Colonization of the Uninhabitable

[Zinjanthropos]

Thought of this after jerking around in the Gaza/Israel War thread.

If we develop technology to colonize Mars & the Moon, will we be able to colonize some of the harshest regions on Earth? From Siberia to Canadian North, Greenland & Antarctica, would it be easier to deal with Earth first?

Very difficult to find anything regarding this subject and Earth other than it’s either too cold or the waters are too rough, etc. At least there’s breathable air and drinkable water here. I think there’s quite a bit of either inhospitable or barely habitable land here on Earth. Not saying we wait for Global warming or continental drift to green things up a bit but just do it if the tech is there.

[C C]

Back in the '50s and '60s there was a lot of pop-tech focus on building underwater cities, underwater farming, etc. Then it seemed to dry up for some reason.

During the eventual transhuman era, of course, the human body might be genetically redesigned (similar to whales) to hold high concentrations of positively charged myoglobin in the blood, and with adaptations in fat layers and structure to survive underwater cold and higher pressures. 

Sanity would prescribe replacing most technology with engineered biological equivalents, so to be more compatible with the traditional natural environment of the Earth. Leave the negative effects of technology, resource extraction, self-replicating machines, and electromechanical humanoid beings to outer space.

Maybe there will never be an artificial sedentary organism performing the exact function of a television, computer, or video-game. But those addictions and that kind of disappointment can be edited out of modified human populations, too. Install an innate sense of being happy living in the advanced flora and fauna of Eden (bio-utopia).

[Zinjanthropos]

Back in the '50s and '60s there was a lot of pop-tech focus on building underwater cities, underwater farming, etc. Then it seemed to dry up for some reason.

During the eventual transhuman era, of course, the human body might be genetically redesigned (similar to whales) to hold high concentrations of positively charged myoglobin in the blood, and with adaptations in fat layers and structure to survive underwater cold and higher pressures. 

Sanity would prescribe replacing most technology with engineered biological equivalents, so to be more compatible with the traditional natural environment of the Earth. Leave the negative effects of technology, resource extraction, self-replicating machines, and electromechanical humanoid beings to outer space.

Maybe there will never be an artificial sedentary organism performing the exact function of a television, computer, or video-game. But those addictions and that kind of disappointment can be edited out of modified human populations, too. Install an innate sense of being happy living in the advanced flora and fauna of Eden (bio-utopia).

Weird coincidence…Hadn’t seen it before but just yesterday I tuned in to YouTube and watched a show narrated by David Attenborough re deep sea organisms. Scientists were at the Marianas Trench to see what’s down there and hopefully bring up a specimen or two and find out how they can survive at great depths, especially dealing with water pressure. Turns out something called TMAO may have something to do with it. Not sure but appears TMAO is some kind of biochemical product. Just checked and it’s found in our gut too. Could those scientists be thinking of bio-engineering humans that could live in the deepest of oceans, maybe not just here, who knows?

Have a feeling bio-engineering is in the cards for planet colonization and who knows, maybe Earths uninhabitable zones.

[stryder]

Back in the '50s and '60s there was a lot of pop-tech focus on building underwater cities, underwater farming, etc. Then it seemed to dry up for some reason.

During the eventual transhuman era, of course, the human body might be genetically redesigned (similar to whales) to hold high concentrations of positively charged myoglobin in the blood, and with adaptations in fat layers and structure to survive underwater cold and higher pressures. 

Sanity would prescribe replacing most technology with engineered biological equivalents, so to be more compatible with the traditional natural environment of the Earth. Leave the negative effects of technology, resource extraction, self-replicating machines, and electromechanical humanoid beings to outer space.

Maybe there will never be an artificial sedentary organism performing the exact function of a television, computer, or video-game. But those addictions and that kind of disappointment can be edited out of modified human populations, too. Install an innate sense of being happy living in the advanced flora and fauna of Eden (bio-utopia).

Weird coincidence…Hadn’t seen it before but just yesterday I tuned in to YouTube and watched a show narrated by David Attenborough re deep sea organisms. Scientists were at the Marianas Trench to see what’s down there and hopefully bring up a specimen or two and find out how they can survive at great depths, especially dealing with water pressure. Turns out something called TMAO may have something to do with it. Not sure but appears TMAO is some kind of biochemical product. Just checked and it’s found in our gut too. Could those scientists be thinking of bio-engineering humans that could live in the deepest of oceans, maybe not just here, who knows?

Have a feeling bio-engineering is in the cards for planet colonization and who knows, maybe Earths uninhabitable zones.

I considered underwater farming would of been useful for islands with limit land for growing food on... however some years ago one of those tropical storms pushed up in the Caribbean and the weather system caused the water level to drop enough that people were able to walk out where there was normally sea. It made me realise that underwater becomes a relative term in those situations, and wouldn't be much use as a protective layer against storm damage.

I do think however that learning how to build in the most hostile of environments is a win-win in the long run, as it would mean we can survive anywhere (and aren't so stuck trying to rowback things that are out of our control)

[C C]

Thought of this after jerking around in the Gaza/Israel War thread.

If we develop technology to colonize Mars & the Moon, will we be able to colonize some of the harshest regions on Earth? From Siberia to Canadian North, Greenland & Antarctica, would it be easier to deal with Earth first?

If the AMOC collapses and that affects the Gulf Stream, then a modest part of Western Europe might be immigrating to Canada (if the latter warms). Certainly the UK and Scandinavian countries.

Weird coincidence…Hadn’t seen it before but just yesterday I tuned in to YouTube and watched a show narrated by David Attenborough re deep sea organisms. Scientists were at the Marianas Trench to see what’s down there and hopefully bring up a specimen or two and find out how they can survive at great depths, especially dealing with water pressure. Turns out something called TMAO may have something to do with it. Not sure but appears TMAO is some kind of biochemical product. Just checked and it’s found in our gut too. Could those scientists be thinking of bio-engineering humans that could live in the deepest of oceans, maybe not just here, who knows?

The continental shelf is probably as deep as underwater cities would go (100 to 200 meters). Building on the continental slope and rise would be too risky. Structures built to survive the intense pressures on the abyssal plain would be too impractical for anything other than small labs occupied by physically augmented researchers.

Whales only dive to 1,000 to 2000 meters normally. A similarly modified human might hold enough oxygen in the blood to live for a half hour to 45 minutes without equipment, but still wouldn't survive an emergency journey from the abyssal plain to the surface (for various reasons).

A mammal with gills may be too complicated an endeavor. Although in the far future, genetic engineering might be advanced enough to completely redesign a humanoid form from scratch so as to accommodate them with such, or an alternative means of extracting oxygen from water.

[Zinjanthropos]

A mammal with gills may be too complicated an endeavor. Although in the far future, genetic engineering might be advanced enough to completely redesign a humanoid form from scratch so as to accommodate them with such, or an alternative means of extracting oxygen from water.

Despite advancements in bio-engineering, simulating earth-like conditions, terra forming, etc, do you think humans colonizing other worlds would eventually evolve as to be different than their earthbound counterparts, given enough time? So much so that if survivors of a colony became isolated, they would evolve into a distinctly different species?I don’t think humans are immune from actually evolving into another species but I figure an isolation event would be the first necessary ingredient plus it may be highly likely to occur at some point in space colonization history.

OTOH: We may be more different than I presumed.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...he-aliens/

[C C]

Despite advancements in bio-engineering, simulating earth-like conditions, terra forming, etc, do you think humans colonizing other worlds would eventually evolve as to be different than their earthbound counterparts, given enough time? So much so that if survivors of a colony became isolated, they would evolve into a distinctly different species? [...]

That's a common trope in science fiction, especially the quickness with which the next generation will no longer being able to endure Earth's greater gravity (sans difficulty). No doubt adaptations would occur over centuries and thousands of years, if we pretend that artificial evolution (including biological engineering and radically advanced surgery) will be just as absent from the future as robots and intelligent slash autonomous starships are in most of the Star Trek franchise; or that it won't far outpace the slowness of natural evolution. 

Even the descendants of many humans remaining on Earth would be bizarrely different from us in the future. Otherkin, for instance, would no longer be confined to mere psychological imagination.

Of course, in the long run, even with alterations and cyborgs, I don't expect the vulnerable biology that arose on Earth to be amenable to the hostile environment of space and barren Mars and the moons of gas giants. Only "life" or humanoids with a wholly technological substrate will prosper practically there. In addition, a digital mind is immortal (in theory) -- copies can be uploaded to new bodies or information storage facilities.

Opting for children who finally do have "souls" will be too tempting to old-fashioned watery-cell based parents. Though, those who belong to extremist religions and ideologies won't get over the ego-driven need to have a child genetically related to them.

Another factor is if it is possible for phenomenal or experiential consciousness to correspond to organized activity in an electronic slash photonic substrate (not just neural tissue). It seems there are some people who will never be able to grok what a philosophical zombie is -- or what the drawbacks(?) are in having an artificial offspring that was such. Whether that's because they are actually p-zombies themselves, or panpsychists who do not know that they are panpsychists, or they just can't grapple with the consequence of death being "not even nothingness" (the normal condition of matter to itself) -- I'm not sure what their mental obstruction or their inconsistency in reasoning is, will ever be pinpointed or resolved.

[C C]

OTOH, just as they flocked to the New World to escape persecution, it might ironically be the fundamentally religious who eventually find space the most attractive. A chance to set up their own colonies and establish society as they see fit, without secular interference. And they would tend to stick to baseline human form and all its limitations, with cyborg modification the max they would go, retaining the organic brain and its mortality.

In contrast, political left activism began acquiring a disdain for space travel and settlement way back in the 1960s: Why Civil Rights Activists Protested the Moon Landing. Since then, that has only intensified, outputting opinion pieces that link the rocketry ambitions of magnates like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos to the evils of libertarianism and conservatism. These "trailblazers" want to spread the devouring nature of capitalism to the pristine environments of other worlds, hollowing them out the same way it has the Earth.

And the decolonization movements trying to liberate themselves from Western traditions and Eurocentric knowledge tyranny feel the same way, in North America and around the globe: Navajo object to depositing human remains on Moon.

Granted, some Christians of the past similarly mocked spaceflight, but historically they become surprisingly flexible and migratory when they get pushed into a corner or crowded-out by rival religions and political ideologies. And there's that missionary spirit to journey afar and spread the gospel.

The TV show The Expanse actually selected the Mormons as the group that would build a generational ship that would slowly journey to another habitable world outside the solar system.

"The Nauvoo ... was one of the largest vessels within the universe of The Expanse. It was originally commissioned by the Mormon Church as an expeditionary vessel to go found a Mormon colony in another star system. It was a generational ship designed to transit interstellar space... It was built to massive specifications, two and a half kilometers long, and nearly a kilometer in diameter. It was absolutely gargantuan, it dwarfed any other vessel in the system."

An overview of the Nauvoo (OPA Behemoth)

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/SUebdV7p26g