I maintain that we have a battle of world views going on here. In some ways it’s about the myths we believe in. Most environmentalists believe in what I call the Hobbit Paradigm: we live in a beautiful garden, and if we grounded ourselves in relationships with our communities (including nature) we would have a good and sustainable life. Many technocentrists believe in what I call the Star Trek Paradigm: humans are limitlessly ingenious, technological solutions will save us, and Nature is viewed with an anthropocentric utilitarian ethic.
I do not believe in the Star Trek Paradigm. It’s hubris. I also don’t think it’s a very pragmatic paradigm. We live in a world we evolved to live in. Not worrying about this world because we think terraforming other planets and setting up space bases might be a possibility is not comprehending the Good or risk very well, IMHO.
I suppose a third paradigm is cold-blooded, individualist Realpolitik; It’s a dog eat dog world, fuck you, I’m just trying to get mine as hard as everyone else is. In this case Space Colonisation is just a beard to disguise a callous and usurious relationship to the beings is this world.
That makes the conflict one of story, of myth, which means no one will have their minds changed by facts. They’re belief systems. We need to expose those fundamentally short -sighted or selfish beliefs. We need to tell better stories, and expose the ridiculousness of the other stories.
The issue is once you educate yourself in science and engineering, you realize that teraforming planets isn’t something you just do. And you can’t realistically rely on a technology that doesn’t exist. The real problem here is one of education. The facts and the seriousness of climate change do not support his dumbass argument, and we’ll all be dead by the time everyone comes to an agreement and realizes, oh shit nobody is going to save us from climate change but us.
We can’t keep astronauts aboard the ISS indefinitely, even with constant restocks from Earth, and we’re supposed to go even further out of our orbit to the moon or Mars and they’re going to be fully independent? Why not save the cost and try to make a human terrarium here on Earth?
edit: not arguing your point, just extending it a bit.
Yeah, I won’t knock people trying to leave the earth. I work in space stuff, and I would love nothing more than to see us realize multiplanetary habitation. but I definitely think we need to be good stewards of our planet. We don’t exactly have a plan b. And realistically, we may never have a plan b. Science is hard.
I gotta imagine making the Sahara Desert habitable is a lot easier than making Mars habitable. The Sahara at least has breathable atmosphere, a 24 hour day, solar intensity that our plants are well adapted to using, and is relatively close to resupply from population centers on Earth.
We can’t keep astronauts aboard the ISS indefinitely, even with constant restocks from Earth, and we’re supposed to go even further out of our orbit to the moon or Mars and they’re going to be fully independent?
And even so, that might be the easiest part of the whole terraforming thing. It only gets worse from there.
You can easily be an environmentalist and still believe in the Star Trek paradigm. While we, that is mankind, might have the ingenuity to find technological solutions to most of our problems, we do not have the political or economic systems necessary to actually put these solutions into reality.
There’s also a fourth attitude. We live on a planet uniquely suited to the kind of life it gave rise to, such as ourselves. The climate of it before we began pumping tons and tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere was generally tolerable. Sometimes we had great periods like the medieval warm period and sometimes we had natural devastation like the little ice age. We’re in the process of going from bad to worse and if we don’t let up with our emissions soon we’re gonna have to get a lot better at every form of engineering really fucking fast
we’re gonna have to get a lot better at every form of engineering really fucking fast
Unfortunately that’s what we humans are really fucking good at. Nothing quite like a deadline, a sprinkling of procrastination, and a daunting technological existential hurdle to inspire a half-baked, good enough for now solution.
I figured that both sides are eventually going so far to their side they meet halfway. The good ol’ horseshoe theory.
In this case tech would go so far with genetic engineering while resource depletion forces them to go bio-punk and arrives at basically high tech treehouses.
I suppose a third paradigm is cold-blooded, individualist Realpolitik; It’s a dog eat dog world, fuck you, I’m just trying to get mine as hard as everyone else is.
This secret third one is the one that basically everyone has, yeah, it’s pretty depressing.
I dunno, at this point I’m more given to a kind of blade runner, or maybe mad max paradigm, of like. Even if the star trek future is the shit, right, even if they come up with and use terraforming technologies, which we could probably do at least for offsetting carbon emissions if the theoretical short term proposals are anything to go by, we don’t have any real way of understanding what the real knock-on effects of those short term solutions would be. We would probably be just as likely to increase ocean acidification by a couple points in our quest to sequester carbon by dumping a shit ton of iron oxide in the ocean, and then end up killing a bunch of sea life which is connected to everything else. It just becomes a kind of whack a mole style game where you trade one consequence for another at the expense of the environment, and if that ends up happening, I expect pretty quick humanity will attempt to totally shutter off any consequence which might pose a threat to humanity or capitalism, and put them off onto the broader environment instead, and the people who are reliant on those environments to survive. I.E. you get put into a horrible blade runner future, where the survival of humanity isn’t in question, but humanity’s humanity has gone extinct.
Star Trek Paradigm: humans are limitlessly ingenious, technological solutions will save us, and Nature is viewed with an anthropocentric utilitarian ethic.
That’s not Star Trek at all! The United Earth Government already abolished currency and converted to a socialist mode of production before the replicator was invented. More technology doesn’t necessarily help. When 21st century Earth got more technology, they used it to do the Eugenics Wars and WWIII. Replicators haven’t helped the Cardassians, the Ferengi, the Romulans, or the Klingons with solving poverty, pollution, scarcity, or slavery. The reason Earth has solved those problems and its technological peers have not is that Earth is more socially advanced. Humans do not use money. They work to better themselves and their species. Picard’s family makes wine on a vineyard. Sisko’s dad runs a creole restaurant. Earth is the picture of human harmony with both society and with nature. Most humans have never even eaten a dead animal anymore.
Plus, Starfleet exists to explore the infinite diversity of nature and of society out in space. Starfleet is full of biologists who love exploring strange new worlds. The sovereignty of indigenous life is respected, so much so that it is called the Prime Directive.
I maintain that we have a battle of world views going on here. In some ways it’s about the myths we believe in. Most environmentalists believe in what I call the Hobbit Paradigm: we live in a beautiful garden, and if we grounded ourselves in relationships with our communities (including nature) we would have a good and sustainable life. Many technocentrists believe in what I call the Star Trek Paradigm: humans are limitlessly ingenious, technological solutions will save us, and Nature is viewed with an anthropocentric utilitarian ethic.
I do not believe in the Star Trek Paradigm. It’s hubris. I also don’t think it’s a very pragmatic paradigm. We live in a world we evolved to live in. Not worrying about this world because we think terraforming other planets and setting up space bases might be a possibility is not comprehending the Good or risk very well, IMHO.
I suppose a third paradigm is cold-blooded, individualist Realpolitik; It’s a dog eat dog world, fuck you, I’m just trying to get mine as hard as everyone else is. In this case Space Colonisation is just a beard to disguise a callous and usurious relationship to the beings is this world.
That makes the conflict one of story, of myth, which means no one will have their minds changed by facts. They’re belief systems. We need to expose those fundamentally short -sighted or selfish beliefs. We need to tell better stories, and expose the ridiculousness of the other stories.
The issue is once you educate yourself in science and engineering, you realize that teraforming planets isn’t something you just do. And you can’t realistically rely on a technology that doesn’t exist. The real problem here is one of education. The facts and the seriousness of climate change do not support his dumbass argument, and we’ll all be dead by the time everyone comes to an agreement and realizes, oh shit nobody is going to save us from climate change but us.
We can’t keep astronauts aboard the ISS indefinitely, even with constant restocks from Earth, and we’re supposed to go even further out of our orbit to the moon or Mars and they’re going to be fully independent? Why not save the cost and try to make a human terrarium here on Earth?
edit: not arguing your point, just extending it a bit.
Yeah, I won’t knock people trying to leave the earth. I work in space stuff, and I would love nothing more than to see us realize multiplanetary habitation. but I definitely think we need to be good stewards of our planet. We don’t exactly have a plan b. And realistically, we may never have a plan b. Science is hard.
I’m not saying don’t try to leave the planet, but also let’s look at feasibility here on Earth.
I was agreeing with you, in case that wasn’t clear. Lol
Glad we’re all on the same page. It’s terrifying looking at some of those other platforms and seeing what kind of thoughts are out there.
I gotta imagine making the Sahara Desert habitable is a lot easier than making Mars habitable. The Sahara at least has breathable atmosphere, a 24 hour day, solar intensity that our plants are well adapted to using, and is relatively close to resupply from population centers on Earth.
And Sahara was a jungle pretty recently.
And even so, that might be the easiest part of the whole terraforming thing. It only gets worse from there.
The closest thing to a self sustaining thing is that Neom city they’re trying to build. It’s basically an arcology. And it’s already failing.
You can easily be an environmentalist and still believe in the Star Trek paradigm. While we, that is mankind, might have the ingenuity to find technological solutions to most of our problems, we do not have the political or economic systems necessary to actually put these solutions into reality.
Or just that we should start small with the immediate existential threat on the planet that people already are on
also, the ability to do stuff is the ability to make problems. if our societies do not advance at pace with our technology, we will die. see: outside
Yeah, we’re really in need of a Romulan invasion.
I’ve heard this phrased as Wizard vs Prophet
https://grist.org/politics/wizards-and-prophets-face-off-to-save-the-planet/
There’s also a fourth attitude. We live on a planet uniquely suited to the kind of life it gave rise to, such as ourselves. The climate of it before we began pumping tons and tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere was generally tolerable. Sometimes we had great periods like the medieval warm period and sometimes we had natural devastation like the little ice age. We’re in the process of going from bad to worse and if we don’t let up with our emissions soon we’re gonna have to get a lot better at every form of engineering really fucking fast
Unfortunately that’s what we humans are really fucking good at. Nothing quite like a deadline, a sprinkling of procrastination, and a daunting technological existential hurdle to inspire a half-baked, good enough for now solution.
I figured that both sides are eventually going so far to their side they meet halfway. The good ol’ horseshoe theory.
In this case tech would go so far with genetic engineering while resource depletion forces them to go bio-punk and arrives at basically high tech treehouses.
This secret third one is the one that basically everyone has, yeah, it’s pretty depressing.
I dunno, at this point I’m more given to a kind of blade runner, or maybe mad max paradigm, of like. Even if the star trek future is the shit, right, even if they come up with and use terraforming technologies, which we could probably do at least for offsetting carbon emissions if the theoretical short term proposals are anything to go by, we don’t have any real way of understanding what the real knock-on effects of those short term solutions would be. We would probably be just as likely to increase ocean acidification by a couple points in our quest to sequester carbon by dumping a shit ton of iron oxide in the ocean, and then end up killing a bunch of sea life which is connected to everything else. It just becomes a kind of whack a mole style game where you trade one consequence for another at the expense of the environment, and if that ends up happening, I expect pretty quick humanity will attempt to totally shutter off any consequence which might pose a threat to humanity or capitalism, and put them off onto the broader environment instead, and the people who are reliant on those environments to survive. I.E. you get put into a horrible blade runner future, where the survival of humanity isn’t in question, but humanity’s humanity has gone extinct.
That’s not Star Trek at all! The United Earth Government already abolished currency and converted to a socialist mode of production before the replicator was invented. More technology doesn’t necessarily help. When 21st century Earth got more technology, they used it to do the Eugenics Wars and WWIII. Replicators haven’t helped the Cardassians, the Ferengi, the Romulans, or the Klingons with solving poverty, pollution, scarcity, or slavery. The reason Earth has solved those problems and its technological peers have not is that Earth is more socially advanced. Humans do not use money. They work to better themselves and their species. Picard’s family makes wine on a vineyard. Sisko’s dad runs a creole restaurant. Earth is the picture of human harmony with both society and with nature. Most humans have never even eaten a dead animal anymore.
Plus, Starfleet exists to explore the infinite diversity of nature and of society out in space. Starfleet is full of biologists who love exploring strange new worlds. The sovereignty of indigenous life is respected, so much so that it is called the Prime Directive.