Musk, Mars and x-risk

Kawoomba

Elon Musk, the billionaire founder and CEO of the private spaceflight company SpaceX, wants to help establish a Mars colony of up to 80,000 people by ferrying explorers to the Red Planet for perhaps $500,000 a trip.

Relevant Sagan quote:

(...) we've put all our eggs in one basket. If we were on many worlds and were to mess up down here, there's a way for the human species to continue. I don't for a moment propose that the Earth is a disposable planet, and we have to put enormous efforts into making sure we don't muss up down here. But there is a chance.

This should also at least somewhat reduce the x-risk stemming from uFAI (a subset of uFAI's may not concern themselves with space travel), and may significantly reduce the x-risk posed by many other x-risk categories (bioengineered threats, catastrophic climate change, global nuclear catastrophe, grey goo scenarios, etcetera).

For total x-risk reduction, prima facie it's unclear to me how supporting an endeavor such as Musk's stacks up against the SI's effectiveness, measured by total x-risk reduction per donated currency unit.

What's your take?

Article on space.com

Elon Musk, the billionaire founder and CEO of the private spaceflight company SpaceX, wants to help establish a Mars colony of up to 80,000 people by ferrying explorers to the Red Planet for perhaps $500,000 a trip.

Relevant Sagan quote:

(...) we've put all our eggs in one basket. If we were on many worlds and were to mess up down here, there's a way for the human species to continue. I don't for a moment propose that the Earth is a disposable planet, and we have to put enormous efforts into making sure we don't muss up down here. But there is a chance.

What's your take?

I am a fan of the idea since they announced it and I wouldn't see why someone on here could be against it.

We have no idea if a self sustaining colony is at all feasible. If it cannot eb self sustaining than it doesn't reduce existential risk at all and (as well as opportunity costs mentioned by others) distracts attention and political capital from keeping earth habitable.

11Slackson14y

Opportunity costs. We'd prefer it was spent on a Mars colony than on most things, but if we're spending money on x-risk reduction, it might not be the most cost-effective way to help.

13JoshuaZ14y

Never forget opportunity costs of limited resources. To use a different example saving cute puppies isn't something anyone is against, but there's a question when one has limited resources of whether giving money to animal shelters is a the best use of it.