<story><title>Let&apos;s Colonize Titan</title><url>https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/lets-colonize-titan/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ferbivore</author><text>Do you seriously think that any of the following global political challenges:&lt;p&gt;- convince everyone on Earth to implement changes that are bad for them, like not eating animal-based foods, with only the promise of &amp;quot;maybe in 200 years your descendants, should your line not be extinct by then, will benefit&amp;quot; as compensation&lt;p&gt;- reorganise every single human settlement and&amp;#x2F;or social structure on Earth to put people closer to their workplaces&lt;p&gt;- implement a global wealth redistribution scheme that doesn&amp;#x27;t start with North Korea conquering the planet through nuclear war&lt;p&gt;- successfully convince every NWS to destroy their nukes and institute a worldwide ban on nuclear weaponry&lt;p&gt;Are easier than the engineering challenge of building a colony on Titan? If yes, please let me into whatever politics-free, single world government utopia you&amp;#x27;re living in.</text></item><item><author>banach</author><text>I think that, before colonizing other planets, we should start by realizing that Earth can easily sustain human kind for the foreseeable future, given some pretty modest tweaks to our way of life (compared to &amp;quot;going multi-planetary&amp;quot; that is). If we start valuing quality over novelty, stop eating animal-based foods and re-organize to live closer to where we work, we can stop the consumption and that is taxing our ecosystem and cut energy use to manageable levels. If we re-distribute our wealth, population growth will subside. If we put pressure on our rulers, they will work to eliminate the nuclear stockpiles. There are simple solutions to most of our issues. Once we have solved them, maybe we can start thinking about spreading our species to other places.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>repsilat</author><text>Even if everybody eats twice as many animals as they do now and moves further away from their workplaces, Earth will remain a more livable place than Titan. Maybe that isn&amp;#x27;t true if we kick off a nuclear war, but it probably still is.&lt;p&gt;Global warming? Titan&amp;#x27;s atmosphere is literally not breathable, and the outside temperature is colder than any place on Earth.&lt;p&gt;Food scarcity? Nothing grows on Titan. If you&amp;#x27;re growing it indoors you might as well grow it in your underground bunker on Earth.&lt;p&gt;The only way in which a colony on Titan could be less dangerous than Earth is from other humans trying to kill you -- the argument basically turns into &amp;quot;Let&amp;#x27;s escape the assholes trying to kill us.&amp;quot; Even then, it&amp;#x27;d be easier to make an Atlantis underwater (or any number of less far-fetched ideas) than to get to Titan.&lt;p&gt;Never mind how elitist and utopian and short-sighted the &amp;quot;get to Titan to escape stupid people&amp;quot; argument is...</text></comment>
<story><title>Let&apos;s Colonize Titan</title><url>https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/lets-colonize-titan/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ferbivore</author><text>Do you seriously think that any of the following global political challenges:&lt;p&gt;- convince everyone on Earth to implement changes that are bad for them, like not eating animal-based foods, with only the promise of &amp;quot;maybe in 200 years your descendants, should your line not be extinct by then, will benefit&amp;quot; as compensation&lt;p&gt;- reorganise every single human settlement and&amp;#x2F;or social structure on Earth to put people closer to their workplaces&lt;p&gt;- implement a global wealth redistribution scheme that doesn&amp;#x27;t start with North Korea conquering the planet through nuclear war&lt;p&gt;- successfully convince every NWS to destroy their nukes and institute a worldwide ban on nuclear weaponry&lt;p&gt;Are easier than the engineering challenge of building a colony on Titan? If yes, please let me into whatever politics-free, single world government utopia you&amp;#x27;re living in.</text></item><item><author>banach</author><text>I think that, before colonizing other planets, we should start by realizing that Earth can easily sustain human kind for the foreseeable future, given some pretty modest tweaks to our way of life (compared to &amp;quot;going multi-planetary&amp;quot; that is). If we start valuing quality over novelty, stop eating animal-based foods and re-organize to live closer to where we work, we can stop the consumption and that is taxing our ecosystem and cut energy use to manageable levels. If we re-distribute our wealth, population growth will subside. If we put pressure on our rulers, they will work to eliminate the nuclear stockpiles. There are simple solutions to most of our issues. Once we have solved them, maybe we can start thinking about spreading our species to other places.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>phs318u</author><text>Of course they are the easier to solve, however your comparison is unfair. One one hand we&amp;#x27;re trying to solve for the entire human race, on the other hand we&amp;#x27;re solving for a handful of colonists. Now try expanding your colony for a significant proportion of the planet&amp;#x27;s population.</text></comment>