Why presume a future of Space exploration?

[Commander 598]

Im just going to quote someone else who wrote about this a while ago.

When VR becomes good enough to be apparently indistinguishable from reality I do see VR addiction becoming a big problem, but I think the need for companionship and meaningful goals will hopefully keep humanity from turning into a race of Matrix-addicts. Ultra-Realistic Simworld would be a fun place to visit, but I wouldn't want to spend my entire life playing in a solipcistic sandbox.

And, of course, you'll still have to pay for the thing, giving you a pretty good incentive to work if nothing else.

Yeah but, Ultra-Realistic Simworld would have all that...and you'd be able to work "in game" to "pay for it". (This is already a feature of some MMOs).

[cosmicalstorm]

Im just going to quote someone else who wrote about this a while ago.

When VR becomes good enough to be apparently indistinguishable from reality I do see VR addiction becoming a big problem, but I think the need for companionship and meaningful goals will hopefully keep humanity from turning into a race of Matrix-addicts. Ultra-Realistic Simworld would be a fun place to visit, but I wouldn't want to spend my entire life playing in a solipcistic sandbox.

And, of course, you'll still have to pay for the thing, giving you a pretty good incentive to work if nothing else.

Of course there would be companionship and such in this VR.
And having to work for it is not certain (ie post scarcity society).

[Darth Raptor]

With sufficient automation, a civilization that spends 99% of its time jacked into the internet or something would actually be more energy and resource efficient than umpteen billion biologicals running around, taking up space and eating stuff. As jar brains or computer programs, society's biggest problems become heat death and proton decay.

[Ariphaos]

With sufficient automation, a civilization that spends 99% of its time jacked into the internet or something would actually be more energy and resource efficient than umpteen billion biologicals running around, taking up space and eating stuff. As jar brains or computer programs, society's biggest problems become heat death and proton decay.

And government.

Anyone who gains control over a star's resources becomes the master of their domain, which can reach pretty damned far.

[Gullible Jones]

Im just going to quote someone else who wrote about this a while ago.

Imagine how you'll react if you're in your holodeck and somebody interrupts you. Say, you're halfway through your chess game with Darth Vader, when suddenly he disappears, Scarlett Johansson is no longer sitting in your lap, and pizza costs money again. You'd find the guy who turned off the machine and snap his damned neck. Dilbert creator Scott Adams jokingly points out in his book The Dilbert Future that the holodeck, "will be society's last invention." It's no joke; once we had it, there'd be no reason to have anything else.

It's not just that it would be addictive; it's that it would literally fill every possible human emotional need and utterly eliminate all motivation to ever do anything ever. Everyone's only goal would be to do just enough work to keep food and electricity coming into the holodeck, to keep those interruptions by reality to a minimum.

People would stop reproducing, your virtual Scarlett Johansson could have perfect virtual kids who'll never wind up in jail or steal money from you to buy crack. If you get tired of them, tell the holodeck to blink them out of existence. If you're saying that you're a high-minded person who pursues spiritual goals and would never be sucked in by anything as crude as a simulation, hey, they've got a holodeck for you, too. You can sit down to dinner with Plato and Abe Lincoln and Gandhi and Jesus. If somebody yanked you out of that to go work at the post office all day, you'd barricade yourself in with a shotgun.

If aliens showed up to Earth 1,000 years later, they'd find an abandoned planet with ten billion mummified corpses laying on the floor of ten billion dusty holodecks, with huge smiles on their faces.

[/quote]

Because, you know, Cracked.com is the ultimate authority on human behavior.

Again: has it not occured to you that there are interesting things in the physical world which we couldn't simulate for the very simple reason that we don't know jack shit about them? Has it not occured to you that, given a choice between what's real and what's pleasant, some people will choose reality? Has it not occured to you that not everyone on the whole bloody planet would choose to spend their entire life in a simulation, accomplishing nothing at all, just because they could live the high life and have endless sex with a Scarlet Johansson simulacrum that isn't even self-aware?

[The Grim Squeaker]

Im just going to quote someone else who wrote about this a while ago.

Imagine how you'll react if you're in your holodeck and somebody interrupts you. Say, you're halfway through your chess game with Darth Vader, when suddenly he disappears, Scarlett Johansson is no longer sitting in your lap, and pizza costs money again. You'd find the guy who turned off the machine and snap his damned neck. Dilbert creator Scott Adams jokingly points out in his book The Dilbert Future that the holodeck, "will be society's last invention." It's no joke; once we had it, there'd be no reason to have anything else.

It's not just that it would be addictive; it's that it would literally fill every possible human emotional need and utterly eliminate all motivation to ever do anything ever. Everyone's only goal would be to do just enough work to keep food and electricity coming into the holodeck, to keep those interruptions by reality to a minimum.

People would stop reproducing, your virtual Scarlett Johansson could have perfect virtual kids who'll never wind up in jail or steal money from you to buy crack. If you get tired of them, tell the holodeck to blink them out of existence. If you're saying that you're a high-minded person who pursues spiritual goals and would never be sucked in by anything as crude as a simulation, hey, they've got a holodeck for you, too. You can sit down to dinner with Plato and Abe Lincoln and Gandhi and Jesus. If somebody yanked you out of that to go work at the post office all day, you'd barricade yourself in with a shotgun.

If aliens showed up to Earth 1,000 years later, they'd find an abandoned planet with ten billion mummified corpses laying on the floor of ten billion dusty holodecks, with huge smiles on their faces.

Because, you know, Cracked.com is the ultimate authority on human behavior.

Again: has it not occured to you that there are interesting things in the physical world which we couldn't simulate for the very simple reason that we don't know jack shit about them? Has it not occured to you that, given a choice between what's real and what's pleasant, some people will choose reality? Has it not occured to you that not everyone on the whole bloody planet would choose to spend their entire life in a simulation, accomplishing nothing at all, just because they could live the high life and have endless sex with a Scarlet Johansson simulacrum that isn't even self-aware?[/quote]
And kids growing up on that? For whom that is the base? Where kids who aren't good at getting dates, sex, winning the basketball game don't need to try harder but can just plug in?
Look at television or video games, and how people are getting into it from increasingly younger ages and more time, and this would satisy any social desires far more fully. Look at WOW addicts, there are people who live online 24/7, and if they didn't need to feed themselves, and didn't see why they should go with inferior substitutes?

Your perception of human education is absurdly optimistic

[Molyneux]

Im just going to quote someone else who wrote about this a while ago.

Because, you know, Cracked.com is the ultimate authority on human behavior.

Again: has it not occured to you that there are interesting things in the physical world which we couldn't simulate for the very simple reason that we don't know jack shit about them? Has it not occured to you that, given a choice between what's real and what's pleasant, some people will choose reality? Has it not occured to you that not everyone on the whole bloody planet would choose to spend their entire life in a simulation, accomplishing nothing at all, just because they could live the high life and have endless sex with a Scarlet Johansson simulacrum that isn't even self-aware?

And kids growing up on that? For whom that is the base? Where kids who aren't good at getting dates, sex, winning the basketball game don't need to try harder but can just plug in?
Look at television or video games, and how people are getting into it from increasingly younger ages and more time, and this would satisy any social desires far more fully. Look at WOW addicts, there are people who live online 24/7, and if they didn't need to feed themselves, and didn't see why they should go with inferior substitutes?

Your perception of human education is absurdly optimistic

So if only those people who don't spend their entire lives in these simulations get to do actual things like breed, we'll end up with a human population capable of resisting such temptations.

Assuming that there is at least some group of humans capable of choosing reality over the virtual experience, humanity will survive.

[Zixinus]

You people are afraid of super VR? I for one, fear the day when cheap sex-slave androids will come to the market.

[Junghalli]

You people are afraid of super VR? I for one, fear the day when cheap sex-slave androids will come to the market.

Super-VR will do anything they could do and much more efficiently...

[cosmicalstorm]

Because, you know, Cracked.com is the ultimate authority on human behavior.

Again: has it not occured to you that there are interesting things in the physical world which we couldn't simulate for the very simple reason that we don't know jack shit about them? Has it not occured to you that, given a choice between what's real and what's pleasant, some people will choose reality? Has it not occured to you that not everyone on the whole bloody planet would choose to spend their entire life in a simulation, accomplishing nothing at all, just because they could live the high life and have endless sex with a Scarlet Johansson simulacrum that isn't even self-aware?

What would be so interesting about the real world?
Call me cynical, but personally im sure the vast majority of the people out there would rather spend their days having sex with supermodels than living the "real" life.

Besides, when you're dreaming, you are for most time not even aware of the reality outside of the dream, if that dream was to go on forever im not sure you would even know that you ever had a real life outside of it.

[Winston Blake]

It's not just that it would be addictive; it's that it would literally fill every possible human emotional need and utterly eliminate all motivation to ever do anything ever. Everyone's only goal would be to do just enough work to keep food and electricity coming into the holodeck, to keep those interruptions by reality to a minimum.

Yeah, because food and electricity flow out of the aether, right? It's not like anybody has to grow that food, or maintain the electrical grid, or write holodeck programs or do any maintainence or upgrades to holodeck equipment. This is magic technology that runs forever on pixie dust until everyone's dead, in a world with no leadership or management. A world where nobody would invade a rich country paralysed by holodecks.

Like every era in history, people will have to do everything necessary to keep their society operating. They may be filling out tedious forms on a holodeck Hawaii planet instead of in a dingy office, but they'll still have to fill out those forms. Some old jobs will go, some new jobs will come. People may work less, but they'll still have to work.

[cosmicalstorm]

Yeah, because food and electricity flow out of the aether, right? It's not like anybody has to grow that food, or maintain the electrical grid, or write holodeck programs or do any maintainence or upgrades to holodeck equipment. This is magic technology that runs forever on pixie dust until everyone's dead, in a world with no leadership or management. A world where nobody would invade a rich country paralysed by holodecks.

Like every era in history, people will have to do everything necessary to keep their society operating. They may be filling out tedious forms on a holodeck Hawaii planet instead of in a dingy office, but they'll still have to fill out those forms. Some old jobs will go, some new jobs will come. People may work less, but they'll still have to work.

The point was that instead of going about exploring the universe we might lock ourselves into our own dreamworlds, im not saying this is absolutely going to happen, and im not sure if the process could be fully automated.

[Singular Intellect]

With modern technology a self sustaining civilization without human work is theoritically possible.

It would merely be a stagnant one where any creativity or initiative would be have to come from a human source.

[brianeyci]

I used to think the way some of you do too. That everybody would want to go on holodeck programs and have fun all day.

But then I grew up. Winston Blake is right. There will always be people willing to do the hard work, and the leechers and blood suckers will live off them, but it won't matter since the hard workers won't care they're doing more. They'll live for the work. The people who say there's no incentive so explore space have got to rewatch this.

"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

Replace moon with Mars, replace Mars with Europa, replace Europa with asteroid colonies, replace asteroid colonies... eventually you get Dyson Sphere...

There will be people who simply refuse to be controlled by a fantasy, even if that grants them everything they want, because it's not real. It won't matter that they can't tell that it's not real, or that the simulation is good enough to be real -- it won't offer the potential for failure which is what drives high achievers. And if the leechers stay in their VR all day, who do you think will run the real world? The ones who refuse to be sucked into the void.

[Molyneux]

I used to think the way some of you do too. That everybody would want to go on holodeck programs and have fun all day.

But then I grew up. Winston Blake is right. There will always be people willing to do the hard work, and the leechers and blood suckers will live off them, but it won't matter since the hard workers won't care they're doing more. They'll live for the work. The people who say there's no incentive so explore space have got to rewatch this.

"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

Replace moon with Mars, replace Mars with Europa, replace Europa with asteroid colonies, replace asteroid colonies... eventually you get Dyson Sphere...

There will be people who simply refuse to be controlled by a fantasy, even if that grants them everything they want, because it's not real. It won't matter that they can't tell that it's not real, or that the simulation is good enough to be real -- it won't offer the potential for failure which is what drives high achievers. And if the leechers stay in their VR all day, who do you think will run the real world? The ones who refuse to be sucked into the void.

And the neat bit is that if it gets to the point where parasites no longer breed at all, and even a bit of the tendency to be a hard worker is genetically influenced, then we'll breed out the layabouts over time anyway.

[Gullible Jones]

In that case, it could hardly be called "human civilization" any more.

[Molyneux]

In that case, it could hardly be called "human civilization" any more.

Well, if it's post-human civilization, then at least the children of humanity survive - which is a darn sight better than nothing.

[Zac Naloen]

So, while it is technically possible, fear of the sun dying out is the only reason I can imagine for us actually expanding to the stars. Thus, if it happens, it won't be for a very, very long time from now.

Why climb everest?

Or cross the Sahara with nothing but the clothes on your back and a vague map to watering holes?

Because it's there to be done.

If we do spread out into the galaxy I expect that the reasoning will be more along those lines than any fear of the death of our solar system or lack of resources.

A lot of human exploration has been for the hell of it in the past I would like to think the reasoning for exploring the galaxy to be along the same lines. Means it more likely to be done than if anyone actually thinks too hard about costs and practicality...

[Sarevok]

Regarding Super-VR can't you have AIs running everything while humans remain in dreamlike state ? What reason would there be to work in such case ?

Also how would Super-VR negatively affect space travel when living out several lifetimes in a simulated Earth is perfect way to kill time on a 1000 year interstellar trip ? It would be the ultimate inflight movie.

[His Divine Shadow]

We're just going to need space if we want to expand and enjoy a high quality type of life anyway, space has resources in abundancy, in space we can mine, refine, build and send stuff down with minimal enviromental impact. We need resources and energy, space can provide.

A secondary advantage is we'll be more protected against global enviromental catastrophes as a species and we'll have an easier time detecting and repelling stray asteroids with a bigger prescense in space.