Thread by @hughhowey

I'm expanding on my thread about living in space for a blog post, and I'm realizing how very little of the argument against living in space has anything to do with the actual difficulties of living in space. Instead, it has to do with two great fallacies:

https://twitter.com/hughhowey/status/1134540120877649921

1) Overpopulation is not going to be a problem. A century from now, world population will be in decline:

medium.com/@kevin2kelly/t…

2) Asteroid and comet impacts are not an existential threat (almost nothing is):

science20.com/robert_invento…

Most arguments I can find for colonizing space have to do with fears of overpopulation and fears of extinction, neither of which are a concern.

That leaves as arguments: (A) Just because, (B) For science, and (C) For profits.

(A) Is usually made by men with the wanderlust delusion described in my previous thread. One thing I have yet to see discussed in fantasies of colonizing space is gender disparity. The same gender disparity I see among sailors. Ignoring this is a colossal oversight.

(B) Science would be better served (humanity as well) by solving energy and fresh water problems here on Earth. We could invest in clean energy and desalination and turn the Sahara back into grasslands and flood parched India for what we'll spend on toys for boys.

(C) The first company to retrieve an asteroid loaded with rare minerals will destroy the very market they create. Declining human population means declining demand for resources as well. The only profits in space will be for short-stay tourism.

So that's it? We are trapped here? We will never leave Earth?

Not a chance. But Mars will never be a stepping stone. There's nothing to learn there. When we settle, it'll be on distant planets much more like Earth. We are already discovering them.

The paths to those new Earths will go one or all of 3 ways: We will develop AI and robotics good enough to go in our stead. We will send seeds that sprout humanity from embryonic materials. Or we will go in generation ships.

The first of these two will certainly be tried. We've already sent a probe with bits of our thoughts and art on a stamped piece of metal, which is a crude attempt at putting a small piece of our collective selves out there. We will expand these efforts over the eons to come.

Generation ships are the purest form of colonizing. They will not be built anywhere NEAR Mars. They will be built in Earth orbit, or in orbit around the Moon, closer to our sources of industry and in the absence of gravity.

We will learn how to build generation ships by building orbital stations, not lunar colonies or Moon bases. They will be modular. They will simulate gravity with spin. They will grow in complexity over time. Eventually they will be propelled out to the stars.

We will go to Mars to plant a flag and for bragging rights. We will return to the Moon for tourism and for more bragging rights. Neither will ever be zoned residential. You'll never find a million people willing to raise their children there.

Meanwhile, on Earth, within 100 years, we will have declining world populations. People will continue streaming into cities, leaving nature to re-wild. Synthetic meat and growing veganism will accelerate the already declining use of pasture.

Advances in robotics and AI will lead to a post-work economy. Universal basic income will free billions to express themselves through learning, volunteerism, art, and making. And in thousands of years, our robot and AI creations will be looked upon as our children.

We will not hate, fear, or war with these creations any more than we fear our biological offspring. We may even become a part of them. And all of this is far more likely than the terraforming of Mars. Infinitely more likely.

Didn't you hear? There's not enough CO2 there: newscientist.com/article/217541…

I thought I was in the minority with these views, but it turns out that the people who know real science, rather than the fans of science fiction, often agree:

futurism.com/neil-degrasse-…

A million humans will never live off Earth. Not in a trillion years. The only way this happens is if we send colony ships to other Earths or we create AI selves that live on stamped discs among the stars. The path to both those possibilities happens right here. Nowhere else.

END