Category: Future

“I’ve always had a reasonably optimistic view of where we’re going, and I’ve tended to look at the positive, in terms of progress that we’re making,” he says. “Globally, the world’s in a much better situation than it’s been in past periods, despite the headlines on the war in Syria and other places where bad things are happening. There have been fewer people killed in wars, or genocides, or other forms of violence in the last decade or two than there have been in any other decade. We ought to take consolation in that.”

Source: Peter Singer, the most influential ethicist alive, says the world is actually becoming a better place — Quartz

Looking at the Anthropocene through the lens of astrobiology could help us move on with the planet — so it doesn’t move on without us, says physicist Adam Frank.

These studies show us that Earth has been many planets in its past: a potential water world before major continents grew; a totally glaciated snowball world; a hothouse jungle planet. In understanding these transformations, we’ve gotten to see one example of life and a planet co-evolving over billions of years.

Astrobiology is fundamentally a study of planets and their “habitability” for life. But sustainability is really just a concern over the habitability of one planet (Earth) for a certain kind of species (homo sapiens) with a certain kind of organization (modern civilization). That means our urgent questions about sustainability are a subset of questions about habitability. The key point, here, is the planets in our own solar system, like Mars, show us that habitability is not forever. It will likely be a moving target over time. The same idea is likely true for sustainability — and we are going to need a plan for that.

We’re not a plague on the planet. Instead, we are simply another thing the Earth has done in its long history. We’re an “expression of the planet,” as Kim Stanley Robinson puts it. It’s also quite possible that we are not the first civilization is cosmic history to go through something like this. From that perspective, climate change and the sustainability crises may best be seen as our “final exam” (as Raymond PierreHumbert calls it). Better yet, it’s our coming of age as a true planetary species.

We will either make it across to the other side with the maturity to “think like a planet” or the planet will just move on without us.

Source: Climate Change And The Astrobiology Of The Anthropocene : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR

It’s gonna take you to Mars.

Last time the US Congress checked with NASA, the cost to send a five-person crew to Mars was $50 billion. $10 billion a person. Elon thinks that to make the blue circle sufficiently large, it needs to cost $500,000 a person. 1/20,000 of the current cost.

That’s like looking at the car industry and saying, “Right now a new Honda costs around $20,000. To make this a viable industry, we need to get the cost of a new car down to $1.”

Source: SpaceX’s Big Fucking Rocket – The Full Story – Wait But Why

There are really two fundamental paths. History is going to bifurcate along two directions. One path is we stay on Earth forever, and then there will be some eventual extinction event. I do not have an immediate doomsday prophecy, but eventually history suggests that there will be some doomsday event. The alternative is to become a spacefaring civilization and a multi-planet species, which I hope you would agree that is the right way to go. Yes?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1YxNYiyALg&t=1320

The company’s controversial design choices make it hard to imagine the alternatives they preclude.

What else might have come to pass instead? And what alternatives might yet be possible?

Source: Apple’s New Headphone Jack Is About Control – The Atlantic