Does Humanity Lack Cognitive Capacity For Settling Mars?

[cronus]

What is "cognitive capacity" anyway? Sounds like some salad you made up. We've definitely got the cognitive skills to get to the planets/stars, what we lack is the social organisation (at present) to do it. That of course ties back to individual cognitive deficits, but segwaying into that recent thread of mine, perhaps failed social organisation is an emergent property of lots of individual social beings. How the fuck do we change emergent properties, if "we" are individuals who don't have access to the means necessary to change properties of a higher level of abstraction/organisation?

Thinking room. Why call it salad? Cos you ain't any cognitive capacity to think outside the box I put you in.

[pErvinalia]

Of course we've got the thinking room for it. The problem is you are speaking of a population of people as if they have one brain. Speaking in salad is silly. You will never get to the root of any problem with salad. You need meat and potatoes!

[cronus]

Of course we've got the thinking room for it. The problem is you are speaking of a population of people as if they have one brain. Speaking in salad is silly. You will never get to the root of any problem with salad. You need meat and potatoes!

Maybe there is some confusion. When I say 'humanity' I mean both as a large mass of people and as a set of unique individuals. Like it really is. Not as a idea.

[pErvinalia]

"Cognitive capacity" is an empty term. It doesn't actually mean anything when applied to a group of people. Groups of people don't "think". The emit behaviours and outcomes. The behaviours and outcomes we emit don't lend themselves at present to reaching the planets/stars. The question you should be asking is: Does humanity lack the social organisation for settling Mars? Framing the question in the right terms will lead to more meaningful answers.

[cronus]

"Cognitive capacity" is an empty term. It doesn't actually mean anything when applied to a group of people. Groups of people don't "think". The emit behaviours and outcomes. The behaviours and outcomes we emit don't lend themselves at present to reaching the planets/stars. The question you should be asking is: Does humanity lack the social organisation for settling Mars? Framing the question in the right terms will lead to more meaningful answers.

Not thinking may be popular, ain't merely behaviours 'happy-clappy optimism' that got folks to the moon. They sat down and talked and thought and thought and talked. That's how they did it before the internet....natural human networks, thinking in groups and as groups. And it worked too.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

There's no point in settling Mars. None whatsoever. It's fundamentally unsuitable to long-term habitation...

In the long-long-loong term the entire fucking universe is unsuitable for habitation. If you're going to think in those terms, you might as well say there's no point in humanity existing anywhere at all - including Earth.

Human beings living out human lives on Mars surely have just as much (or little, depending on how you choose to see it) point to their existence as human beings living out human lives anywhere else.

...You can't live in one-third gravity for long periods without serious harm to your health...

Again. You can't live anywhere without "serious harm to your health". The mortality rate for the condition known as "life", whether on this or any other planet, currently remains 100%.

You might live a shorter life on Mars sure; but people lived shorter lives 300 years ago - it didn't drive humanity to extinction.

...or raise children in less that one g...

[citation needed]

[mistermack]

Well, I'm applying the standards we operate today.

We don't send kids up chimneys any more, or test new medicines on them.

Who is going to be the first to experiment on their own kid, by giving birth on Mars? It's not going to happen in today's environment. It's very unlikely that kids could grow up healthy, without 1g of gravity. Astronauts lose bone mass and muscle, even with extreme fitness regimes.

Adult people might volunteer to live there, but when I said long-term, I was talking about proper colonisation, people being conceived, born and dying there.

In any case, there is no need to colonise planets like Mars.
Once you have the ability to build things in space, using materials from the Moon and Mars, you can make space stations as big as you like. You can make a spinning space station, with living areas that have exactly 1g of artificial gravity. The raw materials can be lifted off from the Moon, using very little energy, so the stations can grow to enormous sizes, and have thick shielding from harmful rays.

People could work on Mars and the Moon for shorter periods, with their families living on space stations.

[RESiNATE]

I think, purely based on paranoia and disgust, that there is a very active program to explore the realities of 'moving planet'. I mean, it is the best interests of The 12 to have a backup plan.

What if Agenda 21 fails?

Actually, I reckon I'm just thinking bollocks LOL

[cronus]

A hideous plague that killed a third of people might have the unintended plus side of making space appear less risky than staying on Earth?

[mistermack]

A hideous plague that killed a third of people might have the unintended plus side of making space appear less risky than staying on Earth?

Less risky to the species. Yes.

Especially if you do both.

[laklak]

...The problem is you are speaking of a population of people as if they have one brain.

There are large populations that don't have one brain between them.

You need meat and potatoes!

Fuckin A. I'm thinking about making a Sunday roast dinner. Beef, tatties, carrots, Yorkshire pud and gravy, nowt a vile green thing in sight. Ooo - neeps. Haven't had neeps in donkey's.