Time-scales

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Brad Walsh"

> And won't somebody in the Orion camp stop putting the WAIS

"WAIS" ???

> on a pedestal
> long enough to recognize the awesome, absolutely critical
importance of hard
> work, motivation, and social awareness, each at least as vital to a
person's
> success in life. I always suspect people that sing the praises of
IQ above
> all else as lacking in these other endowments, and seek to create a
world
> where they don't matter.

This is a common misunderstanding about our selection criteria;
thanks for stating it so clearly.

IQ is, indeed, what we look at FIRST; if you don't qualify on that
measure you don't qualify, period.

But THEN we jam each applicant's ethics and politics under the
microscope. We reject applicants who believe in large, paternalistic
States and/or radical-relavist "situational ethics" every bit as
quickly and thoroughly as we do applicants with measured IQs below
130.

And even once one has made it past the airlock (so to speak ;)),
there's the matter of personal, INDIVIDUAL conduct. Folks who can't
even respect each other on an electronic mail list have no place in a
close-knit physical community where mutual PSYCHOLOGICAL support will
be every bit as critical as mutual technological life-support.
Operationally, at present, this means we periodically rid our
maillist of individuals who repeatedly in the heat of debate fail to
behave as befits scholars and gentlemen/ladies.

En fin, Brad, you're absolutely right: Intelligence, as SOLE
criterion, would be a piss-poor basis indeed upon which to build a
physically AND PSYCHOLOGICALLY viable colony.

Perhaps you can now appreciate how much of a "needle in a haystack" a
prospective ORIONaut truly is: From that 3-4% of the world population
the IQ of which exceeds 130, we're seeking still further ONLY for
those who have all the psychological and ideological euqipment
already in place to fully comprehend and support the Dream :)

Hoping this clarifies usefully -- spike