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pusher_robot

PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS

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pusher_robot


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS

				
				
				

				

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				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Like what?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Short of a nuclear war, this is the worst our space capabilities will ever be.




There is no way of knowing this.  This was also true in 1973, and then until very recently, it wasn't for a long time.  That recent change was not guaranteed.  It could only take a relatively minor slowdown in global economic growth to make spaceflight uneconomical if not impossible, and while the whole of human history is one long mostly-continuous rise in technological capability, past performance is no guarantee of future results, as they say.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Most gold on Earth doesn't physically change hands, it just sits around in bank vaults being traded electronically




Is this true?  Gold is highly useful in a variety of both jewelry and commercial applications.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Why?  The constraints of reality will be more severe, but it's not obvious to me why bureaucracy would be a priority in such a location.  Leaving efficiency on the floor for the sake of feel-good regulations is exponentially more expensive.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Both of these "sealed" examples occur on Earth, shielded from radiation, and in moderate ambient temperatures. This will not be the case on Mars, nor on the 9 month journey to the Red Planet.




A Mars settlement would never be sealed in any sense of the word.  It would be pressurized, but unlike the Biosphere experiments there is no reason or expectation of a fully recycled or self-sustaining ecology.  If you need more oxygen inside your pressurized volume, you just go out and get it from the surrounding environment.  If you have too much CO2 in your volume, you dump it into the surrounding environment.  This is less like operating a miniature biosphere than maintaining the environment in a submarine.  The only limiting factor is how much energy you have available to work on resource utilization.


Now obviously for the entire settlement to be self-sufficient in all aspects, you will probably need to grow crops of various sorts, but again, this is more akin to standard industrialized farming, where you can avail yourself of all kinds of resource inputs and discard unwanted outputs.  There is no requirement that they operate in perfect balance.




This relieves a lot of the "population pressure" to colonize space, but also indicates a collapse in the narrative of progress that underpins the whole rationale that would lead us to even want to do such an absurd thing




Disagree.  The population was far lower in the 19th century, but that didn't prevent relentless pressure to settle the entire continent.  Aside from simple population pressure, there is also the inherent freedom of the frontier, which will always be attractive to people who chafe under the rules and expectations of settled society, which appear to only ever increase over time.