In short, let’s get ready for round 3! Passing round 3 is the last step; once you pass that you are officially scheduled to go to Mars.

No you're not. There's no way they are going to put hundreds of people on the 7-year training program. I can't remember the next phase but training doesn't start until 2015 so I'm sure they will weed out many candidates before then. They'd want a decent pool left to account for drop-outs, maybe 100?

Also: did you already post a link to your M1 profile? I live with someone who has just passed all the medical tests. In fact she's going to a M1 event in Switzerland this weekend. You're not too by any chance?

(though whether any human being is well-adjusted enough to spend months in the kind of tight confinement they would be talking about, without suffering from MAJOR breakdowns, is another question)

I grew up on a 30-foot sailboat, along with my parents and a younger sister. If a family of four can live on a 30ft boat for years without killing each other, a few months in a tin can headed to Mars is a cakewalk by comparison.

Which brings me to the reason I expect this thing will fail: all of their recruits are too fucking coddled. Even someone like L. Spiro with his experience of other cultures and possible slight sociopathy, doesn't have the necessary experience of isolation and raw survival necessary to excel in such an environment.

Nor do I get the impression they are all actually ready to walk into the jaws of death for the betterment of all humanity, but then again, who is, in our cozy, safe modern society?

You know, no addict needs the drug, and they all only keep it around for rare occasions. And certainly they could stop any time and pass a test, if need be. Every addict's story is that it was years ago they last used, but then it turnd out they used yesterday.

But this doesn't mean he's an addict.

I can see the argument that if you've got a large enough pool of people to choose from, you can afford to be picky - so rather than trying to distinguish between whether people are addicted or not, it's simpler to be heavy handed and discount anyone who shows up any trace of drugs.

The problem is that if you apply that consistently, you could easily end up with a pool that's suddenly too small to have all the skills/qualities you'd like - e.g., ruling out anyone who's drunk alcohol would rule out a large proportion of the population (I mean, one can debate about the legal vs illegal classification of various drugs all they like, but there is no real scientific argument for that distinction, which is what should be important here). Even more so if you are picky about every other possible factor. Even with 1,000 or so people, there probably needs to be some judgement of "well this person isn't perfect in X, but we'll keep him to the next round because he's otherwise looking promising".

And if they're not consistent in applying it, then that makes no sense anyway. Another problem with testing AIUI is that different drugs leave traces for different lengths of times, so arbitrarily biases towards some drugs and not others.

The other argument for blanketly ruling people out is based on statistics "this person has quality X, and people with quality X are statistically more/less likely to have quality Y". As I say above, this has to be balanced with the problem of ruling too many people out. An advantage of the method is if people don't have the time or ability to investigate further, but I imagine that Mars One are willing to spend more time investigating people individually than say, donating blood, applying for insurance, or getting a job.

It is even more surprising (scary) that the Mars One guys would waive that merely because you wrote them a nice e-mail. Well, they're Dutch, probably been smoking weed this morning... lucky for you.

It's perfectly normal in applications to base it on communication with the applicant. It's not the "nice email", it's the information conveyed. I would find it scary if such a thing were done without communication between the organisation and the applicants.

In fact, the issues will probably work out in their favor, since reality TV lives and dies by having issues to create tension among the participants. If everyone were as well-adjusted as would be necessary for an actual Mars mission (though whether any human being is well-adjusted enough to spend months in the kind of tight confinement they would be talking about, without suffering from MAJOR breakdowns, is another question) then those well-adjusted people would make for the most awful, boring reality TV EVER, something completely counter to the whole idea of reality TV.

Yep, the only reason people tuned into the moon landing was because they were hoping to see Armstrong and Aldrin squabble over who went first, or maybe that Neil would trip on the steps, or find that he was walking down into a puddle of jelly that had been secretly planted there by NASA. It turned out to be the most boring and most forgettable piece of TV in TV history.

Pointless as it is, I will take your bait, even though I know it will lead nowhere.

But you don’t know what they prescribe in Japan. In fact, it’s illegal in many countries, not the weak sauce you claimed it would be.

So you got prescribed some japanese super drug. So, what is the terrifying name of this substance (in a language that non-japanese readers can understand, please)?

What new version?

Let me paraphrase the story line:
Examiner: Hey, what the fuck? You're on benzos!
You: Uh, I took a... laxative... can that cause it?
Examiner: No way.
You: Yeah well, I took one pill a week ago.
Examiner: You take benzodiazepines? You got insomnia?
You: Uh... Of course not! That was years ago, now I only use it very rarely when I have different work schedules.
You (to GD): So this is what happened...
Me: Dude... seriously... wtf.
You: Why, what! It was just one pill, you don't know what you are talking about. Fuck, fuck.
Me: Dude... seriously...
You: It was for a broken tooth. Only once.
Me: Ow man, Dude...
You: You got no clue, it's super hefty stuff. I used it only twice to escape pain.

So basically, you went from "no biggie, took one pill a week ago" through "taking rarely for jet lag and work schedule" through "took it for a broken tooth" to "it's not the weak sauce you think".

You also didn't tell the examiner about the broken tooth although now you seem to think that this is a valid application. Instead, you told him stuff about "work schedule".

Don't you even realize how your story changes every few moments?

It is only the second time I resorted to sleeping pills to escape pain and not otherwise worth mentioning.
That doesn’t change the fact that I mainly use them on plane rides or abrupt changes in my schedule, etc.

Not worth mentioning here since it's none of the GD.net community's business (or my business) what you do with your health, that is true.

They're certainly worth mentioning during your examination, since they're inadequate use of controlled substances and you are applying for a position in a program where that's serious business, and they are certainly hard exclusion criteria.

They would be hard exclusion criteria if they were revealed when you applied for any kind of job (or position) in any place where security/reliability matters in any significant way.

The first post likely mentioned it was at a bar where I sometimes play piano.

I remember you telling having been at the police 3 times because a guy you are on good terms with tried to kill you. Pushed you down the stairs from behind. Witnesses, blood on your shirt, police does nothing because you're a foreigner.

You had a friend (who didn't witness the scene) talk to the police, and nothing. Eventually it turns out the guy is a bar owner next door to where you live, you sometimes play piano in that bar, and occasionally have a drink. That evening, you too had a drink, but you weren't drunk when you insulted him. He kept pushing you although you apologized.

Now it's an accident.

But... It doesn't really matter what the exact reason was. It doesn't matter whether you insulted him or whether it was an accident.

What really matters is that it's such a twisted, contorted story from Bizarro World. I have maybe experienced one or two such stories (but not nearly as bizarre as this one!) in my life. You seem to experience one such story every few weeks. That is what I'm on about.

or the jakuza girl and transgender story

Not getting the point. I refused to be involved in organized crime and I politely refused the transgender.

The point is what your post was about. The essence of that post was "Fuck, all Japanese are perverts. I dated 3 girls, one wants to kill babies, the next is a jakuza, and the third is a transgender".

I've dated women from different cultures including that particular one before (though admittedly two decades ago), and I've never had a woman of the kind you describe.

For the filming of a TV show.

Nice try, but no.

Making a movie where you play someone who lost his legs is one thing. Posting that photo with the line "I wish for my legs back" on a thread which is about what people had on their Christmas wish list is another story.

You didn't bother to reveal the "joke" until a full day later. You intentionally deceived people into thinking you had had an accident. Do you really need attention that direly? If that is the case, you seriously need help.

Otherwise, it's still extremely bad taste. If you are in doubt about whether it was a good joke, make the same post on an amputee forum, and see what reaction you'll get.

No one turns on the news to hear stories about someone who recovered from a liver disease

Someone turns on the news. Is that what matters? Dude? Seriously?

Besides, this:

That would be seeking sympathy and attention, which only an asshole would do. Making this post is like making an obligation to die. [...] I was diagnosed over 6 months ago with a liver disease.

followed by the revelation months later that when you said "liver disease" you were talking about "fatty liver disease" is just another such example.

You knew exactly that you were not going to die from that condition before you posted that crap.

And with that, I'll stop my sermon, because it leads nowhere.

Elysium (named after Elysium Mons on Mars)

Actually, the movie takes it's name from ancient Greek mythology. Elysium was a part of the afterlife where only a few chosen were allowed to reside (just as the station in the movie was). The mountain on Mars is no doubt named after this as well.

Pointless as it is, I will take your bait, even though I know it will lead nowhere.

Your post is either more about your lack of reading comprehension, or lack of interesting experiences, than Spiro being a sociopathic liar.

Most people just don't vent their life experiences, but different people do lead different lives. I could easilly talk about (true) stories of growing up around Mafia, working in the democratic party as an elected official, hanging out with Bill Clinton, Leading a $60,000,000,000+ company's performance lab at 20, and a whole bunch of other crazy not-so-legal stuff. Honestly, most of this would sound like a lie to anyone who doesn't know me. I'm sure Spiro's been leading a pretty interesting life as well, but he's given no reason to suggest that he's lying, or changes his story multiiple times. Sure, he leaves details out on the first summary of events, but isn't that generally what happens in a discussion?

*EDIT* Oh, and congradulations on making it this far Spiro!

Ok, inspired by this, I'm gonna make a Kickstarter campaign to propel the island of Manhattan to Alpha Centauri. I will lose indiegogo's flexible funding of course, but kickstarter is more popular. Schaffer even managed to make a point-and-click adventure using it.

Since it's kind of a bigger mission though, I'm gonna ask for 800K instead, for the initial funding of course. The rest will be funded by the very first ever TV reality show holding the promise of actually featuring alien species. It's gonna be effing huge!

And please, to any non-believers out there, don't flood me with your supposed "facts" and such stuff. If nobody tries, nobody will succeed.

Actually…speaking over-generally, yes.
Look at how many movies recently are coming out about life in space or on foreign planets.
Avatar. Avatar 2.
Oblivion. Elysium (named after Elysium Mons on Mars), After Earth, The Last Days on Mars, Gravity, etc.
Pacific Rim revolves around aliens and has a scene from their world as well.


L. Spiro

About life in space and on foreign planets with 3d effects.
Dead or Alive is a really good documentary that shows what happens when you decide to do something in a place where you're not supposed to go to.

If nobody tries, nobody will succeed.

You say this facetiously, but it also happens to be true. Someone has to be the first person on Mars, and if they die in the attempt, well, at least humanity learned something valuable in the process.

That we managed a moon landing without a single death in the space program is a historical anomaly, and a testament to the skill of the scientists, engineers, and astronauts who made it possible.

How many people died before the first person reached the summit of Everest? How many died attempting to reach the North Pole, or find the Northwest Passage? How many died in pursuit of the first successful supersonic flight?

I grew up on a 30-foot sailboat, along with my parents and a younger sister. If a family of four can live on a 30ft boat for years without killing each other, a few months in a tin can headed to Mars is a cakewalk by comparison.

I'm not sure this really applies, to be honest. It's one thing to live on a boat on the open ocean, warm sun above, fresh breeze, the ability to port to stretch your legs and buy an orange or a can of Sprite every so often. It's something else entirely to be sealed in a completely closed environment, no gravity, recycled air, no view of the outside world because that's an invitation to being fried by radiation and there's nothing to look at anyway, no fresh food, stale water, and not being able to go up on deck whenever somebody sets off a particularly raunchy fart, on top of the general nervousness and fear of being out in the completely unknown, doing something with such a high probability of horrible death, a fact you couldn't help but brood upon after the initial excitement and adrenaline high of launch wore off. I'd imagine the stresses in that environment would be quite extreme indeed.