<story><title>Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?</title><url>http://www.chronicle.com/article/is-this-economist-too-far/238050</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mentos</author><text>Anyone that hasn&amp;#x27;t yet, check out Black Mirror on Netflix. It has a lot of ideas in it that I am surprised to see in a show in 2016.&lt;p&gt;I love Elon Musk but I think he is solving the wrong problem when it comes to making human beings a space faring species. The fragility of human flesh is the barrier to colonizing space. You can try to solve this problem by wrapping it in a contained atmosphere or wait a thousand years and send humans to Mars in a different kind of space ship. One made of metal and silicon that can recharge its batteries so long as it has a line of sight on a distant star.. maybe as the article says: &amp;quot;a robotic body [standing] roughly two millimeters tall&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;The greatest challenge we face is keeping this incubator called Earth alive long enough for us to develop the technology to abandon our flesh. But I imagine if that day ever comes what it means to be human will have been destroyed in the end anyways.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mburns</author><text>&amp;gt;or wait a thousand years and send humans to Mars in a different kind of space ship.&lt;p&gt;Pardon the pun, but why on Earth should we wait 1000 years (or whatever it actually takes) for something when we don&amp;#x27;t have to?&lt;p&gt;Our fragile human flesh in a contained atmosphere works well enough and we&amp;#x27;re roughly capable of doing it now, give or take a couple decades.&lt;p&gt;Then we have 900+ years to improve the containers we use to maintain our preferred atmosphere while waiting for whatever form this futuristic species you describe takes.</text></comment>
<story><title>Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?</title><url>http://www.chronicle.com/article/is-this-economist-too-far/238050</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mentos</author><text>Anyone that hasn&amp;#x27;t yet, check out Black Mirror on Netflix. It has a lot of ideas in it that I am surprised to see in a show in 2016.&lt;p&gt;I love Elon Musk but I think he is solving the wrong problem when it comes to making human beings a space faring species. The fragility of human flesh is the barrier to colonizing space. You can try to solve this problem by wrapping it in a contained atmosphere or wait a thousand years and send humans to Mars in a different kind of space ship. One made of metal and silicon that can recharge its batteries so long as it has a line of sight on a distant star.. maybe as the article says: &amp;quot;a robotic body [standing] roughly two millimeters tall&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;The greatest challenge we face is keeping this incubator called Earth alive long enough for us to develop the technology to abandon our flesh. But I imagine if that day ever comes what it means to be human will have been destroyed in the end anyways.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>the_duke</author><text>I recently discovered Black Mirror.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s a great and fascinating series. Finally something other then the mind numbing pabulum that is most TV.&lt;p&gt;I especially loved season 1 &amp;#x2F; episode 2.&lt;p&gt;---&lt;p&gt;The way our brain works, all experience, self consciousness and awareness is intricately linked to physical perception. If we were to go the &amp;#x27;brain in a petri dish&amp;#x27; route, we would have to fake all those signals a body would send to the brain. If we just start emulating the brain physiology digitally, that is easier of course.&lt;p&gt;But I would not call the result of either method a &amp;#x27;human being&amp;#x27;, but something inherently different.</text></comment>