I firmly believe in space colonization, but I also firmly believe in realizing things, not just pushing propaganda or fantasy (sometimes with ulterior motives). O'Neill cylinders as a panacea are just that, as far as I can tell (I admit I haven't seen any objective analysis on it; my total guess calculation would put it at say $20M/person absolute minimum for a large city of say 1M persons -- which would be several times the US economy or the assets of a large number of most valuable companies combined).
We just can't not fix Earth. There's no alternative. I've studied quite a bit about Mars colonization (and have my own thoughts about colonizing other places -- in particular I find underground habitats in Mercury intriguing), and it is quite clearly a project for the end of the century at least. Even when the soil, the gravity, and the materials are all more or less at your disposal, it's still extremely difficult to kick start a quasi-self-sustaining manufacturing base, even less one capable of producing exports and growing rapidly. The cost constants per inhabitant are very high.
Like anyone else, I think we need to move off this planet as soon as feasible. But we need a real vision, and we need to do it in a way that makes us truly more resillient and further reaching -- that is, we need colonies to be self-sustaining to the point of surviving catastrophe on other colonies without themselves disappearing -- this is the truly worthwhile goal I believe we need to pursue.
Imaginary space cities relying thousands of billionaires / millions of millionaires spending all wealth on are not that.
Heck, I even believe in Interstellar colonization in the not-too-distant future.
See also, other strategies for ensuring human survival:
I firmly believe in space colonization, but I also firmly believe in realizing things, not just pushing propaganda or fantasy (sometimes with ulterior motives). O'Neill cylinders as a panacea are just that, as far as I can tell (I admit I haven't seen any objective analysis on it; my total guess calculation would put it at say $20M/person absolute minimum for a large city of say 1M persons -- which would be several times the US economy or the assets of a large number of most valuable companies combined).
We just can't not fix Earth. There's no alternative. I've studied quite a bit about Mars colonization (and have my own thoughts about colonizing other places -- in particular I find underground habitats in Mercury intriguing), and it is quite clearly a project for the end of the century at least. Even when the soil, the gravity, and the materials are all more or less at your disposal, it's still extremely difficult to kick start a quasi-self-sustaining manufacturing base, even less one capable of producing exports and growing rapidly. The cost constants per inhabitant are very high.
Like anyone else, I think we need to move off this planet as soon as feasible. But we need a real vision, and we need to do it in a way that makes us truly more resillient and further reaching -- that is, we need colonies to be self-sustaining to the point of surviving catastrophe on other colonies without themselves disappearing -- this is the truly worthwhile goal I believe we need to pursue.
Imaginary space cities relying thousands of billionaires / millions of millionaires spending all wealth on are not that.
Heck, I even believe in Interstellar colonization in the not-too-distant future.
See also, other strategies for ensuring human survival:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17646897
(Underground habitats on Earth)