[silliest] Building Loads on PressuShells

> As for whether we will build spacious habitats for all, or
> crowded hives for the majority and spacious habs only for the
> well-to-do, there is no way that we can determine that yet. It
> depends in part on how easy it will become to build habitats.

no, it doesn't. This is the point I was trying to make, it's not a matter of
space, it's a matter of human being not being very mature I guess... :)
regardless how easy would be to build them, regardless how much space there
will be, human will grow in number until every inch of it is full, and then
start to compete for it. It's our nature and until we learn better we will
keep doing that.
Look at what happened in Egypt when they built the Aswan dam, it would have
granted water and energy to live at as good as any western standard to the
entire population at the time it was built. Not even twenty years later the
population boomed so much that they were all back in the same misery they
had always been. Our planet could be a veritable garden of Eden if we were
to make a rationale use of it, but that's not the human nature, or at least
we are not evolved that much yet anyway...
We are doing the same right now on global scale, as we have always done.
Someone has talked about population on Earth not being an issue, at last
count I think we're growing something like a 100 million per year. It's hard
to imagine this can be kept up for much, but is also hard to imagine how can
it be stopped short of some big tragic event of a sort or another. Pop
growth in the west is indeed diminishing, but in the most populated area of
the world is not. The sad truth is that is going to grow as much as it can,
that is until it becomes a BIG problem, and only then we are going to do
something about it. Probably some big war as usually.
As for people in Brazil being able to afford meat everyday, looking at the
millions living in the slums around Rio and the other big cities there it
doesn't look like it to me, but even if it was so it certainly isn't the
case in India, China and Indonesia, which account alone for nearly half of
the world population if I'm not much wrong... most people in Asia and Africa
live on the threshold of misery. I'm not sure about South America, but I
don't think there is such a pressure of illegal immigrants on the southern
borders of US because they like the president face to be honest... :)

As for us in the West having a middle class living a much higher standard
than it was in the middleage, it's undeniable, but is looking at things in a
false perspective. In the middleages the dominant classes lived their
privileged lives supported by the local (miserable) population.
Today, in the West, we've made many important steps toward human dignity,
and not only the middle class but pretty much any citizen have at least a
chance of a dignified existence, but this is only possible because we're
exploiting the rest of the world, which is still as miserable as our
peasants were in the middleages. The West alone uses most of the planet
resources, and it doesn't account even for a quarter of the population. The
US alone I think were still consuming something like half of the world food
production until a couple years ago, and they're a tenth of the world
population if that!

Last, why people would go to live in a steel hive spinning in the middle of
nowhere if there aren't beautiful white houses with flower gardens for all?
For the same reason people always been emigrating, because condition of life
back home are so bad that it is still an improvement for them. Sure you
won't think of doing it now, comfortably sitting at the PC having a pleasant
conversation, and neither do I being in the same condition of course, but
give it a decade of depression and a 50% unemployment rate and even people
in the West would kill each other to get there. It's happened before, and it
is happening right now in all the poorest countries of the world. People
born in the wrong place would go to live and work on an habitat even if they
had to live in a 3 square foot cell all their life right today if they
could. Granted, habitat's job will probably require a good level of
education, and most people will be probably attracted by the opportunity for
fast profits, good wages, the feel for adventure, or a mix of all, as do
people who go today to work on the oil rigs in Alaska for example. Still I
think the idea of habitats population living in little single floor wooden
houses surrounded by trees is just a romantic dream IMHO. At best there will
be places like that which you can rent for a week to go spend your honeymoon
there... :)
Sorry for all the Gundam aficionados on the list... ;)

I'm sure some foolish idealistic group will set up an utopic habitat were
all will finally live a free and fulfilling life, but as soon as the others
will know about it they'll go there and exterminate them on some ideological
or religious pretext as it has always happened. Those things are bad for
ruling classes you see, they show their own ruled population that they could
live without being ruled, which would put the ruling classes out of
business. Fortunately for the ruling classes however, they have always been
in a particularly good relationship with the military, so ensuring that the
ruled are always well aware of how lucky they are to be ruled after all has
never really been a problem, and the ruling classes can go on trying to take
over each other which has always been they favourite pastime.
I guess the truth is that a free and fulfilling life is probably boring like
hell anyway... :)

Bottom line, technological advances are going to make big hives possible,
but for everyone to live a better life we need first a major step in
maturity, call it sociophilosofical evolution if you like.
We're not doing very well on that front I'm afraid, although there have been
considerable improvements, and hopefully the information revolution will
help a lot in this sense... so basically keep talking about it, it helps...
;)

Cheers,

Claudio