> And technology used to settle Mars will be able to be used to fix problems on earth.
This is wrong to assume confidently for several reasons.
It is wrong to endorse as being a good idea because when you apply that attitude to Earth first, you extend the possibility of further Mars missions. But the converse doesn't necessarily hold; we could fail to make breakthroughs on Mars, in which case we've wasted resources that could otherwise have been used to improve the efficiency of civilization on Earth.
It is also wrong to hold that there is anything particularly special about Mars when it comes to developing this technology. The only thing special about Mars is that it's hard. I'm assuming there's an intuition that because something is hard, if innovation occurs, the technology that will come out of it must be fantastic. But if such technology is required for Mars, then it will at least be developed in prototype form on Earth.
So Mars is neither necessary as an incentive or a testbed to develop environment rejuvenating technologies. And if the point I made above holds, then we should just turn this on its head, and focus on technologies for Earth first, then use those lessons for Mars.
It also makes the assumption that there are going to be incentives that will cause technologies developed on Mars to be applied to Earth. We have technologies and practices on Earth that can solve our own "terraforming" problems now. But they are long-term projects that only get their returns after several decades. Very few financiers care about this kind of investment, particularly when the economy is experiencing nominal growth elsewhere in sectors that are not physically sustainable.
Elon sort of gets bail on this because of his stake in SolarCity. He's still wrong in the sense that solar power will not produce energy at the density required for current civilization. Nuclear is the only form of energy that will satisfy our energy constraints in the long run. But you can't easily scale nuclear, it requires a lot of capital to upstart, and the payoff is longer. It's not Silicon Valley friendly because SV is about horizontal scaling and rent capture.
So it's understandable why Elon picked solar, but it shows the limitations of self-interested billionaires in solving humanity's problems.
This is wrong to assume confidently for several reasons.
It is wrong to endorse as being a good idea because when you apply that attitude to Earth first, you extend the possibility of further Mars missions. But the converse doesn't necessarily hold; we could fail to make breakthroughs on Mars, in which case we've wasted resources that could otherwise have been used to improve the efficiency of civilization on Earth.
It is also wrong to hold that there is anything particularly special about Mars when it comes to developing this technology. The only thing special about Mars is that it's hard. I'm assuming there's an intuition that because something is hard, if innovation occurs, the technology that will come out of it must be fantastic. But if such technology is required for Mars, then it will at least be developed in prototype form on Earth.
So Mars is neither necessary as an incentive or a testbed to develop environment rejuvenating technologies. And if the point I made above holds, then we should just turn this on its head, and focus on technologies for Earth first, then use those lessons for Mars.
It also makes the assumption that there are going to be incentives that will cause technologies developed on Mars to be applied to Earth. We have technologies and practices on Earth that can solve our own "terraforming" problems now. But they are long-term projects that only get their returns after several decades. Very few financiers care about this kind of investment, particularly when the economy is experiencing nominal growth elsewhere in sectors that are not physically sustainable.
Elon sort of gets bail on this because of his stake in SolarCity. He's still wrong in the sense that solar power will not produce energy at the density required for current civilization. Nuclear is the only form of energy that will satisfy our energy constraints in the long run. But you can't easily scale nuclear, it requires a lot of capital to upstart, and the payoff is longer. It's not Silicon Valley friendly because SV is about horizontal scaling and rent capture.
So it's understandable why Elon picked solar, but it shows the limitations of self-interested billionaires in solving humanity's problems.
I have little positive to say about Bezos.