New Mars Forums

Wow, Cobra, I actually agree with you again.

Since we're talking about religion and sadism, aren't nearly all gods sadistic to some extent.

The Judeo-Christian god makes you suffer in hell forever.  And his priests have to be celibate.   

The Buddhist and Hindu religion has several levels of hell with lots of hot irons and other torture devices involved.

Islam, Taoism, you name it they got a hell for you.

Nice job Rob S., you picked one without a hell -- Baha'i.

So basically, religion is hell.  :laugh:

Here's a little science for your daydream.

You're tossing pebbles much like those found in the Huygen images so long ago...

Your oxygen tank is naturally cryogenic in the -180 C temperature (the refrigerator only has to drop it another 3 degrees), so you have plenty to breath all day long.  As you walk along the ancient, muddy shoreline, a friend flies through the orange haze on a pair of homemade wings not much longer than the arms that power them.  You smile and wave remembering the feeling of flying like a bird in the thick atmosphere and low gravity of this forever sunset world...

You shiver as night decends and reach for your suit thermostat.  As you turn it up a notch, you hear your oxygen supply ignite with the methane in the air.  Flinching involuntarily at the sound, you remember the fire of '27 that destroyed half of Outpost B, feeding off the very oxygen that filled its chambers...

I think I see craters in the "ocean" of those pictures, cindy.  I wish they were only methane droplets on the camera, but they look like craters to me.

Perhaps there were underwater land slides.  This could have happened in many locations near the center of the earthquake with fewer at greater distances, of course.

Just a thought.

http://www.mutedfaith.com/quiz/vq.htm]click

I'm an Evil Genius.

This idea has many good points, but there are some bad analogies in there.  For example, car insurance isn't necessary.  A person chooses to buy a car and must therefore be responsible for the maintenance thereof.  There are alternatives to cars in most places.  A person doesn't choose to buy a body.

A Canadian once told me that he felt really bad for all the Americans he worked with while living in the U.S. for a while.  Their number one job concern was health insurance.  According to him the waiting a week or two or three for an X-ray isn't a big deal.  They do handle emergencies in a timely fashion.  Where the system really benefits people is in the fact that they catch things early.  You just go to you general practitioner for any little thing (which may cost the govt a lot), but they spot things like cancer before they become life threatening (and expensive).  Overall he figures the costs balance out and the population is generally healthier.

Even insurance companies in the U.S. understand that regular checkups save them a lot of money in the long run.  That is why they have started encouraging (and paying for) them.

Maybe car insurance companies would save more money if they bought people snow tires every November -- and wiper blades, too.

Zubrin overzealous?
:;):

Yet another 'tsk' for mike.  He never came back to thank anyone, or to defend his character either.

I just figured the nerd thing out.  One of the key points to a good story is contrast, right.  I'm a business student, not a writer, but I've heard this somewhere.  You do have lots of contrast in your story, especially in the religion area.  I like it.  It seems to me that you haven't expressed the Nerd vs. Casanova or the Nerd vs. Jock thing very well.

Maybe if you wrote some more background on the insecure inner thoughts of the nerd as casanova talks to his girl or something.

Here's a specific instance of nerd talk:
When the priest proposes to the nun. (See, I can't even remember their names.  Greg and Ann?)  The nerd talk is totally ok, but maybe Anna (had to look it up) should think wow, a normal girl would be insulted by the way he proposed, but it's just what I needed to hear.  You know something like that.

Now, back to work slave!  I need to read.

Well...I see in your profile that your interests are 'stuff' and your location is 'nowhere'.  There is a lot of stuff on Mars and it is indeed somewhere.

But seriously, here are some reasons:

1.  You like the Earth a lot and Mars is the most Earthlike planet in the solar system.
   a)  Its day is about 24 hours long.
   b)  It has an atmosphere albeit a very thin one.
   c)  It has plenty of water (ice).
   d)  It has survivable temperatures (very cold, but nothing a heater can't cure).

2.  All the planning for living on Mars has been done for you.
   a)  It is the most explored planet other than Earth.
   b)  Plans for human missions to Mars have been around since the 60s.
   c)  There is even an organization devoted specifically to the exploration and colonization of Mars -- The Mars Society.

I'll let you come up with the rest on your own.

Or, work longer.

Take my parents for example.  They are both in their late 50s.  They both work full time at the store they own.  They have always worked full time at the store they own.  They would get bored silly if they didn't keep working full time at the store they own.  They will probably still be working full time well into their 70s.  Heck, my grandpa worked into his 90s.

With longer, healthier life spans people will generally want to keep working past the current retirement age.  I'm no expert but I assume that a person still pays SS if he's working and over 65.

Things will balance out, I'm sure.  Now let us all relax, flip off the President, and smoke some medical ( :;): ) marijuana.

My wife just asked, "But, has he ever seen a movie?  Doesn't he know how normal people talk?"   :laugh: 

I tried patiently to explain to her that nerds have no concept of normal human social interaction, but she just doesn't get it -- she must be normal.