Ned Ludd lives on

Sad, very sad. Maybe we should tell them the story of the Ming
Dynasty during the 15th century. Or maybe these anti-progress/anti-
technology people should abandon everything. and live life as
cavemen "the way nature intended". I can't remember who it was
(Clarke, Sagan, O'Neil, Dyson, etc.), but some famous, visionary
person noted that those people who were against space exploration and
colonization tend to think that humans are inherently bad or evil,
that we are a cancer of matter. Sure, I agree that weapons should
not be brought into space, but if, and only if that is required to
open the frontier, then so be it. But one of my principles of space
colonization is that it is best done by individuals/private efforts.
For instance, a group should pool their resources wisely, and
colonize space. That will reduce conflict with Earth-based
governments. It is shameful that we have to justify our wanting to
colonize space. I can understand if we are using tax-payer money,
but private efforts shouldn't be attacked either. If a group wants
to use their own money for space efforts, then I don't see why anyone
should stop them. That's just like keeping someone from moving out
of the slums and into college in search of a better life. Do we
solve all of our problems in the slums first before allowing anyone
to move out? This sounds ridiculous because it is. You can easily
see how this applies to space colonization. If we didn't allow space
colonization until we solved all of Earth's problems, we would NEVER
get to space. I plan on living in space.

While I don't totally agree with the philosophy of objectivism,
Monart Pon did have a very well written philosophy of space
settlement. But however, I believe in individual altruism.

If there is one thing that made me sick to my stomach, it is the
person who blasted the book, "Mining The Sky". That really angered
me. I just want to write a catastrophic and embarressing rebuttal to
the author of that article. These anti-technology, anti-progress,
illogical people sicken me. It seems to me that any person capable
of reason would think that the book has great ideas. Let's see how
the like it if all of our knowledge and technology disappeared. I
wonder how these people will like seeing 5 billion people starve
because Earth cannot sustain more than a billion without technology.
I bet they would just love that. And then we would not have any
knowledge of diseases like AIDS, and they would eventually spread
until most of humanity is affected. Sounds like paradise to these
people!! Then eventually, we would become extinct, and everything
that humans have accomplished in the past 50,000 years of progress
will absolutely go to waste. But it doesn't matter to these anti-
human people doesn't it?

For all I care, these can stay on Earth, and not give one cent, or
one thought of concern for space colonization. But don't stop me, or
anyone else from moving to space.

--- In spacesettlers@y..., "Combs, Mike" wrote:
> From: John Frazer [mailto:johnf4303@h...]
>
> To them, space colonies are a hideous fantasy concocted by people
who
> live in some S.F. world, and have no cares for destroying life on
> Earth.
>
> In fact, they've even referred to space settlement as a "disposable
Earth
> policy".
>
> If they've even heard of SPS, they think it's part of ballistic
> missile defense -which is not a defensive thing at all.
>
> I think they tend more to look at it as something that terrorists
could
> hijack and use to take out a major city. Or that two operators
might get
> confused between each other over Metric vs. English and
accidentally fry New
> York City. Or that after years of operation, we'll find that folks
living
> next to the rectennas are keeling over with tumors.
>
> You can try to educate them on the technical and scientific reasons
why
> these scenarios are complete nonsense, but they're not about to let
their
> opinions be altered by mere scientific facts. A basic mistrust of
science
> is at the heart of the problem, so attempts to use science to
assuage their
> fears are largely unproductive. These kinds of people consider
their own
> imaginations to be as good a guide to truth as any scientifically
derived