EM launch

> I read through the Lifeboat site, made a donation, and of course I have
> some comments to make.

Your contribution and your thought-provoking comments are very
appreciated. It isn't my place to respond to the moral arguments, but
I'm going to take a shot anyway...

> The Lifeboat site is uniformly alarmist and somewhat over the top. The
> one thing that is great about Dr. Gerard K. O'Neill's High Frontier
> vision is that it emphasizes the positive. There are things to do,
> places to explore, the beginning of a brand new opportunity instead of
> seating in a containment shell watching reruns of "I Love Lucy". It
> just happens that space colonies solve other problems along the way.

I don't find the site alarmist at all. There is a long list of
catastrophes with fairly high probabilities that could destroy all life
on earth or at best set civilization back to square one.

On the other hand, I agree with you that there are other reasons for
developing space. The least refutable one that I've seen is that
(quoting someone here, I can't remember who,) in space, real estate,
energy, and raw materials are all available in roughly infinite
quantities. For this reason, space development is, barring a major
catastrophe, pretty much inevitable, so why work on it at all? I look
at the situation as a race to develop technology for affordable space
access before some other technologies arrive; most pressingly,
nanotech.

> I strongly disagree with the concept that the first and foremost
> solution to possible human caused catastrophes in the future is to run
> away from them. By running away all we are doing is transporting a
> subgroup of a very immature acting population to a different location.
> Does the act of being transported to a space colony make this group of
> people have god like maturity to go along with the god like technology
> they will possess? What we need is for humanity to become more mature.
> To understand that the current hedonistic approach to life is getting
> us into trouble.

Correct, running away is not a solution, just a Plan B, like a hard
drive backup. I'm not abandoning the earth. I've given a contribution
to the Nature Conservancy every year for the last 10 years that is a
significant amount compared to my income. If someone can think of a way
to make humanity more mature, I'll send a check to that project, too.

Regarding the residents of the space city having godlike power, it
seems to me that they'll actually be in a vulnerable position, while
people who possess an assembler version of nanotech would have godlike
power...

> Each one of you who is reading this is saying to themselves that I am
> not talking about you. Wrong! So I will give an obvious example. Each
> year the cost to our society due to alcohol consumption is enormous:
> broken families, ruined lives, missed opportunities, crime, highway
> fatalities, infrastructure costs, etc. Since alcohol is a problem, why
> are we supporting the consumption of it by partaking of it ourselves.
> If
> we were truly mature, each of us would forever forsake any substance
> that the weakest of our fellowmen cannot handle.

I agree with you here as well, although here I think that you are
somewhat over the top. I live a pretty minimal lifestyle and rarely
drink (mostly because it's difficult to find the time), but I lean more
toward Kantian moral philosophy rather than - I can't identify your
quote here - following some monastic vows? So, for example, applying
Kant's universalizability, if, by having a glass of wine during
conference receptions, I cause everyone else also to do so, would there
be a contradiction or other negative consequences? In fact, most people
do have a drink at conference receptions, and it probably increases the
flow of information.

I do find it frustrating to see such a large percentage of the GNP
spent on things that have little benefit and are often harmful, not
just in the sense of missing an opportunity to do something else with
the money, but in the sense of directly making things worse. One of the
reasons to fund EM launch research in the form of a contest is to make
it entertaining and thereby attract additional funding. Of course this
idea has been tried a hundred times before, and it looks to me as if
most of the tries have been fairly successful, so as long as it
continues working, I think we should get in on the action!

-Phil

P.S.

> Our concern would be
> for the betterment of all mankind instead of our own pleasure.

Our concern should be for maximizing the "total happiness" (a la John
Stuart Mill), which often means making sacrifices, but does not mean
completely neglecting our own happiness.