Neo-Luddites

John Frazer wrote:

We've got the tiger by the tail, and the only thing to do is to
carry technological civilization to its logical extreme..

Very good idea. That's what all extinct civilizations in the past have also done.

Selvaraj

From: John Frazer
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, September 08, 2006 4:44 AM
Subject: [spacesettlers] Re: Neo-Luddites

Remind them that before modern medicine (which demands the upkeep of
a high energy civilization), maybe 15% of women died in childbirth,
while 25% of babies died before their first day. Most pre-
technological societies don't count children younger than 12 as
citizens, because maybe 35% of them don't live that long.
Did you mention that that young lady liked sex? Why isn't she a
mother or maternatal mortality statistic yet?
Injuries we see or hear of, and later the victim is fine, would have
cost a limb or worse. Let them, while sitting in a wrecked car
waiting for the ambulance, curse high technology like roads, vehicles
and telephones and high tech diagnostic equipment.

As I've said here before, "God" or "nature's plan" has us scratching
a living hunting/gathering and moving with the herds. Relying on wood
or animal dung fuel for heat & light at night and the old & weak die
just because the society isn't wealthy enough to afford keeping
anyone fed after they can't work any more.
That's the kind of world we lived in for hundreds of thousands of
years, what we're specifically adapted for. The good ol' days.

If they say they want us to go back to an agrarian society, tell them
that this means that about 5 billion people are going to die, or at
best, not have children. Then demand to know how they'll decide who,
because make no mistake, that's what they're talking about.
I challenge their morality in their faces if they don't have answers
to these types of questions, and I definitely challenge their ethics
if they're still serious about it.
Besides, it's all based on the "Only One Earth" Limits mentality,
which is wrong, shortsighted, flat-out-incorrect.

If all the humans just went away now, the biosphere would be in big
trouble, because of the industrial infrastructure we've built up. It
requires human activity to maintain it, and if it were all just let
go into the environment after falling into ruin, the poisonous
aftermath would make an ice age seem hospitable to flora and fauna
everywhere.
We've got the tiger by the tail, and the only thing to do is to
carry technological civilization to its logical extreme, and see if
nature allows a space-faring civilization (the silence behind the
Fermi paradox might make it seem doubtful...).

And I still don't hear of anybody from the Voluntary Human
Extinction Movement either suiciding or sterilizing themselves. Lead
by example. Modern medicine makes it quick and painless, and then you
can start tearing down the doctor's clinic.

My version:
"If we were meant to fly, we'd have been born with a brain capable of
figuring out how to do the trick without being born with wings."

> > > If man were meant to fly they would have been born
> > with wings!!!
> > >
> > > Instead of wheels.
> >
> > And if God had wanted us to form a space-based
> > civilization, He
> > would've given us a moon! ... um...