Right. Your choices are a) sending a bunch of monkeys in a very expensive and uncomfortable loft to space or b) invest in a multi billion dollar kitten killing machine. Not a false dichotomy at all.
Seriously, there's tons of more pressing issues back here on Earth, ranging from real, social one like inequity and discrimination, technical/political ones like the ever growing piles of garbage all over the place, healthcare, climate change and mass extinctions, and say, taking care of that whole cycle of oppression and bloodshed that has been going on for a while now (not that it'll go away, but we're pretty fucking screwed if we don't come up with something which will leave most people content).
None of those problems will go away if we send little men on tin cans to space, and in fact, I can think of very little problems that will be solved by that. We're a long way from escaping the mess which we have created here on Earth, and wherever we go we'll do it again, and that's being optimistic in saying that we will actually get a self-sustaining Homo Sapiens population off the planet before our shit catches up with us and we're actually forced to do nothing but deal with the consequences.
I hate to say I agree with someone named Whateverer, but you hit it on the head. We have issues locally we need to solve. In 100 years we can still go to space. Same with 200 years. And we'll have tons of productivity improvements between now and then. But we don't have a public school system capable of producing scientists.
All that said - perhaps... perhaps... Perhaps the minerals and compounds needed to survive as a species are elsewhere in our solar system.
perhaps... Perhaps the minerals and compounds needed to survive as a species are elsewhere in our solar system.
Not only that, but more than we could at this point imagine using in a long long time, and an inexhaustible supply of energy. I find it hard to believe that these resources wouldn't help us just a little with the seemingly intractable social problems. Those very often boil down to arguments over limited resources in the end.
In fact, I can't think of a major world conflict or problem that isn't at its root about the allocation of resources, and it's all there for us, right above our heads.
Seriously, there's tons of more pressing issues back here on Earth, ranging from real, social one like inequity and discrimination, technical/political ones like the ever growing piles of garbage all over the place, healthcare, climate change and mass extinctions, and say, taking care of that whole cycle of oppression and bloodshed that has been going on for a while now (not that it'll go away, but we're pretty fucking screwed if we don't come up with something which will leave most people content).
None of those problems will go away if we send little men on tin cans to space, and in fact, I can think of very little problems that will be solved by that. We're a long way from escaping the mess which we have created here on Earth, and wherever we go we'll do it again, and that's being optimistic in saying that we will actually get a self-sustaining Homo Sapiens population off the planet before our shit catches up with us and we're actually forced to do nothing but deal with the consequences.