Gold fever, cold, and the true adventures of Jack London in the wild

BenjaminBarwo 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Jack London’s experience is a useful analogy most people chased quick wins, underestimated operational friction like logistics, environment, capital constraints, and failed due to poor preparation. Jack didn’t extract value from mining but he converted field experience into durable intellectual capital like stories, brand, and differentiation. I think of how startups and other business endeavors rarely win by blindly copying obvious opportunities they win by capturing firsthand market pain, execution scars, and unique insights into defensible products. My personal takeaway is asset isn't always going to be the "rush" it's what you learn while surviving it.

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teruakohatu 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

London didn't sugar coat the life up there in his novels. The people depicted were all hard people living hard lives, or they were fools, or both.

I can't remember which book it was but the comedic/tragic depiction of an unexperienced sister and two brothers overloading a sled, unwilling to give up useless comforts, so much so that the dogs couldn't move the sled, stuck in my mind.

	▲	hackingforfun 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> I can't remember which book it was but the comedic/tragic depiction of an unexperienced sister and two brothers overloading a sled, unwilling to give up useless comforts, so much so that the dogs couldn't move the sled, stuck in my mind. That's from The Call of the Wild.

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trhway 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

give it 30-50 years and we'll see repeat of these stories and photos, this time on Moon, Mars and asteroids instead of Yukon.

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d_silin 7 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Yes. Yet it will be stories worth remembering.

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lukan 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What will be the valuable resource everyone is hunting on the asteroids, that is so valuable it covers the trip there?

Gold is way too cheap (and much easier to get on earth, even if the current mines are exhausted)

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pstuart an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Building big ass space stations -- colonies at L4 & L5. Why haul it up from space? Perhaps rail guns on the moon might be easier...

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trhway 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

He3? The trips will be cheap. Moon will be extended weekend trips. $10/kg to LEO. I.e. $1M for 100ton ship - compact nuclear reactor, small living quarters, 70 tons ejection mass for ionic drive - that is possible today - gets you to Mars in a few months.

And in modern attention economy there is another extremely valuable resource to mine - attention of millions. At least initially the trips by IG/TikTok influencers (would be like Jack London posting TikToks as he goes instead of writing books later) will generate tremendous revenue paving the interplanetary ways for us, mere mortals.

>Gold is way too cheap (and much easier to get on earth, even if the current mines are exhausted)

With that logic Manilla Galeons wouldn't have happened :)

Edit: just looked up prices of iridium, rhodium - $6K-$10K/ounce. So just 10kg - $2M+ . Thus it looks like there is a lot of economic sense for asteroid mining once we get to cheaply launch into LEO 100+ ton items like nuclear powered ships.

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wileydragonfly 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Been hearing about the miracle of He3 for decades. Neither one of us gets off this planet alive.

	▲	trhway an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I’ll get, at least for short time :) If nothing comes better, in 20-30 years retired I’ll build something like that Denmark amateur rocket. It is cheap even today, and the tech and blueprints will be widespread and available like say drones and homemade planes today. Optimistically though I think by that time ticket to Moon on SpaceX cattle class will be $100K.

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lukan 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

And all of this ... for gold?

(even filtering sea water for it here on earth sounds a lot cheaper)

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gerad 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

honestly anything outside the gravity well. it's expensive to get materials from earth to space.