Tbf, in order for humanity to get where they’re at in the Star Trek timeline they had to go through WWIII: Nuclear edition
Comment on NASA finds humanity would totally fumble asteroid defense
Allonzee@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Whenever I dare to hope about the lofty, admirable star trek future, I remember that space is completely unforgiving and we just aren’t up to the task for anything more than a selfie by the best half dozen humans we can possibly produce.
As a species, we aren’t going to spread out there. Still too primitive, and probably too self-destructive to make it out of this phase of evolution.
We aren’t even capable of caring for one another, let alone the EASIEST to maintain, most naturally human friendly habitat we would ever encounter. No airlocks, the air/water/waste recycling was already fully automated, all we had to do was not recklessly grow/metastasize to the point we strain the absolutely massive system out of greed and glut, and stop carelessly shitting where we sleep. We all know how that’s been going since we figured out how to make dead animal poison rocket us accross town.
Master space? Master planetary defense? We’ll be lucky if we aren’t scattered tribes living near the old hardened structures of the before times for emergency shelter from the new normal weather events in a hundred years. We’re already starting to argue over the resources it’s taking to rebuild population centers from the current new normal.
cm0002@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Allonzee@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Covid kind of disillusioned me to the whole “all humanity needs is a common enemy/suffering to get right” concept.
cm0002@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Iirc, it wasn’t just that as far as Star Trek goes. Iirc, most world governments and economic systems were destroyed, humanity was a mere fraction of its peak population. Humanity literally physically came together because it was necessary to rebuild.
Its one thing to have a common enemy/suffering without changing anything else as far as governments and social systems goes. It’s completely different when you not only have the enemy/suffering but to also need to literally rebuild everything from scratch
Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 week ago
The most horrifying possible outcome of a World War is, arguably, there being a definitive “winner”.
grue@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Humanity literally physically came together because it was necessary to rebuild.
I’m pretty sure that didn’t really happen until after the Vulcans showed up, TBH.
grue@lemmy.world 1 week ago
The Bell Riots (and Irish reunification) are due in a few months.
grue@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I remember that space is completely unforgiving and we just aren’t up to the task for anything more than a token selfie
“Wow, rude!” – Carl Sagan, probably
deadcream@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
I remember that space is completely unforgiving and we just aren’t up to the task for anything more than a token selfie by the best dozen humans we can possibly produce with great effort and training.
Astronauts aren’t superhumans and there is nothing “special” about their training. They are just pilots with stricter physical requirements. The reason why there aren’t many of them is because there is no need for more. Our technology is not there yet for cheap and “boring” space travel beyond low Earth orbit (and probably won’t be for a century at least). And there isn’t anything worthwhile for humanity out there anyway. At least at the current stage in our “evolution”. So for now manned spaceflight programmes are just vanity projects funded by politicians (for “national pride” or whatever) or some billionaire celebrities like Musk.
Also I don’t think that world peace would be necessary for space colonization. It could be born out of conflict or for economic reasons, like colonization of Americas. It’s simply that it will take centuries for us to reach a point when the prospect of leaving Earth will become attractive for regular people (if we survive that much of course).
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 1 week ago
As a species, we aren’t going to spread out there.
Well not with that attitude!
Yeah, space is hard and yeah mistakes have been made along the way. But things are definitely changing. Reusable rockets are nearly here… Between spaceX, rocket lab and stoke aerospace, there is real potential for these rockets to work. Hell, SpaceX has already conducted a successful orbital test flight.
With reusable rockets we’ll start to see a drastic reduction in the cost to get to orbit, probably by two orders of magnitude, but possibly even more. With the cost down people will reassess the value of space and the resources available there. In other words, people will start doing more in space, and getting more from space. Resource collection, refining and specialized manufacturing are three most likely industries to start expanding into space. Once there is work to be done there it will begin to make sense for people to live there.
As a species, we aren’t going to spread out there.
Not today, no. But within my lifetime, I expect we will.
rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 1 week ago
While everything living grows old and dies, and has its limits, we separate “<T> revolution” from “<T> normal development” for a reason.
I mean, what currently exists (with consumerism, incredibly wasteful production of electronic devices doing mostly useless work, less efficient production and organization being preferable when it allows someone to preserve power, Ponzi schemes of various kinds, ignorance and tribalism) is sometimes just a culture, not basic instincts (which have their downsides, but those are solvable). It’s not all cultures.
That culture has brought us revolutions unseen before. Then it stagnated and may die, but the humanity may survive and have more revolutions in the future.
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 1 week ago
We aren’t even capable of caring for one another, let alone the EASIEST to maintain, most naturally human friendly habitat we would ever encounter in the cosmos as we evolved to fit it.
I would argue that having 8 billion people in the same place makes earth the hardest place to live in some ways.
One of the options that space habitats would allow for is smaller communities. What if you lived in a space station with roughly the population of a city? Your community wouldn’t necessarily need to be affiliated with other communities to make up a “country”, but it could be. Your community would have that option. And if the community is not geographically connected to the other members of its nation, there’s no reason they couldn’t change their mind, join a different country if you’re views seem better aligned. For the first time humans would have opt-in governance.
Would opt-in governance lead to a more stable society? Would not being stuck geographically near communities with opposing views lead to less violent aggression? I don’t know, but I hope so.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 week ago
It’s the part that drives me the most wild. We’re all stuck on this shitty rock hurtling through space together, literally the bare minimum we could do to make it bearable is to be kind to one another and supportive of one another.
Allonzee@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Same, if we can’t even, in actions not rhetoric, start from a baseline of “we’re all in the same boat, we all have needs and seek happiness, how do we maximize everyone’s well-being to facilitate that?” then we’re still just savage animals wrestling in the dirt, but with the dangerous capacity to devise technologies for selfish ends we aren’t wise/evolved enough to truly appreciate the consequences of using.