It took me too long to understand the image; I wasn’t able to differentiate the labels from the limbs.

It took me 30s to understand this image.

‘Legally’ isn’t the best choice of words here, IMO. I’m not saying we should be allowed to fuck minors (ew) but that the legal system has been used to opress and punish queer people. In some jurisdictions, it is legal to kill gay people. So using legality as your baseline is a bad idea.

Morality is I think what you’re getting at. But then you get into the weeds of subjective morality and that’s a mess…

‘Man’ refers to human individuals, especially adult male humans. So the word is pretty flexible, and can technically refer to any human regardless of age.

I don’t see what’s wrong with calling men ‘men’. I don’t mind it at all, seeing as it’s a descriptor of what I am using the English language. What’s your problem with the word?

Because that’s exactly what we’ve created.

I honestly don’t understand rice cookers. Cooking rice in a pot is so fast and easy, plus it’s basically the same process. What advantage does a rice cooker give you?

Well, I suppose that’s subjective.

Sure, we should consider the possibility of life on Mars. But we’ve already impacted possible organisms by sending spacecraft there. Even if you sterilize your craft in an autoclave and send it through the vacuum of space for months to years, there’s no guarantee that all terran organisms will be inert. Samples taken from an asteroid during the recent Hayabus-2 mission were found to have terrain organisms on them. If you want to completely cordon off martian ecology, you should’ve convinced NASA and the Soviets back in the 70s.

Bottom line is, we’ve already irreversibly changed the course of martian ecology, if there is any. What remains? Check if there’s actually anything alive over there. The best way to do that is with boots on the ground. The best places to look for life on Mars are:

• deep within the crust, deeper than any robotic probes can dig
• deep under the polar ice caps
• deep in caves and lava tubes

All of which are much easier to explore with humans.

Fuck… installing OpenWRT wouldn’t eliminate this threat vector, would it?

So when do we make decisions?

Then what are you saying? That we paralyze ourselves?

Making a decision based on the best evidence available… I feel like I’m repeating myself. Oh, I see. You’re trolling.

Musk may not be. But SpaceX is closest to quick, cheap and reusable access to space.

My answer is that we have to work with the best evidence available because informed decisions lead to better outcomes…

I think you’re right. Bit if we want a spacefaring civilization, this is the path to get there. I really wish someone else was leading the charge, but this is the world we live in.

Sometimes it feels really lonely here on Lemmy, when it comes to space exploration. People are really negative about it, as if doing that takes away resources from making the world a better place. But it doesn’t! It’s a technological innovation program; the insights gained here can help improve life on Earth. And if we can move industry to space, Earth will be thankful.

Because that’s what we know! Now you’re just arguing for argument’s sake.

We only have one data point. Until we have conclusive evidence of life beyond this world, we need to operate as if we’re the only ones.

Yes. Life >= humans.

Huh? Sure we can prevent some cosmic events (asteroid redirect) and even mitigate others, by having backup of life elsewhere in the solar system. We have the technology, would you rather everything dies because of some ideal? Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good.

As to your last points, that’s how it’s been done during the last few expansions. But spaceships are expensive - tonnage to mars is insanely expensive. The incentive is to get a return on your investment: a sustainable colony. Sure, the billionaires won’t be the first, but someone has to be. And what right do we have? It’s our imperative to ensure the continuation of life by spreading it through the cosmos. Anything less would betray our base genetic instincts.