why haven't we inhabited any other planet yet? Wtf.

I think one thing people forget in all of these plans to colonize other planets is that with our current known limits, communication between Earth and the colony would be horrible (4 minute lag IIRC and probably low bandwidth). Even Earth and Mars are far enough away that real time communication would be infeasible. So unless there's some kind of research that can only be done on Mars, there's no real point to going there.

Aoi_Shinigami said:

However, i think the humanity should do something with the Moon first.

This is much more realistic. We could build a space station that's fixed to the moon and communication back to Earth is feasible. Still a bit of latency (a little over 1 second IIRC), but you could have a phone conversation. There's still not much point though unless low gravity research could be performed on the moon's surface. But from what I understand there are treaties stopping any colonization of the moon.

Gez said:

I don't know why you bothered listing not-planets (Pluto and beyond). And of course, nobody would bother attempting to colonize the gas giants; however they have Earth-like satellites. Europa, for instance, is a good theoretical candidate.

Jupiter bathes it's moons with fatal doses of radiation at all times. The only way to "colonize" europa would be to live 30km below the ice sheet in the subsurface sea.

Maes said:

I partially "get" this rant: you wonder why there haven't been major advances in "hard" sectors like aerospace technology, aviation, rocketry, internal combustion engines, and space exploration in the last decades, or why we don't have cool stuff like jetpacks, flying cars and nuclear reactors in every home.

NEWSFLASH: the end of the Cold War and several energy crises put an end to the unprecedented advance in those "hard" fields, and now the emphasis is on "softer" technologies. "Atoms for peace" has been almost entirely written off, and stuff like jetpacks and flying cars relied on the assumption that in the future, energy would be plentiful and that personal flight would be high in demand. Guess what happened....

It's much more likely that future wars will erupt over the few remaining "hard" energy resources (oil, coal etc.) that can keep militaries going (you can't project world power with solar-powered unicycles), and that any technology will ultimately have something to do with introverted electronic surveillance and policing, than space exploration.

But yeah, we surely made a lot of "progress" on stuff like Facebook, Twitter, NSA, Big Brother etc. All "soft" technologies with immediate police applications. We certainly are living in an age of relative introversion and technological stagnation, waiting for a singularity (some major war, some major energy resource breakthrough, a dramatic advancement in weaponry, self-aware AI, a mass extinction event of some sort etc.) to really push us into the next era.

LMAO (except the last paragraph; that stuff creeps me out).

I mean, we've all seen Aliens, Star Wars, Austin Powers, played Doom (and perhaps Snatcher, Metal Gear Solid, or some Contra?); but we're years ahead some of those instances. Sure wouldn't mind flying around the moon with a nuclear based projectile pulling me around; unless of course I lost the control to it.

I'm actually surprised at all the defensive responses. You guys are pretty smart IMO. Makes you wonder why Carmack married a Japanese and decided to pursue rocket science...

I've always found it odd that every one bitches about 'Climate Change' and all that swill, yet people still think it's feasible we could ever smack a colony on mars since.... you know, we can't even terraform/supposedly 'fix' our own planet yet..

Things that make you hmmm.

Now speaking of climate changes, i do not think it will end very well for humans. And that's one of the reasons why I think humanity should colonize something, so in case of an apocalypse on Earth, humanity won't go extinct right away. Who knows, maybe the resources on the colonized planet/moon would be sufficient to create a new civilization that might even reclaim Earth somewhere in the far future...

(Besides, maybe humanity will need to send some people away to save the Earth, like top dangerous criminals, or maybe even some part of civilians. After all, the Earth ALREADY has quite a collosal amount of humans living on it)

If we resort to "colonizing something, anything" purely as a last-ditch effort at damage control, it will probably mean that we'll be too late, anyway. We'd be too busy fighting local problems rather than invest on a viable space colonization program. If you consider that at least the first colonies would need to be dependent on Earth for supplies for quite a long time, that doesn't seem a good solution if the Earth itself is in ruins, and cannot divert resources elsewhere.

Also, no matter how fucked up the Earth ends up due to natural disaster or even a nuclear holocaust, it will still be a thousand times more hospitable than a planet with no atmosphere, no plants or animals to eat, no water etc., so it would still make sense to try and rebuild the Earth, than to terraform a much more hostile world (also because, after such an event, we won't be in any position to send people in space).

It makes more sense trying to tame the Sahara or the South Pole, which at least are not very far from base, than plunging head-first into planetary colonization. After all, if we can't build a self-sustaining colony ANYWHERE on our own planet, what makes you think that we'd do better million miles away from it, and with far worse conditions to boot?

Maybe our vault-dwelling great-grandchildren will invent the tech needed to terraform Venus as part of their effort to terraform Earth into an inhabitable planet again.

Gez said:

Maybe our vault-dwelling great-grandchildren will invent the tech needed to terraform Venus as part of their effort to terraform Earth into an inhabitable planet again.

Tsk, tsk...why develop the technology to terraform the surface of a miserable and sterile pile of rocks millions of miles away, when they can instead tap on a far greater volume of minerals, energy, water etc. trapped in the crust and the depths of the Earth itself? It makes more sense to develop mining and "subterraforming" when you're living underground, anyway.

Perhaps with the final goal being tapping into the power of the Earth Core itself, and turning the Earth itself into a planetary spaceship...

The same thing holds for the various proposals of underground colonization of other planets/asteroids: if the conditions are going to suck that badly to force you underground anyway, why not develop this technology on Earth itself? There's much more room and usable resources and machinery, and even on the planet's surface conditions will always be better than the vacuum of space or Venus's atmosphere.

Maes said:

even on the planet's surface conditions will always be better than the vacuum of space or Venus's atmosphere.

"Sounds like a challenge to me", said the human race.

http://www.securitronlinux.com/apollo/how-we-could-get-to-a-planet-500-light-years-away-in-12-years-with-a-special-type-of-spaceship/

http://www.mars-one.com/ Just sayin'

Ichor said:

I heard they are going to try to land on the sun soon, but they are waiting until nighttime.

I believe that was North Korea's goal, yes. :P

I believe that was North Korea's goal, yes. :P [/B][/quote]They're pretty smart then xD

There needs to be a business sim game about funding galactic space travel to colonize places other than earth.

Where the first and final level of the game is to find an investor.

people only make enough money to care about what's directly under their nose. I used to philosophize about things all the time but now that my life involves homeownership, a loving wife, and focusing on career goals, I can't even pretend to care about the things outside my inner circle. Managing my budget and staying within the law takes a lot focus and utopian questions like why we haven't utilized our technolological advancements for things like planet invasion fits snugly in the daydreaming time wastery category of my life which fields about an eighth of a percent of my day to day life. I'd imagine family supporters and other independently living taxpayers have a similar sized category for that kinda stuff.

Not me. To that guy up there ^ Whilst I have the things you speak, it's important to me, at least, to sit the fuck down, relax, and do some pondering from time to time. If I allow financial objectives among the many other burdens to cloud my brain for too long I'd go crazy because of all the fake bullshit. Like "hey, Bucko, that's your house but even after you pay it off the bank can still take it right from under you.". About the only thing I consider real out of my list of bullshit (bills, house, etc.) Is my wife. Luckily she understands that society is structured to keep us entertained and away from any REAL thinking; tis why we are married among many other reasons.

40oz said:

staying within the law takes a lot focus

Wut?

How is that an issue? I don't think I've ever heard anyone I know complain about it being difficult to respect the law in everyday life.

I'm with Flesh, if I didn't have time to read a book (currently The Gulag Archipelago) or watch a TEDTalk because of job related or financial issues, I'd start working towards changing something about my life.

Belial said:

Wut?

How is that an issue? I don't think I've ever heard anyone I know complain about it being difficult to respect the law in everyday life.

Depends on how paranoid you are about it, really.

You may find this interesting. (It's specifically about US law, but the same issue is found in other legal systems as well.)

Gez said:

You may find this interesting. (It's specifically about US law, but the same issue is found in other legal systems as well.)

I think it's the same everywhere. Practically, this "overcriminalization" thing has one specific purpose, which can be summed up as "shut up and pay": it's nothing short of an extortion racket, which selects "victims" on a whim. It's well thought out too, since the "targets" are usually not hard-boiled criminals who know by experience how to deal with authorities and bargain with the judicial system, but fairly normal people, and the lawmakers know that those people will rather pay up/come to a settlement than try to dodge their way out.

The final goal is to force you to put fresh money and blood into the legal meat grinding machine, and woe to you if you think you can "do without them".

Also, related: the best rebuttal ever to the "nothing to hide" argument. I recall there had also been a sort of legal "training exerise" which involved a panel of expert lawyers, judges etc. tasked with deliberately finding something legally questionable about the life of a random individual who thought himself as the "ain't got nothing to hide" guy, and it turns out that no matter how highly you might think of yourself, an expert in legal matters may always find something to trap you with.

Edit: another, more disturbing reason of why it's so easy to end up incarcerated in the USA, is that prison labor is the next Big Thing in Big Business, and of course it requires new meat/blood even moreso than the legal system. You could view it as a form of "active hiring", where the employers are actually seeking YOU...or waiting for you to screw up and ending up with them, depending on how you see it.

Gez said:

You may find this interesting. (It's specifically about US law, but the same issue is found in other legal systems as well.)

I've read about these artifacts of dead or ridiculous law before. The comic raises a valid issue but the examples it uses make it sound more ridiculous than the laws it is quoting. I bet most people would stop reading after page 4, since even a quick Google search shows that the MBTA (from 1918) in recent cases was used for protecting truly endangered species.

Maes said:

Edit: another, more disturbing reason of why it's so easy to end up incarcerated in the USA, is that prison labor is the next Big Thing in Big Business, and of course it requires new meat/blood even moreso than the legal system. You could view it as a form of "active hiring", where the employers are actually seeking YOU...or waiting for you to screw up and ending up with them, depending on how you see it.

Damn capitalist thieves, ripping off tried and true Soviet solutions.

Belial said:

Damn capitalist thieves, ripping off tried and true Soviet solutions.

Well, George Orwell had made it painstakingly clear that at the elite/leadership goals' level, there's virtually no difference between Capitalists and "Communists", and that the underclasse would end up exploited either way.

It was also just a matter of time until even in the West, the patience for applying relatively "democratic" exploitation methods would run thin, with the call for hyper-competitivity and all, and so that more "totalitarian" methods would get sneaked through the back door.

As G.W. Bush said:

If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator.

Belial said:

Damn capitalist thieves, ripping off tried and true Soviet solutions.

There's a joke that goes like this: "Capitalism is exploitation of people by people! Marxism is the other way around."

Flesh420 said:

Not me. To that guy up there ^ Whilst I have the things you speak, it's important to me, at least, to sit the fuck down, relax, and do some pondering from time to time. If I allow financial objectives among the many other burdens to cloud my brain for too long I'd go crazy because of all the fake bullshit. Like "hey, Bucko, that's your house but even after you pay it off the bank can still take it right from under you.". About the only thing I consider real out of my list of bullshit (bills, house, etc.) Is my wife. Luckily she understands that society is structured to keep us entertained and away from any REAL thinking; tis why we are married among many other reasons.

Excellent response. The current structure is great at keeping people's thinking limited to "home, work, bills, repeat". To break this cycle even in the most minor of ways is to win what initially looks like a losing battle for everyday people and their sanity/intellect.

If I didn't have time for pondering, time for keeping up with current events that stretch way beyond my personal bubble (even the "fake" stuff, as mentioned above), I think it would cause me to lose my mind. Cheesy as it sounds, the saying applies now as much as ever: Knowing is half the battle.

All that said, if my life was moved from the city into the deep, isolated woods with nothing but me, my fiancée, my dog, my hunting rifle, carving knife and cozy cabin.. I'd be content without minute-to-minute knowledge of what trials the rest of humanity are facing, simply because our safety would be generally unaffected by those factors. (I'm talking about a fantasy here, in truth.)

Belial said:

Damn capitalist thieves, ripping off tried and true Soviet solutions.

Hey, even the spearhead of EU's capitalism, Germany, pretty much admitted that soon enough "Made in Germany" will only be possible through prison labor.

On the contrary: demographic developments, and the tendency of judges to incarcerate fewer offenders and have them wear ankle monitors instead, has him worrying that the numbers of prisoners will shrink to the point “that we won’t be able to keep up with orders.”

Ouch. I'm a bit worried that this mentality has creeped back in the very heart of Europe, and by the worst possible people in Europe for such a thing....

Belial said:

Wut?

How is that an issue? I don't think I've ever heard anyone I know complain about it being difficult to respect the law in everyday life.

that was kind of an unnecessary addendum on my part. I was just frustrated because I got a letter in the mail from the city regarding some bullshit parking tickets I've been trying to dodge the past couple months. Ain't got money fo dat. (well I do but its probably gonna have to come outta my college tuition savings)

but when I was younger I had all the answers, being able to tell everyone what they should be doing while having zero money, education or credentials to do any of it myself. I just think in this day and age, people who are as capable as can be to inhabit a second planet got where they are because it was a job that they would be paid for, not necessarily for achieving selfless remarkable goals. Your own well being, and the health and safety of your close friends and family come first, and for many people, they never actually fully cross that blurry line of economic prosperity.

Lets get this planet in order and all our shit together before we think about inhabiting another one, please.

Maes said:

Hey, even the spearhead of EU's capitalism, Germany, pretty much admitted that soon enough "Made in Germany" will only be possible through prison labor.

prisoners themselves may take less than desirable initiatives like the time “Heil Hitler” messages were placed in an order for an Israeli customer.

Heh.

Gez said (well, he actually quoted):
prisoners themselves may take less than desirable initiatives like the time “Heil Hitler” messages were placed in an order for an Israeli customer.

That's always a risk with unfree/compulsory labor. In the Army a particularly not-so-well-respected Master Sergeant in my ROC course had became paranoid about people peeing and putting pubes in his coffee, so he had stopped asking people to get him any drink from the unit's bar or even vending machines, except for bottled/canned drinks.