https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&feedformat=atom&user=Holcma01explain xkcd - User contributions [en]2026-05-21T07:17:03ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1232:_Realistic_Criteria&diff=426061232: Realistic Criteria2013-07-01T17:07:50Z<p>Holcma01: </p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1232<br />
| date = July 1, 2013<br />
| title = Realistic Criteria<br />
| image = realistic criteria.png<br />
| titletext = I'm leaning toward fifteen. There are a lot of them.<br />
}}<br />
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==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete}}<br />
The comic is, at its core, a parody of the overly optimistic scientism that often attaches itself to the idea of a manned Mars mission, which in the minds of its supporters is always "ten to fifteen years away," no matter the unsolved technical or logistics challenges that are still standing in the way.<br />
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The suggestion of [[White Hat]] is ridicolous, because "all our problems" on Earth is very vague, and represents a large, clustered set of big and small problems, often causing each other, or colliding.<br />
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While the title text admits that there are a lot of problems, just considering the largest ones, like famine, diseases, energy, climatic changes, and wars, it would be unrealistic to think we could solve them in fifteen years, when humanity has been struggling with most of them since its appearance on Earth (and caused a series of them personally). It seems that, if we really wanted to solve all of our problems before exploring more planets, we would, in fact, never explore them. One could argue, however, that by exploring before we do, we'd be only worsening our problems by wasting resources, or leeching resources from other planets (while unrealistic at this phase) to solve our problems by causing problems elsewhere, so the reasoning isn't completely baseless, while the timeline set is unrealistic.<br />
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The argument between exploring space vs saving resources and solving problems on Earth is a pretty common one.<br />
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==Transcript==<br />
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{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]</div>Holcma01