Flatfingers wrote:The usual BS "humanity is killing itself" narrative excuse for why we choose to go to the Moon (and other places), and to do the hard things. Bah..

What's wrong with that? It's the most plausible explanation there is.

For god's sake...

Not everything is an excuse to slip "people who have babies are history's greatest monsters" into the conversation.

Can we assume at this point that you believe it, you're entitled to those beliefs, but that other people may not be idiots and morons for believing there's more to it than that, and that you don't have to keep rattling on about it?

The same would be true if you believed Jesus saved your soul or meditation was the key to a restful life. Constant evangelism is counterproductive.

McDuff wrote:Can we assume at this point that you believe it, you're entitled to those beliefs, but that other people may not be idiots and morons for believing there's more to it than that

You may be able to; I can't.

The affinities mechanic seems interesting.

If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.

McDuff wrote:If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.

Nice is subjective. It's impossible to not offend someone somewhere.

McDuff wrote:If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.

I said the official trailer for the game looks nice and that the backstory for the game seems plausible. Extremely plausible. Like, I cannot think of any conceivable way in which the backstory to this game could be more plausible than it already is. I'd probably buy this game just for how amazingly plausible its backstory is.

ThymineC wrote:

Flatfingers wrote:The usual BS "humanity is killing itself" narrative excuse for why we choose to go to the Moon (and other places), and to do the hard things. Bah.

What's wrong with that? It's the most plausible explanation there is.

It really isn't.

Consider just one example. As I linked to in my comment, we didn't develop the technology required to send representatives of humanity to the Moon and safely back again because we had to in order to avoid species extinction or any other self-induced disaster. We did it because we don't only destroy; we also dream of better things, and then we build them. There are times when we choose to create, to explore, to exceed our limits. (Sound familiar?)

At the larger level, the chart that matters is the one that shows that the history of human development is not one of ever-worse failure, but of ever-increasing success. We have moved from caves and sticks to cities and sanitation and medicine and computers and more humans enjoying a longer and more expressive life than at any other time -- not the other direction. We exist as we do today specifically because we have the capacity to imagine something better and make it happen.

It is not necessary to believe that our only possible reason to live elsewhere is to escape something bad. Maybe game developers resort to the "humanity had trashed itself" excuse for a narrative hook because it's something they personally want to believe, or because they're lazy, or they're out of time. It has the minor advantage of pretending to be a kind of conflict, since Story Must Have Conflict is apparently an ironclad rule of writer's school.

But it's overused, not supported by reality, and just sort of boring.

I'd like to see some developer do better.

That doesn't mean I'm giving up on Civ: Beyond Earth. I'm just a little disappointed at what I see as the lack of effort in the background story revealed in this trailer. I'll live.

Flatfingers wrote:we didn't develop the technology required to send representatives of humanity to the Moon and safely back again because we had to in order to avoid species extinction or any other self-induced disaster. We did it because we don't only destroy; we also dream of better things, and then we build them. There are times when we choose to create, to explore, to exceed our limits.

What? It was done to one-up enemies. It was called a space race for a reason.

Most people who are sure of overpopulation being inevitable aren't considering our exponential growth in technology. While population is exploding our ability to generate resources is as well and will continue to accelerate. Whether or not the former will outstrip the latter is a matter of pessimism vs optimism since we can't reliably predict what technologies will become available.
That being said I happen to think less babies is a very responsible step regardless. If you have more than 2 kids, you're damaging.

Katawa wrote:

Flatfingers wrote:we didn't develop the technology required to send representatives of humanity to the Moon and safely back again because we had to in order to avoid species extinction or any other self-induced disaster. We did it because we don't only destroy; we also dream of better things, and then we build them. There are times when we choose to create, to explore, to exceed our limits.

What? It was done to one-up enemies. It was called a space race for a reason.

Feel free to try to convince the many people who gave their time, their expertise, and in some cases their lives that they did all that for someone else's stupid one-upmanship.

Not someone, two nations. It was part of a whole era and mentality. That silly little cold war thing.

Katawa wrote:Not someone, two nations. It was part of a whole era and mentality. That silly little cold war thing.

That's splitting hairs rather than addressing the larger point that people actually do do things -- sometimes rather large things -- for idealistic, creative, optimistic, positive reasons.

Only bad fiction pretends otherwise.

Split from here.

Flatfingers wrote:

Katawa wrote:Not someone, two nations. It was part of a whole era and mentality. That silly little cold war thing.

That's splitting hairs rather than addressing the larger point that people actually do do things -- sometimes rather large things -- for idealistic, creative, optimistic, positive reasons.

Only bad fiction pretends otherwise.

While I do agree that there are many positive things done just simply because they are positive things and are entirely selfless, I'm not sure that it is very common among large organizations like governments. I'm not entirely sure that they should unless it can be shown to directly help achieve the goal of the organization. Take the Space Race, like previously stated we went to the moon because we were competing with Russia for supremacy in space. They had a valid reason to do so, make sure that Russia wouldn't build a weapon in space with which they could harm the American citizens, one of the main reasons for the existence of the American government. Now compare that to NASA today. While today I would say that it's existence is more for pushing forward the boundaries of human knowledge than any other reason that better coincides with the US government's goals (as corrupted as they often seem). I don't, however, see the same push to have NASA do great things within a decade as it's always depicted in the videos. Instead all the great advances we're looking forward to are put within decades and often are coinciding with the purposes of private companies who's whole goal is the same thing that NASA wants to accomplish, but may have a better drive to do so. I personally don't think we'll colonize another planet except for one of three reasons, save humanity from potential extinction (imminent or otherwise), there is a way to make large amounts of money from it (what I think to be the most likely one), or the technology will become within reach for a group of fairly well off people who wish for adventure create their own colony ship and head (incredibly unlikely, though may happen after quite a few planets are colonized and the Alcubierre drive is created).

Mars One might end up being the first extraterrestrial colonisation (2024). So I'll consider it a case study . I saw them on a TEDx meeting in the Netherlands.

The mission is led by an entrepreneur. The colonists will be people who acknowledge that this is a one way trip and who each may have their own motivations. The funding will be done mainly through televising a show focussed on selecting the colonist members. The worldwide open application for this has started on April 2013.

I imagine that this raises a lot of questions and concerns (The Arab Emirates have raised them in the form of a Fatwa against joining Mars One). Please take a look at the website first, there's a lot of information already there.

EDIT: Because Mars One is one specific project instead of a general debate, I made its own thread for it: Mars One: Colonisation in 2024

I think before the debate about human motivation for creation/destruction, everyone should go binge-watch some VSauce if they haven't already.

Especially you, Thymine. Schopenhauer gets a mention in this video.