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When I went though high school over a decade ago I went though the usual brainwashing that man was evil and was destroying the earth. However, the danger to me never seemed as serious as the possibility of a nuclear war. Concerned about the future of mankind and a strong belief in the human ability to innovate I believed that we could we could adapt to other worlds. Around the same time I found a book called, “The Case for Mars” that explained in detail exactly how this could be done. Through my study of ways to innovate and adapt to new environments I discovered regressive mentality which was embedded in the environmental movement. This began my contempt for environmentalism. It had nothing to do do with alleged bribes which posters on this board allege were from big oil or any other deluded left wing conspiracy that the eco-zealots put forth as smear in attempts to enforce the party line.
The case for mars was built upon a collection of papers written by Robert Zurbrin. One of the most memorable and contentious papers to Mars advocates was Zubrin’s paper, “The Significance of The Frontieer”. Well, at the time I dismissed his words as American Centric, I did not appreciate the frontier that was still underway in scientific development and urban development within North America. The wild west was not the last frontier. The last frontier was the information revolution which was born with the computer and closing quickly with the advent of Kyoto. Zurbrin’s words are like a haunting eco form the past and I quote:
“ There are greater threats that a humanist society faces in a closed world than the return of oligarchy, and if the frontier remains closed, we are certain to face them in the 21st century. These threats are the spread of various sorts of anti-human ideologies and the development of political institutions that incorporate the notions that spring from them as a basis of operation. At the top of the list of such pathological ideas that tend to spread naturally in a closed society is the Malthus theory, which holds that since the world's resources are more or less fixed, population growth must be restricted or all of us will descend into bottomless misery.
Malthusianism is scientifically bankrupt — all predictions made upon it have been wrong, because human beings are not mere consumers of resources. Rather, we create resources by the development of new technologies that find use for them. The more people, the faster the rate of innovation. This is why (contrary to Malthus) as the world's population has increased, the standard of living has increased, and at an accelerating rate. Nevertheless, in a closed society Malthusianism has the appearance of self-evident truth, and herein lies the danger. It is not enough to argue against Malthusianism in the abstract — such debates are not settled in academic journals. Unless people can see broad vistas of unused resources in front of them, the belief in limited resources tends to follow as a matter of course. And if the idea is accepted that the world's resources are fixed, then each person is ultimately the enemy of every other person, and each race or nation is the enemy of every other race or nation. The inevitable result is tryanny, war and genocide. Only in a universe of unlimited resources can all men be brothers."
http://www.nss.org/settlement/mars/zubrin-frontier.html
Well many space advocates have the desire to explore, and build new worlds to help ensure the future of man, the most unifying quality of space advocates is the belief in human ingenuity. This is a belief that though hard work and invocation we can overcome the challenges of the day to build a better world. This goes contrary to the Malthusian belief of doom and gloom and is supported by a history of invocation and development. Today the cap and trade scenario is exactly the doom scenario Zubrin spoke out about where we stop trying to meat the demands of the day with new technology and ideas. Instead we ration what we have as the population grows and the political structures become more entrenched. Soon the castle walls will be built around the planet and the machine will become rigid fixed and absolute. I now understand why Zubrin was in such a rush to open the new frontier.
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Absolutely, John, but you sound so ... Twentieth Ceentury. Let's face it: it's the tin-horn dictators of the world, of whatever ilk, who are holding up progress--and we who are wasting what resources we have to keep them at bay instead of mounting clandestined death squads to eliminate the presidents-for-life at the top of their so-called nations. Of course, the goons who depend upon them for livelihood--knowing no other--are organized around them to prevent this. Besides, I hope we are above mounting death squads of suicidal citizens, eh? Instead, what is necessary is to conserve the Earth, educate the masses via the Internet resulting in zero and less-than-zero population growth through social reforms, whilst we spacefaring nations cooperate to the greatest extent possible in seriously pioneering Space: Earth-orbit, cis-Lunar, and iIterplanetary. That way, we'll be able to continue developing our space mission capabilities at the same time as building up a base of support in the now-in-thrall nations, as they emerge one-by-one from ignorance of space as the next frontier- for them and theirs, as well as us and ours.
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Actually, it is those Oligarchy that is pushing the Malthus theory or view point. The best way to defeat both those Oligarchs and there view point or brainwashing is to go back to the American System of Economics of having a Federally owned and operated central bank like the First and Second National bank were or give the Treasure the power to generate credit with no Federal Reserve Bank around. The second part of this effort would revolve around a full blown colonization program of Mars, the moon as a National space mission goal and any other countries that would want to engage in such an aggressive project. That would finish off those financial oligarchs and tend to put an end to those Malthusian ideas for some time to come. It would also have an almost immediate effect of the mental process of the US population to higher goals and a higher purpose for there existence to the better mean of all mankind vs fighting resource wars like what we are doing in Iraq and such places as that. All Mankind would be better off and not just the United States and there would be enough for everybody, because with the development of new technologies, you also develop the ability to support larger population at a ever higher level of standard of living.
Larry,
Larry,
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Absolutely, John, but you sound so ... Twentieth Ceentury. Let's face it: it's the tin-horn dictators of the world, of whatever ilk, who are holding up progress--and we who are wasting what resources we have to keep them at bay instead of mounting clandestined death squads to eliminate the presidents-for-life at the top of their so-called nations. Of course, the goons who depend upon them for livelihood--knowing no other--are organized around them to prevent this. Besides, I hope we are above mounting death squads of suicidal citizens, eh? Instead, what is necessary is to conserve the Earth, educate the masses via the Internet resulting in zero and less-than-zero population growth through social reforms, whilst we spacefaring nations cooperate to the greatest extent possible in seriously pioneering Space: Earth-orbit, cis-Lunar, and iIterplanetary. That way, we'll be able to continue developing our space mission capabilities at the same time as building up a base of support in the now-in-thrall nations, as they emerge one-by-one from ignorance of space as the next frontier- for them and theirs, as well as us and ours.
By all means lets overlook the fact that these are dictators who have ursurped the rightful will of the people. Libs like to go ahead and say, whatever left-wing dictator, despite his refusal to allow fair elections in his country, is actually quite popular with the people he rules. How do we know this? Why naturally if he was unpopular, his people would overthrow him. Gee, why do we need elections in the first place? Why not rely upon violent revolutions to overthrow the dictator with lots of violence and bloodshed whenever they lose the confidence of the majority, no need for elections, after all what could be more democratic than a dictator who rules without the consent of his people.
Well as long as we are dealing with criminals, why not sell illegal drugs to finance the space missions and colonizations.
Lets have open participation of the Mafia, they got lots of money, after all crime is very profitable, perhaps there is a Mafia Don who is also a space enthusiast, I'm sure he can put up some ill-gotten gain to help finance the whole venture, and if he doesn't have enough, he could simply steal and extort some more money. :twisted:
I'm being sarcastic of course, in my mind a dictator is a type of criminal, he ursurps the right of the people to choose their own government, and he uses force and terror to stay in power. The only rightful government is a democratic one. Anything else is a crime against the people. We should think carefully before we decide to get into any joint ventures with dictators.
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