10-Year Plan

On Friday, October 25, 2002, at 10:59 AM, Ed Minchau wrote:

> The thing is, only human beings have rights. Governments and
> government entities do not.

Actually, rights are usually created by law -- they are group
creations. If everyone in a society thinks you have a particular
right -- then you do. If they don't, you don't (unless you have
sufficient force -- which requires a group of bully boys on your side,
i.e., a group of people who believe you have those rights!). This may
not be how it's 'supposed' to be, but it's the way things actually are.

The dinosaurs were destroyed by an asteroid because they weren't
space-faring. It's almost as if Gaia then thought "Well, dinosaurs
worked pretty well, but space-faring is necessary. Maybe I'll should
try mammals this time." Humanity is now developing systems to detect and
deflect asteroids, and could build orbital space colonies to spread
beyond Earth to insure life would survive a planetary catastrophe.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html