On 9/7/06, Darren wrote:
(...)
> You might get the impression that this is a sore point for me, well, yes to
> a degree, I once went out with a girl with a body to drive you crazy and a
> mind to match, she could make me crazy with her total refusal to even
> consider possibilities other than her ultra-green save the world ideology.
> She was always running down technology and how we would be better off if we
> went back to the 1800's. While she dressed in nylon/rayon and other
> artificial materials, wore a thin quartz watch purchased with her credit
> card linked to her computer controlled bank account. Her father owned a
> small farm (hence the certainty that this is how we should all live) which
> he farmed with a tractor and increased the yield of with fertilisers and
> worked with just him and his 3 sons (easy enough with all the powered
> machines, the only horse on the property was her riding hack). The animals
> were all treated with antibiotics to help them grow faster and yield more,
> trucks moved them to market, faxes arranged sales Arr, enough, you get
> the point, she could/would not see that her simple rural life was nothing of
> the sort. The relationship lasted for about 8 months which goes to show that
> at 19-20 years of age, you are more interested in sex than talk, you can
> ignore any crazy ideology, if she looks good enough and the sex is good
> enough, mind you, the fact that we did part ways shows that it will only do
> so for a time (many of my mates thought I was insane, she really was
> beautiful and great in bed and very enthusiastic, sigh, but on the bright
> side, it wasn't much later that I met the incredible woman I would marry)
are not alone: other movements reminiscent of utopic Communism produce
similarly contradictory behaviors. Here in Brazil for instance it is
common to see what I call "Boutique Communists": teens or young adults
wearing one of those Che Guevara t-shirts and at the same time a pair
of tennis worth US$ 250,00 ; often they are also drinking Coke. ;-)
If man were meant to fly they would have been born
with wings!!!
--- Lucio de Souza Coelho wrote:
--- In spacesettlers, Max Quasar wrote:
>
> Instead of wheels.
HAR! That's good.
And if God had wanted us to form a space-based civilization, He
would've given us a moon! ... um...
As an old space development dude, I have heard these
Neo-Luddites make there silly claims for years and I
always reply with my standard arguments about the
"good old days".
old leaches?
Or use a good old out-house with good old toilet
paper?
How about those good old dentists of yesteryear. Now
that sounds like a good old time.
I teach classes on information security and remind my
students how much I like technology but want to avoid
a space Titanic disaster through good engineering.
Max
--- Xenophile wrote:
Remind them that before modern medicine (which demands the upkeep of
a high energy civilization), maybe 15% of women died in childbirth,
while 25% of babies died before their first day. Most pre-
technological societies don't count children younger than 12 as
citizens, because maybe 35% of them don't live that long.
Did you mention that that young lady liked sex? Why isn't she a
mother or maternatal mortality statistic yet?
Injuries we see or hear of, and later the victim is fine, would have
cost a limb or worse. Let them, while sitting in a wrecked car
waiting for the ambulance, curse high technology like roads, vehicles
and telephones and high tech diagnostic equipment.
a living hunting/gathering and moving with the herds. Relying on wood
or animal dung fuel for heat & light at night and the old & weak die
just because the society isn't wealthy enough to afford keeping
anyone fed after they can't work any more.
That's the kind of world we lived in for hundreds of thousands of
years, what we're specifically adapted for. The good ol' days.
If they say they want us to go back to an agrarian society, tell them
that this means that about 5 billion people are going to die, or at
best, not have children. Then demand to know how they'll decide who,
because make no mistake, that's what they're talking about.
I challenge their morality in their faces if they don't have answers
to these types of questions, and I definitely challenge their ethics
if they're still serious about it.
Besides, it's all based on the "Only One Earth" Limits mentality,
which is wrong, shortsighted, flat-out-incorrect.
If all the humans just went away now, the biosphere would be in big
trouble, because of the industrial infrastructure we've built up. It
requires human activity to maintain it, and if it were all just let
go into the environment after falling into ruin, the poisonous
aftermath would make an ice age seem hospitable to flora and fauna
everywhere.
We've got the tiger by the tail, and the only thing to do is to
carry technological civilization to its logical extreme, and see if
nature allows a space-faring civilization (the silence behind the
Fermi paradox might make it seem doubtful...).
And I still don't hear of anybody from the Voluntary Human
Extinction Movement either suiciding or sterilizing themselves. Lead
by example. Modern medicine makes it quick and painless, and then you
can start tearing down the doctor's clinic.
My version:
"If we were meant to fly, we'd have been born with a brain capable of
figuring out how to do the trick without being born with wings."
John Frazer wrote:
carry technological civilization to its logical extreme..
Very good idea. That's what all extinct civilizations in the past have also done.
Selvaraj
From: John Frazer
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, September 08, 2006 4:44 AM
Subject: [spacesettlers] Re: Neo-Luddites
Remind them that before modern medicine (which demands the upkeep of
a high energy civilization), maybe 15% of women died in childbirth,
while 25% of babies died before their first day. Most pre-
technological societies don't count children younger than 12 as
citizens, because maybe 35% of them don't live that long.
Did you mention that that young lady liked sex? Why isn't she a
mother or maternatal mortality statistic yet?
Injuries we see or hear of, and later the victim is fine, would have
cost a limb or worse. Let them, while sitting in a wrecked car
waiting for the ambulance, curse high technology like roads, vehicles
and telephones and high tech diagnostic equipment.
As I've said here before, "God" or "nature's plan" has us scratching
a living hunting/gathering and moving with the herds. Relying on wood
or animal dung fuel for heat & light at night and the old & weak die
just because the society isn't wealthy enough to afford keeping
anyone fed after they can't work any more.
That's the kind of world we lived in for hundreds of thousands of
years, what we're specifically adapted for. The good ol' days.
If they say they want us to go back to an agrarian society, tell them
that this means that about 5 billion people are going to die, or at
best, not have children. Then demand to know how they'll decide who,
because make no mistake, that's what they're talking about.
I challenge their morality in their faces if they don't have answers
to these types of questions, and I definitely challenge their ethics
if they're still serious about it.
Besides, it's all based on the "Only One Earth" Limits mentality,
which is wrong, shortsighted, flat-out-incorrect.
If all the humans just went away now, the biosphere would be in big
trouble, because of the industrial infrastructure we've built up. It
requires human activity to maintain it, and if it were all just let
go into the environment after falling into ruin, the poisonous
aftermath would make an ice age seem hospitable to flora and fauna
everywhere.
We've got the tiger by the tail, and the only thing to do is to
carry technological civilization to its logical extreme, and see if
nature allows a space-faring civilization (the silence behind the
Fermi paradox might make it seem doubtful...).
And I still don't hear of anybody from the Voluntary Human
Extinction Movement either suiciding or sterilizing themselves. Lead
by example. Modern medicine makes it quick and painless, and then you
can start tearing down the doctor's clinic.
My version:
"If we were meant to fly, we'd have been born with a brain capable of
figuring out how to do the trick without being born with wings."
> > > If man were meant to fly they would have been born
> > with wings!!!
> > >
> > > Instead of wheels.
> >
> > And if God had wanted us to form a space-based
> > civilization, He
> > would've given us a moon! ... um...
Yes,
We call them chardonnay socialists, lots of money and wants everybody to be
equal. A nice thought but really? Look, for myself my politics is a little
left of centre, depending on the topic but for the most part I will come
down on the left but not far left. Now if you made everybody equal, took all
the money away and then gave everybody a million new dollars, you would have
two things happen, sorry three things, first, most people would stop
working, then the money would become worthless and people would have to go
back to work and finally, about five minutes after you made everybody equal
some would have more than others as they traded, gambled, stole and so on.
Truth of the matter is, we are not all equal, not even near it, not that it
means we should have different classes of people, we all have strengths and
weaknesses each to his own but equal, no chance, I work with a guy who is
tall and fit, runs all the time, in race, he would leave me so far behind it
isn't funny (being short, fat and not fit myself:) but I have been working
in law enforcement for near 20 years (18.6 to be exact) while he has been in
for 6 months and at work, he comes second, equal? No way, just different but
it seems that some people take offence at the fact that this person can run
faster than this one or that this one is smarter than this one but you are
right they seem incapable of seeing the real world. This kind of mind is in
its way one of the greatest dangers we face, either they hate the idea of
space as a matter of faith or because it takes money from some cherished
project that is never going to work (based on past performances), the thing
is they are often part of organizations with a lot of influence and have
considerable sway on these organizations, even if they are a small minority.
They could kill the dream and doom us at the same time, while feeling smug
at how they have put us in our place. The problem is they have an
impenetrable shield around them, information and ideas just bounce off.
Darren
((Who now feels better that he has gotten this off his chest))
If man were meant to be green hed have chlorophyll instead of melanin.
smash.
Darren
From: Max Quasar
Reply-To:
Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2006 11:59:54 -0700 (PDT)
To:
Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] Neo-Luddites
If man were meant to fly they would have been born
with wings!!!
Instead of wheels.
Selvaraj, that doesn't make any sense at all.
Darren
Reply-To:
Date: Thu, 07 Sep 2006 23:14:41 -0000
To:
Subject: [spacesettlers] Re: Neo-Luddites
Remind them that before modern medicine (which demands the upkeep of
a high energy civilization), maybe 15% of women died in childbirth,
while 25% of babies died before their first day. Most pre-
technological societies don't count children younger than 12 as
citizens, because maybe 35% of them don't live that long.
Did you mention that that young lady liked sex? Why isn't she a
mother or maternatal mortality statistic yet?
Injuries we see or hear of, and later the victim is fine, would have
cost a limb or worse. Let them, while sitting in a wrecked car
waiting for the ambulance, curse high technology like roads, vehicles
and telephones and high tech diagnostic equipment.
As I've said here before, "God" or "nature's plan" has us scratching
a living hunting/gathering and moving with the herds. Relying on wood
or animal dung fuel for heat & light at night and the old & weak die
just because the society isn't wealthy enough to afford keeping
anyone fed after they can't work any more.
That's the kind of world we lived in for hundreds of thousands of
years, what we're specifically adapted for. The good ol' days.
If they say they want us to go back to an agrarian society, tell them
that this means that about 5 billion people are going to die, or at
best, not have children. Then demand to know how they'll decide who,
because make no mistake, that's what they're talking about.
I challenge their morality in their faces if they don't have answers
to these types of questions, and I definitely challenge their ethics
if they're still serious about it.
Besides, it's all based on the "Only One Earth" Limits mentality,
which is wrong, shortsighted, flat-out-incorrect.
If all the humans just went away now, the biosphere would be in big
trouble, because of the industrial infrastructure we've built up. It
requires human activity to maintain it, and if it were all just let
go into the environment after falling into ruin, the poisonous
aftermath would make an ice age seem hospitable to flora and fauna
everywhere.
We've got the tiger by the tail, and the only thing to do is to
carry technological civilization to its logical extreme, and see if
nature allows a space-faring civilization (the silence behind the
Fermi paradox might make it seem doubtful...).
And I still don't hear of anybody from the Voluntary Human
Extinction Movement either suiciding or sterilizing themselves. Lead
by example. Modern medicine makes it quick and painless, and then you
can start tearing down the doctor's clinic.
My version:
"If we were meant to fly, we'd have been born with a brain capable of
figuring out how to do the trick without being born with wings."
Sraj
is One Earth, if so, I am sorry, we will most likely not see eye to eye on
many things, mind you, there may be many things we do agree on, who knows.
>From your past posts, I know that we have a number of divergent points of
view and while this is a good thing, different viewpoints are important,
many of those who follow the Club of Rome philosophy do not tolerate other
viewpoints well, this is ironic in a way as the Club of Rome no longer
accept what they said back then (for those who do not know, the Club of Rome
was a group who maintained that we were all about to fall into the pit of
overpopulation and worldwide starvation, resource depletion and so on, look
around, it didnt happen, the very tech they said was condemning us, saved
us)
One thing for you to think about, very few civilizations have ever gone
extinct. The ones that have usually had a volcano blow up on them, enemy
cart them off as slaves, or some natural disaster hit them, just one or two
or three. All the other extinct civilisations were absorbed, merged,
conquered, evolved or changed into another civilisation. Societies do that,
they change, no matter how much conservatives want it to stay the same, no
extinct civilizations, just changed ones.
(When I say conservatives Im not talking about political parties here. Mind
you, in Australia here is a laugh the right wing conservative party is
called, are you ready, The Liberals, bent or what, I hear it made a
certain President from a super-power that will remain nameless, go round in
circles for hours trying to figure out how the Liberals could be on his
side! Hey come on, Im allowed one political joke, not like parliament that
has hundreds)
Darren
John Frazer wrote:
We've got the tiger by the tail, and the only thing to do is to
carry technological civilization to its logical extreme..
Very good idea. That's what all extinct civilizations in the past have also
done.
Selvaraj
From: John Frazer
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, September 08, 2006 4:44 AM
Subject: [spacesettlers] Re: Neo-Luddites
Remind them that before modern medicine (which demands the upkeep of
a high energy civilization), maybe 15% of women died in childbirth,
while 25% of babies died before their first day. Most pre-
technological societies don't count children younger than 12 as
citizens, because maybe 35% of them don't live that long.
Did you mention that that young lady liked sex? Why isn't she a
mother or maternatal mortality statistic yet?
Injuries we see or hear of, and later the victim is fine, would have
cost a limb or worse. Let them, while sitting in a wrecked car
waiting for the ambulance, curse high technology like roads, vehicles
and telephones and high tech diagnostic equipment.
As I've said here before, "God" or "nature's plan" has us scratching
a living hunting/gathering and moving with the herds. Relying on wood
or animal dung fuel for heat & light at night and the old & weak die
just because the society isn't wealthy enough to afford keeping
anyone fed after they can't work any more.
That's the kind of world we lived in for hundreds of thousands of
years, what we're specifically adapted for. The good ol' days.
If they say they want us to go back to an agrarian society, tell them
that this means that about 5 billion people are going to die, or at
best, not have children. Then demand to know how they'll decide who,
because make no mistake, that's what they're talking about.
I challenge their morality in their faces if they don't have answers
to these types of questions, and I definitely challenge their ethics
if they're still serious about it.
Besides, it's all based on the "Only One Earth" Limits mentality,
which is wrong, shortsighted, flat-out-incorrect.
If all the humans just went away now, the biosphere would be in big
trouble, because of the industrial infrastructure we've built up. It
requires human activity to maintain it, and if it were all just let
go into the environment after falling into ruin, the poisonous
aftermath would make an ice age seem hospitable to flora and fauna
everywhere.
We've got the tiger by the tail, and the only thing to do is to
carry technological civilization to its logical extreme, and see if
nature allows a space-faring civilization (the silence behind the
Fermi paradox might make it seem doubtful...).
And I still don't hear of anybody from the Voluntary Human
Extinction Movement either suiciding or sterilizing themselves. Lead
by example. Modern medicine makes it quick and painless, and then you
can start tearing down the doctor's clinic.
My version:
"If we were meant to fly, we'd have been born with a brain capable of
figuring out how to do the trick without being born with wings."
> > > If man were meant to fly they would have been born
> > with wings!!!
> > >
> > > Instead of wheels.
> >
> > And if God had wanted us to form a space-based
> > civilization, He
> > would've given us a moon! ... um...
From: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Max Quasar
> how much I like technology but want to avoid a space Titanic
> disaster through good engineering.
There you go. I think we can navigate a middle path here, where we are
self-confident in our abilities, but at the same time open-minded to the
possibility of unanticipated difficulties.
Regards,
Mike Combs
On 9/8/06, Darren wrote:
(...)
> (When I say conservatives Im not talking about political parties here. Mind
> you, in Australia here is a laugh the right wing conservative party is
> called, are you ready, The Liberals, bent or what, I hear it made a
> certain President from a super-power that will remain nameless, go round in
> circles for hours trying to figure out how the Liberals could be on his
> side! Hey come on, Im allowed one political joke, not like parliament that
> has hundreds)
(...)
*inside* the English-Speaking World. Here in Brazil the word "liberal"
(spelled exactly the same way, pronounced a bit differently) means
someone who is all for a free-market economy. Sadly, a dismally tiny
fraction of our politicians heavily tilted to the left. :-(
So I get kind of confused when I hear all the time "liberal" used with
a meaning opposed to "conservative" when I find Americans discussing
politics.
Max wrote
>> I teach classes on information security and remind my students
>>how much I like technology but want to avoid a space Titanic
>>disaster through good engineering.
> There you go. I think we can navigate a middle path here, where
>we are self-confident in our abilities, but at the same time open-
>minded to the possibility of unanticipated difficulties.
Oh boy, did you say a mouthful.
Being smarter and faster than Murphy is the main job of engineers (at
least, try), unless they decide that satisfying the money sources is
their main purpose, and then watch out.
When engineers stand next to the politicians and say that we've got
it all figured out, and nothing can go wrong, you should run!
When politicians say that the engineers have figured it all out, and
this is exactly what it'll look like and do, don't believe them. (R&D
of someting new is just that. You cannot say that the R&D will go
this way, and this is what we'll be able to do. Any engineer who says
so has sold his honest soul to the money providers, and they're all
trying to sell a fast & smooth sales pitch.
When anyone anywhere says we've tamed nature, that we've created
perfect safety and there's nothing left to chance, don't believe
them. Believe the shabbily dressed fellow who always carries a tool
box with plenty of duct tape & crazy glue and is unpopular because he
doesn't agree with the suits. When he starts to move towards the
door, follow him...
I get the impression that in Australia and Brazil, the "liberals" are
much what we in the States would call "libertarians." So what are
left-of-center-but-not--to-the-point-of-being-socialists called?
Xenophile
your Republicans, they even have their very own hard right religious fringe,
the other main party, our version of your Democrats are called the Labour
party. Then there are a few minor parties, the Greens and the Democrats, who
are like your democrats but crossed with the greens and a few other nutcase
types, mind you they do have some good ideas but ruin it by mixing in the
crazy stuff, to the point that they are now self destructing fast. We have a
Westminster system and that means that once they party has decided on a
policy, all the members have to follow along even if they hate the policy,
vote against the party and you can lose you can be booted out. Then there is
the fact that we have just 6 states and they are in many ways (but not every
way) like mini countries in their own right and can tell the federal
government where to go, of course that means the feds can cut off the funds.
The biggest difference between here and the USA, here you have to vote, it
is compulsory and when I was younger, I thought that was wrong but now, with
a bit of experience of human nature, I think it is the best part of our
politics and just to show that Im right, most of the politicians hate it
and have tried to get rid of it, really hard to do here, changing the
constitution is very difficult and most attempts have failed.
As for the left of centre party, well, that would be the Labour party in
general but changes from state to state, your problem is that Australia is
not a true socialist nation but we are a good imitation in many ways. Other
than that there isnt any one that really fits.
Darren
I get the impression that in Australia and Brazil, the "liberals" are
much what we in the States would call "libertarians." So what are
left-of-center-but-not--to-the-point-of-being-socialists called?
Hey, it can't hurt us 'Merkans to know these things.
On 9/9/06, Xenophile wrote:
(...)
> I get the impression that in Australia and Brazil, the "liberals" are
> much what we in the States would call "libertarians."
tend to consider Libertarianism as an unreachable utopia - but we
should nevertheless struggle to get asymptotically close to it. ;-)
> So what are
> left-of-center-but-not--to-the-point-of-being-socialists called?
(...)
Social Democrats, which I call "Diet Communists". ;-)
In practice, though, it does not matter if a so-called socialist from
the worker's party or a social democrat is in power - they all
practice what I call "Compadres' Capitalism", where government gives
artificial incentives and advantages to a close group of capitalists,
which in return finance the elections of their compadres at
government, and so on.
--- In spacesettlers, "Lucio de Souza Coelho" wrote:
> the worker's party or a social democrat is in power - they all
> practice what I call "Compadres' Capitalism", where government gives
> artificial incentives and advantages to a close group of capitalists,
> which in return finance the elections of their compadres at
> government, and so on.
Here it tends to be called "croney capitalism," and the Republicans
are most often accused of it.
Timothy Leary's take on Luddites and their affect
space migration indicate that things could get ugly.
The masses he assumes are of similar percentages as
tadpoles to frogs or caterpillars to butterflies.
population will reject space migration for some
"larval political/religious" (I prefer operating
system) related reason.
People on both the left and right are likely to resist
any effort for a balanced scientific solution to the
current crop of problems threatening humanity as well
life on earth altogether.
MQ
--- Xenophile wrote:
Lucio wrote
>In practice, though, it does not matter if a so-called socialist from
>the worker's party or a social democrat is in power - they all
>practice what I call "Compadres' Capitalism", where government gives
>artificial incentives and advantages to a close group of capitalists,
>which in return finance the elections of their compadres at
>government, and so on.
benefit of the financial interests which keep the government in power.
Pretty much like the US and any of the dirty little gangs of thugs who have
at one time or another ruled a nation throughout history.
"Of course power corrupts -what else is it for?" ...the dominar Rygel the
XVI of the Hynerian Empire (Farscape TV series, novel "House of Cards")