On: Humans will not 'migrate' to exoplanets, Nobel win...

[im3w1l]

The main feature of living on another planet is that it's harder for the earthlings to police you and your deviant lifestyle / society.

[coldtea → im3w1l]

Actually that would be the worst reason to live on another planet.

Take your average totalitarian state. Say China. Multiply times 10.

That would be what living on another planet will be like.

It wont be some pristine unexplored planet, where you'd be let to go settle anywhere you like, explorer style.

At least not on the solar system.

It would be something like a small, tightly controlled, and highly co-dependent colony, where everyone must stick together. There will be less room, no places to just roam (except with your suit and air). Away from the food, air, generators etc, would be mostly death. Oh, and at least for the first decades the government and/or some big corporation will select who goes and who can't go.

And everybody will be monitored 24/7, first because it would be made with high tech, which can just as easily include tracking chips, smart doors, cameras, and so on, and because if anybody goes crazy/suicidal and does something stupid, they can get everybody killed easily (e.g. sabotage something)...

If you want that kind of freedom of being deviant you'd be much more likely to get it in Alaska, Antarctica, Siberia, and so on, than in another planet we're going to go anytime soon...

(Herzog's documentary "Encounters at the end of the world" alludes to that, and shows some such types https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0KzBHJLQ80 ).

[DuskStar → coldtea]

Or it would be like the Puritan settlements in the New World - a totalitarian state, sure, but one that shares that fetish/deviant lifestyle/whatever of yours.

[coldtea → DuskStar]

That's unlikely though, because the Puritans went to the New World themselves, on their own means - crossing the ocean, building their cabins, etc.

Whereas the space colony will need trillions of dollars to be set up, coughed up by some big government.

And they're unlike to send people there to fulfill their fetish/deviant lifestyle/whatever lifestyle...

Heck, the puritans were persecuted from their old country. No government is going to pay billions to send persecuted people to a space colony...

Except if it's a doomed mission, and e.g. they send death row volunteers or something, like The Dirty Dozen movie...

[DuskStar → coldtea]

And you think that going to the New World was cheap? I would have to disagree. Religious groups can bring surprising amounts of money to bear for things that reduce the chance of eternal damnation.

If the price of space travel comes down enough for colonies to be viable, I would not be surprised to see a mix of governmental, corporate and religious settlements setup.

[coldtea → DuskStar]

>And you think that going to the New World was cheap?

Dirt cheap. They were persecuted people, they gathered, paid together for a ship to take them, and landed there. Money weren't that good where they settled, as there was hardly an economy at the time. Most of the stuff they built themselves, started growing, etc.