starship-design: scoops and sails and something to push against

[Steve VanDevender <stevev@efn.org>]

KellySt@aol.com writes:
 > economics is a science with understood laws and rules that
 > even apply across species (where aplicable).  Psychology isn't
 > well researched, but is a reflection of the structure of our
 > minds, which excluding extensive gene work, isn't likely to
 > change in the next few million years, and seems to trace it
 > roots back through most mammals.  Society, culture ignoring
 > trivialities like music art etc falls into a couple major
 > groups (feudal/dictator, democratic) which have existed for a
 > few thousand years.  So were pretty sure some sort of law
 > based, probably democratic society will dominate long term
 > (dictatortships lack productivity to compete long term).

Perhaps you've heard the saying "The first step to knowledge is
to know how much you don't know."

Economics can't make useful predictions; the models used in
economics are completely artificial and unrealistic.  Psychology
can't make useful predictions either -- even if it is that
the human mind will remain unchanged in the future (very
doubtful, considering the increasing use of automated aids to
thought), psychology is nowhere near understanding how the mind
works.

As for social change, any society looks like any other as long as 
you use a vague enough description.  To say that a future society 
will share aspects with historical ones is not the same as saying 
that it will work exactly like any particular historical society.

 > So for the purposes of this discusino, I can't see any major
 > changes that would alter things.

I think your inability to see such possibilities comes from your
lack of understanding, not to mention some apparently substantial
misunderstandings, of fields like economics, psychology, and
sociology.

 > Actually humans can't live without artificial work.

This is only true recently, and only because there are more
humans on the planet than an unmaintained ecology can support.
In fact, many of our environmental problems stem from a
fundamental belief that things like air, water, and food just
sort of fall into our laps, ingrained from times when there were
less than a few million humans on the planet.

In space, you don't just have to work to prevent from destroying
the environment that sustains you; you have to create it from
scratch and be involved in every aspect of maintaining it, which
isn't the way things are on Earth.