Palko writes:
It has largely been shoved down the memory hole, but in 2014 and 2015, virtually every major news organization was credulously reporting on a laughably obvious scam project that claimed it was on the verge of setting up a self-sustaining Martian colony funded by a reality TV show. The story was a triumph of lazy, sensationalistic journalism, fertilized by silly techno-optimism and Muskian bullshit about saving the planet by leaving.
Mars One has ended up where every reasonable person knew it would, but it’s still worth remembering, if only to remind us to be more skeptical about the next “next big thing.”
Palko gives links to a series of posts from 2015, along with the final report from 2019, Mars One Ends In Bankruptcy, from the journalist Elmo Keep.
Here’s the thing.
From a scientific or technological standpoint, it wouldn’t be quite right to call Mars One a “failure,” as it was never a serious plan to begin with. If Nasa tries to reach Mars but the rocket blows up, that’s a failure. If I start digging in my basement but I never reach China as planned, that’s not a “failure,” really, as there was nothing there to succeed or fail in the first place. As science or technology, Mars One was not a failure; it was a publicity stunt.
As a publicity stunt, Mars One was a big success–for awhile. Indeed, given how ridiculous it always was from a technical perspective, it was a very successful publicity stunt. Ultimately I’m not sure if Mars One should be considered a failure as a publicity stunt. Yes, it finally folded up, but it stayed afloat for awhile, which I guess must have been much of the point. Theranos, that was a failure–people actually went to prison for it. Although it was in some part a public-relations success, in that some of the participants walked out richer than when they came in.
What Palko’s getting at in his above-linked post–and I agree with him on this–is that failures (however they are defined) should not be forgotten. We need to avoid the selection bias by which failures are forgotten or explained away, thus giving an unrealistic sense of the probability of success.
On this blog we write a lot about struggles and failure–our own and others’–and this is one reason why.
The failure/success dichotomy obscures the question of goals. For example(s – plural, since they come hourly), Trump’s negotiating tactics may be deemed failures or successes, depending on what you view the goals to be. I think the idea that we should not forget or ignore failures is certainly valid, regardless of your goals – it is often said we learn more from failure than success, and I know I certainly do. But the examples in this post (Mars One, Theranos) could be interpreted either way depending on the goals.
When you say “people actually went to prison for it” you are applying ex post thinking. This muddies the water when you try to learn from failure – it could have been successful, depending on the goals, and depending on some possibly random factors. Even your digging in the basement for China example, might be a failure in objectives – choosing an unachievable goal.
So, I think the idea that we should not forget failures is trivially valid – what I think is more interesting is how we define goals, and only then how we gauge success or failure (and the reasons). Beyond that, the success/failure dichotomy strikes me like most dichotomies – not helpful once you dig a bit deeper.
Dale:
There are also different levels of failures:
1. Mars One: Never had a chance of succeeding. It was always clear from the outside that the idea was inherently ridiculous.
2. Theranos: There was no there there, but there could’ve been something there. The idea of super-efficient lab assays was not implausible, and there was that connection to Stanford.
3. Various R&D projects that could’ve worked but didn’t, for example a promising drug therapy that worked on mice but not on people.
A challenge, of course, is that success/failure is only meaningful with respect to a particular goal, and there are often many “goals” by different actors in the process. And in these cases there is quite a bit of distance between stated goals and true goals.
As Andrew points out, Mars One can be viewed as a success if the goal were publicity. Palko refers it to a failure in the sense that it never achieves the stated goal of putting a colony on Mars. These are both true relative to those goals. The media’s goal may have been to drum up attention/clicks/views via reporting on Mars One with a certain credulity, which was also a success (and likely a necessary success if the publicity goal were to be met).
The unfortunate thing is that the successes of the publicity stunt and media reporting goals here are not predicated on the success of the stated goal of putting a colony on Mars. Instead, they are predicated on the stated goal being not necessarily impossible; of having a certain amount of possibility around the stated goal. In an ideal world, we would probably prefer that the success of stated goal (Mars colony) be a necessary condition for the true goals (publicity), but alas.
It seems in many stories that have this structure (Theranos is another decent example), the success of the true goals — publicity, defrauding investors, etc — is contingent on the possibility of the stated goal. Past failures seem to do little to change perceptions of possibility: “Oh yes, they failed the last 10 times, but they still could succeed!”
No amount of Bayesian updating after failure will ever get one to conclude impossibility.
I think you finally got to the real goal there: defrauding investors.
This is like my claim that Drumpf and his tech bros are not innumerate, but rather have other goals. For example, the news today has it that the banking industry wants Lizzy Warren’s CFPB back. Why? Because PayPal and other financial apps will go unregulated if CFPB goes away, and the banks will get their lunch eaten. But it’s the supposed innumerate tech bros who are trashing CFPB.
I still don’t see much innumeracy driving the insanity: I see fully numerate greed.
“but rather have other goals….”
Yes, as I indicated, they intend to restore the system of merit, in which the people who earn the money get tot keep it and spend it, and the people who want to spend it but don’t earn it are SOL.
Speaking of scams, I’m still waiting for the climate disaster to manifest. It’s hilarious that certain leaders of certain states – many of which are ridiculously wealthy states – are suing oil companies for damages!!!!! Hilarious, I can’t think of a bigger scam than the climate scam and the massive cash grab by left wing nutters who’ve done nothing for anyone except try to take other people’s earnings. California recently tried to burn out republicans by simply not providing support to firefighters who could have stopped the fires – all so they could claim damages from climate change.
Mars One scammers are pocket chagne compared to the organized crime syndicate of Equus asinus.
Anon:
Please save the conspiracy theories for twitter and 4chan. We can do better here.
“As science or technology, Mars One was not a failure; it was a publicity stunt.” However, how to know when something is a publicity stunt as opposed to a testing of the waters? The current Administration, “regime” if you prefer, toys with occupying Greenland, renames the Gulf of Mexico, “tariffiizing” this and that, punishes Columbia University, insults [fill in the blanks], attacks Birth Right Citizenship. Is the true fun yet to come? Are there relevant “Prediction Markets” regarding what is on the horizon? Will “between you and I” become grammatically correct? p-value mandatory in any statistics discussion?