The Political Thread

[TordelBack]

Potatoes.

Same approach worked out great for our lot, let me tell you.

[Dandontdare]

My shed is creaking in the wind. So am I, to be frank.

Oops - wrong thread.

And I was just about to congratulate you on a most perceptive metaphor for the Brexit negotiations!

[The Legendary Shark]

Which is, of course, er, what both posts were all about...

Ahem.

[Hawkmumbler]

Not so strong and stable.

[M.I.K.]

That partly depends on if it's big enough to keep a small horse in.

[Hawkmumbler]

I can see if it'll fit a large mule in. Theresa, you're up...

[The Legendary Shark]

Ass, shirley?

Hang on a minute...

[sheridan]

That partly depends on if it's big enough to keep a small horse in.

Is it a lovely horse?

[Proudhuff]

No its a symbol of Dredd's aging and reality breaking down apparently. And something to do with a Dark Knight story and Johnny Cash of course.

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

Yes, I know this, but i dare you to dip your toe into any of the InSight commentary. "Earth is a bust, but it's OK because we can go live on Mars". It's the Rapture for the pseudo-scientific. And about as bloody likely.

It's yet another meaningless excuse to do nothing about climate change, wealth inequality and population displacement, because they are planning to do a runner. Hence I posted on the Politics rather than the Science thread.

Reduction in consumption. Real money on renewables and sequestration. Immeduate planning changes for innundation areas. Massively increased spending on global aid programmes. Large scaie accommodation for refugees.

Not running away to space.

Focus, people.

Your point is completely valid.

BUT

I still think we should get our asses to Mars. The Earth has a myriad of problems, but I don't think we should wait until they're all solved before going to other planets. What's the timeline on these issues being solved? A decade? A century?

I'm an optimist when it comes to scientific endeavours. Figuring out an unrelated problem may yield solutions to our biggest ones. To use a videogame analogy, it's like doing the side missions to get enough XP for the main quest.

I agree, running away TO space might not be a solution, but neither is running away FROM space.

Focus? Scientists aren't interchangeable. The ability to build a Mars rocket doesn't qualify a scientist to focus on, and deal with the Earthly problems you outlined.

[TordelBack]

I agree with all of that, BPP - I've been a space nut all my life, and nothing would be more exciting or worthwhile than a human mission to Mars in my lifetime, the creation of a sustainable colony, asteroid mining, fabrication stations at the Lagrange points, or a robot mission to Barnard's Star or Proxima Centauri.  I also believe that the time to do it is now (50 years ago, really), before fuel resources become too scarce, and economic conditions here too hostile to permit it.

The value of this kind of science is incalculable, and despite casting an increasingly bleak eye on the future I remain ever Roddenberry that space exploration has the potential to inspire and unite humanity. 

My objection isn't to the doing, it's to the dangerous delusion that me, you, our kids or our grandkids are getting off this world to go to a better one. This is just the old religious carrot of "don't worry about this world, because the next one is what matters".  And just like with the churches, there are plenty of middlemen happy to direct public subvention into their private vaults on the undeliverable promise of smoothing your path to the next life.

There'll be over 11 billion of us on Earth before we get any kind of workable foothold offworld: effectively no-one here is going to space, any more than any of us are going to heaven.  We need to face the realities of this world, and do the best we can here, because it's here all of us are going to live and die. 

As you say, it's not an either-or proposition, we should do both, and each effort will support the other. But letting people believe that we don't need to deal with the global horror that's coming because a better life awaits you in the offworld colonies... No.  That's the loss of focus I refer to, one more reason to stick our heads in the sand.

[TordelBack]

Dunno why I addressed that screed to BPP, it was written in sleep-deprived state - my apologies to Mr. Pops (and BPP).

[The Legendary Shark]

"Darkside" - Lunar penal colony on the far side of the moon where enemies of Gaia and humanity are sent to work in the mines, never to see the Earth again.

[TordelBack]

I was going to complain about the name, but I suppose the more accurate alternative would conjure up unsuitably jolly images of socially-awkward neanderthals and cows with hidden agendas.

[The Legendary Shark]

I just thought it was a good name for a prison