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#76 2003-04-18 07:24:08

soph
Member
Registered: 2002-11-24
Posts: 1,492

Re: Your Ethical Questions Addressed - Ecoethics and terraformation

Oh please, if we can terraform Mars we can Terraform Earth. It's that simple. Where do people come up with these silly arguments?

What are you saying?  Obviously we can terraform Earth-it's been done for the past few billion years.  Earth has already been terraformed.

You're trying to throw unbased comments out there, because you're having a hard time explaining why a dead planet would object to terraformation.

And yet, again soph fails to show this. We might wipe out some life (I would find it hard to categorize all of it), but to say that it would wipe out most life on Earth is a stretch. We'd just have lots of zoos, that's all. Of course, I'm sure soph here will respond, and attach the Terran environment to whether something is ?living? or not.

Fails to show this?  To "Martiform" Earth would be to bury all water in the ground, rip out all the trees, and knock down all the cities.  If you intend on recreating the entire biosphere in zoos, you're nuts.

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#77 2003-04-18 11:03:06

Josh Cryer
Moderator
Registered: 2001-09-29
Posts: 3,830

Re: Your Ethical Questions Addressed - Ecoethics and terraformation

Cindy,

I see your point, Josh...and just our luck, the future Marsians will complain amongst themselves:<snip>

Heheh! Well said m'lady. Semi-random question: do you recall who ?paid? for the large mirror over Mars in the KSR trilogy? I can't recall. All's I know is that it was put up there without considering what the people of Mars themselves thought about it. Quite a tragedy. smile


soph,

What are you saying?  Obviously we can terraform Earth-it's been done for the past few billion years.  Earth has already been terraformed.

Jeez soph, do you not read? I was ecplicitly talking of an Earth where most or all life was exterminated or whatever. Phobos was suggesting such a situation.

Every single argument about going to Mars because Earth isn't ?suitable? for life is simply wrong, the only exception might be when the sun goes Red Giant on us (but I believe even Mars wouldn't be livable at that point).

You're trying to throw unbased comments out there, because you're having a hard time explaining why a dead planet would object to terraformation.

No, you missed the point completely because you're glossing over the discussion without even reading! What in the heck is wrong with you, man? I never said anything about a ?dead planet objecting to terraformation.?

I have been talking about the people who colonize. That there are legitimate reasons why those people wouldn't want to terraform.

And I'm not having a hard time at all, really, I'm just not expending much effort because it seems to be obvious. It's not my fault you're not getting it (or avoiding it).

Fails to show this?  To "Martiform" Earth would be to bury all water in the ground, rip out all the trees, and knock down all the cities.  If you intend on recreating the entire biosphere in zoos, you're nuts.

Ahh, and see, soph did precisely what I suggested he would do. smile

I said, ?I'm sure soph here will respond, and attach the Terran environment to whether something is ?living? or not.? And there ya have it!

We wouldn't have to knock down cities, just dome them. Everything else would be categorized and so on. We wouldn't need to make anything go extinct in the process.

Of course, I don't intend anything, this is all speculation. But you missed the point completely. The point is that we chose our environment (for the most part). If we chose to have Mars be Mars-like and not Earth-like, then that is what we will chose. Stupid notions about whether something is alive or not are completely irrelevant.


Some useful links while MER are active. [url=http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html]Offical site[/url] [url=http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Web.html]NASA TV[/url] [url=http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/]JPL MER2004[/url] [url=http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustextonly.html]Text feed[/url]
--------
The amount of solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth totals some 3.9 million exajoules a year.

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#78 2003-04-18 11:24:12

Bill White
Member
Registered: 2001-09-09
Posts: 2,114

Re: Your Ethical Questions Addressed - Ecoethics and terraformation

Heheh! Well said m'lady. Semi-random question: do you recall who ?paid? for the large mirror over Mars in the KSR trilogy? I can't recall. All's I know is that it was put up there without considering what the people of Mars themselves thought about it. Quite a tragedy. smile

Josh - if we wish to open up this line of inquiry -

WHO PAYS FOR ANYTHING in KSR's trilogy? tongue

But then I always was the kind of guy who would yell questions at Star Trek. In my college days, a bunch of us would sit in the dorm lounge, drink beer, and poke holes in the plot logic and science of various episode of Star Trek. . .

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#79 2003-04-18 11:56:08

Palomar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: Your Ethical Questions Addressed - Ecoethics and terraformation

Cindy,

I see your point, Josh...and just our luck, the future Marsians will complain amongst themselves:<snip>

Heheh! Well said m'lady. Semi-random question: do you recall who ?paid? for the large mirror over Mars in the KSR trilogy? I can't recall. All's I know is that it was put up there without considering what the people of Mars themselves thought about it. Quite a tragedy. smile

*Nope, sorry I don't know...I've not read KSR's trilogy.  Shocking, isn't it?   ???   tongue

Just having some fun with you, Josh; I'm not being sarcastic.

I'm not much into fiction, even science fiction (although I'm much more apt to read that fictional genre than any other).

--Cindy cool


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#80 2003-04-18 11:59:53

Palomar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: Your Ethical Questions Addressed - Ecoethics and terraformation

But then I always was the kind of guy who would yell questions at Star Trek. In my college days, a bunch of us would sit in the dorm lounge, drink beer, and poke holes in the plot logic and science of various episode of Star Trek. . .

*Doesn't matter, Bill.  Captain Kirk was drop-dead gorgeous in his tight little uniform -and- with a really, really cute posterior.  That's ALL that matters.  So there.

--Cindy  smile

P.S.:  Although I did once catch a line for Mr. Spock wherein he said something like "one minute and 63 seconds"...and I'm like, shouldn't that be "two minutes and 3 seconds"?  Yeah, for a while there I wasn't distracted by those adorable pointed ears and the thought of nibbling on them.  smile


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#81 2003-04-18 13:52:07

soph
Member
Registered: 2002-11-24
Posts: 1,492

Re: Your Ethical Questions Addressed - Ecoethics and terraformation

I said, ?I'm sure soph here will respond, and attach the Terran environment to whether something is ?living? or not.? And there ya have it!

Of course I did.  And is there something wrong with that?  Please, Josh, tell me what the environment is, if it is not the interaction between abiotic and biotic (living) factors?  I would really like your deep understanding of how the environment does not include living things.

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#82 2003-04-19 00:53:10

Josh Cryer
Moderator
Registered: 2001-09-29
Posts: 3,830

Re: Your Ethical Questions Addressed - Ecoethics and terraformation

Bill,

WHO PAYS FOR ANYTHING in KSR's trilogy?

Good friggin question. I believe that KSR's trilogy is taking place after some sort of socialist revolution, because there isn't much capitalism, as it were. KSR's trilogy is predicated on the idea that the world will be flooded, and there will be a population crisis, I believe. The weakpoint in the plot, if you ask me, but maybe not all that unrealistic. We;d pull together if the world fell apart, right?

I keep meaning to re-read it again, but I'm finding myself caught up in several books at the momment. I can't seem to keep my attention one one book in particular.

But then I always was the kind of guy who would yell questions at Star Trek.

Oh, me too! I mean, exploding conduits?! My god, what's in those things? Don't they have, you know, circuit breakers in the future? You know when a power surge happens in your house right? A circuit breaker pops and all is well. No fire, no sparks, just a cutoff. Now why doesn't this happen on Star Trek? I mean, man, what are they thinking every time they get shot somethign explodes?

I see problems with the social structure. I could go on for hours about how they always have a central leader, but wind up making a lot of democratic choices. It's like a military structure except you have a better voice.

I find myself questioning plots, too. There was this episode on the new series where they found this station. You could trade X ammount of energy or whatever for X ammount of repairs. But, oh wait, there was a catch. The station required alien brains to run the CPU, because somehow magically, alien brains are much more capable of running a station than machines. There's always a stupid catch on common sense ideas. I thought that station showed what could really be possible with super high level technologies. But without the catches.


Cindy,

Nope, sorry I don't know...I've not read KSR's trilogy.  Shocking, isn't it?

Indeed! I knew you hadn't read it before, but I thought, for some reason, that you had by now. It's an ineresting series. Almost a must for Mars people. smile


soph,

Of course I did.  And is there something wrong with that?

Certainly. It's siliness. As long as I'm alive, that is, my systems are functioning and I'm getting nutrition and so on, it doesn't matter where or what my environment is.

You are arguing that there are several levels of ?aliveness.? Though it may be true or whatever, this is the exact same argument environmentalists make.

Trees which grew naturally, without human intervention are ?more alive? than trees which were planted by humans after we cut down a forest. This is silly! But this is an argument constantly told by the extreme of the environmentalists.

Please, Josh, tell me what the environment is, if it is not the interaction between abiotic and biotic (living) factors?

Um. Your surrounding is your environment. It's not necessary that you are surrounded by organics. Just look at hydropnoics or aeroponics; almost completely chemical systems. Does this then mean that plants which are grown that way are ?less living? since their environment lacks the same kind of organic interaction they would have in the wild?

I would really like your deep understanding of how the environment does not include living things.

I said it several posts back. Are skyscrapers alive? Are hills and valleys alive? Are deserts alive? Note that I am not talking about the creatures that live within or on these features- they are just decorations. A hill which is covered in grass could be just as appealing to a person as a hill which is covered with rocks. One is alive and the other is not. So you and others think they can legitimately discriminate against the person who finds joy in the one that is not.

This is soph playing a game of sophistry, perhaps that's where his nick originates.


Some useful links while MER are active. [url=http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html]Offical site[/url] [url=http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Web.html]NASA TV[/url] [url=http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/]JPL MER2004[/url] [url=http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustextonly.html]Text feed[/url]
--------
The amount of solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth totals some 3.9 million exajoules a year.

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#83 2003-04-19 06:50:01

soph
Member
Registered: 2002-11-24
Posts: 1,492

Re: Your Ethical Questions Addressed - Ecoethics and terraformation

Josh, if the environment was devoid of plants, we would die.  You can try to avoid this as much as you want, it's a fact. 

And nearly all points of Earth, whether the grassless hill or the murky pond, have some form of life on them.  Nice try josh, your argument is quickly slipping.

Certainly. It's siliness. As long as I'm alive, that is, my systems are functioning and I'm getting nutrition and so on, it doesn't matter where or what my environment is.

Fine, now if you want Earth to be the way Mars is, bury the water, rip out the trees, and dome the cities.  See how long 6 billion people live with limited water access, limited environment access, and so on.

Please Josh, I'm just waiting to see your next method of trying to sidestep my post.

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#84 2003-04-19 09:02:39

Josh Cryer
Moderator
Registered: 2001-09-29
Posts: 3,830

Re: Your Ethical Questions Addressed - Ecoethics and terraformation

osh, if the environment was devoid of plants, we would die.

Um, which environment are we talking about here? Obviously this is true if you're talking about enclosed habitats (CELSS is a relationship between humans, plants and technology), but I figure you're probably talking about the Earth's ecosystem as a whole.

This is simply wrong. If we accept that we could live on Mars with CELSS, then we should be able to live on a Martiformed Earth with CELSS. It's that simple.

Do you think we can live on Mars with CELSSs (I prefer calling them biospheres, but what the hey, no need to confuse you).

And I'm not avoiding anything, I answered your question straight up.

And nearly all points of Earth, whether the grassless hill or the murky pond, have some form of life on them.

The question, though, is the appeal of those hills necessarily reliant on the life that lives on or in them? If you take a picture of a rockey hill, do the unseen bacteria and insects make that hill more appealing? Make that hill more alive?

Poor attempt to avoid the simple concept that people will chose their enviornment regardless of some variable about how ?alive? it is.

Fine, now if you want Earth to be the way Mars is, bury the water, rip out the trees, and dome the cities.

I don't. It was a hypothetical argument. But you totally missed the train and got lost trying to find your way.

See how long 6 billion people live with limited water access, limited environment access, and so on.

I'm willing to wager Earth could hold more people than Mars in CELSS-type systems. You get way more sunlight, and with the atmosphere stripped away, you can exploit it all. Everything would be recycled and so on (the whole point of CELSS), so we won't be ?depleating? resources.

Of course that won't happen, and I really don't feel like reiterating the central point here. I'd be willing to wager you missed it, though.


Some useful links while MER are active. [url=http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html]Offical site[/url] [url=http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Web.html]NASA TV[/url] [url=http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/]JPL MER2004[/url] [url=http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustextonly.html]Text feed[/url]
--------
The amount of solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth totals some 3.9 million exajoules a year.

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#85 2003-04-19 09:55:22

dicktice
Member
From: Nova Scotia, Canada
Registered: 2002-11-01
Posts: 1,764

Re: Your Ethical Questions Addressed - Ecoethics and terraformation

You two guys, Josh and Soph, are so-oo entertaining. That's what debates are for--but Mars seems to be lost in an argument about ... the aesthetics of hills?! Come on....

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#86 2003-04-19 20:44:43

soph
Member
Registered: 2002-11-24
Posts: 1,492

Re: Your Ethical Questions Addressed - Ecoethics and terraformation

Um, which environment are we talking about here? Obviously this is true if you're talking about enclosed habitats (CELSS is a relationship between humans, plants and technology), but I figure you're probably talking about the Earth's ecosystem as a whole.

Yes, I was, in response to this quote:

"Certainly. It's siliness. As long as I'm alive, that is, my systems are functioning and I'm getting nutrition and so on, it doesn't matter where or what my environment is.

You are arguing that there are several levels of ?aliveness.? Though it may be true or whatever, this is the exact same argument environmentalists make."

Since the environment includes all the biomes on Earth, which you now intend to somehow dome, while burying the water, your nutrition would wilt away fairly quickly.

The question, though, is the appeal of those hills necessarily reliant on the life that lives on or in them? If you take a picture of a rockey hill, do the unseen bacteria and insects make that hill more appealing? Make that hill more alive?

On the large scale, yes.  Because without all of these unseen life forms, the food chain would fall apart, and humans would be left without anything to eat.

You get way more sunlight, and with the atmosphere stripped away, you can exploit it all.

Why would you ever strip the atmosphere away?

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#87 2003-04-20 02:04:46

Josh Cryer
Moderator
Registered: 2001-09-29
Posts: 3,830

Re: Your Ethical Questions Addressed - Ecoethics and terraformation

dicktice, I guess you've never had a favorite resturant be closed, or a favorite park be torn down so that they could build a public pool there. That was just a silly example, you realize, and wasn't meant to cover everything. It's just meant to say, ?Hey, I identify with something, and that something sometimes is more important than other things.? If you lived in a house all your life, or if you helped build something which was being threatened by an outside force, because you identify with it, you would want that threat to go away.


Anyway, soph can't handle this hypothetical because it's a little bit of a stretch to make in the first place. The only reason I've stuck with it is because I originally stated it. All of your stupid replies could be answered with one word, soph. CELSS. Nutrition would not wilt away, because CELSS would maintain it. The food chain would not fall apart because CELSS would maintain it. And we would strip away Earth's atmosphere because, obviously, that's how you Martiform Earth... and CELSS would provide us with life support.

Let me restate it in much simpler terms. If someones environment is threatened, they may not want it to occur. If I live in a city (been there all my life) and someone has the brilliant idea to tear down all the buildings and live underground (believe it or not, I know someone, who was a radical environmentalist, who believed in this), am I really going to want that to happen? Okay, that's a bit of a stretch to make, too, but the point stands.

How's this. I live in the country (been there all my life, just like in the city example), and someone wants to come in and build a huge themepark or lots of commercial buildings, am I really going to want that to happen?

I own an apartment complex, it's dilapidated, and someone wants to build a park where it is, I grew up there, a lot of my memories, along with my friends memories are there, but there's nothing I can do because the town council condemned the building and are going to build the park anyway, am I really going to want that to happen?

I live in the lower regions of Mars, and some pricks want to put an ocean over where me and a whole lot of other people live because they have this notion that something being alive is more important than the work I put in and memories I have in a certain place. My cultural identity is completely unrecognized by these pricks.

A.J. basically made this argument before, and I shrugged it off by being somewhat misinformed (I thought the magnetic zones were more protective than they are), he's probably right that the lower regions could be highly populated, so his arguments still stand quite well. Given that we've all said terraforming will need to be a democratic decision, it depends on where the majority will live.

I will, of course, maintain that terraformation is bound to occur eventually, if people are allowed as many freedoms as I think they deserve, but to suggest that there is no legitimate argument that it wouldn't occur, is to delude yourself.


Some useful links while MER are active. [url=http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html]Offical site[/url] [url=http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Web.html]NASA TV[/url] [url=http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/]JPL MER2004[/url] [url=http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustextonly.html]Text feed[/url]
--------
The amount of solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth totals some 3.9 million exajoules a year.

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#88 2003-04-20 11:11:49

Fishbowl236
Banned
From: Earth
Registered: 2003-03-24
Posts: 5

Re: Your Ethical Questions Addressed - Ecoethics and terraformation

Very nice argument you guys.

I was going to say though, I think that it is possible to terraform Earth. If you think of the original Earth, before humans and advanced civilization, that was what the goal of terraofrming was. Now after industriazation, the atmosphere and and ozone are deterioating, oil spills are wrecking the enviroment, rain forests being cut down, its going down hill, so if we terraform Earth we try to bring it back to what it originally was.


Another thing.

Good friggin question. I believe that KSR's trilogy is taking place after some sort of socialist revolution, because there isn't much capitalism, as it were.

Thats not entirely true becasue a socialist revolution would not allow metanationals to form, that can only occur in capitalism.



On the Martianforming, I don't really see the point in changing a planet into a place where we as humans and all other forms of life are restriced to CELSS.

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#89 2003-04-24 10:39:02

HeloTeacher
Banned
Registered: 2002-01-26
Posts: 38

Re: Your Ethical Questions Addressed - Ecoethics and terraformation

Josh,
  I believe from your original reply that we actually agree.  It is my contention that terraformation of Mars will not be a re-creation of Earth by us, rather it will be the Martians adapting their environment to them as they adapt to the environment.  It will still be a unique environment but it will be unlike what it is now.


"only with the freedom to [b]dream[/b], to [b]create[/b], and to [b]risk[/b], man has been able to climb out of the cave and reach for the stars"
  --Igor Sikorsky, aviation pioneer

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#90 2003-12-21 20:29:28

Earthman
Member
From: NM
Registered: 2003-12-14
Posts: 18

Re: Your Ethical Questions Addressed - Ecoethics and terraformation

This is the best thread I have ever read anywhere!
I'm a vivicapitalist: I believe our life forms deserve to dominate Mars. It is inevitable, our manifest destiny, with some data stored before conquest.

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#91 2003-12-27 02:48:34

Shaun Barrett
Member
From: Cairns, Queensland, Australia
Registered: 2001-12-28
Posts: 2,843

Re: Your Ethical Questions Addressed - Ecoethics and terraformation

Worrying about a few trillion bacteria on Mars is all well and good and I accept that the potential death of microscopic organisms in the process of terraforming offends the delicate sensibilities of some of our colleagues here.
    But I wonder if all of us here have a realistic grasp of how utterly 'immoral' and 'uncaring' this universe really is. Some of the posts in this thread, mainly from NovaMarsollia before his undignified and deserved exit I admit, have questioned our right to deal out death and destruction to purported extraterrestrial ecosystems in seeking to expand into the universe. In other posts in other threads, I've attempted to get across the message that pedantic adherence to fine points of ethics and morality in this type of argument start to look quite pointless when you contemplate the blind and mindless cruelty of unbridled nature.

    In the New Scientist of Dec. 6th 2003, there's an interesting article which outlines the work of a Dr. Jeffrey Kargel, a planetary scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Arizona. He's interested in the fate of our planet in the distant future and paints a fairly unpleasant picture of some of the events Earth can look forward to. The following is a summary of the main events as Dr. Kargel sees them unfolding in the coming eons:-

  50 million yrs - Africa has rammed into Europe.
  200 million yrs - The Americas have crashed into Euro-Africa.
  250 million yrs - Pangaea Ultima forms.
  500 million yrs - 95% of plants start dying.
  900 million yrs - All plants die.
  1.2 billion yrs - Oceans start boiling off.
  1.5 to 2 billion yrs - Earth's spin axis starts to swing chaotically because the Moon drifts too far away to stabilise it.
  3.5 to 6 billion yrs - Magma oceans form.
  7 billion yrs - Sun has become a red giant star.
  7.5 billion yrs - Magma oceans start to boil off.
  7.6 billion yrs - Sun runs out of fuel and shrinks into a white dwarf.

    Notice how all life on Earth will be extinguished in roughly 1 billion years. There'll be no debate about it. This beautiful blue planet, which has sustained life for at least 3.5 billion years, is on notice and is approaching permanent retirement age. Where are mother nature's ethics; where is her morality?

    As Earth becomes uninhabitable, it's been estimated Mars will afford us as much as an extra 400 to 500 million years of life in the inner solar system before it too succumbs to the ever-inceasing solar energy output of our ageing star.
    If mother nature has absolutely no compunction about wiping out all life on Earth, I can see nothing wrong with pushing some bacteria into a different ecological niche on Mars to make way for us.
                                                   ???    smile


The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping Up and Down.   - Rita Rudner

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#92 2003-12-27 05:15:54

Josh Cryer
Moderator
Registered: 2001-09-29
Posts: 3,830

Re: Your Ethical Questions Addressed - Ecoethics and terraformation

I never really have had a problem with killing bacteria. Just give us a little time to study 'em. Certainly a few decades, even a few centuries, are not even a wink of a wink of a wink (repeat that a million times) of the timescale of the life of the solar system.

(Actually, 500 million years is so freaking close that it's scary; and though I probably won't be alive then, it's still scary to realize that we were 500 million years away from never becoming. Life is really probably more rare than we think!)

My "pro-eco" argument has always been predicated on the idea that Martians will decide when to terraform or not, and that there is a possiblity that they won't want to. My whole crazy arguments with soph in this thread were basically trying to make that point.

Anyway... someone has to play devils advocate here (because most of us are pro-terraform). smile


Some useful links while MER are active. [url=http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html]Offical site[/url] [url=http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Web.html]NASA TV[/url] [url=http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/]JPL MER2004[/url] [url=http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustextonly.html]Text feed[/url]
--------
The amount of solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth totals some 3.9 million exajoules a year.

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#93 2003-12-27 06:32:25

Shaun Barrett
Member
From: Cairns, Queensland, Australia
Registered: 2001-12-28
Posts: 2,843

Re: Your Ethical Questions Addressed - Ecoethics and terraformation

Fair enough, Josh!
                                        smile


The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping Up and Down.   - Rita Rudner

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#94 2003-12-27 18:39:30

Aetius
Member
From: New England USA
Registered: 2002-01-20
Posts: 173

Re: Your Ethical Questions Addressed - Ecoethics and terraformation

I am not a huge fan of terraforming, largely because of the titanic amount of industrial resources it sacrifices. I think it would make more sense to simply avoid building gargantuan habitat domes until materials science catches up with architectural ambitions. Super-sized domes seem unwise to me for safety reasons as well, because of the reduced system redundancy.

Let's make no mistake about it, domes and excavated mesas are going to be where most Martians live for centuries. The people who live there will have to face many of the same choices as local governments today. Would they rather have tax cuts, or continue to finance the terraformers' pipe dreams?

It's entirely possible that they'll decide to terraform, as it does eventually provide something concrete in return for the enormous expense and added layers of planetary bureaucracy.

Martian nanobacteria would be of obvious scientific value, and may even yield useful products to the colonists. But it is irrelevant to my dreams of civilizing Mars. If the last surviving clump of Martian nanobacteria were to be accidentally snuffed out by a pile of toxic waste, would I personally lose any sleep?

I think you all know the answer to that question. yikes

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#95 2003-12-27 19:06:27

Palomar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: Your Ethical Questions Addressed - Ecoethics and terraformation

If the last surviving clump of Martian nanobacteria were to be accidentally snuffed out by a pile of toxic waste, would I personally lose any sleep?

I think you all know the answer to that question. yikes

*Yes?

--Cindy

(just kidding)  wink


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#96 2003-12-27 21:52:21

Josh Cryer
Moderator
Registered: 2001-09-29
Posts: 3,830

Re: Your Ethical Questions Addressed - Ecoethics and terraformation

I believe it would be more expensive, energy and process speaking, to build domes and other large habitats for people to live in, than it would to ship comets and asteroids to build the atmosphere. Terraformation is theoretically the cheapest way to get life support for a whole planet.


Some useful links while MER are active. [url=http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html]Offical site[/url] [url=http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Web.html]NASA TV[/url] [url=http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/]JPL MER2004[/url] [url=http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustextonly.html]Text feed[/url]
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The amount of solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth totals some 3.9 million exajoules a year.

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#97 2003-12-27 22:53:50

Bill White
Member
Registered: 2001-09-09
Posts: 2,114

Re: Your Ethical Questions Addressed - Ecoethics and terraformation

I believe it would be more expensive, energy and process speaking, to build domes and other large habitats for people to live in, than it would to ship comets and asteroids to build the atmosphere. Terraformation is theoretically the cheapest way to get life support for a whole planet.

Yes, but. . .

Planetary terraforming requires massive capital investment and a top down organizational structure. Let thousands or millions of humans mine Mars regolith, synthesize polyethylene radiation shields, grow gardens and terraform Mars from the bottom up.

Who will pay to re-direct those comets and asteroids and what political system will assure they will get return on investment? Besides, do you evict those who already live on Mars?

Josh, I thought you believed in anarchy and self organizing structures!  big_smile

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#98 2003-12-27 23:25:17

Josh Cryer
Moderator
Registered: 2001-09-29
Posts: 3,830

Re: Your Ethical Questions Addressed - Ecoethics and terraformation

I do. tongue

Use robots, duh. :;):


Some useful links while MER are active. [url=http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html]Offical site[/url] [url=http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Web.html]NASA TV[/url] [url=http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/]JPL MER2004[/url] [url=http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustextonly.html]Text feed[/url]
--------
The amount of solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth totals some 3.9 million exajoules a year.

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#99 2003-12-27 23:46:58

Cobra Commander
Member
From: The outskirts of Detroit.
Registered: 2002-04-09
Posts: 3,039

Re: Your Ethical Questions Addressed - Ecoethics and terraformation

Let's make no mistake about it, domes and excavated mesas are going to be where most Martians live for centuries. The people who live there will have to face many of the same choices as local governments today. Would they rather have tax cuts, or continue to finance the terraformers' pipe dreams?

Quite true. This has alwyas been one of my fuzzy areas on the terraforming question, the benefits of a habitable planet on the one hand versus the expense and bureacracy on the other. It seems to me the decision will rest entirely on how Mars is colonized.

If many nations set up many colonies, terraforming will almost certainly have to wait until a Martian Federation is formed and undertakes it. Over a century, probably two or three.

Or, a suitably ambitious nation could start the project before anyone lives there. This would involve at least the implicit claim to the entire planet by that nation, but that's hardly a serious obstacle. It would be expensive, but not necessarily prohibitively so.

A couple years ago I worked out some rough figures based on the projections in the admittedly less than desirable approach described in Paul Birch's "Terraforming Mars Quickly." Unfortunately this was all done on a napkin in a bar, so I'm working from memory here. Forgive me if I make grevious errors.

As I recall the cost of terraforming, minus cost of infrastructure and other expenses that would be present with colonization with or without terraforming, comes to roughly 85 billion BP, which I liberally converted at an exchange rate of .50 US dollars to the Pound., making the cost approx. $170 billion over the course of 70 years. The US federal budget is roughly $2 trillion a year. Roughly one half of that is in the form of programs or services of questionable Constitutionality or outright waste. Being reasonable we can cut the new-found trillion in half and let some of the programs live. Hell, let's be downright socialist and let 3/4 of it stand. We then have $250 billion to work with.

Which means that every year the US government wastes enough money to make a planet!

Clearly this is very crude, full of assumptions and probably riddled with errors, but it's something to think about...


Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.

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#100 2003-12-28 00:29:57

Bill White
Member
Registered: 2001-09-09
Posts: 2,114

Re: Your Ethical Questions Addressed - Ecoethics and terraformation

I do. tongue

Use robots, duh. :;):

Who "owns" these robots? Robots will be capital intensive, even if self assembled and essentially free. The fellow who can program 100,000 nano-bots will always be at the mercy of the fellow who has control of 100,000,000 nano-bots.

Also, it seems to me that a decision to re-direct and crash large numbers of comets and asteroids onto Mars will require political consensus among most humans living in the solar system. Otherwise, robots operated by those opposed to the plan could be used to fight those robots operated by those seeking to terra-form Mars.

A solar-system wide referendum on terra-forming Mars? Gosh golly - now there is a plot for a sci-fi novel.  big_smile

My scenarios focus on tens of thousands of humans acting in small groups to micro-terraform. Drill wells and mix Mars H2O with Mars CO2 (plus N from whatever source it can be begged borrowed or stolen) all to form long chain CHONs - - organic molecules.

In certain circumstances, 1 million ants can topple a tree far faster than a chainsaw. Without a master plan.

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