb rich tantrum-throwing baby in the room.
But knowing whether life exists there on its own without our contamination is a Big Thing Worth Knowing. I have no idea whether there will come a point when we could dispositively prove "no" without having Tricorders, and I don't know that the answer is worth holding off indefinitely for, but it's another good reason to focus on rovers for the time being.
posted by Navelgazer at 12:07 PM on January 11 [7 favorites]
For a long time there's been something about Elon Musk's behavior and public presence that has reminded me of someone but I hadn't been able to put a finger on exactly who. But as I was reading that article, and the weight of the negligence (or sociopathy) and resulting life-altering injuries and death started to set in, along with the bit about the flamethrower jerk-off, it finally came to me:
Boris Johnson.
So many are unable to see when what they're being asked is to sacrifice their own health or very life in service to the base needs of some Cult of Personality. A person who obviously and chronically cares of nothing which doesn't serve to bolster the fragility of their ego, but happens to be a helluva good storyteller and/or bully.
I really do feel for the employees of SpaceX, for the commitments they've made, for trying to bring some dreams into reality, but ... "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." (Upton Sinclair)
Maybe some of them understand the danger they're in, and have weighed the risk and elected to manage it. Many probably just can't see it. Either way, they're allowed to continue to be in danger because he just does not care about their wellbeing. He has made obvious, in all domains of his action, that he has no capacity to care for another's wellbeing; probably never has.
May Boris get stuffed onto the same one-way rocket as Elon. ASAP.
posted by jerome powell buys his sweatbands in bulk only at 12:20 PM on January 11 [7 favorites]
Boris Johnson.
So many are unable to see when what they're being asked is to sacrifice their own health or very life in service to the base needs of some Cult of Personality. A person who obviously and chronically cares of nothing which doesn't serve to bolster the fragility of their ego, but happens to be a helluva good storyteller and/or bully.
I really do feel for the employees of SpaceX, for the commitments they've made, for trying to bring some dreams into reality, but ... "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." (Upton Sinclair)
Maybe some of them understand the danger they're in, and have weighed the risk and elected to manage it. Many probably just can't see it. Either way, they're allowed to continue to be in danger because he just does not care about their wellbeing. He has made obvious, in all domains of his action, that he has no capacity to care for another's wellbeing; probably never has.
May Boris get stuffed onto the same one-way rocket as Elon. ASAP.
posted by jerome powell buys his sweatbands in bulk only at 12:20 PM on January 11 [7 favorites]
I had not really thought of the contamination issue either, but it goes both ways, doesn't it? we could introduce terrestrial organisms that are harmful to whatever life there might be on Mars, and a human who visited Mars and returned might bring back something nasty with them. not like this hasn't been covered in plenty of science fiction already!
posted by supermedusa at 12:21 PM on January 11
posted by supermedusa at 12:21 PM on January 11
I hate Elon Musk and his associated companies more than all of you, guaranteed
I hate him right up to the moon and back.
I hate him right up to the moon and not back.
posted by nickmark at 12:43 PM on January 11 [11 favorites]
I hate him right up to the moon and back.
I hate him right up to the moon and not back.
posted by nickmark at 12:43 PM on January 11 [11 favorites]
One of my hypotheses for the swiftness and severity of Elon's heel turn, probably catalyzed by his drug abuse, is that in the last few years he looked at the trajectory of SpaceX's development and came to the realization that he will probably not live long enough to get to Mars himself.
posted by tclark at 1:06 PM on January 11 [4 favorites]
posted by tclark at 1:06 PM on January 11 [4 favorites]
decent ethical people with moral cores and values and stuff respond to the realization that although their own generation won't get to do the thing (finish the cathedral, go to mars, use sinister superscience to become immortal universe-spanning hyperintelligent entities made of pure light, whatever) by remaining just as motivated by the knowledge that through their actions they can help make sure that somebody will.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 1:33 PM on January 11 [2 favorites]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 1:33 PM on January 11 [2 favorites]
Some of these are fucking bananas. People being hit in the head by bits failing during a pressure test should not be able to happen, because nobody should be standing next to a thing being pressure tested. For any reason, ever.
As far as Musk goes, when it comes to this project all I can think of is the hubris and ego of Stockton Rush and the OceanGate project, and the great New Yorker article that was posted here recently: "'You can’t cut corners in the deep,' [Rob] McCallum had told Rush. 'It’s not about being a disruptor. It’s about the laws of physics.'"
posted by Melismata at 1:34 PM on January 11 [11 favorites]
As far as Musk goes, when it comes to this project all I can think of is the hubris and ego of Stockton Rush and the OceanGate project, and the great New Yorker article that was posted here recently: "'You can’t cut corners in the deep,' [Rob] McCallum had told Rush. 'It’s not about being a disruptor. It’s about the laws of physics.'"
posted by Melismata at 1:34 PM on January 11 [11 favorites]
and the deep is ten trillion times less difficult than mars
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 1:35 PM on January 11 [4 favorites]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 1:35 PM on January 11 [4 favorites]
If you were a billionaire and you were convinced that climate change was unstoppable and would render the Earth uninhabitable in the next few decades, you'd need a space program to cover up all the money you were putting into controlled ecological life support systems that will allow you to choose who gets to survive.
The whole Mars thing is pretty obviously bunk. But it seems like it'd be a great cover story if the wealthy and powerful wanted to figure out how to live on an uninhabitable Earth quickly.
Now, if they're right, and the Earth is going to be uninhabitable, then yes, building enclosed habitable spaces which can support human life is a no-brainer. I mean, that's going to happen; building habitats to cope with hostile environments is pretty much our go-to strategy as a species. Whether it happens successfully or not depends on the research that's being done now.
So we're in a position where the wealthy and powerful are going to get to decide who lives or dies. I get why they're trying to cover that up. And I get that the initial reaction to that is to burn down/destroy/plug the air vents on billionaire bunkers, because it's infuriating. But people are going to try to survive, no matter what. The people with the most resources, as always, have the best shot at it. Destroying their bunkers won't keep anyone alive.
But building your own might.
posted by MrVisible at 1:36 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]
The whole Mars thing is pretty obviously bunk. But it seems like it'd be a great cover story if the wealthy and powerful wanted to figure out how to live on an uninhabitable Earth quickly.
Now, if they're right, and the Earth is going to be uninhabitable, then yes, building enclosed habitable spaces which can support human life is a no-brainer. I mean, that's going to happen; building habitats to cope with hostile environments is pretty much our go-to strategy as a species. Whether it happens successfully or not depends on the research that's being done now.
So we're in a position where the wealthy and powerful are going to get to decide who lives or dies. I get why they're trying to cover that up. And I get that the initial reaction to that is to burn down/destroy/plug the air vents on billionaire bunkers, because it's infuriating. But people are going to try to survive, no matter what. The people with the most resources, as always, have the best shot at it. Destroying their bunkers won't keep anyone alive.
But building your own might.
posted by MrVisible at 1:36 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]
'Come with me and we'll be in a world of OSHA violations'
posted by asok at 1:38 PM on January 11 [17 favorites]
posted by asok at 1:38 PM on January 11 [17 favorites]
in re: bunkers
there's this story from i think one of the wars between rome and carthage (everyone, update your "it has been __ days since you've thought about rome" signs) where upon landing his soldiers in north africa the roman commander ordered them to burn every last one of the ships they had used to get there, i.e. he cut off their only hypothetical way back in order to ensure that they kept pushing forward.
i posit that building our own bunkers is a terrible idea and that if we can't get the fuckers up against the wall then we at the very least need to murder the shit out of their doomsday shelters in order to preëmpt any and all of their attempts to save themselves, and thereby force them to help the actual humans keep the earth lightly fucked instead of completely destroyed.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 2:21 PM on January 11 [11 favorites]
there's this story from i think one of the wars between rome and carthage (everyone, update your "it has been __ days since you've thought about rome" signs) where upon landing his soldiers in north africa the roman commander ordered them to burn every last one of the ships they had used to get there, i.e. he cut off their only hypothetical way back in order to ensure that they kept pushing forward.
i posit that building our own bunkers is a terrible idea and that if we can't get the fuckers up against the wall then we at the very least need to murder the shit out of their doomsday shelters in order to preëmpt any and all of their attempts to save themselves, and thereby force them to help the actual humans keep the earth lightly fucked instead of completely destroyed.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 2:21 PM on January 11 [11 favorites]
there's this story from i think one of the wars between rome and carthage (everyone, update your "it has been __ days since you've thought about rome" signs)
You may perhaps be thinking of Hernán Cortés.
It has been 0 days since you thought about La Conquista. Or the Game.
posted by nickmark at 2:34 PM on January 11 [9 favorites]
You may perhaps be thinking of Hernán Cortés.
It has been 0 days since you thought about La Conquista. Or the Game.
posted by nickmark at 2:34 PM on January 11 [9 favorites]
Elon Musk just wants to die on Mars because he doesn't like people, that's his motivation.
As Corb puts it, he is someone 'who largely think(s) that Earth is beyond saving not because it is putting all the eggs in one basket but because it has too many people who aren't smart enough or cool enough or good enough'.
How many children has Musk fathered? Is it double figures yet? And for how many of them has he been present as a father? This is a visceral example of his mindset. Emotional intelligence is not his forte.
Science fiction I have enjoyed recently that has corporate exploration, extra terrestrial colonisation, or human hubris and prejudice destroying the earth as themes:
The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells
Semiosis - Sue Barker
Broken Earth Trilogy - N K Jemisin
You might be thinking, these are all North American authors, so obviously they reflect that society, but then there's
Monk and Robot - Becky Chambers
Which is just lovely, and resists dystopia.
posted by asok at 3:04 PM on January 11 [8 favorites]
As Corb puts it, he is someone 'who largely think(s) that Earth is beyond saving not because it is putting all the eggs in one basket but because it has too many people who aren't smart enough or cool enough or good enough'.
How many children has Musk fathered? Is it double figures yet? And for how many of them has he been present as a father? This is a visceral example of his mindset. Emotional intelligence is not his forte.
Science fiction I have enjoyed recently that has corporate exploration, extra terrestrial colonisation, or human hubris and prejudice destroying the earth as themes:
The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells
Semiosis - Sue Barker
Broken Earth Trilogy - N K Jemisin
You might be thinking, these are all North American authors, so obviously they reflect that society, but then there's
Monk and Robot - Becky Chambers
Which is just lovely, and resists dystopia.
posted by asok at 3:04 PM on January 11 [8 favorites]
He should read "Dark they were, and golden-eyed."
posted by Melismata at 3:06 PM on January 11 [3 favorites]
posted by Melismata at 3:06 PM on January 11 [3 favorites]
i posit that building our own bunkers is a terrible idea and that if we can't get the fuckers up against the wall then we at the very least need to murder the shit out of their doomsday shelters in order to preëmpt any and all of their attempts to save themselves, and thereby force them to help the actual humans keep the earth lightly fucked instead of completely destroyed.
Which is lovely, except what if climate change really can't be solved?
Then you're literally blowing up humanity's only chance of survival.
Is that, you know, good?
posted by MrVisible at 3:56 PM on January 11
Which is lovely, except what if climate change really can't be solved?
Then you're literally blowing up humanity's only chance of survival.
Is that, you know, good?
posted by MrVisible at 3:56 PM on January 11
‘Is that, you know, good?’
Yes. Yes it is.
posted by chronkite at 4:18 PM on January 11 [7 favorites]
Yes. Yes it is.
posted by chronkite at 4:18 PM on January 11 [7 favorites]
if the fuckers want bunker space they need to put in an application to the bunker space distribution subcommittee of the central committee of the legit revolutionary republic of bunkersburg, just like all of us proles, and if the legit revolutionary republic of bunkersburg doesn't exist because of their interference then it's their own fuckin' fault and i wash my hands of it.
basically if life on this here planet devolves into a game of enviropocalypse chicken i assure you the very first thing i'll do is throw my steering wheel out the window.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 4:56 PM on January 11 [3 favorites]
basically if life on this here planet devolves into a game of enviropocalypse chicken i assure you the very first thing i'll do is throw my steering wheel out the window.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 4:56 PM on January 11 [3 favorites]
in fact: if we're doing some sort of longtermist thought experiment like we're members of the bankman-fried fanclub then i hold that the most effective most important political intervention we could possibly make is establishing through direct action slash propaganda of the deed the certitude among the fuckers that any attempt on their part to establish private bunkers will be immediately met with utterly unhinged massively and quite pointedly destructive ultraviolence, just huge amounts of violence, far more violence than is strictly speaking necessary, directed at the site of the bunker, at the factories that sell building materials to private bunkerers, and at anyone who dares set foot anywhere near a privately owned bunker (complete or still under construction) with any purpose in mind other than the obliteration of that bunker.
delenda est the fuckers and their fuckerbunkers. the fate of the world depends on it.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 5:03 PM on January 11 [9 favorites]
delenda est the fuckers and their fuckerbunkers. the fate of the world depends on it.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 5:03 PM on January 11 [9 favorites]
What do bunkers have to do with OSHA issues at a workplace?
Sheesh
posted by sammyo at 5:16 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]
Sheesh
posted by sammyo at 5:16 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]
it is totally valid to think about reasons why mr. musk is so het up about so many different technologies that don't seem fit for their stated purpose, or for which the stated purpose is generations away from being achievable, but that just so happen to be useful for the construction of private enviropocalypse shelters, particularly when mr. musk and other members of his class have started talking shockingly semi-publicly about their newfound bunker tropism.
the osha violations are a sign of mr. musk's sloppy disregard for the lives of the people who build his stuff, a disregard that is directly analogous to slash related to the sloppy disregard for the wholeass planet that subtends bunkerist discourse.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 5:22 PM on January 11 [5 favorites]
the osha violations are a sign of mr. musk's sloppy disregard for the lives of the people who build his stuff, a disregard that is directly analogous to slash related to the sloppy disregard for the wholeass planet that subtends bunkerist discourse.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 5:22 PM on January 11 [5 favorites]
bombastic lowercase pronouncements - no to bunkers and no to the suppliers of bunkers. Go tunnels considered harmful
posted by asok at 5:24 PM on January 11
posted by asok at 5:24 PM on January 11
that said: as someone who has big feels for crewed space travel — look, i know it's not the most efficient use of resources, i know it is indeed a truly massive waste of resources, that little can be accomplished through crewed space travel that wouldn't be better done by adorable robots, but nevertheless despite it all i hold that space is secularsanct, that launching into space is a nigh-religious ritual celebration of the human spirit and of our indomitable bravery, and that those who have piloted craft beyond the sky and/or carried out research in the heavens are modern demigods whose names are to be celebrated through all time — i am angered up, you know, in the blood about how what's far and away the world's most effective space program is owned by that grubby waste of good ketamine that goes by the name elon musk. particularly because he is a sloppy man who does things in sloppy ways and treats people in sloppy ways, and space does not and will not ever brook any form of sloppiness.
the mere thought of all he could ruin being ruined makes me stomach-sick.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 5:29 PM on January 11 [9 favorites]
the mere thought of all he could ruin being ruined makes me stomach-sick.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 5:29 PM on January 11 [9 favorites]
It’s fun to pretend anyone is going to do anything at all to stop Musk, but let’s be honest:
…none of you will do anything at all besides post the occasional screed online.
Which is fine! That’s a thing that totally makes sense in certain situations!
…but spare the rest of us your hoity-toity attitudes about who might be more dedicated, because literally none of you are even slightly dedicated. Go ahead and prove me wrong; I’ve been waiting for years now and I’ve yet to be proven even slightly misaligned, never mind actually being wrong. The win conditions are pretty straightforward, this isn’t really hard except that it requires dedication.
Which is in short supply.
Don’t bother arguing, just go ahead and prove me wrong the direct way.
posted by aramaic at 6:32 PM on January 11 [2 favorites]
…none of you will do anything at all besides post the occasional screed online.
Which is fine! That’s a thing that totally makes sense in certain situations!
…but spare the rest of us your hoity-toity attitudes about who might be more dedicated, because literally none of you are even slightly dedicated. Go ahead and prove me wrong; I’ve been waiting for years now and I’ve yet to be proven even slightly misaligned, never mind actually being wrong. The win conditions are pretty straightforward, this isn’t really hard except that it requires dedication.
Which is in short supply.
Don’t bother arguing, just go ahead and prove me wrong the direct way.
posted by aramaic at 6:32 PM on January 11 [2 favorites]
Ooooh somebody on the internet is daring me to commit acts of violence against a billionaire. And right here on Metafilter, too! PrOvE mE wRoNg ThE dIrEcT wAy DeRp
posted by chronkite at 7:28 PM on January 11 [14 favorites]
posted by chronkite at 7:28 PM on January 11 [14 favorites]
with 90 billion dollars, I'd have an IHOP on the Moon by now.
posted by clavdivs at 7:29 PM on January 11 [2 favorites]
posted by clavdivs at 7:29 PM on January 11 [2 favorites]
The people with the most resources, as always, have the best shot at it. Destroying their bunkers won't keep anyone alive.
I'm a firm proponent of the Digwell Carol approach to any putative billionaire end-of-the-world bunkers.
posted by tavella at 7:37 PM on January 11 [5 favorites]
I'm a firm proponent of the Digwell Carol approach to any putative billionaire end-of-the-world bunkers.
posted by tavella at 7:37 PM on January 11 [5 favorites]
If you just like the skewering of Elon Musk & SpaceX including on the safety axis, I recommend the quirky Girlfriend on Mars. It’s a bit like a novel-length SNL sketch but not in a bad way.
It’s still disturbing to consider the very real disregard for regulation and workers.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:47 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]
It’s still disturbing to consider the very real disregard for regulation and workers.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:47 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]
It's funny that the general opinion about bunkers built by the wealthy and powerful is that they'll be defenseless, when of course even the bunkers they have now are pretty much impregnable. I do wonder how everyone got the impression that it'll be easy to assault them in the future.
But I apologize, I've strayed too far afield. We were talking about how Elon Musk can't be trusted to safeguard the lives of his workers. And it looks like local and federal governments are collaborating with him on burying that fact, instead of doing their jobs and enforcing the law and protecting the workers. And more and more of the federal government seems to be operating in service to these billionaires, who are apparently completely psychotic and are pursuing an agenda that makes no sense whatsoever.
This seems bad.
posted by MrVisible at 7:55 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]
But I apologize, I've strayed too far afield. We were talking about how Elon Musk can't be trusted to safeguard the lives of his workers. And it looks like local and federal governments are collaborating with him on burying that fact, instead of doing their jobs and enforcing the law and protecting the workers. And more and more of the federal government seems to be operating in service to these billionaires, who are apparently completely psychotic and are pursuing an agenda that makes no sense whatsoever.
This seems bad.
posted by MrVisible at 7:55 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]
If I'm living in a habitat on Mars, saving Humanity, I'm confident Elmo would have my back.
The remaining mutants who are able to survive on earth will swarm your bunkers you fucks. Have you never played any video games? Do you understand the concept of a society? No, you only understand the society you can buy with your cash. When your bunkerfood runs out, and water is getting sketchy, (stillsuits dudes), what then...?
posted by Windopaene at 8:55 PM on January 11
The remaining mutants who are able to survive on earth will swarm your bunkers you fucks. Have you never played any video games? Do you understand the concept of a society? No, you only understand the society you can buy with your cash. When your bunkerfood runs out, and water is getting sketchy, (stillsuits dudes), what then...?
posted by Windopaene at 8:55 PM on January 11
We should be terraforming Earth
We ARE terraforming Earth; we're just doing a bad job of it.
Also, the vast majority of human activity is inessential. Human spaceflight is not more so than a whole lot of other stuff.
Also also, damn right they need a union. I've worked for a NASA contractor, and though my job was not union, it was similar to jobs that were unionized, and I benefited hugely from that.
posted by inexorably_forward at 11:23 PM on January 11 [3 favorites]
We ARE terraforming Earth; we're just doing a bad job of it.
Also, the vast majority of human activity is inessential. Human spaceflight is not more so than a whole lot of other stuff.
Also also, damn right they need a union. I've worked for a NASA contractor, and though my job was not union, it was similar to jobs that were unionized, and I benefited hugely from that.
posted by inexorably_forward at 11:23 PM on January 11 [3 favorites]
building habitats to cope with hostile environments is pretty much our go-to strategy as a species
That's our go-to strategy as life.
We've all been doing pretty much exactly that since the invention of the lipid bilayer.
posted by flabdablet at 11:45 PM on January 11 [5 favorites]
That's our go-to strategy as life.
We've all been doing pretty much exactly that since the invention of the lipid bilayer.
posted by flabdablet at 11:45 PM on January 11 [5 favorites]
The remaining mutants who are able to survive on earth will swarm your bunkers you fucks.
Quite surprising numbers of those will be fungal, I expect; they're the squad that usually takes on the job of recycling the deadwood.
It pleases me to contemplate Elon, alone in his absurdly expensive bunker, scratching great weeping holes in his skin as candida, aspergillus and staph lead the hostile takeover.
posted by flabdablet at 11:54 PM on January 11 [3 favorites]
Quite surprising numbers of those will be fungal, I expect; they're the squad that usually takes on the job of recycling the deadwood.
It pleases me to contemplate Elon, alone in his absurdly expensive bunker, scratching great weeping holes in his skin as candida, aspergillus and staph lead the hostile takeover.
posted by flabdablet at 11:54 PM on January 11 [3 favorites]
Unionization would certainly help.
posted by Mitheral at 4:02 AM on January 12 [2 favorites]
According to Construct Canada, the construction industry reveals a 30% lower critical injury claims, 17% fewer mobility impairments and 23% lower lost-time claims in unionized workplace environments.and
OSHA data found that union worksites are 19% less likely to have an OSHA violation and had 34% fewer violations per OSHA inspection than non-union worksitesIt would be hilariously typical if Musk's anti union stance that is causing him so much trouble in Sweden was to become a problem for him in the US because of his anti safety policies.
posted by Mitheral at 4:02 AM on January 12 [2 favorites]
The remaining mutants who are able to survive on earth will swarm your bunkers you fucks.
Who cares? The army is actually really good at developing weapons to eliminate herds of people charging- we literally had to change war in 1919 they were so good at it. Movies and video games aren't real.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:52 AM on January 12 [1 favorite]
Who cares? The army is actually really good at developing weapons to eliminate herds of people charging- we literally had to change war in 1919 they were so good at it. Movies and video games aren't real.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:52 AM on January 12 [1 favorite]
I do wonder how everyone got the impression that it'll be easy to assault them in the future.
They gotta get their air from somewhere, and even after the apocalypse chlorine gas will be easy to make.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 7:57 AM on January 12
They gotta get their air from somewhere, and even after the apocalypse chlorine gas will be easy to make.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 7:57 AM on January 12
> I do wonder how everyone got the impression that it'll be easy to assault them in the future.
They remain mostly unmolested in the present not because they are particularly impregnable but because the owners can still rely on their servants in law enforcement to land a million-pound shithammer on anybody messes with them.
Will their private security be up to the task when the State is gone? Will they themselves be the kind of leaders that warrior retainers will follow? Stay tuned to find out!
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 8:25 AM on January 12 [3 favorites]
They remain mostly unmolested in the present not because they are particularly impregnable but because the owners can still rely on their servants in law enforcement to land a million-pound shithammer on anybody messes with them.
Will their private security be up to the task when the State is gone? Will they themselves be the kind of leaders that warrior retainers will follow? Stay tuned to find out!
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 8:25 AM on January 12 [3 favorites]
I haven't seen one of the Musk like bunker people whose bunkers don't require modern supply chains to function. They are doomed without any outside action because their only guy who knows how to operate the HVAC system needs insulin or something. Being on Mars just amplifies the problem.
posted by Mitheral at 8:29 AM on January 12
posted by Mitheral at 8:29 AM on January 12
Also they won't be the bunkers for Musk or Jeffy or whoever. They'll be the bunkers belonging to The Folks Who Until Recently Were Their Security Team.
Unless Musk etc make themselves necessary for operation somehow, like once a day they need to enter a password or do a biometric or whatever. In that case, they'll be welcomed inside and feel very smart right up until they get beaten with rubber hoses and locked in a closet until they're needed. It puts the password in or it gets the hose again.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:24 AM on January 12 [4 favorites]
Unless Musk etc make themselves necessary for operation somehow, like once a day they need to enter a password or do a biometric or whatever. In that case, they'll be welcomed inside and feel very smart right up until they get beaten with rubber hoses and locked in a closet until they're needed. It puts the password in or it gets the hose again.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:24 AM on January 12 [4 favorites]
WaPo gift link: No matter how high he gets, Elon Musk shouldn’t be above the law "Is this country really so desperate for creative thinkers that it must allow this man so much leeway? The country seems to have staked a lot of its future in communications, transportation and exploration on one man — the capricious, careless Mr. Musk. "
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:34 AM on January 12 [1 favorite]
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:34 AM on January 12 [1 favorite]
so the bohemian grove types who have, bafflingly, stood up on two legs and talked about this stuff in public have an anti-coup contingency which likewise they have bafflingly discussed in public: put the security guards in unremovable remote-activated explosive collars.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 11:20 AM on January 12
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 11:20 AM on January 12
There's a whole lot of people who would gladly serve in the keep rather than starve in the forest. Even if serving means fighting off people in the forest. Never underestimate the power of desperate people to cleave to any kind of power system, no matter how violent or unfair, that promises safety and meals. And it isn't the guards you have to worry about, as the king, it's family members. You might want to read up on the feudal system, we've rather a lot of history to look back on to know how shit would sort out if the billionaires retreat to their bunkers.
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:39 AM on January 12 [3 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:39 AM on January 12 [3 favorites]
You'd think if billionaires weren't all raving mustache-twirling villains they'd figure out that you recruit people with families, and you have them bring their families. You'll need families anyway, and people will do a lot to keep their families safe. And suddenly you have a community that's invested in community survival. But yeah, exploding collars, nobody's going to see any problem with that, that's definitely what they'll go for, muwahahahaha.
But hey, there's a whole field devoted to the study of this sort of thing, astrosociology. It's fascinating stuff. Perhaps we should think about applying it if the situation requires?
To Each According to Their Space-Need: Communes in Outer Space
posted by MrVisible at 12:02 PM on January 12 [1 favorite]
But hey, there's a whole field devoted to the study of this sort of thing, astrosociology. It's fascinating stuff. Perhaps we should think about applying it if the situation requires?
To Each According to Their Space-Need: Communes in Outer Space
posted by MrVisible at 12:02 PM on January 12 [1 favorite]
You might want to read up on the feudal system, we've rather a lot of history to look back on to know how shit would sort out if the billionaires retreat to their bunkers.
We do, but the average person in the US who has a roof over their head, even if it's rented, generally lives a better life than a lord in ye olden days, and modern supply chains and modern medicine make a return to those days as unfathomable for the majority as a space trip to Mars. So if you're going to dream, it's probably better to dream of space travel rather than societal collapse.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:02 PM on January 12
We do, but the average person in the US who has a roof over their head, even if it's rented, generally lives a better life than a lord in ye olden days, and modern supply chains and modern medicine make a return to those days as unfathomable for the majority as a space trip to Mars. So if you're going to dream, it's probably better to dream of space travel rather than societal collapse.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:02 PM on January 12
Oh, and regarding air and supply chains, there's a whole lot of reserach being done right now, it's very encouraging. The terms to search for are bioregenerative life support systems and controlled ecological life support systems. China's Lunar Palace One did a full year experiment with four students five years ago. I'd say the dream of a self-sufficient habitat is, if not within reach, at least a plausible technological goal.
posted by MrVisible at 12:13 PM on January 12 [1 favorite]
posted by MrVisible at 12:13 PM on January 12 [1 favorite]
put the security guards in unremovable remote-activated explosive collars
Congratulations! You are now safe until you need to sleep for the first time, or eat a meal you didn't fully prepare yourself.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 12:23 PM on January 12
Congratulations! You are now safe until you need to sleep for the first time, or eat a meal you didn't fully prepare yourself.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 12:23 PM on January 12
The Guardian had an article back in September of 2022 about some of these Waaaay More Money Than Sense guys indicating that they are aware of and very worried about the threat posed by their security teams.
From the article:
Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system, and asked: “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?”
...
This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour.... What would stop the guards from eventually choosing their own leader?
The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers – if that technology could be developed “in time”.
Par for the course with these dudes (it's almost always dudes, isn't it): rather than crack open a book and read about ways that humans in many different times and places have solved these kinds of problems in ways that are mutually beneficial and somewhat equitable, they want to go straight to forced obedience and severe punishment so that they can retain all the power and all the benefits -- pretty much their approach to handling the companies they run in these pre-"event" days. (Some days, I feel like "the event" has actually already started.)
posted by lord_wolf at 12:38 PM on January 12 [3 favorites]
And of course, none of them have the wit to ask either "how tolerable will it be to live among people who serve me because I'll blow their heads off if they don't" or "how long until my wife/child becomes friends with, falls in love with or is seduced by a security guard and betrays me in order to help the person they care about" or "how sure am I that I can maintain the security collar regime when it's just me and a few other rich people, a few loyalists and a bunch of slaves with no other backup system".
These guys are looking at recreating slavery but where enslavers in the US, for instance, relied on each other and on a large number of white citizens to control the enslaved and fight back against rebellion, Musk and his class are looking at doing this all by themselves. Enslaved Americans in the past escaped or rose up successfully in the face of enormous obstacles. It's little satisfaction right now, but Musk et al won't stand a chance when they don't have an elaborate system of policing and commerce to back them up.
The smart thing to do would be to create a town - fortify it and stock it, find friends, staff and kids who are willing to train to live there and support it, get an integrated system of governance going with you as the mayor, maybe a system where you and your friends have some kind of council role. People are much, much more likely to go along with "this is our stable town where we have a decent house and it is managed by hereditary Mayor Bezos and his council" as long as you do a relatively decent job. Living in the biggest nicest house in a nice town beats the hell out of living in a palace surrounded by security guards who are scheming to murk you the second you fall asleep.
posted by Frowner at 1:53 PM on January 12 [5 favorites]
These guys are looking at recreating slavery but where enslavers in the US, for instance, relied on each other and on a large number of white citizens to control the enslaved and fight back against rebellion, Musk and his class are looking at doing this all by themselves. Enslaved Americans in the past escaped or rose up successfully in the face of enormous obstacles. It's little satisfaction right now, but Musk et al won't stand a chance when they don't have an elaborate system of policing and commerce to back them up.
The smart thing to do would be to create a town - fortify it and stock it, find friends, staff and kids who are willing to train to live there and support it, get an integrated system of governance going with you as the mayor, maybe a system where you and your friends have some kind of council role. People are much, much more likely to go along with "this is our stable town where we have a decent house and it is managed by hereditary Mayor Bezos and his council" as long as you do a relatively decent job. Living in the biggest nicest house in a nice town beats the hell out of living in a palace surrounded by security guards who are scheming to murk you the second you fall asleep.
posted by Frowner at 1:53 PM on January 12 [5 favorites]
My favorite thing about this is that the discussion of "what do we do when money doesn't matter anymore and that's literally the only thing we bring to the table" not only immediately went to "assert physical methods of domination" but also only lasted the better part of an hour.
posted by Navelgazer at 1:58 PM on January 12
posted by Navelgazer at 1:58 PM on January 12
So the ultra-rich are trying to make classic sf real— and not even the good stuff like Alfred Bester, more like Heinlein's and Van Vogt's slavery fantasies— and in response we go through thriller plots. (Mine? Remember Hector in Breaking Bad? A suicide device is also a murder weapon.)
I think it's simpler than that. Read the cited article: Musk is a babbling incompetent. His rockets blow up, his cars are shoddy, he ran Twitter into the ground, he has no idea on how to keep his own employees safe or his own family happy. Do y'all really think he can build a bunker that works, a space habitat that works, a Mars colony that works, or even an exploding collar that works?
The frustrating thing is that for rich dudes, the incompetence and cruelty don't come crashing down on them all at once. Maybe he dies in bed. But it won't be on Mars and not in Galt Gulch.
posted by zompist at 3:27 PM on January 12 [3 favorites]
I think it's simpler than that. Read the cited article: Musk is a babbling incompetent. His rockets blow up, his cars are shoddy, he ran Twitter into the ground, he has no idea on how to keep his own employees safe or his own family happy. Do y'all really think he can build a bunker that works, a space habitat that works, a Mars colony that works, or even an exploding collar that works?
The frustrating thing is that for rich dudes, the incompetence and cruelty don't come crashing down on them all at once. Maybe he dies in bed. But it won't be on Mars and not in Galt Gulch.
posted by zompist at 3:27 PM on January 12 [3 favorites]
So... do you think anyone is capable of building habitats which will enable humanity to survive if we end up failing to stop climate change?
Because I think the question is becoming increasingly relevant.
If this is something within our capacity, and our planet is indeed becoming uninhabitable, then someone is going to do it. We are, as a species, pretty determined to survive. I'd like to see some creative, humanitarian, responsible takes on bunker-building, since there's a chance that might be our only hope for the future. And fortunately, the research I cited above seems to indicate that we might be making strides in that direction.
We have ceded this discussion to the billionaires, when it's all of humanity's future at stake. The wealthy and powerful are going to try to survive, that's a given. The question is, will we let them be the only ones?
posted by MrVisible at 6:36 PM on January 12
Because I think the question is becoming increasingly relevant.
If this is something within our capacity, and our planet is indeed becoming uninhabitable, then someone is going to do it. We are, as a species, pretty determined to survive. I'd like to see some creative, humanitarian, responsible takes on bunker-building, since there's a chance that might be our only hope for the future. And fortunately, the research I cited above seems to indicate that we might be making strides in that direction.
We have ceded this discussion to the billionaires, when it's all of humanity's future at stake. The wealthy and powerful are going to try to survive, that's a given. The question is, will we let them be the only ones?
posted by MrVisible at 6:36 PM on January 12
Yeah, Frowner's got it. Systems of subordination can only really work when they are ensconced in larger systems. The European manorial system worked because any given local lord had a complex web of vertical and horizontal relationships with other local and regional lords who had reason to help re-establish the status quo if they got overthrown. American chattel slavery worked because the legal apparatus of the nation as a whole was upholding it. Some random dude trying to assert their supremacy in a bunker on the basis of having been the one that originally hired all of them is not going to have those benefits.
posted by jackbishop at 8:36 AM on January 13 [2 favorites]
posted by jackbishop at 8:36 AM on January 13 [2 favorites]
Which really suggests that it'll be essential to examine the social systems within enclosed environments in order to make sure that the entire project stays functional. Fortunately, as I mentioned above, astrosociology is a whole field which has been studying these exact problems for decades.
posted by MrVisible at 8:49 AM on January 13
posted by MrVisible at 8:49 AM on January 13
That's a good point, that as well as studying totally closed-cycle ecosystems future space colony or apocalypse bunker builders will need to study arcology societies, like that town in Alaska which is all in a single building, or oil rig workers or submarine crews but where shifts last years/forever instead of just months. Or Dubai without any migrant workers.
Charlie Stross has pointed out that the danger of catastrophic failure in totally enclosed habitats is so great that their societies are probably going to be super authoritarian, totally at odds with the libertarian flavour of much space cadet scifi. I'm curious if the academic field engages much with the fictional version, and like the mismatch between the fantasy and probable actual versions.
(Getting silly and running with your original thought about the Mars colony / commercial space race hype being cover for closed-cycle environment research MrVisible, maybe Musk's apparent blithe disregard for potential Kessler syndrome is just to create a captive market for billionaire survival greenhouses.)
posted by ver at 3:24 PM on January 13
Charlie Stross has pointed out that the danger of catastrophic failure in totally enclosed habitats is so great that their societies are probably going to be super authoritarian, totally at odds with the libertarian flavour of much space cadet scifi. I'm curious if the academic field engages much with the fictional version, and like the mismatch between the fantasy and probable actual versions.
(Getting silly and running with your original thought about the Mars colony / commercial space race hype being cover for closed-cycle environment research MrVisible, maybe Musk's apparent blithe disregard for potential Kessler syndrome is just to create a captive market for billionaire survival greenhouses.)
posted by ver at 3:24 PM on January 13
Musk and other billionaires champing at the bit to flee the Earth make me wish we could charter them a B-Ark so the rest of us could save the planet in peace.
posted by cheshyre at 3:34 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]
posted by cheshyre at 3:34 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]
At least with Bezos, i more got the impression he's just so ideologically committed to capitalism's infinite growth assumption that he's working to build new worlds (i.e. O'Neill cylinder space cites) sincerely. Like, his assumption is that climate change can be dealt with via geoengineering if needed, he just really wants new markets to open up forever.
posted by ver at 3:47 PM on January 13
posted by ver at 3:47 PM on January 13
I don’t get the impression that Bezos thinks or cares about what happens to the world beyond his lifespan; he just wants to be on top. (He seems fairly competitive.)
posted by eviemath at 3:58 PM on January 13
posted by eviemath at 3:58 PM on January 13
do you think anyone is capable of building habitats which will enable humanity to survive if we end up failing to stop climate change?
Not any version of humanity that I'd personally identify with, no.
posted by flabdablet at 2:39 AM on January 14 [1 favorite]
Not any version of humanity that I'd personally identify with, no.
posted by flabdablet at 2:39 AM on January 14 [1 favorite]
Hmm... people who didn't cause this problem trying to survive are inhuman somehow? I'm sorry, I don't get it. Why?
posted by MrVisible at 4:36 AM on January 14
posted by MrVisible at 4:36 AM on January 14
Hoping to survive in a bunker while leaving the bulk of humanity to die is inhuman, yes.
Think about keeping the planet habitable for humans, instead. It is, literally, not rocket science.
posted by zompist at 5:41 AM on January 14 [3 favorites]
Think about keeping the planet habitable for humans, instead. It is, literally, not rocket science.
posted by zompist at 5:41 AM on January 14 [3 favorites]
Are you sure we can fix climate change?
Like, really, actually certain that we have the capability, as a species, to put aside our differences and work together to achieve the seriously challenging technical and social goals that we've determined will stop climate change from making the planet uninhabitable? And are you absolutely certain that those goals will have their desired results?
Because if we're not really really really sure, we should probably have a backup plan. That's what backup plans are for.
posted by MrVisible at 6:27 AM on January 14 [1 favorite]
Like, really, actually certain that we have the capability, as a species, to put aside our differences and work together to achieve the seriously challenging technical and social goals that we've determined will stop climate change from making the planet uninhabitable? And are you absolutely certain that those goals will have their desired results?
Because if we're not really really really sure, we should probably have a backup plan. That's what backup plans are for.
posted by MrVisible at 6:27 AM on January 14 [1 favorite]
From the current IPCC reports, the likelihood of the entire earth becoming completely uninhabitable by people such that we would all have to move to bunkers is not really something we're worried about. From Figure 3.2 of the 2023 IPCC report, we have serious concerns about the tropics becoming very difficult places to live, especially under the worst scenarios of greater than 4 degrees C of warming, but we're expecting that, along with sea level rise, to lead to mass population displacements, not bunkers. I'm doing everything I can professionally and personally to avert it, but I'm not investing in bunkers.
posted by hydropsyche at 9:00 AM on January 14 [2 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 9:00 AM on January 14 [2 favorites]
Verse, chorus, verse, chorus...
Human survival independent of this planet's larger life systems is a techno-utopian myth, and a belief that humanity could not only survive but thrive on emerging from the bunkers after thousands of years of self-encystment is just a city dweller's pioneers and wagon trains fantasy gone multiple kinds of wrong.
If you aspire to having your entire family serve life sentences in any prison run by Elon Musk's heirs and successors because you think that's kind of cool, don't let me stop you. But I'm never willingly going to help you pay for it, and don't try to sell me this horseshit about "saving humanity" because I ain't buying.
Habitability is not a binary either-Earth-is-habitable-or-it-isn't thing; rather, it's a species-specific carrying capacity number. I have no doubt whatsoever that the tardier we are about ceasing to de-sequester slow-cycle carbon, the worse will be the damage we inflict on the biosphere and the lower Earth's capacity to carry countless species, us included, will become. The stupider we are at reacting appropriately to self-inflicted carrying capacity reduction, the worse and faster and more brutally its consequences will become apparent.
The options open to us at this point are (a) sharpen up our ideas about getting off fossil carbon while voluntarily reducing our birth rate to compensate for the carrying capacity reduction inherent in doing that or (b) be forcibly reduced to a pitiful rump of humanity continuing to eke out a meagre living amongst the smoking ruins of all of today's supply chains, thereby ceasing to de-sequester fossil carbon on any consequential scale via radical demand reduction. So we're in a hole that one way or another we will stop digging.
But because we're starting from such an absurdly high population base, even a reduction in Earth's carrying capacity for H. sap. by a factor of as much as a thousand would still result in orders of magnitude more people living outside your "backup plan" than would ever fit inside it. And if you think that those outside are going to treat those who refuse to come out and live amongst us with anything but implacable hostility, especially if the hikikomori maintain anything like eventual colonial ambitions, you've been paying very little attention to history.
All that a bunker-mentality "backup plan" could ever achieve is making the pitiful rump of option (b) even more pitiful by adding blindingly obvious causes for conflict.
posted by flabdablet at 9:32 AM on January 14
Human survival independent of this planet's larger life systems is a techno-utopian myth, and a belief that humanity could not only survive but thrive on emerging from the bunkers after thousands of years of self-encystment is just a city dweller's pioneers and wagon trains fantasy gone multiple kinds of wrong.
If you aspire to having your entire family serve life sentences in any prison run by Elon Musk's heirs and successors because you think that's kind of cool, don't let me stop you. But I'm never willingly going to help you pay for it, and don't try to sell me this horseshit about "saving humanity" because I ain't buying.
Habitability is not a binary either-Earth-is-habitable-or-it-isn't thing; rather, it's a species-specific carrying capacity number. I have no doubt whatsoever that the tardier we are about ceasing to de-sequester slow-cycle carbon, the worse will be the damage we inflict on the biosphere and the lower Earth's capacity to carry countless species, us included, will become. The stupider we are at reacting appropriately to self-inflicted carrying capacity reduction, the worse and faster and more brutally its consequences will become apparent.
The options open to us at this point are (a) sharpen up our ideas about getting off fossil carbon while voluntarily reducing our birth rate to compensate for the carrying capacity reduction inherent in doing that or (b) be forcibly reduced to a pitiful rump of humanity continuing to eke out a meagre living amongst the smoking ruins of all of today's supply chains, thereby ceasing to de-sequester fossil carbon on any consequential scale via radical demand reduction. So we're in a hole that one way or another we will stop digging.
But because we're starting from such an absurdly high population base, even a reduction in Earth's carrying capacity for H. sap. by a factor of as much as a thousand would still result in orders of magnitude more people living outside your "backup plan" than would ever fit inside it. And if you think that those outside are going to treat those who refuse to come out and live amongst us with anything but implacable hostility, especially if the hikikomori maintain anything like eventual colonial ambitions, you've been paying very little attention to history.
All that a bunker-mentality "backup plan" could ever achieve is making the pitiful rump of option (b) even more pitiful by adding blindingly obvious causes for conflict.
posted by flabdablet at 9:32 AM on January 14
Even in the absence of climate change it would make sense to develop habitable biospheres.
This is a really harsh universe. The universe involves things like gamma ray bursts and asteroids and supervolcanoes and a whole lot of things we literally can't know about yet. We've been very fortunate to have avoided the big calamities so far in our development, but extinction is the rule, not the exception.
Now that we are within reach of the capability to develop our own biospheres, it's worth recognizing that we're a very fragile species that's completely dependent on a thin bubble of gas created by a series of very energetic reactions. We live on a planet that regularly goes through changes that would, if they occurred now, wipe us out as a species. Why wouldn't we figure out what to do if things go wrong?
And think about what we can learn about ourselves and our environments with this project. I mean, we consider Biosphere 2 a failure, but we learned a ton from it, because science is like that. Let me leave you with the inspiring words of a leader from that project at the time:
This is a really harsh universe. The universe involves things like gamma ray bursts and asteroids and supervolcanoes and a whole lot of things we literally can't know about yet. We've been very fortunate to have avoided the big calamities so far in our development, but extinction is the rule, not the exception.
Now that we are within reach of the capability to develop our own biospheres, it's worth recognizing that we're a very fragile species that's completely dependent on a thin bubble of gas created by a series of very energetic reactions. We live on a planet that regularly goes through changes that would, if they occurred now, wipe us out as a species. Why wouldn't we figure out what to do if things go wrong?
And think about what we can learn about ourselves and our environments with this project. I mean, we consider Biosphere 2 a failure, but we learned a ton from it, because science is like that. Let me leave you with the inspiring words of a leader from that project at the time:
"A lot of the scientists who are studying global change and studying the effects of greenhouse gases, many of them feel that the Earth's atmosphere in 100 years is what Biosphere 2's atmosphere is today. We have extraordinarily high CO2, we have very high nitrous oxide, we have high methane. And we have lower oxygen content. So the power of this place is allowing those scientists who are really involved in the study of global change, and which, in the outside world or Biosphere 1, really have to work with just computer simulation, this actually allows them to study and monitor the impact of enhanced CO2 and other greenhouse gases on humans, plants, and animals."posted by MrVisible at 7:11 PM on January 14
-Steven Bannon, Director of Biosphere 2, 1995
When things that I believe to be important start lining up with things that Steve Bannon (yes, it's that Steve Bannon) says are important, my first inclination is to indulge in positively self-flagellatory levels of fact checking.
Because that guy is fucked up. Worse than Elon, even.
posted by flabdablet at 7:35 PM on January 14 [1 favorite]
Because that guy is fucked up. Worse than Elon, even.
posted by flabdablet at 7:35 PM on January 14 [1 favorite]
Oh, I know. Check out the article linked, it's fascinating.
posted by MrVisible at 7:47 PM on January 14 [2 favorites]
posted by MrVisible at 7:47 PM on January 14 [2 favorites]
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