The Impossibility of Growth

[Elok]

We couldn't be arsed to stop climate change, and we're still doing basically nothing about the quite real threat of asteroids. Barring the invention of FTL transport or communication, anybody we send to another system is effectively dead to us; we can't have any meaningful interaction, so from our perspective they cease to exist. It just doesn't sound likely.

[Sava]

so from our perspective they cease to exist

Except those of us who like... are aware of their existence. Communications may take time, but wouldn't take forever.

I'm surprised to hear you say such a thing.

[Lorizael]

We couldn't be arsed to stop climate change, and we're still doing basically nothing about the quite real threat of asteroids. Barring the invention of FTL transport or communication, anybody we send to another system is effectively dead to us; we can't have any meaningful interaction, so from our perspective they cease to exist. It just doesn't sound likely.

I don't see us doing anything proactively. We'll do it when we have no other choice. Or we'll do it when the cost becomes trivial by some means.

[Elok]

Except those of us who like... are aware of their existence. Communications may take time, but wouldn't take forever.

I'm surprised to hear you say such a thing.

You mean, to hear me specifically say it? Why? Suppose it takes a hundred years to reach the other system. At first we'll have frequent, regular communications with the colonists aboard ship (assuming no suspended animation or what-have-you), but gradually the delay will grow from a few minutes to hours, then days, weeks . . . we can shout messages continuously in either direction, but at some point it will cease to be a conversation, just us chucking updates past each other. All the while, enthusiasm will be declining as the reality sinks in that babies born the day they launched will be retirees before they land. And nothing much will happen aboard the ship, while society on earth continues to advance, technologically, socially, economically. Think how different the world was in 1914. By the time the colony actually lands and establishes itself, they'll be an interesting curiosity, but so far removed from anything in our everyday experience that they'll no longer mean very much to us.

Assuming low relativistic effects, the eventual colonizers will be our distant cousins, speaking a fairly different language or languages, belonging to a largely alien culture, with radically different concerns from our own. Even the countries and cultures they came from may no longer exist, or may have changed past recognition. We can send them our questions, maybe get responses in several years, assuming they aren't too busy setting up a colony to answer. A relationship is out of the question, and all the other things that foster closer bonds between peoples--like trade or tourism--will be impractical. In the end, they'll be less to us than China was to Marco Polo's Europe. At least people could visit China, and we got spices out of them.

I don't see us doing anything proactively. We'll do it when we have no other choice. Or we'll do it when the cost becomes trivial by some means.

The most feasible possibility, to my way of thinking, is the dissident option: a group with the technological means to leave becomes so disgusted with us that they up and leave to build a life elsewhere, like religious dissenters in the colonial era. Given the complete cutting-off such a move entails, enmity strikes me as a more likely motivator than altruism.

[AAAAAAAAH!]

Spices were from Southeast Asia. China was mainly know for silk.

[Kidlicious]

I do my best to reduce my consumption of resources, within the possibilities of the world I live in, like riding a bike around or being vegan.

Ultimately the solution can only be political.

Let's make a comparison with taxes.

It's not rational to pay taxes unless everyone else does. If taxes were not compulsory, people wouldn't pay them. This holds true for ecologically responsible behavior. There's a large cost associated to it, but only because few people adopt it. The more people are ecologically responsible, the less costly it is to everyone. The only way to achieve this result though is through collective organization.

You want to outlaw meat and motor vehicles? You suck!

[Kidlicious]

Sorry but you're astonishingly retarded.

You extract raw materials from all around the world, ship them all around the world for first transformation, ship transformed materials from all around the world to China for second transformation, ship final product to the US for consumption, ship electronic garbage to Africa.

Which supports 7 billion human beings.

[pchang]

To colonize other solar systems, it would be easiest to send small, self-replicating robots with frozen sperm, eggs, and seeds for many species. Once they arrive, the robots start terraforming. When they are ready, the seeds are planted, the eggs fertilized and voila!

[Elok]

Er, in that model, how are the human infants going to raise themselves?

[Lorizael]

The robots will raise the infants, of course.

[Elok]

So, humanity will continue to exist, but in a really FUBAR way due to being raised without the human contact and nurturing they require, and no preexisting social structure to model their society on?

[Lorizael]

Why can't robots provide nurturing, or be programmed with knowledge of social structures? We're already assuming these are robots that can terraform a planet and presumably build a livable environment for the humans they're going to raise.

[Kidlicious]

Some of us would be better off if we were raised by robots.

[Lorizael]

Definitely, if the alternative is being raised by feminists.

[Aeson]

Why can't robots provide nurturing, or be programmed with knowledge of social structures?

Because they're programmed by nerds who have little understanding of social structures

Or, because once we get to the point where robots can provide nurturing and observe social structures, we'd be better off with just robots and no humans. SUPREMACY!