Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[pmcd9]

This is good news for those of us that want to abandon this planet.

[Carlos del Vaca]

Yeah, they need to get started on the giant self-sustaining pod spaceships right away, so we can go fuck up that planet too.

[greenkoolayd]

no one is going anywhere 

[pmcd9]

Thank you Ash.  We ARE going to space, and the sooner the better. 

[pmcd9]

Here's a good article on NPR.

[Doc]

If we do not destroy ourselves we will, one day, venture to the stars.

Y'know, unless it looks like it might actually cost some money or something and interfere with the re-election of another mediocre halfwit.

[pmcd9]

Y'know, unless it looks like it might actually cost some money or something and interfere with the re-election of another mediocre halfwit.

It's not going to be a government that takes us to the stars, it'll be private enterprise that gets the job done. 

[Doc]

It's not going to be a government that takes us to the stars, it'll be private enterprise that gets the job done. 

Yeah, I reckon. Well either Richard Branson or China.

[AugustWest]

Government got us to the moon.

Government won World War II.

Government built the Interstate Highway system.

Government is just another way human beings organize themselves into groups to get things done.  It can do whatever we decide it can.  If you think government has a monopoly on bureaucratic inefficiency, I'd say you're sadly naive.

I read great article by one of my favorite writers, Neal Stephenson, yesterday.  He is lamenting the absence of a "great project" like the space program today.  "We can't Facebook our way out of the current economic status quo."

I think what we need is inspiration.  I think we need a "Great Project" to unite us and to give us purpose.

What scares me is that historically, as often as not, such purpose-providing projects have been wars.  Wouldn't it be nice to be able to unite behind something that's actually constructive for once?

[littlefallsmets]

On this topic, I am torn between my desire to explore and achieve and see what's out there that we never could've guessed and... the fear that we're basically an infection that will only manage to fuck things up on a grander scale if we manage to ever get off this rock in a meaningful and consistent fashion.

It is probably childish or whatever to feel torn about this, it might even be a projection of my own mixed feelings about myself onto the entire race, but this is my honest difficulty with the issue.

Man, look at how much there is out there to see. Man, look at our fuck*ng track record.

[pmcd9]

On this topic, I am torn between my desire to explore and achieve and see what's out there that we never could've guessed and... the fear that we're basically an infection that will only manage to fuck things up on a grander scale if we manage to ever get off this rock in a meaningful and consistent fashion.

Reminded me of this.

[jaydub]

Personally, I don't see what's wrong with us being an infection.  Do you think salmonella gets all weepy about giving its host the Hershey squirts?  Now screwing up our current, only source of life support is just stupid, but if we can get a sustainable colony going on Mars, Proxima Centauri, or Kepler 22b at the cost of some terraforming and take a pass because "its not natural" or whatever - then we deserve extinction.  If we come across something sentient/self aware that's a different matter.

[Carlos del Vaca]

I have heard it suggested that Vonnegut said our species' epitaph will be, "It was too expensive to save ourselves."

I haven't been able to confirm that Vonnegut actually said that, but it's true nonetheless.

[Doc]

I'm not a down on government kind of guy, I just don't think it's a priority for any of them right now, mainly because of the no wars thing.

[pmcd9]

Well obviously the military will be involved. When we get there and find this planet teaming with life we're gonna need somebody to take care of the indigenous peoples.