Space expansion comes before space exploration
Space expansion comes before space exploration
Also, Q/A with Rudy Rucker and review of Tim Urban's What's Our Problem?
Greetings to all readers and subscribers, and special greetings to the paid subscribers!
Please scroll down for the main topic of this newsletter. But first:
The next Turing Church meeting will take place on Saturday, March 4, at 11am ET (8am PT, 5pm CET). You are invited! Check the Turing Church meetings calendar first, then feel free come, listen, and discuss whatever you like. The Zoom access coordinates are in the Turing Church meetings calendar.
I have interviewed the one and only Rudy Rucker! Rudy is one of the thinkers who influenced and continue to influence me most. I can’t define him with one word. Science fiction writer? Mathematician? Master hacker? Teacher? Philosopher? Artist? Take your pick. We discussed science fiction, AI, lifeboxes, determinism, free will, Gödel, and life after death. Read the Q/A with Rudy!
I’ve been reading Tim Urban’s new book “What's Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies” and watching Urban’s conversation with Lex Friedman.
H/t to Ramez Naam for alerting me. See also Robin Hanson’s review. And read the book. Worth reading, says Elon Musk.
The book is easy to read (to me this is a great plus) and full of simple sketches that illustrate Urban’s points.
Urban adds a vertical dimension to the horizontal left / right, progressive / conservative political spectrum. The added vertical dimension separates great people from bad people. Urban prefers to speak of high-rung thinkers and low-rung thinkers. The latter are stuck with the golems of the primitive mind.
In the horizontal left / right dimension, Urban leans left. But Robin Hanson is right: Urban “spends far more time complaining about the ‘woke’ ‘social justice’ left.” I guess Urban is more concerned with the excesses of the bad people in his own camp, and I think this is a perfectly normal reaction.
If you don’t have time to watch Urban’s 3-hours conversation with Lex Friedman, at least watch this 13-min clip on why wokeism is dangerous.
I have no issues with the causes supported by the wokes. If anything, I support most of those causes myself. I do have an issue, and a big one, with the social terrorism of today’s “Social Justice Fundamentalism (SJF).”
Urban says, and I agree, that we should speak up against the SJFs. Not everyone can: many are at risk of losing their job if they speak up. But those who can speak up should speak up, and must speak up.
I highly recommend this book.
OK, there’s water on the Moon. So what?
There used to be water on Mars as well, and perhaps there’s still some. But why should I give a damn? How does water on Mars help me?
Robots are exploring the outer solar system and giving us images and data about planets and moons far away. But how does it help those who need help right here on this planet, right now?
The James Webb Space Telescope gives us images and data that improve our knowledge of the vast universe out there. But why should we give a fuck? Don’t we have other things to worry about?
Or, isn’t space exploration a total waste of money? Shouldn’t the money used for space exploration be used for more urgent and important things instead?
Yes. It should.
Space exploration is a total waste of money.
But we are not exploring space for science. We are preparing the way for space expansion.
Becoming a multi-planetary humanity is the only viable way to ensure our long-term survival. Therefore we must survey the solar system and find out how to establish thriving human settlements on other planets. Before it’s too late, and the sooner the better. From this perspective, space exploration is not a waste of money but a wise and urgent investment in the future of humanity.
Space expansion comes before space exploration, in the sense that it provides ultimate reasons for space exploration. Universal, teleological cosmic forces are pulling us up toward the stars.
So let’s follow Elon Musk, Capt’n of Spaceship Earth. Let’s return to the Moon and build permanent lunar settlements. Then let’s build those cities on Mars! A city on Mars could look like this:
OK, I cheated. This picture from NASA, taken by crew members aboard the International Space Station, shows the Al-Jawf Oasis in Eastern Libya. But this is how I imagine a picture of an early outpost on Mars, with small settlements and strange infrastructure.
I won’t likely see the real thing. But I hope I’ll see the little beginnings of our adventures on Mars before logging off. And then, the planets and moons of our solar system. And then…
And then, outward and onward to the stars.
Becoming an interstellar species is our cosmic destiny. Among the stars we’ll become God-like, and then even more God-like in an endless climb to infinite transcendence, and we’ll make all the promises of religion come true.
Why won't you "likely see the real thing"?! Make your cryonics arrangements and help develop real 21st century anti-ageing and anti-death technologies !!!! :) We can do it.
Readers on Facebook comment that they don't understand my "love affair with Elon Musk." My reply:
But it is simple. At this moment Elon is the main force pushing for space expansion. Not space exploration, but space expansion. Not politically correct space science and blah-blah-blah, but human spaceflight to build a multi-planetary civilization. Elon wants to build cities on Mars.
We need to become a multi-planetary civilization asap to 1) protect humanity from catastrophes (asteroids, pandemics, wars, climate, cultural senility...) that can happen anytime to a civilization confined to one planet and 2) start moving on the road to the stars toward a transcendent cosmic future.
To me this is so much more important than the blah-blah-blah of those who hate Elon that I don't even listen to them. They might have one or two valid points, but what Elon is doing is much more important.