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Comment by yolesaber | Hacker News Reader

I hate this analogy. Not only does it enforce the bullshit teleology of the White European as "discoverer" (you know people inhabited these continents, right?) but it also fails to take into account the massive technological shifts that have taken place. We can send probes to Mars, we are able to run mass spectrometry on it, we can analyze and monitor it from affair.

The only reason to go there is hubris.

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>Not only does it enforce the bullshit teleology of the White European as "discoverer" (you know people inhabited these continents, right?)

Calm yourself. It's a statement that is clearly from the perspective of Europeans. And it was an accomplishment worthy of remembrance since it required a combination of a certain level of technological advancement and courage. It is also a huge milestone in the history of mankind.

>And it was an accomplishment worthy of remembrance since it required a combination of a certain level of technological advancement and courage.

There is evidence that Polynesians made it to the "new world" long before Europeans (http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/storie...). And even in the case of Europenas, they were able to do it with the technology invented in 10th/11th centuries e.g. Leif Erickson's voyage. It was just that the political and economic climes were not optimal for them to sail West until centuries later.

The notion of the progress and advancement inherent to Europeans as "discovers" is propaganda. We celebrate it because they killed most of the people who were there first and got claim it all for themselves.

Well that's sort of the point, isn't it? For whatever moral judgment you wish to levy on those dead and gone, European culture of the time led into what became the dominant culture on the planet. The colonization of the "new world" was indeed a milestone on that journey.

>It was just that the political and economic climes were not optimal for them to sail West until centuries later.

You can dismiss every major historical event with this kind of reasoning. Everything is, at some level, based on luck and timing.

Bottom line, unlike the voyages of Polynesians and Vikings, the discovery of the Americas was an incredibly important historical event and is a foundation of the current global order.

>The notion of the progress and advancement inherent to Europeans as "discovers" is propaganda.

No, it isn't. Europeans were, objectively, far more technologically advanced than natives of the Americas.

You keep getting hung up on the word 'discover'. Why? From the perspective of Europeans, it was a discovery. They found a landmass that they didn't know existed. We just recently 'discovered' gravitational waves, even though those specific ones were/are emitted for eons.

>We celebrate it because they killed most of the people

Don't be dense. That's not why we celebrate it - and you know it.

The Europeans didn't kill most of the inhabitants. The vast vast majority of natives died due to Old-World diseases, not through war or murder. Second, Europeans were not a monolithic group and colonization was not a singular event. It spanned centuries, involved many groups of people and took place on an immense landmass (the Americas). It also occurred during a transition from late medieval era to modern era. So your simplistic view of "(Europeans) killed most of the people who were there first and got claim it all for themselves" is simplistic and stupid.

The truth I think is not good or bad or neither, it is both good and bad at the same time. While the USA has had a mixed legacy of death, destruction, and violence we also have a legacy of freedom, love, and peace. The hope is that we acknowledge both today and choose to follow a path of peace, not of evil.

You could say the discovery and subsequent colonization was deterministic. Considering Man is driven largely by self-interest we won't be seeing a Mars colonization like that of the Americas unless there is something on Mars which can be exploited.

Hmm. I'd like to understand this, but I have questions. I've imagined that we could do a lot more science with a human and some basic instruments than we could with a billion dollar Rover sent every ten years. I mean, just to sample a rock probably takes a week. A geologist on site could do that in an hour.

Historically, when we can do something much faster we tend to do things with that we didn't do when it was very slow. For example when it took months to cross the country, it was a once in a lifetime thing for some and most never did it. Now we do it all the time, and generations of West Coast students have seen the Smithsonian.

I think that there will be more value in sending humans to Mars than just hubris. I think we will learn a lot more about our cosmic origins, about the value of life and our healthy planet, and about ourselves as a species and culture. In fact, I think sending man to Mars is a key factor in getting us to appreciate this planet and the destruction we're causing here. I don't think Musk's end goal is to leave Earth, but to save it by making us value it again. Perhaps, on this scale, for the first time.

To me, that's a lot more than just hubris. What do you think of all that?

On what basis do you justify this belief?

Did we learn significantly more "about our cosmic origins, about the value of life and our healthy planet, and about ourselves as a species and culture" from our manned exploration of the Moon, than we could have from probes?

AFAIK the primary things we learned were encapsulated by the 10 items NASA listed [1]. Which is great for the moon, but doesn't really give us much to work with here.

[1]https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/lunar10.cfm

Well, that is an interesting list of geological things we learned, but we also learned a lot about ourselves.

For example, we learned that it is possible for humans to design a system that can carry people to the moon and return them safely to the Earth. Before we did that, no one knew if that was true.

We learned about the Overview Effect, which astronauts say changed their view on humanity.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect

Some people say that the environmental protection movement was started on Earth after people saw what it looked like from a distance. And while those images could be captured by robotic cameras, I can easily imagine that it helped having actual live humans get to experience that and share what they felt. We can relate to people much more than we can relate to a robot.

I don't expect you to agree with me. But I think it is significant for actual humans to go out and do these things. It is more inspiring to people here on Earth. And I think that inspiration is valuable and produced tangible benefits on Earth.

And I think that inspiration is valuable and produced tangible benefits on Earth.

Agree, that inspiration is important. However I seriously doubt that manned space exploration has the ability to impact humanity in the same way, and in as quick of a timeline that AGI and Transhumanism do - which is where I'd rather see people find inspiration.

I think manned space exploration will provide different and sooner benefits than AGI.

As far as transhumanism - that's a philosophy. Where will tomorrow's practitioners come from? The people inspired by man's achievements. And in that regard, I think the more great things we can do the better.

I think there will be many future transhumanists inspired by images of the colony on Mars.

Also, going there is relatively cheap, so why not go? It looks like it will be mostly private funds. I wouldn't blame you if you were opposed to the use of public funds for this (as the original post suggests may happen), but are you opposed to humans going in general?

For a transhumanist, I find opposition to space exploration a bit surprising.

Also, what are your thoughts on manned expeditions to the Jupiter system, the clouds of Venus, or other stars? I understand other stars requires technology far beyond what we can imagine today, but so did manned flight 150 years ago.

As far as transhumanism - that's a philosophy.

True, but there are tangible aspects to it that don't require you to be onboard with the philosophy. Brain computer interfaces, mechanical assistance etc... have plenty of uses that don't require the philosophical aspect, like helping paraplegics and the elderly.

Also, going there is relatively cheap, so why not go?

It's not relatively cheap. What do we do after we get to Mars? Go to Jupiter, venus etc? Ok great, now you need to build systems with life support capabilities that allow you to not age out on the way - so add that to the cost? What's the long term goal here? If the goal is to just drive around the universe then the human animal is one of the worst systems to do that as the life support needed is excessive.

If you look at the current state of funding for AGI or Genetics, Robotics and Nanotechnology (GNR) then it's basically nothing in comparison to what we have or are planning on spending on space. Despite what people say it is a fixed pie (on the timeline for any human use of outcomes) both on the private and public side in any practical timeline. So funding for space practically does crowd-out funding for AGI and GNR.

I'm all for space exploration, but not right now with squishy humans.

The "problems" that the space exploration people claim to be solving around humanity will not actually yield results if all we're doing is taking our problems elsewhere - because our problems are baked into our biology. Climate change, resource allocation etc... are all human problems. Man made existential risks are just moved, not eliminated by being a "multi-planetary" species. I also argue that natural existential risks are not solved, just again moved - at crazy high costs. An ELE on Mars is just as likely as it is here on earth, only we have fallback systems and can at least breathe here without energy inputs. The earth is still more habitable after an ELE asteroid than it is on Mars today.

Humans were made on earth for the earth environment. We need to actually change "form" if we are going to explore the universe in any meaningful way - if nothing else because of the time involved in transport.

just to sample a rock probably takes a week No, rovers are actually better than people at this stuff. A human can pick up a rock, a robot can do mass spectroscopy without picking it up.

Further, you can send a 50+ ton's worth of rovers instead of 1 person who needs to spend most of their time inside and wast all this time sleeping and eating etc.

PS: At best a human can take pictures while holding a camera 'just like a robot'. Notice how you need to send a camera in both cases.

I bet the time between noticing a new rock and taking a sample is more than a day for NASA. They have extremely limited time for what a rover can do. Have you seen the documentaries where they describe all the work that goes in to planning each move? I still think a human scientist could collect more rocks and take more samples in one day than NASA does in practice with a rover like curiosity.

It's a false dichotomy to assume it's one human or one rover. It's one human or ~100 rovers. More importrantly it's one human with 1 mass spectrometer or 100 rovers with 100 mass spectrometers.

Robots are great for running pre-planned experiments, but they're limiting. There are many experiments that the research community would love to perform but would necessarily require a human presence.

I think GP is saying the explorers "discovered" it from their perspective.

But otherwise, I agree, we already know tons about Mars.

Second this wholeheartedly. The "explorers" did not have the ability to observe to any real degree the rest of the world before setting out. Not only that, but it wasn't just exploration it was expansion.

> I hate this analogy. Not only does it enforce the bullshit teleology of the White European as "discoverer" (you know people inhabited these continents, right?)

Thanks, agreed. On the last part though, it doesn't hurt to explore, a lot can be learned in the process alone, outside of actually finding anything.

I agree it doesn't hurt to explore, but we have vast technological means to do so now remotely from our lovely planet Earth. We have a rover that climbs over terrain, never has to sleep or eat, and can do mass spectrometry. The need to insert humans on Mars is arrogance.

I don't see us living there for extended missions either. I do see the importance of what we learned and the inventions that came out of the Moon missions that have positively impacted our lives on this rock. The journey thing. What I don't get, at all, to this day, is why...we still don't have a Moon base.

You say hubris, I say practice.

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