New Mars Forums

'Aboard the Starship Enterprise....'

Okay, I'm a Trek fan. But I read this far, and.... stopped. One thought had I; 'Get back to reality.'

I'm mostly just into blues, but jazz, rock (NOT modern), punk (NOT modern), classical, heavy metal (NOT modern), and reggae. Yup, thats right. Not modern reggae either.

Mostly I just detest modern music. But there are some great bands out there. Just wish I could get to hear them.   ???

Yeah, I said 'here', before. Blame my ex-fiance. She kept beeping at me in mirc while I was typing. 

I'm off to bed in a mo, so just a short post, I'll waffle more tomorrow.

Terrorists don't want us to be desensitized, because that means we aren't terrified. And so, saying that the attacks in Israel have desensitized people to further attacks just proves my point.

Thats probably due to the fact that socialism isn't exactly an economic system. And any unplanned economic system doesn't work properly. The world markets are proof of that.

And where exactly does capitalism work? Nowhere.

Socialism is widespread, anyway. Europe is socialist (in name, if not in nature).

Communism, after all, is not the only form of socialism. And communism didn't work because the rest of the world was capitalist; not entirely because of corruption.

And any capitalist state is going to be more corrupt than any socialist state, too - just take the US. 

Since when did the word 'democratic' actually mean anything?

And anybody can see that if terrorism is common, then people aren't as frightened by it. Take Britain. The IRA and other groups have blown people up, shot people, blown up some more people and shot some more people, but to what avail? None. Nobody really cares; "Oh those poor people," is about the sum of the reaction.

No, for terrorism to work, it has to be rare, but potent strikes. Anything that happens often is less frighteneing than something that doesn't happen often. And thats a fact.

And as for nobody in America being frightened of further attacks; goodness me, don't you talk to your countrymen (and women)?

Not really, because the heat still needs to be gotten rid of - after all, energy cannot be destroyed, only transferred.

And surrounding a nuclear reactor (argh, edited here) entirely with water would surely cause safety problems, wouldn't it?

I don't think thats so. Sure, the quiet majority are ignoring the warnings, but its the vocal minority that counts.

I'd just like to point out that I predicted yttrium would be used in a gravity-resisting machine back in '94, but that site is now sadly defunct. Ah well. There goes my claim to fame, if things turn out well for anti-grav/gravity-resistant technology.

The worst effect of all of a dramatic rise in sea levels - such as 7 meters over the next fifty to a hundred years, which is the figure which seems popular at the moment - would be the loss of Earth's beaches. That means the complete destruction of the tourist industry; which happens to support the aerospace industry. That means the loss of a great many things; probably including the worlds space programs.

I don't know. Becoming energy beings through choice would be something of a risk, wouldn't it? There would be no real way of knowing whether there would be success at the 'other side' or not, as far as I can see.

After all; how would a being of matter converse with a being of energy? So there'd be no way to find out.

Would be an awfully risky procedure for a species as a whole to take, or so it seems to me.

Ah, but illusion is the only thing that truly exists for humanity, no? So therefore, from your perspective, if free will is an illusion, then it still exists nonetheless. If I don't know that I don't have it, then does it matter if I do? 

But thirty pounds might not have been the weight. Realistically speaking, it may well have been an illusion of weight created by the movement of a non-physical object. At any rate, something was going on. And if something was going on, then something happened. This is logic that cannot be argued with, don't you think?

And I know I have a spirit, because I can feel it. So there.

Well... I don't think so.

Any government must be based on socially determined principles, not scientific ones. Science just doesn't fit with politics; just say the word in a room full of scientists of many different disciplines, and measure the majority-reaction. That's actually a contradiction - just think of 'lab politics', and other phrases - but I digress.

The best form of government is the multi-layered one, with a mix of elected and non-elected (but not static) members; probably the best example of that was in the utterly brilliant Blue Mars.

I say we take the constitution from that book, use it, and be done with it. (Well, actually, from the section which was devoted to it in The Martians, by the same authour - who I surely don't have to name ).