Asteroid captu or whatever

I wish you were right, Chris, that it was all going to be okay, that people have always perceived things were going to hell in a handbasket. I hope you're right, and I pray you're right. But comparing the economic bases of the past with the present, forgetting all about 'morals' or any of that, it seems like, economically, we're just screwed, unless we make some tough basic decisions that won't even pay off quickly. Societies fail, that's a fact. There has to be a tipping, and if you miss the right call, you're done. Oh sure, human beings have always survived it--that's why I used the toilet paper/leaf analogy. There's all kinds of ways to survive. We would probably 'survive' a world-wide nuclear war, as a remnant.

There were societies side by side where one locale began to practice agriculture, and the other locale retained their hunter/gatherer life. The agriculture guys actually worked longer hours--I can't find the popular book from five or so years ago that discussed this--and enjoyed less freedom than the guys across the river. The groups that began to use agriculture, however, soon produced a surplus that allowed for population growth and specialization, and etc. The other society remained where they were--and maybe loving it, but not developing an alphabet, not developing an art. The conditions were so similar it's hard not to attribute the difference to human choice, and to wonder hard about our choices now. I so much want us to go to space. I feel human beings are about as special a creation as possible, who are given the vast wide universe to explore and use--if we don't blow it.

You don't argue, do you, that it's impossible to blow it?