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53 lines
3.3 KiB
Markdown
53 lines
3.3 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Cognative bias in space exploration
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date: "2024-10-16T06:50:02Z"
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emoji: "\U0001F680"
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publishDate: "2024-10-13T16:19:00+0100"
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bookmarkOf: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2024/10/conceptual-models-of-space-col.html
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references:
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bookmark:
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url: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2024/10/conceptual-models-of-space-col.html
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type: entry
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name: Conceptual models of space colonization
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summary: 'I''m thinking morose thoughts about the practical prospects for space
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colonization (ahem: stripped of the colonialist rhetoric, manifest destiny bullshit,
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"the Earth''s too fragile and vulnerable to keep all our eggs in one basket",
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and the other post-hoc attempts at justification) and trying to sort them out
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in case I ever feel inclined to go back to writing the sort of medium term SF
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epic that Kim Stanley Robinson nailed in his Mars trilogy in the 1980s.'
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tags:
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- SciFi
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- space
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- speculative
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---
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Charles Stross explores the biases we bring to “Space Colonies” by using that name, and wonders if there are other approaches that may succeed.
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I really enjoy Stross’ analytical dives; at this point I reckon I’ve read almost every published story he’s written and I can absolutely see how analyses like this one build the worlds he writes about. It’s one of the reasons I appreciate his writing so much, this approach is the very definition of Hard [SciFi](/tags/scifi) but every story I’ve read is also _firmly_ planted in the human experience & human motivations. (In short: he’s a _good author_.)
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### Highlights
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> When we talk about a spaceship, a portmanteau word derived from "\[outer\] space" and "ship", we bring along certain unstated assumptions
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---
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> [a spaceship is not like a sea-going vessel](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/11/the%5Fmyth%5Fof%5Fthe%5Fstarship.html), can't be operated like a sea-going vessel
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---
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> Which leads me to the similar term "space colony": the word _colony_ drags in all sorts of historical baggage, and indeed invokes several models of how an off-Earth outpost might operate, all of which invoke very dangerous cognitive biases!
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---
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> The American model of colonization—a cognitive bias that underpins both the American _and_ Russian space programs' associated ideological drive towards human expansion—is biased towards an unpopulated or underpopulated terrestrial biome with breathable air, plentiful sources of water and minerals, a biosphere that naturally turns sunlight into biomass that can be directly eaten or fed to food animals, and so on.
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---
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> companies are artificial social constructs that _offload all their externalities onto the state they are embedded in_.
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Now _this_ is an interesting framing! It explains why _countries_ are having a hard time when they fail/feel they are unable to tax companies effectively (for fear of scaring a company off): the externalities are pushed into the country and, without effective taxing, the profits kept for the company; the burdens of handling kept by the country, but also the expectation of handling them.
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---
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> Worryingly, religious belief rather than economics seems the most plausible incentive for space colonization.
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Stross includes “the Earth's too fragile to keep all our eggs in one basket” here.
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