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RE: starship-design: The Case for Space



> From: "L. Parker" <lparker@cacaphony.net>
> 
> > Of course, I did not intend to include you among "equalists" -
> > my remark concerned the fragment of the article you quoted.
> > And the phrase '"equalists" here' referred to "equalists" in Poland,
> > from where I am writing these letters...
> 
> We in America seem to have an even harder problem with 
> such sentiments these days. Please forgive my vehemenence, 
> but I do not believe that "equality" as it is currently practiced 
> here in America, is a "right". There are many peoples in the world 
> who would give anything for even half the chance we had
> when out nation was born. Most Americans truly do not appreciate 
> what they have and at what cost it was bought.
> 
If that tendency will persist, these people in the world will 
be forced to look in another direction. 
Say, at some space colony on Mars or somewhere...

> > Sorry for that - I am personally quite down-to-earth in everyday life,
> > hence sometimes I must compensate with a few ;-) "great words"...
> > Anyway, the activist with whom I have argued also used such
> > words for his case, so I tried to outspoken him...;-)
> 
> That is okay, but there is the terrible homo sapiens uber alles attitude
> that seems to pervade our society...<G>
> 
Ehmmm, terrible? See below...

> > And what else that particular form of life had been doing
> > through all that three or so billion years before?
> > The very existence of life fundamentally requires,
> > and is a result of, that ability to spread/infest,
> > hence there is no ethical question involved here, I think.
> >
> > > but based on current evidence, we may be the ONLY life...
> > 
> > But even if we were not the only life, so what?
> > There is no other, ethical or not, way to decide
> > which form should spread to/infest other places
> > except direct competition in spreading/infesting...
> 
> So even though we are conscious of the fact, we should subscribe to
> Darwinism as an inviolable rule? Mind you, I am not taking sides, 
> but I think that perhaps a little introspection may be called for 
> before we cast our seed across the universe.
> 
Sentiments aside, the facts of life are that the decision
against casting our seed across the universe 
is exactly equivalent to the decision to cease our existence,
sooner or later. 
Please do not blame the poor Darwin...
We exist only because of that "terrible attitude",
so "politically incorrect" nowadays.
If we lose it permanently, we are doomed.
No mountains of introspection will help.

[...]
> The current corporate paradigm that now
> drives society on Earth cannot help but to persist even off-planet 
> for at least a little while, perhaps longer.
> 
> So for the near future at least, I see the status quo, business decisions
> will drive the development of space and little else. After that, well, who
> knows?  Perhaps more business, perhaps change, but  for the next fifty
> years, I think we will still be in what you call the transitory phase.
> 
OK, you are probably right here.

-- Zenon