Topic: Useless intellectual work - page 3. (Read 7874 times)

I also very much doubt we need energetic resources that bad.  I mean, it's true that we are currently facing environmental and energetic difficulties, mainly due to our recent dramatic demographic increase.

But this is only temporary.  Most countries have already entered demographic transition phase, so that we can very much predict that there will be a drastic decrease in human population, not even due to wars, social unstability or whatever, but only because of the decrease of natality due to contraception and rise of feminine condition.  Some people even think it could lead to human extinction.  Anyway, this will cause major social problematic situations, and will require a full refundation of societies, but it will also make the need of resources a problem from the past.

We actually know how to do this, it's just that it would take more resources than it could produce in return; a net loss, particularly when compared to other inhabited areas of the planet.  A series of space mirrors in a polar orbit would be a much easier means of opening up productive agricultural land.  That said, food isn't the main reason that humanity would consider permanent occupation of Mars or the Moon, and neither is living space.  H3 would be a major Moon export for example, and if the Sahara (or the South pole) had an economicly viable volume of H3 to be collected, there would already be a permanent settlement there.  In the case of H3, any atmosphere is counterproductive.

It doesn't help us to spread in any way.  It tries, but so far it has been a fantastic failure.  And if $10 billion / year is that little of an amount of money, why don't scientists just finance it themselves, instead of stealing it from non-scientists ?  And as far ar war budget is concerned, this is not an excuse.  A bad doesn't justify an other bad.

When I see how humans are unable to just put some solar cells in Sahara for instance, or to explore resources in deep oceans, to me it just stupid to announce they want to go to Mars.  This IS propaganda, you just don't realise it.  They will spend trillions of tax money to go there, they will put a nice flag on the surface, and then they will eventually come back to Earth, litteraly.

There is almost no resource on Mars.  Water ?  Maybe.  Minerals ?  Sure.  But most of the energy we use comes from the Sun (and we don't have to go to Mars to get it) and from fossilized biomass.  Now, here is some news for you :  THERE IS NO BIOMASS ON MARS !   It is nothing else than a huge desertic place.  Show me you can fertilize the Sahara, and then I might take you seriously when you talk about going to Mars.

And again, I'm still waiting for you to justify why you would have the right to force me, via taxation, to work in order to help you to fullfill your silly dreams.

Human is a life form and as any life form it tends to spread.  But as any life form it is designed to spread in a earth-like environnement, not a huge 0°C cold, irradiated, 1% thick atmosphered, unoxygened, nolifed land.


Well this is a nice allegory of life, because I have an other big news for you :  we will all die anyway.

Don't worry about what could happen in a few billion years.  You will probably die in less than a century, anyway.  You'd better start living with this idea.  Enjoy present life, carpe diem, and don't live in fantasy.

I assure you it's not propaganda- it's quite possible given our current technology. Mars Direct would place the first habitating humans on Mars for the cost of $55 billion over 10 years. NASA's current budget is $13 billion and luckily they've now set Mars by mid 2030 in their scope.

Unlike the Moon, Mars has an atmosphere which you use to create rocket fuel and oxygen, water, minerals for plastics and metals, earth-like day of 24 hours and 0 deg celsius at the tropics (higher deep in canyons!). It's truly the next step and well within our grasp.

$10 billion / year is a drop in the ocean compared to the annual war budget of $650 billion (plain disgusting), so it's sad to see you attack science that's helping us spread forth to other worlds and expanding out as a race. Stay on Earth and our resources will run dry. We attack our neighbours for what limited resources there are because we will see them as competitors for survival- a rascist world compared to the resource abundant one where humanity is global brotherhood pooling our brains to come up with new creative solutions.

An asteroid hits the Earth and we all die out. Nice while it lasted.

Or parallel universe travel! Imagine the possibility of using exotic matters to construct our dyson sphere!

Should I bother googling "Dyson Sphere" ?  Or can I just ignore that ?

So we'll have to master interstellar travel because we don't have enough matter in our own solar system to build a dyson sphere.

I suggest trying to build a dyson sphere that absorb the entire energy of the sun instead. With the dyson sphere, we'll build more and more desirable space to live using the entire resources of the solar system.

Basically genjix is talking about how important it is for human kind to explore solar system.  I'm telling him that it is just some technocratic propaganda, and it should not be founded using taxation.

I also told him that the moon and Mars are nothing but giant desertic places.  And nobody wants to live in a desertic land.

Going to Mars and trying to live there is about as weird as going to the south pole and establishing a permanent camp there.

Yeah, at least when I go to the other language forums chrome can detect and translate. I'd have to do it manually here, and that's a lot of work.

But it is really cute that you guys can talk in code like that 

Will you guys please start talking in English? 

Pardonu al mi, sed cxi tio, laux mi, estas nur teknocia propagando.  Mi ne zorgas pri la ebleco je vivi en Marso.


Oni povas kredi aux revi pri tio.  Sed ONI NE DEVAS UZI PUBLIKAN FORTON POR FINANCI TION !!!

Viaj revagxoj estas viaj.   Gardu ilin por vi.

Vi ne pravas. Legu (aŭ vidu) Robert Zubrin, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-XKNK2Eja0
Luno ne estas viva planedo, tamen Marso povas vivteni homaron.

Ni ne revenis al Luno pro politikistoj, kiuj preferas spezi monon por militoj

Eble *vi* devas fari tion.  Sed vi ne povas forci aliajn ulojn je helpi vin je fari tion.  Mi ne kredas en la ebleco je vivi al Marso.

Voli vivi tie estas stulta.  Ni povas *iri* tien, sed neniu volas vivi tie.  La Luno pruvis tion :  ni iris tien, ni plantis flagon, kaj ni revenis.  De pli ol kvardek jaroj ni ne reiris tien.

Vivemi al la Luno estas same stulta ol vivemi al la supra parto de Everesto :  oni volas esti la unua ulo je iri tien, sed neniu volas vivi tie !!

Luno, kaj Marso, estas nenio, sed grandegaj dizertoj.  Neniu volas vivi en dizertoj.

Eble vi esperas oni povos terigi Marson.  Nu, terigu unue la terajn dizertojn, antauxe revi pri tio.

Jes. Ni devas etendi trans al aliaj mundoj. Vojaĝoj al la Luno kondukas nin al Marso. Espere iam ni loĝos sur Marso Ni bezonas tion por nia viveco. Aŭ ni uzos tuta da resursoj kaj mankos se etendiĝos ni mem al la steloj.

La demando estas :  cxu estas akceptinda, je uzi publikan forton prenante laboron de multaj homoj, nur por sendi kelkajn homojn al la lunon ?

Tion mi ne akceptas.

Quick translation for others :

Basically the question is whether or not you would accept someone to tell you :

" I am an officialy recognized scientist, and you're not.  Give me 10% of your savings now because I earned the right not to cope with economic reality.  If you don't agree I'll tell the police and they will take it by force. "


Also : this is not just about scientists.  A young person becomes a bureaucrat by learning by heart many silly and unfair rules.  His only merit as a bureaucrat is to be able to memorize all this crap.

Eble. Studisto kiu studas por la diplomo kaj la mono, pli ofte studas temojn kiel inĝeniero, kemio kaj IT .ktp Tamen aliaj studas astronomion, matematikon kaj zoologio ne pro la mono. Tiuj laboroj ne havas grandan pagintaĵon. Ne ĝeneraligu!

Ankaŭ mi kontraŭiĝas sciencon por la komeroj. Scienco similas al arto. Sendube vojaĝo al la luno estas pli bone la aferon kiun homaro faris.

Mi ne volas diri :  "scienco ne estas bona".  Tion mi ne pensas.  Neniel.

Scientistiuloj estas utilaj cxiam, kiam ili faras sciencon.  Sed se junuloj studas sciencon ne por sciencemo, nek por scienstistigxi, sed nur por akiri rajton je sociala dominaxjo, jen tio estas ne enda.



Se mi devus elekti inter scienco kaj libero, mi elektos liberon.   Sendube.

Mi ne povas imagi kaŭzon kiu estas pli bonega ol tiu. Sciencistoj estas grava bezono por la estonta mundo. Sen scienco ni havus nenion.

Yeah great :/

Even if that was true, 100 scientists that accomplish great things can not be used as an excuse to pay 10,000 others (amongst them not all are scientists) who actually don't do anything for society.  Or at least, not at a fair price, since they use public force to finance their salary.

In science history, not all great minds were state employees.