this post was submitted on 23 May 2026
40 points (87.0% liked)

Ask Lemmy

39679 readers
1327 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Would they always need earth to be habitable?

Because if they somehow managed to terraform and colonise another planet like mars, wouldnt they just make earth so uninhabitable that the rest of us would be forced to go where they are? (Prolly as slaves)

top 30 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] grandel@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago

They should start terra forming earth into a (more) habitable planet

[–] DomeGuy@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Two points worth making :

  1. If the entire biosphere collapsed the resulting lifeless rock would still be the single best place for humans to live in the solar system.
  2. Billionaires dont have enough money to fund a Mars colony.
[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Billionaires dont have enough money to fund a Mars colony.

but they do have enough money and influence to make money useless and enslave humanity, thus making this point moot.

[–] pastermil@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago
  1. Billionaires dont have enough money to fund a Mars colony.

More like they don't have the technology to make it as efficient as in the scifi movies.

[–] Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 27 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Where would the billions come from?

Money is nothing if there are no people who honor it.

[–] Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Additionally, the people in that class are outright incapable of maintaining their aspirations without hiring others with their money to be spent in society as an incentive. Even if mass automation occured, a single event of system failure or being presented with a new situation that they cannot figure out with their skillset could result in death or being stranded.

I believe this concept was already brought to light when that science fiction author was asked by UHNW investors how to set up a system where their bodyguards wouldn't just kill/overthrow them and take over their doomsday compounds in the event of societal or ecological collapse (I guess both as well), and the author essentially said "be nice to them".

[–] Soulifix@piefed.world 14 points 2 days ago (2 children)

We need to stop thinking about whether we'll terraform mars or the moon. We don't simply have the tools or resources to simply make it happen. All we know right now, is that billionaires have fucked this planet up.

[–] lobut@lemmy.ca 10 points 2 days ago

Especially given that it's easier to fix this planet than to terraform the Moon or Mars.

[–] theywilleatthestars@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Mars is going to be less habitable than Earth no matter what. Even if we did terraform it, it would need to be continuously maintained since it already lost its atmosphere the first time.

[–] Karl@literature.cafe 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

since it already lost its atmosphere the first time.

What?! When was that?

[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 day ago

The kind of atmosphere a planet can have in the long term depends on having enough gravity to keep gas particles from floating off into space. Mars' gravity is smaller than Earth's, which means that even if it had oxygen, that oxygen would be lost over time. Mars likely once had a dense atmosphere heavy in carbon dioxide, it wasn't lost in one specific event, but gradually losing it over a long period of time.

[–] LavaPlanet@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 day ago

It is vital, they are all entirely delusional, from consistently only breathing in their own farts.

[–] MSBBritain@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Several people have answered this with essentially: "No, because terraforming is unfeasible and expensive". I'll try and answer this question under the assumption that terraforming and leaving is feasible to do.

The core argument against billionaires is that they hoard wealth that they didn't produce.

Instead, it's the billions of humans that turn work into value, whether that's by turning a log into planks, planks into chairs, or by managing the sales operations that allow the sale of those chairs to others.

The 3.5k-ish billionaires in the world didn't create a billion euros worth of value themselves, they captured most of it from other people's work, under the justification that they provided the startup capital that allowed the plank maker to buy the log, the chair maker to buy the plank, and the sales managers to buy the chairs to sell. Depending on your ideology this is either justified or not (labour theory of value)

Because of this, getting rid of all the people that generate this wealth inevitably destroys the wealth itself, meaning that: no, they couldn't just abandon earth because we are the ones that actually create the wealth that allows them their lifestyle. No one to cook, no one to clean, no one to build giant yachts means no billionaire lifestyle.

Now, the newest question at hand in a lot of economies is: will AI and robotics essentially allow billionaires to actually produce this wealth without other people?

Even though research suggests that lots of jobs could be lost, "lots" doesn't mean all. However, I assume in part your question is motivated by the thought that billionaires will destroy the planet in an attempt to answer that question.

If they CAN, then this means someone still needs to build those robots. That's probably not going to be the billionaires themselves, so it'll be us the people doing that. In that case, the only thing stopping us from just making more, until none of us need to work anymore, is the billionaires telling us so.

If they CAN'T, they also can't leave us behind without also leaving behind pretty much all of their wealth and us just continuing on our way without them, presumably with less being skimmed off the top.

The last caveat to this is, of course, the ruined planet. This is a tricky one, but comes down to a numbers game. We outnumber billionaires by a lot and can drive the change we want by voting and pushing for regulation that benefits the many, not the few.

So, tl;dr: If they want to leave, they need to bring us along, and then they may as well not move, so we pretty much need earth.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

if robots can cook and clean then they will be able to assemble robots and likely do all the jobs from mining to manufacture.

[–] MSBBritain@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

While I'd argue in practice there is a pretty significant difference in capability between household labour, advance materials refinery, and workforce management for the sake of this argument we are obviously assuming hyper advanced robotics and in that case you're 100% right.

However, going back to my argument of "if they can replace all labour with robotics": in that kind of situation, what's to stop us from making more until every job is covered by robotics?

Then none of us need to work, and the entire concept of a billionaire becomes irrelevant.

And who even cares if a couple thousand people decide to leave with some robots? They still won't be able to bring the majority of their wealth and in that case all the more for us left on earth.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 1 points 1 day ago

well now you add in robotic soldiers and who makes them first and if they are the type that feel large sections of the world are their private property.

[–] Karl@literature.cafe 2 points 2 days ago

I'll try and answer this question under the assumption that terraforming and leaving is feasible to do.

THANK YOU!

[–] porkloin@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

We’re already their slaves. And terraforming takes a colossal amount of energy and a ton of time. Despite all the problems we keep creating for our selves, the Earth is too perfect and “easy” to ditch in favor of a non earthlike colony that requires terraforming, IMHO

[–] Elting@piefed.social 7 points 2 days ago

The human race is not capable of terraforming another planet, we can’t even fix the climate of our very nearly perfect planet.

[–] Zurgo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 day ago

A child can leave Earth without looking back, but not an old man. Jules Pierre Mao might be a titan of the system, but his memories are tied to that rock. That is Earth's real gravity. - Chrisjen Avasarala.

[–] Fizz@lemmy.nz 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

It could but not in our lifetime. Most of the earth is still habitable and there is plenty of resources available. The teraformed planet would take 1000s of years to become like earth.

[–] SpikesOtherDog@ani.social 2 points 2 days ago

I think we would need to consider more than terraforming. Somehow, we would need to add mass to the planet to get out to hold water. That probably means deorbiting the Martian moons as well as heavy planetoids from the asteroid belt.

This would need to be done in a way that does not alter the Martian orbit, but doing this may also permanently destroy the current planetary balance.

My theory is that the planet would need to be reliquified. If glassing it by deorbiting mass onto it doesn't cut it, we would probably need to use solar reflectors to increase the planet's temperature. This also has the possibility of destabilizing the orbit.

Finally, as the planet finally begins cooling, we could lob ice chunks at it until there is sufficient water. At that point, if humans still exist, we could consider forming the planet into a proper habitat.

My thought is that we would have already figured out artificial gravity and left the planet due to falling rocks.

[–] Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 2 days ago

Some may be delusional enough to believe that they can survive without the rest of humanity, but the irony is the billionare/epstein class benefit the most from society's status quo being maintained (or the facade of stability being maintained). A nation's currency has no value if faith in its institutions collapses after all.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 2 points 1 day ago

I guarantee they will think it is way before that is the case.

[–] DagwoodIII@piefed.social 5 points 2 days ago

It's actually the basis of the science fiction series I'm currently reading.

"Children of Time" by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

[–] quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago

What the fuck.

[–] etherphon@piefed.world 1 points 2 days ago

I should hope they become useless to us much sooner.