Jumping the Gun.

Freedom has to do with Good Health, Fresh Air and Fresh Ideas.

Good Health - Only the very young seem to have good health. (and their health too is being increasingly snuffed away by modern lifestyles)

Fresh Air - No one wants it these days. For all practical purposes we could as well be living on Mars. All over the world the rich are moving from an air-conditioned home to an air conditioned car to an air-conditioned office!!! (True in some places air-conditioning is absolutely necessary.)

Fresh Ideas - The latest Oscars are indicative of where we are headed as a human society - Titanic, Chicago, Lord of the Rings (the flash of flesh kept me in the seat for Titanic and Chicago; had to leave the theatre midway in the case of Lord of the Rings). We don't think these days - we are subtly influenced to think in a particular way. (I have stopped reading the Readers Digest - a great magazine once upon a time - now every article seems to be selling something!).

We don't need Global Warming to do us in.
Selvaraj

From: Combs, Mike
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2004 8:11 PM
Subject: RE: [spacesettlers] Re: Jumping the Gun.

I wasn't so much thinking in terms of empires or consolidation of
nation-states as just regimentation of lifestyle. I can see present
nations fragmenting into lots of little nations, but still very little
freedom for the individual.

Regards,

Mike Combs

From: Ravenart@... [mailto:Ravenart@...]
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 8:06 PM
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] Re: Jumping the Gun.

In a message dated 3/23/04 3:07:41 PM, mikecombs@... writes:

1) One can only hope that the doom predicted in 'If not
> for the fall' does not come true.

In truth, my thinking on this subject has changed somewhat since the
time I wrote this story. So many of the dire predictions of the
environmentalists failed to come true. Nowadays, I worry more about a
steady stultification and regimentation of life on Earth than about
anybody running out of food or metal. And I see space settlement as a
way out of that stultification. >>

Doubtful. There's a thing called "megapolitics" (outlied in The
Sovereign
Individual) which show that life and its economy are affected to a large
degree
by how raw power is effected. And raw power depends to a surprising
degree by
technology and its costs. If technology allows raw power to be
projected
cheaply, then you would get regimentation and empire. But if technology
lowers
the cost of defense and increase the cost or projection of aggression,
then
breakup of nation-states become much more likely. That's because trying
to
project power under ruinious debt will destroy that empire very quickly
by
destroying its economy. Think Spain, Dutch, France, England from 1812
to 1914.