this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2026
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I still think O'Neill was probably right, we could do this if we decided we needed or wanted to bad enough. There's issues to figure out, but that's just science. I got hooked on the idea of space colonization when as a kid in the 70s reading an article in a National Geographic issue exploring the idea, using a fictional opener of someone writing back home about living on one. They used some of Davis' works there.
100%.
The one thing global society lacks is direction. Shit even my dad told me that my whole life.
We're like, let's all compete about money and random great things will or might happen as a by-product.
Bitch we need to figure out what we want to do and do that, not just wing it and hope for the best.
I think the issue for space colonization is there's no real practical reason to do it beyond that it's cool and interesting. There's still absolutely tons of largely unused land in deserts, polar climates, and even the ocean that are far more accessible and habitable than space is.
Cool and interesting seems like two amazing reasons to do it.
I hate that we live under a mental paradigm that the only thing that matters is efficiency, ad infinitum and ad nauseam.
Shit, the nazis were super efficient, doesn't mean they had a good thing going.
Take one more step, and you've got it. Efficiency only matters because it maximizes PROFIT, and Profit is all that matters. We are Ferengi, at our core.
So the reason to do it is because uncontrolled, unregulated profit-gouging has made the Earth literally unliveable. We haven't reached that point yet, but we are certainly on that path, and those who would protect us from the inevitable outcome, won't even acknowledge that the problem exists, calling it a hoax, and even forcing their alternative hoax to be governmental dogma.
It seems like those who control the money have already decided that this is our future, so it's perfectly acceptable to destroy this environment, in order to create enough profit to build the next environment, which will be reserved for the Sociopathic Oligarchs.
Also, it could travel to find distant worlds to colonise
(It'd have to accelerate slooooowly though)
Due to low gravity and few pathogens, it might be something people will do for retirement. You can probably expand the time of healthy active years well into your 80/90ties that way.
Maybe... or would your body simply rot away faster since you aren't using it as much? I would be inclined to think the latter.
I suspect they'd need to do some power lifting to avoid accelerated osteoporosis in the lower gravity, as the bones do indeed require to be put under strain and shock to stay healthy.
Depends on how active you are and how low the gravity is. A lower gravity like on Mars would be probably be more helpful than harmful for elderly people.
Thank god that isn't a thing on Earth....
However bad it is here I'm sure it would be much worse in space, considering astronauts have all their muscles atrophy even with a pretty intense workout regime.
Everybody will just move around on hover-recliners, like in Wall-E.
Even with the technological issues of space colonization solved, how long before the unsolved social issues cause it to come crashing down?
Given the way society is currently set up, if we pursue space colonization then it'll become a luxury for billionaires to escape an unlivable planet. Worse, the hoards of the capital will have even less desires to fix things.
(This is not some doomer or accelerationist take, just hating on billionaires.)
This is my assumption about what's likely to occur as well. And a song about it: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Mars for the Rich
If we could agree on such a great project and make it happen, that would have a massive benefit for our overcoming the very problem you are talking about.
If we could just agree to do something great together then that in itself would solve a lot of social ills.
Cooperation, not competition. That is the key.
Great, that covers the first generation in charge. What are the long term educational, economic, political, social, and cultural institutions that will keep things going when everyone alive will have been born on the ship/station, and nobody has first hand knowledge of how it started?