Did anyone here ever watch the TV series "ascension"?

Most definitely, I sure wasn't expecting that twist.

How long before we see a scandal like that, thousands of people scammed into thinking they're going into space, never to return, perhaps even for a fee?

Well, it the people weren't scammed so much as duped (I know, it's a fine line). The story did, however, address the moral issue of generation ships and the righteousness of one generation committing subsequent descendants to such an endevour. I've read a lot of generation-ship fiction but that story certainly raised my awareness of the ethics involved.

That show convinced me that sending out generation ships would be an unethical undertaking.

That show convinced me that sending out generation ships would be an unethical undertaking.

For what reasons? The Earth itself is just a generation ship that orbits a star instead of travelling to another one. Is it unethical to have children on Earth because we're committing them to living here?

A large part of the show revolves around the characters who have been born on the ship, spent their entire lives imprisoned on it and with no choice but to die on it, being jealous of the people who are free to live on earth with it's wide open spaces, plants, sky, etc... You're basically choosing to enter a prison and dictating that your children and grandchildren will also live their entire lives in the prison too.
The smaller and more prison-like the ship, the bigger that problem is... or perhaps the other solution is to not teach any of the children about earth at all so they can't resent their ancestors and those left behind.

The smaller and more prison-like the ship, the bigger that problem is...

The smaller and more prison-like the ship, the bigger that problem is...

Or we just build a bigger ship.

How many people who spend their lives in Manhattan choose to leave it? Make a ship the size of Manhattan. Throw some countryside around it to provide variety

Some people would want to leave it, more would just want to travel (shit, that's the hobby for most people who can afford traveling). Or some would just dream about leaving and even if they will never leave actually, loosing all the possibility and hope could cause mental problems. Remember that on such a ship, those are not trained but forced people.
These few people will interact with the rest of the colony on the ship and these thoughts would spread.
One solution would be to make a virtual world on such a ship, but then the point of colonizing would go away, since we could just build orbiting ships with virtual reality around the Sun.

The smaller and more prison-like the ship, the bigger that problem is...

Or we just build a bigger ship.

How many people who spend their lives in Manhattan choose to leave it? Make a ship the size of Manhattan. Throw some countryside around it to provide variety

That show convinced me that sending out generation ships would be an unethical undertaking.

For what reasons? The Earth itself is just a generation ship that orbits a star instead of travelling to another one. Is it unethical to have children on Earth because we're committing them to living here?

I feel that instead of thinking in terms of a large ship, it'd be better to think of something as a small planet/rock moving under controlled thrust towards some target. You could also always have multiple of these rocks then have shuttles fly back and forth between them, so you could have some 'travel' as well.

Obviously very expensive ventures, but that would come right back to the start of this thread as to why anyone would undertake it in the first place.

I feel that if/when such undertakings are done, we probably won't have a capitalist form of society but rather something that at its base is capitalism but not like the way we have now.

Something the size and mass of something suitable to a generational ship isn't exactly the apollo space craft. Figuring out what to DO with all the heat is the far more likely issue to have to deal with rather than worrying about it freezing.

As for the ethics of future generations not wanting it... Well, that is a matter of culture and development, and of building a vessel large enough to support life and community. I totally agree that it would be unethical to send out a generational ship where everyone was expected to live in a coffin sized space to 'live' in, and would face a life time of having little more elbow room than a sardine can. But if you have something large enough that people have lives with space and movement comparable to a mid sized compact city, and support for arts and sciences, then I can't say I feel it is really that big of an issue.

- You can't see or control the future, all you can do is do your best to set up future generations for a comfortable and productive life. What if you don't take a seat that was offered on the generational ship, and instead earth is hit by some terrible plague that causes untold pain and suffering?!