A theory of “future success lived in the present.”
Mars One, that downright crazy attempt to put actual people on Mars in the next N years, has convinced 700+ people that they are special enough to die en route, die from radiation poisoning, die from habitat collapse, die from 100 other probabilities. They actually convinced over 200k but selected only 700 for training.
What are these 700 thinking? What brand of lunacy have they swallowed to think that this is a good idea? I think I have an plausible answer (and this applies to explorers, experimenters, visionaries of every kind.)
These people live in world of projected future success.
Certain unpleasant death awaits those of these 700 who are chosen (if this project ever actually gets off the ground). How can you proceed with that knowledge? I posit that they are envisioning their future selves as successful heroes, as explorers having completed their mission and are now members of an elite history populated by the great discoverers of humanity’s past.
They see some future version of themselves participating in the parades, the accolades, and they are living in that false projected world and not the reality that has marked them for death. They have already won. These people have envisioned a fantastical future of their success and now live in this bubble of forecasted triumph.
I reconsidered all the real explorers of historical note and wonder if they too did not live in some future fantasy world of a victorious conquest and momentous return.
Anonymole - apocryphal agitators 