this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2026
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No Stupid Questions

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Is it really necessary to send humans to those places just to get the knock-on benefits? Couldn't we do those things directly, without going there?

It seems to me that, today, those who have the money to spend on these endeavors would only do so if there were perceived short-term benefits to themselves. That means they plan to exploit the resources, or increase their own power somehow.

I know the good engineers that make this happen are doing it for the challenge and in the pursuit of knowledge, and I know that's why we poors support it, but that doesn't "pay the bills." What is the motivation behind the money? Why are they really doing this?

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[–] bitteroldcoot@piefed.social 115 points 4 days ago (5 children)

In the case of musk and his billionaire friends, they just want to escape the consequences of their actions and become above the law. Basically they want to be a king, with no laws restraining them.

[–] half_built_pyramids@lemmy.world 84 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (6 children)

It's also a good distraction, doubt they actually think people will live on the moon or Mars

Someone else pointed out that you could set off every nuke that has ever existed and the earth would still be more hospitable than mars

To repeat myself a little, it's all a distraction from making things better here, like the bezoes quote about getting 10,000 Einsteins in the future by expanding in the solar system, and it's like dude, you might have 100 Einsteins pissing in bottles in your warehouse right now but they can't afford school or groceries or rent

[–] Soggy@lemmy.world 18 points 4 days ago

Or in the words of Stephen Jay Gould,

"I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops."

[–] doughless@lemmy.world 22 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I read that as getting 10,000 Epsteins by expanding in the solar system ...

[–] Steve@startrek.website 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[–] some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

10,000 Epsteins vs. 10,000 Einsteins

Who would win?

[–] postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

Einsteins figure out how to give killer massages.

[–] NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The Moon and Mars are not a distraction. It's been a Nasa goal for a long time to go to Mars. Politics has stopped us from doing it for a very long time. We're lucky we got to put probes around it and rovers on the ground.

There's a difference between musk and bezo talking about Mars, the moon and space, and nasa talking about it.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 days ago

Moon days are 250F, but it's a dry heat.

[–] undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch 2 points 4 days ago (2 children)

getting 10,000 Einsteins in the future by expanding in the solar system

This is incredibly random but I’ve been wondering lately what might happen if we colonized a place where comparatively speaking time moves much faster than on Earth.

In theory you could bring back years of advancement in a shorter timespan, but this is obviously just a pipe dream.

[–] pulsewidth@lemmy.world -3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

Interstellar is just a movie, mate. There is no such planet, time passes at the same rate everywhere - ie the caesium standard.

Time dilation is a thing, but as far as I'm aware it's not possible to travel someplace, pass any greater amount of time, and then return as though less time had passed - that's time travel. It's theoretically impossible, at least with current technology and understanding of relativity. Great movie though.

Edit: downvote if you don't understand that time dilation isn't magic, and you can't travel back through time.

[–] illi@sh.itjust.works 8 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

As far as we know, traveling through time backwards is impossible.

Traveling through time forwards is very much possible though - in fact we are doing exactly that right now!

[–] pulsewidth@lemmy.world 0 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I explicitly said 'return back as though less time had passed' - i.e. backwards time travel - was theoretically impossible.

I never claimed travel forward though time was not.

[–] illi@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It's not about returning back in time - it's just one place would travel forward slower than another place.

[–] pulsewidth@lemmy.world 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You're telling me what I was talking about? Returning back in time is exactly the comment I was responding to.

This is incredibly random but I’ve been wondering lately what might happen if we colonized a place where comparatively speaking time moves much faster than on Earth.

In theory you could bring back years of advancement in a shorter timespan, but this is obviously just a pipe dream.

This goal is impossible for the reasons I explained.

[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You need to work on reading comprehension.

The concept being brought up is that we could compress years or centuries of research into a small time frame and 'bring it back' to our world, not go back in time. Obviously nonsense, but not actually physically impossible.

[–] pulsewidth@lemmy.world 0 points 3 days ago

Yep how do you bring back the advancement chief?

Travel? Cool, by the time it arrives, the exact same amount of time will have passed locally as remote. The 100 years of advancement will arrive after your local advancement + travel time. So it will already be out of date. Useless.

You'd have to use faster than light travel, or communication - eg by quantum entanglement over a distance ten million orders of magnitude greater than we've ever witnessed it. Woah, did someone say that this is fundamentally impossible with our current understanding and technology? Yes, they did. Reading is fun.

[–] undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch 2 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I didn’t get the idea from the movie, I’m talking about how time passes differently depending on the pull of gravity; and that’s why I kind of alluded to this being theoretical at best. I don’t actually think it’s feasible to find an enormous planet just to have time pass more quickly.

[–] pulsewidth@lemmy.world -2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yep, and as I said, the return trip with all the rapidly evolved super-geniuses would be the impossible part of the plan.

You can't travel someplace else - experience say 100 years, and then travel back to your place of departure and have had only 20 years passed. That's fundamentally impossible.

have had only 20 years passed

Have had only 20 years pass in the local frame of reference, not the frame of the evolved super geniuses. Thus everybody on earth gets to enjoy the benefits, if there are any.

[–] hornywarthogfart@sh.itjust.works -3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

The problem is that your return to Earth would slowly move you back down the dilation losing the gains.

You can take two routes to a restaurant. One is very short but curvy and has a slow speed limit. The other is a really long straight shot with high speed. You can think of your scenario as such a case where even though the straight path is longer, it takes the same "time" to get to the restaurant.

You would be taking the faster, longer route while Earth takes the windy slow route but as you arrived back you would still be in sync.

Edit to add: Spacetime is a single thing which is why the above behavior the case.

That's not how time dilation works. Astronauts that have spent significant time on the ISS have experienced — however marginally — less time than their identical twins on Earth.

[–] MisterD@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 days ago

The rich don't need to live there. The just need to get there ASAP. If they can't live... oh well.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 30 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I just wished they got the fuck on with it and left earth already, so we can turn off their radio coms and start fixing things

[–] Pomal@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I mean everyone makes a choice everyday to listen to their shit.

Not really. I have never voluntarily listened anything about musk. Good example, this thread lol.

[–] nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 3 days ago

That already seems to be the case, I’m with the other commenters who think it’s a distraction and/or window dressing for their horrible actions here on earth.

[–] Witchfire@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

They basically wish they could be Adrian Veidt