Slashdot Mirror
Humans Will Sail To The Stars
oddsheep points to an "article on BBC news from the AAAS Expo in Boston about how researchers are discussing spreading the human race across the galaxy in solar sailing ships. Not a new idea of course but the social implications discussed are great: what the hell do the volunteer colonists (and their descendants) do for the hundreds of years it would take to get anywhere? Cue "Are we nearly there yet?" from the back seats ad infinitum and the longest game of 'I Spy' in history..."
the longest game of 'I Spy' in history..
"I Spy.... A star."
"Hey, thats what I was going to say!"
I think it would be a pretty short game, personaly.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
The Guardian also has an article. It includes the hilarious quotation 'Some very
clever people have been chipping away at the problem, and now we think it could be possible without breaking the laws of physics' - I presume as opposed to how people used to think it was possible only *with* breaking the laws of physics...
I like how they talk about earth english and space english. We already have ebonics english, British English, and the English that my foreign professors have that is completly different then the english I speak. We could always use another English...
I say if you want to go to another solar system, go for it. I would rather stay here and respond to slashdot articles.
Here's an brilliant idea! They should load the ship with robots and upon the arrival of their destination the robots can begin the mixing of eggs and sperm (i dont know this process as i am not familiar with the artificial breeding methods of humans) and then the robots can parent the babies and the babies will be robots when they grow up and then we can have an INTERGALACTIC ARMY OF HUMAN ROBOTS! HEAHEHEAHEHA
"you sonofabitch i didn't know!"
"Mommy, Tommy threw my shoe out the window."
"If you two don't stop it right now, I'm just going to have to turn this spaceship around right now! Do you want me to have to do that?!?"
I'm only paranoid because everyone is against me...
Yes, but this group might not want to sit around playing Civilization together, lest they reveal their strategy for taking over the new world too soon...
In the words of Dr. Strangelove:
"Naturally, they would breed prodigiously, eh? There would be much time, and little to do."
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
three ships. We put all the laborers on one, all the intellectuals on another, and...
(If you don't get it, don't moderate it)
-- "Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?"
How about hacking the spaceship's computer?
Sure, it might be risky. But there would be few things more satisfactory than pulling a hack to, say, get the computer to announce "Arrival" 200 years early.
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
Most likely though, after sixty years of fruitless effort I would throw in the towel. I would spend the remainder of my time drunk in my cabin: a bitter, broken lonely man, shunned by my shipmates.
Upon my death, friendless, my body would be unceremoniously dumped into the biomass recycler.
The solution, of course, is to use Slashdot Geeks.
Used, and perhaps even comforted by the lack of sunlight and fresh-air, the Slashdot Geek presents advantages over other subespecies of the human animal for such an endeavor.
Its lack of social skills might be problematic, of course, but taking into account that most of them barely leave their rooms if given a network connection, human contact and its unfortunate consequences can be minimized.
Co-existence will be limited to posts and flamewars, and provided sufficient sources of electronic boards, sophomoric pseudojournalism and porn all violence would be confined to the network.
Ensuring reproduction of each generation, however, could present a bit of a challenge...
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
It will take a little time before you like/love it and before you can work with the same efficiency (as before the change)...
So what you're saying is that we should load a bunch of Windows users on a space sailship, give them Linux only computers, and by the time they have figured out how to surf for intergalactic porn, they'd have reached their final destination?
Bush Lies Watch