Long-termism and effective altruism are labels that are on the surface attractive, or at worst benign if wrong-headed. But in many instances they are destructive: telling people Mars can be colonized by humans, and that being "multiplanetary" is sensible diverts attention from duller but vastly more pressing issues.<p>The real answer to colonizing Mars is something a lot of people would find disturbing: A species of post-human beings would have to be engineered for the role of colonist. That's just for starters. But the scifi version is what gets sold to the public.