Amanda joined Chris Clarke and PZ Myers in poking Stephen Hawking for saying the following:
“It is important for the human race to spread out into space for the survival of the species,” Hawking said. “Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of.”
Like them, I feel this, among many other things, reinforces the escapist fantasy that we can someday get off this rock before it gets *too* bad and thus we have no need to actually clean it up right now. This is irresponsible commentary in the face of our urgent need to raise awareness about addressing our environmental issues immediately. Hawking’s voice is heard by the world, and he should use it for better purposes.
In the Pandagon comments, while taking Hawking and his defenders to task, I tried to express some level of understanding for those who claim to want both attention paid to the environment and a more dedicated push for space colonization. I can appreciate from whence it came. And yet I was wrong to indulge it at all.
Everyone ought to clam up about space colonization right this very instant. Drop it. Let it go. Grow up. For the foreseeable future, the colony fetish is foolish and unworkable (Chris and PZ are all over the details). Like the people who cling to it, I was a bit of a sci-fi buff growing up and attached many a daydream to the notion. But to argue that we can both pursue it and a little homeworld clean-up is irresponsible.
Every dollar or second or drop of oil spent pursuing it or even investigating it comes directly at the expense of anything else for which we could use those resources. And guess where we should be devoting any attention or expenditure we can? Yup, on getting the planet right. This isn’t to say every single other expense in the budget should be dropped in favor of clean-up/reform, but the space race is fools’ gold if we don’t first attend to this planet. It buys us nothing when compared to the risks of environmental disaster.
Some Pandagonians argued that cleanup won’t stop a meteor from hitting or our sun from going supernova, and that’s true. But most every single person will die when those things occur, regardless of whether we sent a handful out into the aether to see what’s the haps on Rigel VII. Sure, we save Plato by shoving off Earth, but so what? Can someone really claim we need to waste a lot of time and money to try and develop some presently inconceivable solution that *might* protect a few people and our knowledge from a vague, unknowable, unlikely threat when we are nearly certain that the dangers from environmental destruction are real and possibly only decades away?
Other Pandagonians also claim this sort of pursuit helps lead to some vague One World Consciousness. I’d like to remind them that those books they’re reading in which this occurs are fictional, and we have yet to demonstrate any major multinational coalition of substance can last even a century. I’m sure astronauts come back from beyond humbled and all, but we hardly have the time to send everyone up on the space elevator one at a time so we can sing and hold hands on the way down.
If we are lucky, there will be a time for us to invest in looking beyond the planet again. If we were a responsible nation, though, we would dump any part of the space program that had to do with extraterrestrial exploration or research and invest every penny and scientific resource we free up into reliably reducing emissions and so forth.
If science folks insist on indulging a fantasy, chase after a Mr. Fusion. I hear we have some extra garbage lying around this dump.
Every dollar or second or drop of oil spent pursuing it or even investigating it comes directly at the expense of anything else for which we could use those resources. And guess where we should be devoting any attention or expenditure we can? Yup, on getting the planet right.
Tell you what – you get to work on reducing military spending first, as the bigger waste. I’ll be generous and let you put 95c on every dollar saved into cleaning up the planet, if you give me 5c for exploiting space.
I hope that nickel is meant for exploration, not exploitation. Personally, I wouldn’t leave this planet even if it were possible and even if my life depended on it. I am glad for projects like Hubble, though. If that doesn’t show folks the universe began considerably before 9:00 am on a Monday 5,000-10,000 years ago, nothing will.
Research money is a non-starter of an issue. People who oppose indulging space colonizing as an issue tend to support redirecting the money into space research that utilitizes robots and other research methods that are both superior and more cost-effective than manned space missions.
Wow, you guys are such long-term thinkers. Here I am, trying to figure out if my supply of laundry detergent will last until my next trip to Sam’s. I gladly relinquish my long-term fate to your capable hands.
Hey, if it worked in Civ II
Hrm, I’m kind of with the Phoenician here. In terms of things we waste our money on, is space exploration really that high? Besides, sensible resource spending seems to be a bit more of a complicated problem than just deciding what our priorities are. Most of the time, I’m not sure that we have that much control over it. It all kind of self-organises, much of it seemingly driven by some pretty primitive urges.
Speaking of primitive urges, perhaps conquering Mars would be nice alternative outlet for all of that pent-up fear and aggression a certain superpower has been exhibiting of late? I’m pretty sure it’s lifeless, and if it’s not (like that meteor suggested), I’m sure the bacteria won’t mind too much being “liberated”.
It should have occurred to me sooner, but I just posted a comment on Pandagon about an important aspect of the problem: the US space program IS military spending. Except for some feel good gestures and flag-waving and an occasional bone tossed to scientists, the main purpose of the US space program have been the development and emplacement of military hardware. It’s irresponsible to support a space program with the people we have in power.
Owl, you make a great point.
Let me say something to the “shouldn’t we dump general military spending” crowd. First off, yes. Ideally, that would come first. But why should one waste be allowed because of another?
I hate it when wingnuts say “ignore what I’m doing wrong because of a bigger abuse over HERE” and use that as justification to keep doing what they are doing. I don’t think we should engage in that practice either. Is broad military spending more out of control than space costs? Yes. Does that mean it’s okay to waste money on space exploration right now? No.
You’re making an argument of priority, I assume, and that’s fine. Nothing wrong with also targeting the military budget even before your space hobbies. That’s an obvious statement, though — most every liberal already comes to the table with “we should cut military spending for other purposes,” so I don’t even feel the need to make such a claim.
And that claim doesn’t mean we shouldn’t also take space money. Every dollar, every scientist could mean something to the planet.
Now, on Amanda’s point, I am actually taking the hardline stance right now that even redirecting the money to any other space program is unwise in the near term. Any knowledge gained stands a good chance of being lost or useless unless we first direct efforts into reversing the trend of planetary destruction.
I am officially a wacky environmental nut. That’s just how it is. But that doesn’t make me wrong.
Even the mainstream will readily concede the space program is a farm system for military hardware. Still, I’m glad for weather satellites, Galileo and Hubble. The notion that every terrestrial woe must be solved before humans turn their attention to space is silly. And no, I don’t want space colonies or even an astronaut sent to Mars.
Douglas, Not every terrestrial woe. We just have to turn the tide.
And again, I want to be clear that I respect space exploration [not the colony fairy tale, but the realistic bits], I think there’s real social value there, and I want to get back to it. I just want us to be more isolationist galaxy-wise until we get the homeworld sorted.
And though I may be crazy, I’m not so crazy as to say “no more satellites.” I should be clearer in my language, but when I say “space program,” I mean anything designed to explore space/other planets for that sake. If you’re popping off weather satellites, or doing some kind of zero-grav disease research or what have you, I’m on board.
Thanks, marc, that is reassuring.
Thanks for bearing with, Douglas. I am still a little prone to the sloppy phrase here and there [and also an outrageous post title or two
], but working on it.
Yes, that’s a good point. Bringing in Military spending is a bit of a red-herring because the real question is: is space a good use of money? However a question like that always brings up questions about priorities, as prioritising is implicit in any finite resource allocation problem. If we would ideally allocate resources in order of decreasing priority, one feels intuitively that we should deallocate them in the reverse order.
But back to the central question. How much do we value fundamental science? Is fundamental science only justified by the benefits it brings us, or does it have intrinsic value? That last one is a tricky one. I’ve always thought of it as an investment for the future — the benefits might not be obvious now, but building up knowledge is beneficial in the long run. It seems to me that science for science’s sake is something that we only do when we have a relatively advanced society, i.e., spare resources to invest. Perhaps there’s a certain point at which we decide that the probable return on an investment is too low or too far in the future to bother with right now. That’s a difficult thing to decide, because you never know just where the next big break will come from.
Haven’t read any other comments, hopefully this doesn’t overlap.
I think Hawking is actually speaking with more foresight than you (the original blogger) are. Most people on this Earth are reactive, not proactive. Look at history to see that–how many times has disaster been averted before it occurs? Very rarely. I think Hawking’s point is that a big disaster is inevitable–remember, we are not the only country in the world that is capable both of destruction and clean-up. It’s likely that nuclear war would come first at the hands of a terrorist, at which point we would have no choice but to retaliate. Anyways, my point is this: when everyone talks about stopping global warming, we have to realize that most people won’t want to really consider a solution until they can’t go skiing in the Alps anymore. It’s sad, but true. Hey, trying is fine. I love trying. For the love of god, try. But at the same time, we always have to prepare for the worst, because that’s usually what happens.
[...] I got almost nothing original to add to the fine discussions already in progress over Stephen Hawking’s tragic display of douchebaggery, since so many bloggers and commentors hit pretty much all of the relevant points almost instantly. [...]