Pics or it didn’t happen.

Close. Unwilling to do any homework and just sticking to what fits his view of how things should be. A bit more than pessimistic.

And Mars is still quite a bit like Earth. Seasons, atmosphere, water, soil, et al. Considering the drastic climates where life has been found on Earth, there's much to suggest microbial life in Mars; not to mention probably plenty of larger fossils waiting to be found.

Should we live to see the day where a manned Mars mission actually is done and they come back with empty hands I’ll hunt you down, point my finger at you and say ... mark my words.

Also, try harder at discrediting me.

Odds are they'll come back empty handed 999 times out of 1,000. Fossils are incredibly rare things to find. It'll be decades or centuries after having a damned good base on Mars before any kind of drilling can be done to find substrata...whatever.

And a hundred a fifty years ago, nobody knew anything much about Mars. A hundred years before that, no one knew anything about black holes. A hundred years before that, 99.99% of the world population didn't even know what a telescope looked like. We've barely scratched the surface of the cosmos, and are discovering new things all the time. Bit premature to say planets like Earth are rare, especially given the evidence in our own solar system.

The Case For Mars by Robert Zubrin is a really good place to start if you wanted a sort of realistic what-if for a working series of building up a base on Mars.

I really want to see more Mars settings too. I mean, Heinlein and the bunch of grandmasters of sci-fi had them when not a lot was known about the planet, but why not come back to it while a lot more is known? It'd be so cool, the underground habitats and corridors, needing the special equipment not to die horribly from electrocution just by stepping outside (seriously), all kinds of stuff.

Actually, give me a decade, and I'll make the coolest Mars-based RPG ever. It'll be my new pet project.

They have, in a way. Seriously, look at the insanely high definition images they took all over the surface of Mars. It's beautiful.

You know, Mr. Triple-Post, there is something called the “edit” button. Or what happened to that invisible user you are talking to?

Are you sure you understand what I mean by “planets like Earth”?

That's actually misconstruing basic anthropology/archeology. As nondeplumage stated that's "the noble savage" fallacy which is actually rejected by modern archeology - just as "scientific racism" whereby early societies are nothing but horrible primitives compared to wonderful us is also rejected.
I believe the other poster got deleted.
To each his own, but I don't find it necessary for an afterlife exist or the thought of humanity everlasting to make my life meaningful.

I care not to prognosticate on the existence of extraterrestrial intelligences or the prevalence of Earth-type planets. We simply don't know the numbers for the relevant parameters. Though I do reject the notion that if we don't get a signal in the next century that life in the universe is necessarily rare.

Who cares what modern archeology rejects? This doesn’t auto-invalidate one’s point though this seems to be what your comment is supposed to imply.

Actually in this case it does, because those fallacies were themselves not actually based on anything. There are good reasons to reject them and not really any good reasons to support them. They weren't evidence based philosophies, but were mostly born out of racism or by people with a political agenda - i.e. these were philosophies born out of a the preconceived notion that these philosophies were true, not from actually studying other cultures. These were ways which people would approach studying other cultures and not conclusions drawn from actually studying other cultures.

Are we still talking about the same matter?

I don't think labeling it as the noble savage fallacy is fair. I'm not arguing about human nature and definitely not saying people are good by nature (hey, I'm Christian - we're all bad in my eyes). I just think it is required for our economy's continued growth to exploit someone and as we grow, those exploited grow more. I don't believe we will ever figure out some form of utopic government, so we will continue on this path. Instead of just telling me I'm wrong, explain how.

Otherwise, how will I learn?

EDIT: and my studies were not based off of philosophy but (get ready for it)... actual anthropology.

The noble savage fallacy extends beyond just saying that people are good, but also that as society increases in complexity we "fall from grace" - i.e. that the more primitive the society, the better it is for people. Which I feel you're arguing a variant of from an economic rather than moral perspective.

As far as evidence for more positive trends in society and the world at large you can view this video (http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/200_countries_200_years_in_4_minutes)
Well I've also studied anthropology in classes and readings and there are a lot of reasons to reject any of those ideas. The more down time etc comes with a lot of caveats: starvation, lack of medicine, the potential for horrible repression and stratification despite your claims to the contrary (lack of women's rights), etc ... Most studies that are based in one philosophy or the other will focus on either all the societies' faults or good points rather than the holistic view of those societies. There were advantages, there were also disadvantages.

You can hardly ignore the fact that the way our modern society is taking will consume itself sooner or later because of its lack of sustainability which on the other hand, hold on to your seat, exists in any primitive society. Living off the fat of the land, y’know?