I agree that For mitigating AI x-risk, an off-Earth colony would be about as useful as a warm scarf.
Otherwise, I think this does seem like the kind of thing you would do to mitigate a broad class of risks. Namely, those that arise on Earth and don't lend themselves to interplanetary travel (e.g. pandemics, nukes, and some of the unknown unknowns).
Comments
Eric Rogstad
From the FB thread:
Nathan Bouscal: Note that I haven't heard significant disagreement about a colony being useless-ish against AI x-risk. The argument is that it helps with (almost) every other x-risk.
Robert Wiblin: Even then the disagreement isn't that a Mars colony couldn't help, it's that you can get something similarly valuable on Earth for a fraction of the price and difficulty.
Paul Crowley: The proper disagreement to measure is something like "A permanent, self-sustaining off-Earth colony would be a much more effective mitigation of x-risk than even an equally well funded system of disaster shelters on Earth."
Alexei Andreev
I feel like Paul Crowley's version is basically the same as this one.
And yes, I agree that there are some x-risks (like global warming) that are helped by a colony, but most aren't.
Eric Rogstad
Alexei Andreev What are some of the ones (besides AI x-risk) that you think are not?