Anyone else following this? I still don't have a sense of how big a deal the mission itself was, but it seems like there was quite a lot of political influence riding on its success; if it all goes smoothly it seems as though the expected proxmity of a manned Mars mission might shrink a lot.

So far everything's gone well - there's a lot of great (and for me at least very emotional) footage appearing on YouTube and a live NASA feed here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/ ... -live-blog

I'm excited.

The mission cost $2.5 billion. What kind of utility does the US government expect from this cost?

Hedonic Treader wrote:The mission cost $2.5 billion. What kind of utility does the US government expect from this cost?

I expect that it's all part of the stepping stones that eventually lead to humanity expanding out of Earth, which I think is urgently important for our far utilitarian future. Though, in the immediate setting given that our government budget is decidedly non-utilitarian, I'm still happy to see money devoted to space travel, because we spend money on a lot worse.

If a Mars colony was set up, then this could reduce the chance of people going extinct, which could have enormous positive or negative utility.

Yeah, it feels very much like a good thing to me. As someone (Will Crouch?) pointed out, the value of the information about whether our survival is good is high enough that our short-term survival seems very high expectation.

Arepo wrote:As someone (Will Crouch?) pointed out, the value of the information about whether our survival is good is high enough that our short-term survival seems very high expectation.

The problem with this logic is that the relevant decision-makers will not use this knowledge to maximize ethical utility as we understand it here. For instance, they will very probably be speciesists. If someone can make a profit by spreading suffering life, they will do so, if they have the power.

That's possible. It's also possible that someone will have the power to stop them, so it still amounts to high expected value. It's not as though we have a high probability of affecting our chance of survival *now*, either, but people still think it an important enough question to focus on.

Hedonic Treader wrote:

Arepo wrote:As someone (Will Crouch?) pointed out, the value of the information about whether our survival is good is high enough that our short-term survival seems very high expectation.

The problem with this logic is that the relevant decision-makers will not use this knowledge to maximize ethical utility as we understand it here. For instance, they will very probably be speciesists. If someone can make a profit by spreading suffering life, they will do so, if they have the power.

Why send a cow to Mars to kill it if you can take a few seeds? I don't see Mars as being on the front lines of killing animals any time soon, it'd be just too impractical.

Nap, I agree - there won't be suffering cows on Mars anytime soon. In fact, I'd expect there will be only very few suffering cows on earth by 2100. However, it would be a lack of imagination to simply extend our current exploitation practices into the far future. There are quite a few other things that can go wrong.

After in vitro meat becomes sufficiently cheap, I think we'd only have to worry about wildlife.

Is it likely that we'll try to get wildlife running on Mars? I'd expect we'd just stick with whatever simple life-forms are necessary to terraform it, but I could be wrong. Perhaps some animal that we bring as pets will be able to eat whatever plant-like life we bring, and will start feral colonies.

I think digital minds suffering is more probable. There could also be unfree humans suffering, not allowed to die even if they want to (are they now?). More wars, bigger wars, new torture methods, new ways of keeping suffering brains alive for longer etc. Coercion and involuntary experiences are such profound and ubiquitous patterns throughout all the living world, it's hard to see why this same shit won't happen over and over again wherever life expands.

Hedonic Treader wrote:it's hard to see why this same shit won't happen over and over again wherever life expands.

Guess this is why its important for utilitarianism to have a bigger better place in this world, and "the next".