"Dumb Wannabe Colonists"]

--- Monart Pon wrote:
> I'm also forwarding this post for comments, please. Thank you.
>
> Monart
>
> Subject: [Starship_Forum] Re: "Dumb Wannabe Colonists"
> Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 12:24:24 -0600
> From: Dennis May
> Reply-To: Starship_Forum@yahoogroups.com
> To: Starship_Forum@yahoogroups.com
>
> Responding to an article, "Dumb Wannabee Colonists", on Mike Comb's Space
> Settlement site
>
> >What kind of American, or indeed Westerner, would give up a life on humdrum
> >ol' Earth to live the rest of his life in cramped, uncertain, unpleasant
> >conditions?
>
> I would say the kind who exist in the millions.

Likely to be many no matter what country.

> >...just 10 cubic meters of cramped quarters, recycling your own urine,
> >living in your own sweat, facing the dangers of decompression
> >daily, seeing the same goddamn faces every day,knowing that down below on
> >Earth people are laughing, and loving, breathing fresh air and running in
> >spring sunshine,meeting people and living life.
>
> Sounds like the lives lived by thousands of
> U.S Navy people every year. How many technical
> people live in near isolation with no money
> for years of their lives while attending
> college and graduate school?

A lot.

> >Cubans. Haitians. Somali's. Phillipino's. Timorese.
> >They are the immigrants of the 21st century. They are the ones fleeing
> >persecution and poverty, seeking a better life. They have far more in
> >common with the passengers on the Mayflower than the overfed, overweight,
> >self-satisfied, self-righteous, tax-paying, groundhogs sitting behind their
> >computers and filling the Net with wannabe hogwash, boasting about their
> >ancestor's deeds and imagining themselves to be their spiritual heirs.
>
> So coming from poverty is a qualification for living
> in space, not technical knowledge? I guess we should
> man nuclear submarines with whatever poor boat people
> we can locate. Two groups of my ancestors were in
> North America before the Mayflower [German and Native
> American] but that has nothing to do with anything.

Technical knowledge is and should be the main requirement.

> >Colonists don't build ships. They colonize. Or die
> >trying.
>
> It is not obvious at this point who will build the
> ships. I can assure you that my Native American
> ancestors got here with no government involvement,
> by their own means. In 1610 fur trapping private
> interests brought one of my German ancestors.

Does it really matter who builds the ships?

> >The ones with nothing to lose.
> >And that means NOT you.
>
> Unless they have the private means to get into
> space [rich with something to loose] they will
> be working for someone. Being poor with nothing
> to loose is in no way a qualification for being
> hired for space employment. Someone who is
> qualified no longer has nothing to loose and is
> very employable at good wages in any number of
> jobs.

I'm sure if they were offered the chance to get qualifications and then go into
space they would jump at it. Particulary if they are young.

> It will be motivated, educated, well trained
> people who will move into space [no class warfare
> requirement]. Qualified motivated people can come
> from many places. I knew several technical
> U.S. Air Force Officers who had come from 3rd
> world nations as children and were more than
> qualified to become space settlers. I have known
> many educated people and many engineers who came
> from all parts of the world both rich and poor.
> Qualified is qualified. One of my civilian Air Force
> engineering friends did indeed come to the United
> States as a boat-person. He would have as much
> to risk going into space as anyone coming from
> a much hated overweight white European American
> background. I am hearing Americans being hated
> for their success, not for any rational reason.
> My boat-person friend and his whole family are
> now successful Americans, are they to be hated
> as well, or is hate reserved for overweight
> white successful Americans?

Actually to be more accurate the reason people hate the US is because they are
an arrogant and irresponsible superpower. It's a pretty rational reason
actually. The downright offensive blabbering of some yanks that the US is the
"worlds greatest democracy", "best country in the world", "land of the 'free'"
etc, etc doesn't help either. When one looks at social problems around the
world they can often be traced to US foreign policies. CIA haven't helped out
either.

Fact is that anti-american ideology in its moderate form (meaning no crashing
airliners into buildings) is actually quite rational. Outside the United
States you are often seen as being self-rightous and overly patriotic (US
patriotism is pretty damn close to ultra-nationalism).