[ExI] Humans will go crazy in space travel

Wed Jun 2 21:57:49 UTC 2021

In this case, I am writing for a setting - that particular alien race
included - that has been previously established.  It is defined a priori
that they have claustrophobic instincts, not just preferences.  "These
things are biologically wired into their brains" seems not entirely
credible given the degree to which the setting specifies it (the fine
details call into question how they can routinely board spacecraft in order
to travel, yet they are depicted as ruling and inhabiting a vast domain of
solar systems), but the specification is there.

Granted, one can claim this definition has only ever - so far - been
provided via unreliable narrators that have reason to be biased on this
point.  (It seems akin to IRL people who claim that all men have the
uncontrollable overwhelming instinct to rape any women they see, and the
only viable countermeasure is for women to cover up in public if they are
even allowed to go about unescorted in public.)  Part of what I'm writing
is intended to start addressing this point, showing that these may be more
preferences than instincts, or at least that they have ways to address said
instincts.  But the prior material clearly claims instincts.

On Wed, Jun 2, 2021 at 2:42 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> to satisfy this race's instincts  Adrian
>
> This pushes one of my buttons.  People use the word instinct a lot but
> never explain how they are using it or where they are getting their data
> from, or just what instincts we have.  I realize that you are likely using
> it in a casual sense, but I am troubled when people use words they cannot
> or do not define.  There is no accepted definition for the word in
> psychology.  Often it is equated with intuition or even gut feelings.  I
> would have written 'preferences' instead.   bill w
>
> On Wed, Jun 2, 2021 at 1:11 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> This is why I advocate for O'Neill cylinders and other large habitats:
>> having a large interior makes long term living more tolerable for most
>> people.
>>
>> I have recently been working on some science fiction (apparently due to
>> be published no earlier than November of this year, more likely in the
>> first half of next year) about a certain race that is extremely
>> claustrophobic (the K'kree, from Traveller).  One way they took to the
>> stars was in cylindrical arks, 2 km in diameter and 2 km long, with 50
>> meter tall "decks" (10m of structure and 40m of open air).  The outermost
>> deck is spun up to 1 G; each 50m up/in reduces this by 0.05 G (that is: the
>> outermost deck is at 1 G, the next deck in is at 0.95 G, then 0.9, 0.85,
>> and so on).  This continues from 1 km radius to 0.55 km radius; the decks
>> at 0.5 km and inward from there are reserved for ship systems (portions of
>> the 0.55 km and 0.6 km radius decks are also used for that) such as power
>> plant (the arks are not always close to a sun, such as when travelling FTL
>> between solar systems), engine (the setting I'm writing for assumes
>> hyper-efficient "maneuver drives"), and fuel.
>>
>> This means that there is a horizon (curving up instead of down, but still
>> a horizon) forward and back along the curvature of the cylinder, on any
>> inhabited deck.  You can go to that horizon and see more land, but then you
>> can't see all the land that you could from the point where that was the
>> horizon.  Along the other horizontal axis, 2 km is far enough to not
>> trigger "this is an enclosed room" feelings; there may be fog, or at least
>> buildings, such that one can rarely if ever see one wall from the other.
>> Between these factors, living inside one of these feels close enough to
>> living outdoors on a planet to satisfy this race's instincts.
>>
>> Humanity's needs are not nearly as extreme, but I could see this setup
>> working for humans too, maybe with (or maybe not needing) more space
>> between decks.
>>
>> On Sun, May 30, 2021 at 12:51 PM BillK via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Slate have an article up about how humans will find it very difficult to
>>> cope with space travel and living on other planets or asteroids.
>>>
>>> <
>>> https://slate.com/technology/2021/05/spacex-starship-space-travel-paradox.html
>>> >
>>>
>>> The Spacefaring Paradox
>>> Deep-space human travel is a lose-lose proposition.
>>>
>>> By Christopher Schaber      May 25, 2021
>>>
>>> Quotes:
>>> If there’s one collective lesson gleaned from the COVID pandemic so
>>> far, it may be the shared difficulty of being isolated in one’s own
>>> home—whether alone or with family members or roommates.
>>> When space closes in, humans tend not to thrive. It can drive us to
>>> the brink of craziness.
>>> ----
>>> If the dream of space travel involves new horizons and feelings of
>>> unbound freedom—to explore, to discover, to spread humanity—a
>>> nightmare lurks just around the corner of consciousness. There will be
>>> no real “arrival” on this fantasy trip: It’s enclosures and
>>> pressurized chambers all the way down. When it comes to human space
>>> travel, the destination really is the journey. And the journey will be
>>> long, and claustrophobic.
>>> -------------------
>>>
>>> I think I mostly agree. Humans are designed for the wide-open spaces
>>> of Earth. Space is interesting to visit for a while, but I wouldn't
>>> much want a life spent in a tin can.
>>> I vote to send the robots instead.
>>>
>>> BillK
>>>
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