Instigator / Pro
7
1922
rating
117
debates
97.44%
won
Topic
#1386

MOON vs. MARS: Which destination should humanity colonize first? PRO=MOON CON=MARS

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
3
0
Better sources
2
0
Better legibility
1
1
Better conduct
1
1

After 1 vote and with 5 points ahead, the winner is...

oromagi
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
3
Time for argument
Two days
Max argument characters
10,000
Voting period
One week
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
2
1697
rating
556
debates
68.17%
won
Description

PRO=MOON colony first
CON=MARS colony first

BURDEN of PROOF is shared- both sides must make an affirmative case for their preferred project. In effect, we have two policy resolutions:

RESOLVED:Humans should colonize the Moon first
vs.
RESOLVED:Humans should colonize Mars first

NO KRITIKS, please, for this debate: both sides should assume that human space colonization is both achievable and desirable over the next few centuries of human history. Political questions regarding the governance of any hypothetical colony ought not to be considered for this short debate.

DEFINITIONS:

THE MOON is an astronomical body that orbits the planet Earth and acts as its only permanent natural satellite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon

MARS is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System after Mercury.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars

HUMANS (Homo sapiens) are the only extant members of the subtribe Hominina. A terrestrial animal, humans are characterized by their erect posture and bipedal locomotion; high manual dexterity and heavy tool use compared to other animals; open-ended and complex language use compared to other animal communications; larger, more complex brains than other animals; and highly advanced and organized societies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human

COLONIZATION requires the establishment of permanent habitats that have potential for self-expansion and self-sustenance.

- RULES --
1. Forfeit=auto loss
2. Sources may be merely linked in debate as long as citations are listed in comments
3. No new args in R3
4. For all relevant terms, individuals should use commonplace understandings that fit within the rational context of this resolution and debate

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@oromagi

Antarctica receives more rainfall than the moon and water can always be made by melting Ice. There are already big cities in the Sahara like Cairo, although the region could use more cities. I'd prefer colonizing either the Sahara or Antarctica before any extra terrestrial body.

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@TheUnderdog

Antarctica is drier than the Sahara and a little larger. We'll probably need to figure out how to live in the Sahara first.

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@oromagi

Antarctica should be colonized before any celestial body.

moon is closer no brainer

I'd also be willing to debate "there's no such thing as ghosts"

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@Barney

This ghost voter who claimed RM didn’t use sources, is an excellent hacker - not only has he managed to vote without leaving an RfD, and without anyone other than RM seeing them, they also managed to vote without changing the score either.

This ghost voter is as good as me; being able to dishonesty misrepresent or dismiss RMs position, and ignore his key rebuttals - without leaving any specific examples or evidence that could be clearly quoted or pointed out.

Guys, we really need to find the identity of the ghost voter Super Alpha Wolf was warning us about (https://www.debateart.com/debates/1386/comment_links/20324). The one whom says Super Alpha Wolf had no sources, but the vote can only be seen by someone with his amazing heightened senses.

I know I was moved by Super Alpha Wolf's "five sources and the promise that more will come later..." Thankfully those sources he's going to use later, prevent any part of his case being dismissed on grounds of "any and all things raised without sourcing can be disregarded without them." Those aliens on Mars we need to reach, his secret source which proves their existence must be so compelling that voters should just give him the source point in the hope that it will get him to share it.
/Satire

No Ramshutu. You are only the hero in the eyes of fellow villains of this website. One day others will come and see what you are and I am and I promise you, the narrative won't favour you.

I’m drawing a contrast between what you say, and reality.

If you feel bad, or consider it “bullying” when what happens in actuality is pointed out to you, this says much more about you than it does me!

You are just out to make me feel bad and bully me. This conversation is over.

You’ll objectively annihilate me so completely you’ll be forced to forfeit and then concede like the last two times?

Ragnar and Oromagi are guaranteed votes against me in that debate. Much like here, I can objectively annihilate my opponent, turning all their points against themselves even... And the voter will say I didn't touch on the points at all, ignore what I raised and say it wasn't relevant when the very definition of 'colonization' undeniably means that my points were all relevant, brutally so.

In the flat earth being possible debate, they will change the word 'possible' to mean 'probable' just the opposite of what they did to vote against Sparrow in the 'RM can't prove that I am Type1' debates where they allowed your bad faith definitions of 'can' because they sadistically wanted to see him lose and liked the voting-ring corruption you guys got going with each other. I already know how the debate will end. They will vote against me saying it's too ridiculous and improbable what I suggested because the 'reliable scientists' all said so.

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@oromagi

I’m still waiting for him to accept a debate that it’s even possible for the earth to be flat.

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@oromagi

You come from the assumption that it's wrong to discredit a group that is entitled to deep government security clearance and never can be truly audited. You speak so fondly of people who have you under their thumb whether or not they are lying, because they can and will control what you do and do not know as they see fit and are legally entitled to do so, including lying.

They can falsify data as they please and the only ones who ever would stop them all serve their agenda. That is why the red 'V' looking symbol, which refers to the number of the beast in Hebrew (looks like a crowbar), also known as a VAV symbol, is in all space agencies that are 'in' on the occult regime's plan.

razzy-man-

we should do flat earth some time. I haven't really looked into it and I'd like to better understand the underpinnings of recent round earth denialism. I totally do not understand that particular pop culture phenomenon and suspect it is mostly pose. No its not kind of cool to pretend what is real ain't real or suggest that our astonishing and valiant American Space program has just been a bunch of nerds lying but I expect that there's a better argument then that somewhere in there.

Elon Musk says Starship should reach orbit within six months – and could even fly with a crew next year

https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/28/elon-musk-says-starship-should-reach-orbit-within-six-months-and-it-could-even-fly-with-a-crew-next-year/

By faulty voting, indeed.

Corncobbed.

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@David
@oromagi

On a scale of 1 - 10 how much reading comprehension must one lack to not see me use sources and even better, not see the definition of 'colonise' in the description explicitly states habitat and human population of the planet?

I do love the stupidity allowed in votes, it makes me fucking laugh.

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@oromagi

Thank you

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@David
@Barney
@Yours

Thanks for the vote anyway, Yours, and welcome to the site. I hope you will continue to vote once you are eligible. Ragnar, thanks for voting and Virt thanks for all your efforts.

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@Yours

*******************************************************************
>Reported Vote: [yours] // Mod action: [Removed]

>Points Awarded: 1 point to Pro

>Reason for Decision: See below

>Reason for Mod Action: This voter is ineligible. In order for an account to be eligible to vote, they must first have read the rules and completed 2 non-forfeit, non-troll debate OR made 100 forum posts.
************************************************************************

Moon, Mars is way too far away.

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@Barney

Ok, here is the source of my believe.

These are two video made by Kurzgesagt on the subject, pretty entertaining and very scientific:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtQkz0aRDe8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqKGREZs6-w&t

I see my mistake but there is no way I can edit the reason for the vote.
Pro has provided lots of sources while the Con have very little.

Summarizing using Pro's quote: "So far, CON's argument in favor of Mars has been pretty vague- relying more on denying the value of the Moon as a potential colony than explaining Mars' positive advantages." the points con made doesn't defend his thesis, and mostly based on assumptions than actual fact.

---RFD---
Interpreting the resolution:
The resolution assumes that both will be colonized (permanent habitats), with a no K rule. Split BoP (meaning if neither, or both at the same time, then a tie).

Gist:
Con drops too much of pro’s case to have a prayer. He tries to move the goalpost to outright terraforming, but that’s outside the scope of this first colony debate.

1. Proximity
The reliability of orbit and a host of other things helps the moon. Con tried a discourse Kritik on this (more directly to the related visibility point), but it did not go anywhere.

2. Spaceport
Sounds very useful, particularly the resources. Con tried to counter with contradicting assertions “that there’s nothing there,” and that we can’t mine resources from where we live (which if true would prevent any permanent self-sustaining colony anywhere...).

3. Weather
I thought Mars would come ahead on this, but pro explained how very weak the atmosphere on Mars is, and the whole life angle being dangerous territory. Knowing what we’re getting into, for a first trial, is how things are done, you don’t just build a party rocket at hope for the best.

4. Current State
The moon already has funding and planning underway.

5. Tech
We can semi-reliably get people to the moon, not so much for Mars. Con counters by claiming we only ever went to the moon once...

6. Visibility
Not the strongest point, more just an extension of proximity. It got stronger with factors from the next one, since if it fails horribly, we will be able to observe and learn.

7. Training
Pro pulled everything together to make it seem truly vital to have practice surviving out there, but also a staging area to reach any other planet. This seemed complained about instead of countered.

8. Aliens
Con makes the case that we need to invade mars to fight the Martians who are conceivably right now planning an invasion, and he promises there will be sources to prove this...
Pro uses logic to flip this with implicit safety concerns.

9. Riots
Con believes riots will happen if the moon landing happened...

---

Arguments:
See above review of key points.

Sources:
I was going to leave this tied due to my strong dislike of them being posted outside debate rounds (turned out to be less of a problem than anticipated, due to working links being in the rounds), but con promised too many sources to which he failed to deliver, which prevents casual dismissal of this area as being within the tied range.
Pro wins this considerably less than the difference in distances under comparison, but easily by the distance between the earth and the moon itself. A well-researched layered case, vs five sources and the promise that more will come later...
A really good one from pro was Nasa’s one on Solar Conjunction, which for a first attempt it would seem incredibly foolish to not have at least stable communication lines. Space’s one on how our blood would boil on mars (and pro’s understanding that it would apply on the moon), was very well leveraged to nullify the related part of the opposition.

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@Yours

I've reported your vote to the moderation team. The problem with it is that it could have been written based solely on the title of the debate, not addressing any of the nuance.

(not bothering to tag mods in this, as the problem similarly lacks any nuance)

going back to saturn where the rings all glow

The Moon is uninhabitable ********************

fucking bullshit typo

Donald fucking Trump.

Our topic is in the news:

PRESIDENT TRUMP: So we’re doing a great program. We have — Vice President Pence is very much involved. And we have a tremendous space program. If you look at our facilities, they were virtually closed up. There was crabgrass growing on the runways and now they’re vital.

And, you know, we’re doing — we’re doing — we’re going to Mars. We’re stopping at the moon. The moon is actually a launching pad. That’s why we’re stopping at the moon. I said, “Hey, we’ve done the moon. That’s not so exciting.” They said, “No, sir. It’s a launching pad for Mars.” So we’ll be doing the Moon. But we’ll really be doing Mars. And we’ll be — we’re making tremendous progress.

In addition, rich people like to send up rocket ships. So between Bezos and Elon Musk and others, we’re leasing them our launch facilities, which you can’t get. There are no launch facilities like this. This is big stuff. So we’re — in Texas and Florida, we’re leasing them our facilities so they can send up whatever they want to send up. It’s okay with us. And they’ve actually done very well. They’ve said they’ve had great success.

But rich people in this country — I don’t know about your country — but they like building rocket ships and sending them up, and it’s okay with us. (Laughter.)

PRO's R3 source list

https://www.space.com/36800-five-ways-to-die-on-mars.html

Con R2 Source list (will post more full thing for R3)
1. https://www.americangeosciences.org/critical-issues/faq/how-can-metal-mining-impact-environment
2. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-definitely-have-not-found-life-on-the-moon/
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6225594/
4. https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/en/topics/waste-resources/resource-use-its-consequences
5. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/23/if-solar-panels-are-so-clean-why-do-they-produce-so-much-toxic-waste/

PRO's R2 source list

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-definitely-have-not-found-life-on-the-moon/
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cost-travel-moon-mars-beyond-044926516.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_soil
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_soil
https://www.space.com/india-moon-lander-flyover-nasa-lro.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program
https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/06/23/space-investors-rejoice-worth-mining-moon.aspx

PRO's R1 source list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars#Closest_approaches
https://www.mars-one.com/faq/technology/how-does-the-mars-base-communicate-with-earth
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7485
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_resources
https://www.space.com/nasa-moon-2024-return-cost-revealed.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_mission_to_Mars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_of_eternal_light
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_water
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/fy2020_mission_fact_sheets.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_One
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX

@RM

Thx, boss. I’m glad u took this one on!

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@oromagi

no flat earth stuff will come up, don't worry.