I once met someone who said that it's a pipe dream to think we could have equality between races before we had equality within the same race, and that we should make sure that there aren't any poor white people before we start worrying about PoC.

These two projects build on each other. Furthermore, each has a minimum time that no amount of researchers working together can push us below. To say we shouldn't do one because we haven't done another only serves to reveal your ignorance.

[–] electric_nan@lemmy.ml -1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Hey I like SciFi too, but we have pressing issues right here on the only planet we know for a fact that can support life. If we get that fixed, we have until the sun explodes to figure out terraforming other planets. The bottom line is that one issue has a looming deadline, and the other does not. It's a misallocation of resources to entertain the latter before solving the former. Reminds me of a Vonnegut quote I read the other day: "another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build, and nobody wants to do maintenance."

[–] gheesh@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

Of all the resource- wasting human activities, why should we cut spacefaring? Can't we start by dismantling AI, cosmetics, golf courses,... and then if some last minute precious resources are needed we can talk about not going to space?