Comments
By silverquiet 2024-03-111:454 reply I was listening to The NY Times Sunday Read this morning which was about some of the isolation research NASA is doing on people in advance of a possible Mars mission. But what stood out to me was a bit of a throw-away line about the reasons people look to Mars; among them was the sense that the planet is dying. I also had a hair dresser casually throw the same idea out to me awhile ago as sort of run of the mill conversation.
I know that somewhere in the last decade or so, I lost any hope for the future myself, and I think that that is an essential aspect of the desire to have children. This article touched on it as well.
One simple counterargument to those who think that our planet dying is a rationale for driving their desire for going to mars is that the most habitable part of mars is incomparably worse/more dead than the worst possible place on earth, be it Antarctica, Death Valley, the Sahara, or next to an active volcano. One could argue that a post-nuclear-apocalypse earth would be more habitable than mars, but I think that all these arguments would get silly fast.
By jvanderbot 2024-03-112:112 reply I think most of the appeal of going to Mars is a sense of "starting over" and or course not bringing "them" with, for your favorite definition of "them".
By timschmidt 2024-03-113:282 reply I don't think so. I think everyone who considers the idea seriously is aware that Mars is much harsher than Earth, that many people will die there working to colonize it, and that society on Earth won't be going away any time soon (hence, nothing will start over).
What makes Mars colonies (and moon colonies) interesting to me is a recognition that recorded civilization is only about 12,500 years old. That prior to that the entire planet was experiencing an ice age which lasted ~100,000 years, and prior to that people were already "behaviorally modern" in ways which left impressions in the archeological record.
This suggests that our home planet could have a meteor or ice age shaped surprise for us any moment, and that it might not be a bad idea to have remote backups.
I also think that working to live somewhere other than Earth will teach us much more about exactly why and how Earth is special.
It's the last part I agree with more: if I wanted to advance, in a serious way, the cause of enviromental and ecological science, then the tasks of building and establishing off-world biospheres will do both those things in environments which (1) we can actually kind of afford to fail in and (2) which will drive home the absolute point that this biosphere is incredibly valuable.
Give those ideas a run, and then you've made a compelling case for subsidizing and bootstrapping the move of dirty heavy industry and mining off-world: metals from the asteroid belt, manufacturing in high orbit - the ecological science to make it more sustainable.
You then also get some economic benefits once you're up and running: off-world industry would find the products of the biosphere very valuable - more so then anything so simple as oil, metal or refined chemicals. Putting a distinct price on keeping the Earth's biodiversity alive and protected because people want to be able to buy "live soil" - to borrow from the expanse - would put us in a much better long term position as a species.
By timschmidt 2024-03-113:49 Most folks discount potential negative future outcomes - especially those which can't be controlled. It's called optimism bias. But something tells me that space rocks don't care and behave much more in line with natural distributions. Climactic history of Earth is nuts. WAY more extreme than our little 12,000 year slice of history would suggest. Which means we're in for surprises if we can avoid killing ourselves for long enough.
By jvanderbot 2024-03-113:291 reply Ok, valid. But I don't see why you disagree with the sentiment that exploring and colonizing elsewhere is because of a desire for a "fresh start". You mention work, but that's part of it.
By timschmidt 2024-03-113:362 reply Fresh starts are available right here on Earth to anyone willing to hike into the woods, build a cabin, and hunt for food. It's a tough life, and very few choose it.
Living on Mars, on the other hand, will require a much higher degree of dependence on others as there are no woods, no food to hunt or farm, and nothing but rock from which to make necessities. Colonizing Mars or a moon will require a great deal of interaction with all the social and technical constructs that anyone wanting to "start over" is seeking to distance themselves from.
By jvanderbot 2024-03-114:011 reply This (you can just build a cabin) was true in colonial Europe, and yet we had a lot of settlers in USA. I think it's an illogical desire, but one core to our being and based on the perceived reward of having "everything the light touches" rather than whatever you are left with, plus gov, etc.
I only say this in case we weren't clear on each other's scale argument. Building a cabin and going for a hike is very different from building a new society from scratch. I do think both are desires but the second is the one I'm talking about.
By timschmidt 2024-03-114:20 I agree with you. The comparison to sailing across oceans in wooden ships to the 6mo journey to Mars is one I've made before. But also people were encountered in the Americas in every trip over that I'm aware of, and in both the sailing and spacing varieties feels more to me like a society extending it's reach than starting over. Maybe I'm wrong.
By quantified 2024-03-114:02 If you want to be Martian, live in the woods, build a cabin, and eat yeast. Not enough game and wild resources to sustain many people anymore in many places.
By sameerds 2024-03-115:18 The pessimist in me thinks that the people going to Mars will end up bringing with them the same prejudices and the same ineffective laws anyway. It would be great if they could really "start over", as in build society from scratch, make it much more fluid the way David Graeber claimed it was way back in human history.
By quantified 2024-03-114:002 reply There is no way that it will be easier to turn a completely lifeless planet into an inhabitable one. The Marsers may as well purchase some barren land on Earth and live in Mars colony structures, at least they'll have breathable air. If humanity makes Earth uninhabitable, how would a Martian civilization make Mars inhabitable? Better caring for the environment? Why not care for it here?
By M95D 2024-03-118:32 Can't just build Mars colony structures on barren land on Earh. Permits are needed. And then, insteand of being financed by some space agency, constrction materials and workers have to be paid by the "colonists". Let's say somehow the "colony" is built. You know what comes next: taxes!
The idea that "marsers" think mars is a liftraft to escape too from a dying earth is, as far as I can tell, an lie spread to discredit people interested in in mars colonization.
No one believes that mars is going to be a better/easier place to live than earth. It's idiotic, and only spouted by people that don't like the idea of Mars, and said to make "marsers" look like idiots in association.
By jwells89 2024-03-114:54 This has been my experience. Nobody who has looked into Mars inhabitation at any depth considers it a “plan B”, at least not on any timescale relevant to those alive today — there’s maybe some value as insurance against a planet-killer asteroid or something similarly catastrophic, but that only comes into play once civilization has been thoroughly established on Mars, which is centuries into the future at soonest.
The chief value of Mars has two parts. First, it opens up the first true frontier we’ve had in over a century and could serve as a sort of societal pressure relief valve. Second, as soon as there’s people living on Mars the impetus for developing technology to make living there (and in space) more safe, sustainable, and comfortable increases dramatically, which is a critical step in achieving true mastery of human spaceflight and ensuring that the species is not forever stuck in the bottom of Earth’s gravity well.
Some may argue that the moon can serve these purposes as well and that may be true to a degree, but its proximity is a liability. Moon inhabitations are close enough to be well within the sphere of Earth’s political influence even if it achieves self-sustainability, which itself is unlikely because Earth is always there as a convenient source of supplies and escape hatch, just a week away. There’s a certain level of necessary commitment and autonomy that comes with building a civilization on Mars which I believe is key.
By M95D 2024-03-118:23 It's about hope. There is no hope in sight that the Earth will get better in the next few generation's lifetimes. Life on Mars, if we choose to colonize it, will start bad but it will only get better and better.
By HumblyTossed 2024-03-1113:141 reply People's desire to "go to mars" is more about hope than it is actually thinking it's possible. This planet is fucked. Life is fucked. All for those quarterlies.
By Eddy_Viscosity2 2024-03-1114:12 > is more about hope
People need to believe that the future will be better than the present, especially when the present sucks. If you don't have that, what is there?
The ease with which people hold those views - that the Earth is dying, that the world is hopeless, the casual embrace of nihilism - has always struck me as odd, because the reasons they cite (climate change, war, the economy) are relatively speaking not bad. They're not great, but it's not 14th Century Europe bad. Half the population of Europe died in that century. And yet, civilization trotted on. So maybe the question is why in the modern era, with all our technology, so many just give up and believe obviously wrong but popularized phrases like "the planet is dying".
By defrost 2024-03-116:00 Relatively few people believe "the planet is dying", that's more an allegation thrown about by those against change from unregulated growth.
Considerable numbers of people accept that the resource draw of current population numbers at present and ever growing levels of consumption pose increasing risk to human habitation.
They're also bright enough to be opposed to entering a time in which half the human population dies.
By M95D 2024-03-118:41 All parents want their children to have better lives. 14th century parents were no different. 15th century was better than 14th. Far better. Renaissance started. Looking at the present, 22rd century will absolutely NOT be better than 21st.
Who would want children now? Only African countries. Looking at their present living conditions, their lives will probably get a lot better.
By thefz 2024-03-1111:15 > the sense that the planet is dying.
Not dying by itself, but rather WE are killing it.
By hagbard_c 2024-03-116:56 Yes, a typical NYT way of portraying the sense of adventure and exploration in a negative 'boohoo bad humans kill planets' way, as if people need more things to darken their future with.
People look for Mars because they're looking for a new frontier, not because of 'the planet dying'. They long for a revival of the days of exploration when maps were filled with 'here there be dragons'. They do not want to 'flee' earth, they want to expand beyond it.
This newly revived wanderlust is a positive thing, not a negative. It is far better for people to be looking forward to rockets to Mars than to rockets to their capital cities. Let's make it happen and let's ignore the doomsayers of the NYT who'd rather have us repent, all ye sinners for the end is nigh.
By decafninja 2024-03-112:453 reply I look at our friends and peer aged family who have kids, and can’t help but see them just tired. Physically they are perpetually exhausted and visibly more aged. Financially, unless they were pretty well off before having a child, they’re struggling.
Do they look unhappy? I don’t know. All of our friends with children post pictures of their kids in mundane everyday settings nonstop on Instagram so I almost have too much information on how they live, at least outwardly.
But it’s probably taboo to openly say you’re unhappy about having a child. The closest I’ve come is seeing some cracks while talking to one of my best friends about how tired he is.
Who will be more happy when we’re 60 or 70? Even that I’m not sure. I know plenty of elderly people who have little to no contact with their adult kids. Some with kids who are estranged and hate them. Is that any better than not having kids at all?
By xyzelement 2024-03-114:011 reply If one’s goal in life is to be “less tired” then for sure having young children does not contribute to that goal.
If one wants something more like the feeling of a life meaningfully lived - it will take energy no matter what form that meaning takes.
Fwiw I am definitely more tired as a parent then when I was single but it’s what I would call “good tired” - work you are choosing to do.
I agree with this. Also, the period of time where children are very tiring is relatively short, perhaps 2-3 years per child. Yes, this adds up when you have 2 or 3 children, but there is also a lot of joy to leaven the fatigue.
Then you have the period before they are 11 or so, when they are just pure magic to be around. You get to see the world through their eyes. You get to be around someone who is always eager to learn from you and who thinks you’re amazing.
And then you have a teenager and your relationship matures and deepens (hopefully anyway) and although there are often difficulties, there can also be a kind of friendship there with deep meaningfulness. And/or someone who will make fun of you and take your ego down a peg or two.
For me, finding meaning in life has long been a struggle. Is it the pursuit of pleasure? Is it the pursuit of knowledge? So much of all that is ephemeral. How about, instead, sacrifice? Putting others first? Investing in future generations?
One thing I do believe for sure: having a child makes most people wiser and less self-centered and selfish. That alone is worth the fatigue.
By decafninja 2024-03-121:591 reply What is the goal of having kids though, from a personal perspective?
Sample size of 1, but even looking around my generally stable middle to upper middle class social circle, I feel like despite putting your best effort in, it’s a 50:50 coin toss that you’ll be in your later years with a wonderful relationship with your adult children versus having them be virtual strangers or even estranged. Is that considered meaningful, and worth the sacrifices?
I see a lot of elderly people who never see or hear from their kids other than a phone call during birthdays and maybe a visit during holidays, even if they live not too far away. I would hate to be in that kind of relationship with my future child.
My wife and I see our parents multiple times a month, frequently eat out together, and even air travel together at least once a year. I would love that kind of relationship with my child, but I feel this is a massive edge case, not the norm, especially in American society.
By xyzelement 2024-03-129:16 Nothing in life is guaranteed but some things are worth the fight and the risk.
And I suspect you have more control over your outcomes than you think. How you raise your kids matters. Them seeing you dedicate time to your parents sends a good message than other kids may not be seeing for example.
By ProllyInfamous 2024-03-114:04 >But it’s probably taboo to openly say you’re unhappy about having a child.
Imagine (like I never have to) that the man who raised you says to you: "if I could go back in time I definitely wouldn't have children again."
Most honest thing he ever said. I agree with him.
Those who have children will never wonder what could have been.
Even a horrific outcome answers that question.
There is no other way to do do.
By toomuchtodo 2024-03-113:17 Have kids, partner and I occasionally talk about what life would’ve been like if we made different choices. We’re on rails now until they’re adults, but we try to help others make different choices when the topic comes up and we are asked for our opinion based on life experience.
Are you wealthy? Robust family support? Low volatility in your living and work situations? Strong relationship that will endure what children incur? Might be fine; without those components, you’re gonna have a bad time (statistically speaking and from a preponderance of the data).
> There is no other way to do do.
You can come to a conclusion you made a poor choice and still choose to do the best you can because it’s the right thing to do.
https://thehill.com/business/3608647-new-estimate-projects-c...
http://blog.dol.gov/2023/01/24/new-childcare-data-shows-pric...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3171291/
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10....
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8062063/
(n=1, ymmv)
By silverquiet 2024-03-113:11 Anyone can wonder what might have been - those with 2 children could wonder how more would have changed their lives, or could wonder what might have been had they had none. Some changes we make to our lives forever close off other paths.
By ericd 2024-03-112:13 If you look at the graph of different countries' birth rates, it looks like the US rate declined rapidly in the years following 2008 (it was a local maximum before that). US birth rate also had trouble during the 70s energy crisis. So maybe it's just as simple as affordability issues/economic turmoil. Right now, inflation's running very hot, especially when you focus on housing and services like childcare and education.
One interesting thing, Italy in the early 90s experienced a big dip and then recovered somewhat. Anyone have any ideas about what might've happened there?
South Korea, a big dip around 2015/2016.
