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EGI comments on Open thread, Nov. 16 - Nov. 22, 2015 - Less Wrong
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http://boingboing.net/2015/11/16/our-generation-ships-will-sink.html
Kim Stanley Robinson, author of the new scifi novel Aurora and back in the day the Mars trilogy, on how the notion of interstellar colonization and terraforming is really fantasy and we shouldnt let it color our perceptions of the actual reality we have, and the notion of diminishing returns on technology.
He doesnt condemn the genre but tries to provide a reality check for those who take their science fiction literally.
Um, no, we cannot colonise the stars with current tech. What a surprise! We cannot even colonise mars, antarctica or the ocean floor.
Of course you need to solve bottom up manufacturing (nanotech or some functional eqivalent) first, making you independent from eco system services, agricultural food production, long supply chains and the like. This also vastly reduces radiation problems and probably solves ageing. Then you have a fair chance.
So yes, if we wreck earth the stars are not plan B, we need to get our shit together first.
If at this point there is still a reason to send canned monkeys is a completely different question.
I've never thought colonizing worlds outside of the solar system with human beings was reasonable. If we are somehow digitized, and continue to exist as computer programs, then sure.
Are there any science fiction novels that take this approach?
Charles Stross' Saturn's Children and Neptune's Brood has robots with minds based on humans as humanity's successor.
David Moffitt's Genesis Quest and Second Genesis has specs for humans sent out by radio and recreated by aliens.
James Hogan's Voyage from Yesteryear has a probe which has humans recreated on another planet and raised by robots.
The characters in Greg Egan's Diaspora are mostly sentient software, who send out several probes containing copies of themselves.
Alternately, learn to upload people. Which is still probably going to require nanotech. This way, you're not dependent on ecosystems because you don't need anything organic. You can also modify computers to be resistant to radiation more easily than you can people.
If we can't thrive on a wrecked Earth, the stars aren't for us.