RE losing a limb; Camus once wrote "a human being can get used to anything".

He then used as an example a hypothetical person whose entire existence was living inside of a tree trunk, without even the space to turn around and experience the novelty of a new position/vantage point inside of the tree trunk. His mind just made order and routine out of the few banal and prosaic variables available.

I guess this is the gift of relativity.

You can't get 6 billion people off of a planet. If you informed the majority that they would all die in 20 years, chaos would ensue. Militia rule would prevail. The apocalypse the Bible once talked about, without horses coming down from heaven. There is nothing long-term, humans have no reason to be civil anymore. It's over. Get a gun.

Zombies have nothing on humans with no long-term existence and facing hunger. It's actually worse, because we still have reasoning powers. We will set up elaborate traps on each other to procure rations, etc.

Someone needs to make a new doomsday movie about this concept. "The Colony" is a pretty bad movie, but it's a good start. "Children of Men," "2012," "Deep Impact," etc touch on these issues, but what if it REALLY happened?

We're all effed, and that's the bottom line. We're not colonizing Mars in 20 years, let alone figuring out a way to get a "select few" there.

My best guess is that an announcement about some impending catastrophe 20 years out would be met with a significant amount of denial and conspiracy theory regardless of the amount of evidence provided

I assume it would go similarly like my reading masque's posts itt: interest and enthusiasm early on, turning into glazed over eyes and wondering where my vaporizer is...

About radiation on Mars;

http://www.space.com/23875-mars-radi...d-mission.html

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/liv...radiation.html

Basically a 500 day mission is estimated at about 5% elevation in lifetime risk of cancer (goes from 20% to 25%, smokers are at 40%, so take smokers to go to Mars and save their lives as they cut the habit too lol)

Anyway expect these numbers to go down a lot with proper technology and shielding where you live there. Possibly design structures that have their water stored in the walls as hydrogen (offers shielding reasonably well vs radiation - same for spaceships with organic compounds that have lots of H) and you burn it to get H2O and energy to heat /power the place if it can be done safely. Then during the day you use solar energy (eventually fusion everywhere though) to get back your H2 lol and recover also more O2 from the Martian CO2 atmosphere. Additionally you produce O2 from your plants which you can grow at a higher CO2 environment (than on earth) that promotes faster growth as well. So you get what Mars gives you and make a paradise from it with technology, proper architecture and planning of everything important in a totally neat scientific society way.

I wonder if we can incorporate also heavier proper organic compound clothes that provide some further shielding but because gravity is less significant there they do not feel as heavy and help our muscles combat the 40% g environment with less long term problems. At least for working outside the main living areas say.

Its interesting to also study how to create proper EM fields around or inside up to a depth in homes to focus radiation away from where you typically live/sleep. Most definitely where we sleep can be designed to be very protected and save at least 7 hours that way with very low levels. All this of course applies for the trip there as well which is roughly experiencing 3 times higher radiation rates than the Martian Surface.

I think radiation is a trivial problem eventually with proper technology. Inside your homes you can have your walls being virtual reality with earth themes and videos as it is. Like imagine your walls being a park on earth or a beach with constantly changing perspective as if you are surrounded by (silent) nature. That can combat a bit the feeling of imprisonment since you cant be outside like on earth having fun and playing/sports etc. As it is many people already live a lot of the time inside (posting on the internet lol) making less relevant the geographic location they happen to live actually or the weather outside! We are already somewhat imprisoned and partially liberated at the same time on the inside with Internet and information flow embedded in the home itself. People on Mars will have also internet and "live" connection to earth (with a few min delay). Somehow i find it hard to believe you can go mad on Mars easily if you settle there and have the proper design with earth connections and themes and work/entertainment projects all around you. Do people go mad in Antarctica or Alaska/Canada/Siberia when very north during the no or little sun and very cold temperatures period?

Over time you can even develop "avatar" type technology where you are inside and you actually control with movements a robot outside to do various tasks and you visually see everything around you like where the robot happens to be as if you were there. Or you can drive an electric car outside while being inside.

The answer to ops question is simple ....... No

Humans would sink into depression, lose all motivation and spend less time destroying the planet and each other
they would realize that were all in it together and appreciate things more.
Poker would continue though because that's a good thing .. what can be better than spending hours everyday getting your moolar raked kidding yourself that its more than a break even game at best ?

But look here doctor, wouldn't this nucleus of survivors be so grief-stricken and anguished that they'd, well, envy the dead and not want to go on living?

Some would. Some wouldn't. Those that would, we would refer to as 'weak' and we would thank the evolutionary process for culling them off and preventing their genes from continuing on within the gene pool of survivors.

Desperate times call for strength. Not weakness that infiltrates and spreads like a disease.

Maybe. Maybe when they got to Mars everyone would still be alive. There would be no shocking memories, and the prevailing emotion will be one of nostalgia for those left behind, combined with a spirit of bold curiosity for the adventure ahead!

^ lol, maybe this guy has some ideas on this topic?



I guess it depends on the number of people you could get off the Earth. If it is a relativly small number (less than 1 million say) then its hard to imagine the whole worlds population working towards saving at best 1 in 7000 people.

Maybe if Thorium reactors where proven (probably only Thorium would do the trick due to the quantities of fuel needed)

Also the amount of energy required to refine smelt the vast quanties of Aluminium / Stainless required its hard to imagine that enough capactiy exists within the current energy system. Without mass blackouts for the unlucky non astronauts.

Maybe something Like Carbon 60 Nanotube would solve this problem. But that cannot be produced in quantity currently and has its on problems due to deformation and buckling.

Overall not sure its possible.

There is no better legacy for one's life than to make possible the survival of life and civilization (something we have no evidence to exist elsewhere in such intelligent capable of high technology form yet) somewhere else in another system (like Mars among many solutions) until a new Earth is found or recreated by technology. I bet 0.5 bil people are already happy (with no additional convincing needed) to die in 20 years making it possible with their work to send 1-10 mil best candidates - with proper objective criteria - people to Mars with the right compact self sufficient technology and samples of life from all earth organisms including the DNA of all citizens at the start of the project (so that it can be cloned in the bright inevitable future just for the kick of it). If its the last thing they did, their life for the next 20 years would have more meaning than a random 100 year life without such goal to support its meaning does today.

If America (who knows about big scope massive focus projects in its recent past that would still dwarf compared to this in resources used and real endgame meaning) is now made of majority of citizens that do not see this as the ultimate way to live the next 20 years in such tremendously punishing for earth scenario, then the superpower is dead and buried and it doesnt even know it yet.

Additionally if these people were told that they would try to increase that number so much as to include at least a young member from each family properly trained for that future function, they would have a personal family legacy incentive. If the governments were smart enough to design a plan that would also raise the average standard of living for those that participated in the project so that at the very least they would live a comfortable covered by all risks life for the next 20 years in a system of stability, instead of the alternative of jungle chaos apocalypse world, the incentive would skyrocket, given how many people live insecure risky stressful lives already and survive from month to month.

The energy to send at least 10 mil people there is available by the way or can be produced in 20 years (i showed how using ocean water) (fusion is doable within 5 if we make it a top 10% priority right away instead of the 0.02% of global budget it is today lol) if we stopped all bs things we spend our lives doing and used/produced resources at such pace that would crash prices under capitalism (and therefore would never be allowed to happen within that system by those that control wealth) but now are necessary to extend life and so its necessary to maximize their extraction/production rate and even make it an exponential function of time which is the only reasonable outcome of a self respecting plan.

Its amazing people do not get it. You f*cking do not work to save 10 mil specific people. You work to save mankind and life as you know it and all the culture that our ancestors created so that they haven't all lived for nothing past their own lives. We represent with that effort now all 100 bil humans that ever lived and all species of the planet. If that is not the most important thing in the world under that scenario then what is?

I understand what you are saying, however viewing this thought experiment from the perspective of hyper rationality won't work. Human beings are not uniformly rational at the micro or macro level.

Assumptions that the whole world would come together to achieve this herculean task is frankly fanciful. It is a idealised quasi communist utopia. That pays no attention to worst aspects of all our characters. Pettiness, suspicion, envy, fear, indecision, nepotism etc. etc. etc. and don’t forget the most important self preservation. A nation state or alliance of states may be able to do it. But, the rest of the world would probably be at war with them as they tried. Or, at least demand excessive prices for raw material required. This would probably lead to conflict also. You only need to look at the U.N. To see how little can be achieved when nations come together with conflicting values & mutual suspicion.

Imagine watching the film Titanic again, but this time there was only one lifeboat. You only need to look at crowds at the Black Friday sales to see what people are prepared to do for $100 off a TV. Now imagine the same seen but 1000x larger with life or death as the reward, anarchy & conflict is unfortunately inevitable.

Your “standing on the shoulders of giants” argument about saving the accumulated culture of human history, is and I feel confident in this assertion. The majority of people would not care. Human nature is in and of itself selfish. If culture and the higher things was so prized by the majority. Then, why are so many museums and art gallery’s in such precarious states and constantly require state aid? At the same time Americas Got Talent such a massive success and makes millions? Of course the higher things do have value. But value is relative.

Ultimately, people instead of coming together and working tirelessly & selflessly for the last 20 years of their lives would pursue their own self interest in what time they have left and the system would collapse. And the plans for the space ship would still be on the drawing board.

You are forgetting one major important difference. This time the nasty side of human nature is not facing an endless open careless future. It is facing a death sentence and this is the only way to defeat the complete elimination of everything human. The Titanic example doesnt have that condition. The mankind and all life doesnt end because some ahole pushed 5 others out of the lifeboat to avoid risking a small chance of sinking. There is a death sentence for all and many will choose to win even at death!

How do we know that? Because people have died for far less ie defending their country or family. So they wont defend now the complete elimination of all countries? Its ridiculous to think that humans wont decide to at least score one last victory. Most of us are better than this. Otherwise we are a planet of cowards snf deserve to go but life still doesnt. United Nation is a joke in comparison. We cannot compare what UN does in a system that is not terminal. UN is very weak. Here you have at least the united front of most major countries' governments.

Its not like those that go to Mars by the way will have a piece of cake life there. Its going to be hard for them too. And they would all need to know how to sustain themselves there and not depend on others. No welfare there for at least 100 years lol. So it may be entirely rational to think that not all would agree to go there if they could find an easy way to die after 20 years.

But to completely remove from your kids the chance to make it is against the human nature of being a parent. You owe it to your kids to at least try to save them. Even if each kid has 1% chance, taking it to 0 is a defeat for a parent.

We are not asking people to suffer and work to death here. We simply allow them to work as they did before but now they work for a project. They do not work for a frivolous lawsuit or a cd cover or maximizing the profit of a company by manipulating the market release of products and selecting proper advertisement to confuse the masses. They do not have a tv show that invites strippers to talk about their cheating boyfriends etc. You do not have 15 networks covering a single sports event etc. All this bs that serves no tangible benefit in this kind of endgame society goes away and all these people now work for something that helps the effort. Working allows them to still have a society of order where you still find food at the super market and its price is not 100x larger than before.

You essentially have a secure life because the system employs you and pays you in benefits and the economy still exists for a lot of goods that are of tangible value in that society that has an expiration. There is still entertainment and sports and fun activities but they are now no longer the focus of superfluous insane obsession of coverage (eg the exhibitionist world of bored celebrities). If private companies can make a profit by helping the process, benefits will be rewarded to them too then. There is room for culture and fun activities because the goal is not to create a prison system of slaves. The objective is to offer structure but still maximize the value and efficiency of the experience/effort.

This is not a communist system because communism had no expiration and was a totalitarian tyrannical system that was not confident enough to have free citizens vote and offer opportunities to disagree. If this system is strict now it is because of survival not because it wants to be strict. When there is fire in your home you do not stay in the yard and play basketball in front of the entrance and make the effort of the firemen harder to reach inside and save someone. You do not stop them from smashing your precious glass window and destroying the woodwork in the main door and you do not sue them for breaking the porcelain in order to reach a person in the living room that was unconscious. Hard times force logic and priorities. It is not communism, its survival. Its a state system under severe crisis such as the ultimate war.

Either some survive or nobody, what is the choice here? There is no choice. On one side you have anarchy and collapse of society and on the other you have an organized society that decides to focus on the essentials and raise the standard of living for all that participate so that they can die in a position of comfort having helped in a major importance project.

The design of the project is such that its both idealistic and pragmatic at the same time. You save mankind and you employ people to secure a good lifestyle till the end in order to do it. People work like before (in fact more as there are no longer unemployed members) but now they work for something that will save humanity and life on earth and maybe a member of their family if not more given a remote nonzero probability for major breakthroughs.

I do not understand why we think so little of humans that they managed in 1969 to go to the moon with ridiculously risky technology given modern standards and did that with only a small fraction of the national budget but they wont be able to do something better for Mars 60 years later with >50% of the budget devoted to that project. You have 100x more funding than space exploration received all its history and 3-4 times more time left to deploy it than the moon or Manhattan project had.

At the very least you have most of scientists and highly educated principled cultured people participating that is easily a 5-10% of the population. But i am confident its over 30% eventually if the governments present a solid plan to secure the mission and also a nice standard of life for the last days on earth eliminating anarchy and collapse of the system as outcomes.

you're completely and irrationally glossing over the "**** them, why do THEY get to start humanity over and not ME?" aspect that is surely going to wash over large groups of people.

hell, the optimistic/ambitious part of my brain looks forward to your posts and daydreams and has visions of the momentous turn in humanity's conscience where everyone has the hivemind to protect the queen/our species.

the sober/realist part of my brain quickly dominates though, and your overly positive tone and thought process just fuels the obvious conclusion that "**** them, I don't care about humanity I care about ME AND MINE. I don't see no wiper's on that ship so no wiper's will work 12 hours/day to send them..." is much more likely than your utopian version of the human psyche.

negativity has always been more addictive than positivity. "hope and change" works for a time, then reality sets in and everyone is (again) working for the man.

sure we may get some trinkets here and there, or some promises of ______ (your DNA will live forever! we'll clone you! just give us a little more effort!!), but humans, or at least the vast majority of the ones I've come into contact with, are selfish.

I want to believe...I do.

I'll bet you 1 US Dollar that if this ever happens, humans destroy planet earth themselves before they ever got a stronghold on Mars.

boots on the ground, maybe. but what you're talking about doesn't require a simple majority. it requires a vast, vast acceptance amongst people who by definition will lose everything regardless of the outcome.

i love thinking about these types of things, but even without fact-checking the science of your arguments (I give you the compliment of accepting that, you are a very sharp person and seemingly believe what you're saying in regards to the technical side of this hypothetical), this almost cannot happen the way you envision it because you are ignoring some pretty fundamental issues within all of us that will almost surely cause the full theoretical producing capacity of humanity to fall short of your predictions.

I still don't think it's too hard to get over that. You have some sort of lottery where a percent of normal working folks get to go as well, creating hope. You also mention the harder everyone works the more ships are built, and bigger the lottery. Heck, it can even be true.

In the face of ultimate crisis the only kind of realism that prevails is the extension of life past the set expiration and the elimination of a chaotic system before that moment. Why is it missed that i insist that governments entangle the mission with the maintaining of a civil society. The 2 exist only together. This is the set condition to avoid chaos. If people die for their family or country on many occasions why wont they die trying for some family somewhere to make it if all others have to go. Why is death to all the solution?

I mean do we all hate life so much that we want to see it end with us? Do parents want to set to 0 the chance their kids have and give them a world of anarchy?

What is the point to work if the world ends? That is the ultimate invitation to collapse of order.

Instead the solution is work for the project and the system will secure a high standard of life for all (since saving now for the future resources that wont be necessary for the project is irrelevant, so they become very cheap) and an attempt for the impossible to take there as much as possible which will depend clearly on how hard it tries to focus on it.

I propose the salvation of order and the extension of life past the endpoint.

Why is it obvious that this is not an optimist talking, this is a realist who plans to top any optimist here because is driven beyond control by the mother of all necessities and that can lead to some powerful innovations.

Despair and resignation offers no solution to stability and future. So why would this prevail? Who will make it prevail?

There is not a single giant ship that leaves in the end and you try to get in it. Ships will be leaving every day after a certain point of development. Every day that passes all trained will have a chance to be sent. The parents wont work so that their kid has a nonzero chance? It is completely irrational? I am not asking to work to death. I am asking to work for the project now (same time as people already work, of course those that work more will be given better chances) and not stupid irrelevant side things anymore.

this is easily the worst assessment you're making.

are you saying that 10% of humans are "scientists or highly educated principled people"?

come again?

and let's assume that's correct. I'm very skeptical, but for the sake of argument, that's 10% that are in from day 1.

the other 90% though...

maybe me (one of your possible educated principled group in theory) and my friends decide that we're calling your earlier bluff that we'll work balls out for 12 hours a day, but not for 7 days a week, for 6. or 5, doesn't matter.

but the compensation we want isn't to be patted on the back with a general 1-sentence mention in the future's history .pdf's as "bravely sacrificing their lives so that we may live" no, nooo.

we want hookers. and blow. lots of both. and we don't want table scraps, we want the good **** bc hey, we're the majority and we're giving our short time left to help the man (you).

so now, more of your hypothetical industrial base is lost bc in order to keep your workers happy, tens of millions of women can't work bc they've been drafting to work in other ways, and millions of coca farmers can't build microchips, they have to make us cocaine.

obv substitute hookers/blow for the things that 20-40 something's want in exchange for work, ****ing virtual reality video games, alcohol, cigarettes. whatever. you're not just going to be able to tell a factory worker who is used to the grind, and is the core of your 'humans rise up to victory' plan that rich people need to be able to survive (and don't kid yourself, regardless of what the president or pastors or teachers say, it WILL turn into a 'us vs them' rich/poor thing. if you don't believe that, you're out of touch somewhere in an ivory tower. I'm in the rust belt, teaching rust belt kids, regardless of what the news says, the class struggle is real and more influential than racial struggles, people just don't know how to verbalize it), so they need to work hard to save the species.

now...gimme better STUFF, and I might be in. gimme hookers/blow/3d/fireworks/one night of "the Purge", whatever.

but to just casually assume that even middle class america will fall in lock step, let alone the billions and billions that live on $3/day, is foolish. you've convinced yourself that we're something that we're not.

I don't believe humans are inherently evil or selfish or anything really. but we are moreso those things than you're allowing into your calculations. a LOT more.

don't take this at all as a personal thing (you won't, just saying) bc I thoroughly enjoy your writings and you are the only person I've ever searched on 2+2 just to read whatever you've recently responded to. I've actually done that.

but you would be very disappointed in us if you really believe that everyone drops everything for the vague assurances of our gene pool living through the end of earth.

I'm one of the most selfless people you'd meet. you may not know/think it if you've read many of my posts here, but I'd rather get to the point of my help being taken advantage of than not helping in the first place, and even I'm cocking my eye at your utopian vision of togetherness. my first thought is "if I can help I'll help, but first I'm making sure me, wifer, my family and friends are gonna be aight. THEN yeah maybe I'll sign up to dig ditches or teach 2nd grade math or whatever you want. but not before."

odds of martial law, rioting, starvation, wars >>>> several 0's short of a million people being on Mars with any chance of survival.

IMO. of course

bro...

you're debating with people that:

-have access to the internet
-are intellectually curious enough to read this thread

you realize I could further narrow the criteria but those 2 are enough, you convinced me. I don't have children so I can't know that particular drive, but I'd probably be in (with goodies).

you don't have to convince me though. you have to convince the 90% of humans that didn't fit into those 2 categories.

to say that "facing the ultimate crisis the only realism that prevails is the extension of life" is, with all due respect to you, probably the dumbest thing you've ever said that I've read.

consider every "ultimate crisis" that humans (or at least small groups of them, there isn't any data we can review of everyone) have faced...death. score-settling. slavery. wide-spread panic. selfishness.

I get this hypothetical is "different". but to expect the human psyche to react differently just bc everyone will die and not just everyone you know is a very large mistake.

Yes wiper but read again why its not as simple or simplistic as just an altruistic love of humanity and civilization/culture/life choice (even if to a rational person this alone is enough). It is also what maintains order because all other projects not related to essential survival and fun lose their meaning or value (ie what is the point of having ads, lawsuits, political debates and all kinds of investment plans or drilling for diamonds (unless diamonds suddenly find an application somewhere in the project and its not easier to do synthetic ones for that) and other precious stones and for something in general that expires in 20y and does little to nothing to preserve order or solve the problem of saving as many as possible...

What is the point to work on anything that near the end will be of near 0 value? Its like working for something that decays in price. Its like writing a theater play during the sinking of Titanic? What for?

The Majority will.

flag-waving lasts only so long.

mother****ing factory workers don't get off work and go to community college to get a degree to better themselves...

factory workers go to the mother****ing bar to despair with other similarly resigned-to-their-fate people.

the problem with your scenario is that you assume something that has never happened. and you assume it on a level that cannot happen, not due to togetherness or the good of the group, but bc people are inherently independent.

that's what makes us, us.

maybe doomsday brings us together, but to base an entire majestic view of a species saved on everyone, EVERYONE, agreeing to not just ignore their selfish tendencies, but to live out their own lives in a tireless toil without anything in return other than that vague "HUMANS!" billboard...

I guess I just disagree.

I already said what for..

We demand hookers and roller coasters, the finest, purest stimulants that your laboratories can produce. We want Kobe steaks, we want FOOTBALL on Sundays and we want our children to ride on a rocket to Mars.

visualize that NOT happening.

you're talking 4-5 billion people that will work endlessly in anonymity...for a price.

but that price also prevents countless tens (hundreds?) of millions of other from building the Arks bc they're riding tractors harvesting Marlboro Menthols for the workers.

half the ****ing planet would be working to appease the other half working to get to Mars.

I am the fault in your vision, I am the "what do I get out of it and don't tell me other people survive" professional, educated worker from a 1st world country that your plan crumbles into chaos without.

I hope we would come together like that. I would do my part...if everyone else did.

I have no, nor plan to have children. my life ends with me.

what do I get?

Ah you're that guy. I really wouldn't want to be near you if the earth was coming to an end.

Yes working to create a better life standard for those that are engaged in the main project to keep them motivated counts as working for the project. These 2 go together, project plus jobs to maintain it and the rest of social needs (but no longer work for profit since profit is now irrelevant) plus organized society till the end with rising quality of standard for even a final party last year to die with a bang if not saved.


Your life doesnt end with you because you dont have plans to have kids. As long as you interact with kids this is your future after you die, your immortality is their lives, but in reality all you did matters to the future generations anyway. We are their collective fathers.

Idealism that is founded on science is not a utopic dream in some ivory tower. It is the only chance we have in this f*ching abyss we are building the diving platform for.

In fact it is exactly people like you that have the power to shape future generations if your students are young enough and still old enough to be able to think properly with some depth.

Why do we ever bother for human rights and justice and freedom and a better world if we dont do it for future generations also? Who do we do it for? Who does the soldier that dies do it for?


By the way regarding the numbers i used, 40% of 18-24y age people are in college according to some references online. So 10% (1 in 4) of that better be in sciences, math and engineering , medicine etc. Seems easily safe. Many of those that are religious (the non hypocritical bs version) conservative compassionate old fashioned principled people could be another 5-10% that would agree to the effort. Another 5-10% from humanities and arts etc that are often idealistic.

And what do you get? You get the satisfaction that you mattered at the moment real men make the difference. You die happy that you make something remarkable possible. The remarkable is life itself. It fought 4.5 bil years to give you your existence. Whats your response to that struggle? 20 years is nothing for it to not end with this generation.

But if this is not enough and it should be for any cultured person, (regardless of the fact we are all selfish to a degree anyway, what i suggest is the ultimate form of selfishness) the other important argument is that this focused effort gives society meaning when other pro profit systems of employment have lost their logic/purpose and economy would collapse anyway because it would serve no objective for many of these jobs we have today. So instead of witnessing the collapse of society to jungle and anarchy you get to experience a joint effort that is made of countless of groups of course (so it wont look very different than current job environment) that experience a rising standard of living because all resources will be used by the end, wealth and tangible value items will be offered to that final experience.

I do expect also rapid focus on technology and science and AI will have dramatic standards of living consequences too.

20 years used to be little time but these days a lot change in 20 years. 20 years ago internet was a remote hobby for few and universities for example and computers were like 100-1000 times slower.

probably a good choice on your part.

this is just a socialism hypothetical, really...

if the guys doing the grunt work catch a short video on the news of the chosen few golfing and laughing without a care in the world, no way you can contain the cancerous mood of some on the factory line. and no way that doesn't affect enough people to make the highway to Mars essentially impossible..