It doesn't matter if the 2nd amendment makes it harder to govern.
Some would say that is a good thing. I bet it would have been much easier in the 1770's for the British to govern the colonies if the colonists had no guns. One of the reasons behind the right to bear arms is to be able to bring down a despotic government.
Going up the chain may have worked a hundred years ago but there are millions of illegal guns on the market today. Going up the chain is closing the door after the horse got out.
Many rights are denied legal minors such as the right to vote. The right to bear arms seems to be another one not afforded to minors. I don't see a problem with that.
Laws like this target gun owners who follow the law. The problem is that most of the violence is perpetrated by people who could not buy a gun legally anyway. There are some cases of legally owned guns being used illegally but that is not the norm. This law will do nothing to curb the illegal gun trade.
Local laws like this have little or no effect except moving the legal gun dealers and the jobs out of the jurisdiction. All gun buyers who would normally do business in Chicago will do is drive outside the city and buy their guns. The result will be the same.
Banning the sale of a legal product that is protected by the constitution will be almost impossible. When a higher court refuses to hear the case the politicians can say "At least we tried". This is a PR stunt as they just want to look like they are doing something even when they know it will not work. What a waste of time and money that could be better used elsewhere.
If putting forward real information about a subject rather than references to articles that do not support your position is trolling I guess I am a troll. You have yet to post an article that does not support my position.
The quote about section 409 of the Act, which regards nucleic acids as RAS, has noting to do with the proteins produced so why did you quote it. The section you didn't reference, the one about section 402(a)(1) of the Act, does cover those concerns.
Do you recall the Starlink corn recall?
Wow, you can't even keep a coherent argument. The Starlink recall was because the corn was approved for animal feed and not human food. This goes against your argument that there is no rigorous approval process for GMO human food. There was no proof that Startlink was bad for human just that it had yet to be approved for human consumption.
The CDC studied the blood of these 28 individuals and concluded there was no evidence the reactions these people experienced were associated with hypersensitivity to the Starlink Bt protein.
Hysteria and money grab all around brought on by the anti-GMO crowd and not based on scientific evidence.
Anyway, I haven't put forth any "what ifs".
From your post
If complications arose in the production of the protein within the potato itself, they couldn't have known.
That's a "what if".
Studies done thus far have put forth opposing conclusions about the safety of GMO crops and I'm inclined to err on the side of caution.
Citations needed and please take into consideration the source of these reports. If you do not believe the food producer's reports because they may be bisaed you must also look at the reports funded by the anti-GMO crowd with the same skeptical eye as they too have an agenda. By the way, here is a quote from the Starlink article:
However, because the Cry9C protein lingers in the digestive system before breaking down, the EPA had concerns about its allergenicity, and PGS did not provide sufficient data to prove that Cry9C was not allergenic.
This is evidence that the EPA does not "just take their word for it" and are concerned with the aditional chemicals produced. Had they taken the companies word Starlink would have been approved for both human and animal food.
For me, the safety issue is ancillary to the considerations of unfair patent litigation
So you conceed that your safety argument has little or no bearing so you pull in something else equally suspect. Sure Monsanto probably went the wrong way on a few cases but the most important one, suing a company for re-selling seeds, was spun by the anti-GMO crowd into something that it was not. The GMO crowd made it sound like the farmer was sued for selling seed that had a few incidental GMO seeds in it. That is not true. The seed farmer would buy soybeans timed to be right after a farmer who used GMO seeds. He also purchased the soybeans as feed stock and not seeds. He would then dose his crop with so much Roudup, far above normal application, to kill all non resistant plants and then sell the crop as seeds. He was a seed farmer who deliberately broke license agreements and specifically grew seeds. This is far different than the poor farmer who made a sold a few seeds and got slammed, which is what was portrayed by the anti-GMO crowd. How about you dig a little before taking sides.
the rights of consumers to know just what they're consuming,
That would be great if every consumer were scientists who could decide whether or not a GMO food was a danger. That is not true and consumers are guided by hype and hysteria. Look at the number of people who still believe in chemtrails even though there is no valid evidence that they even exist. The average person is not equipped to decide what is safe and what is not; that is what scientists are for.
those foods are exempt from the food additive regulations.
You still don't get it. As a food, anyone can eat any nucleic acid on the planet without being harmed. That is why it is not treated as an additive.
3) When GMO crops are evaluted, they are not done so with sufficient rigor.
There is enough rigor for the scientists involved. It is a simple chemical analyses that to find all the anomalous chemicals in the GMO plant. None have been found so far. All your "what if's" are just fear mongering when you have no facts to support your stand. Where Bt crops are involved you might want to look here
Genetically engineered foods are overseen by the FDA, but there is no approval process.
They are also overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the EPA where there is an approvalprocess.
I like the selective emphasis.
FDA encourages informal consultation between producers and FDA scientists to ensure that safety concerns are resolved. However, producers remain legally responsible for satisfying section 402(a)(1) of the act, and they will continue to be held accountable by FDA through application of the agency's enforcement powers.
how about this alternate emphasis
FDA encourages informal consultation between producers and FDA scientists to ensure that safety concerns are resolved. However, producers remain legally responsible for satisfying section 402(a)(1) of the act, and they will continue to be held accountable by FDA through application of the agency's enforcement powers.
Again you missed the paragraph before that one.
Section 402(a)(1) of the act will continue to be FDA's primary legal tool for regulating the safety of whole foods, including foods derived from plants genetically modified by the new techniques. Section 402(a)(1) of the act will be applied to any substance that occurs unexpectedly in the food at a level that may be injurious to health. This includes a naturally occurring toxicant whose level is unintentionally increased by the genetic modification, as well as an unexpected toxicant that first appears in the food as a result of pleiotropic effects. Such substances are regarded by FDA as added substances whose presence adulterates the food if present at a level that "may render" the food injurious to health.
FDA does not expect that there will be any serious question about the GRAS status of transferred genetic material.
Obviously GMO organisms are safe because we have no expectations they won't be safe.
Way to take a statement out of context. They are talking about whether or not to class transferred genetic material as an additive (section 409 of the Act) that needs separate approval. There are other sections of the act that GMOs fall under. The consumption of the genetic material itself is not an issue; What the genetic material produces is and that is covered by other regulations from agencies including the EPA and the USDA.
Picking and choosing what to post is a weak way to argue.
This is even all beside the point of the question I posed which is "Does a county have the regulatory authority to pass a bylaw that bans GMO's?"
According to this regulating GMO's is a federal responsibility. Will the ban and/or fines even hold up in court?
United States regulatory policy is governed by the Coordinated Framework for Regulation of Biotechnology This regulatory policy framework that was developed under the Presidency of Ronald Reagan to ensure safety of the public and to ensure the continuing development of the fledgling biotechnology industry without overly burdensome regulation.The policy as it developed had three tenets: "(1) U.S. policy would focus on the product of genetic modification (GM) techniques, not the process itself, (2) only regulation grounded in verifiable scientific risks would be tolerated, and (3) GM products are on a continuum with existing products and, therefore, existing statutes are sufficient to review the products."
I am pretty sure that a ban with no scientific review or investigation would fail tenet #2.
The general "treatment" for kidney stones to to fill the patient full of pain killers and/or smooth muscle relaxants and wait. Later an ultrasound would be done to see if other measures need to be taken. Kidney stones are rarely if ever life threatening; They are just very painful.
One example is not "many". I tried to do a Google search for issues with Canadian customs and could not find any. Again you miss the "and other issues".
The TSA is not a single entity. Sometimes several people make mistakes in a row. "The TSA" does not make these decision; people who work for the TSA do and people make mistakes. There are many references to the fact that he has been crossing the border for several years with no problem. That would be relevant if there was only one inspector but there are hundreds. Different inspectors under different circumstances may see things differently. We also don't know the whole story. Perhaps the agricultural inspector, who's job it is to protect the US from insects, saw a bug come out of one of the flutes and overreacted.
All this righteous indignation over something that is in all probability a mistake is just stupid and a weak reason for jumping on the "bash the TSA" bandwagon. This is one incident. If it happens many time there may be an issue. I think Hanlon's razor is probably applicable here.
There are three reasons cited in the story; 1. limited due to distribution agreements with the brands we sell in the United State 2. general uncertainty and unpredictability of delivering orders to our Canadian customers 3. other logistics constraints Yet you concentrate on the Canada customs without actually looking into what they mean.
Zappos also won't ship to any other country in the world. Perhaps the issue is that Zappos does not know how to deal with any customs agency. The uncertainty may be caused by the fact that not all shipments are inspected and many of those that are have screwed up paperwork.
1) it is not exploration to go where we have already been and mapped by other means.
2) The reasons are irrelevant to the exploration. All that counts is that people threw themselves into the unknown for a *reason*.
It is not the unknown if one had detailed maps of the place. If you want to compare the Mars mission with the sail era explorers you have to compare everything and not just cherry pick the things that match your idea. The motivation for sail era exploration is part of it.
It's not just exploration. It's colonization. If I go to Mars, I am not coming back. There is no point to a trip like that to *come back*. The point is to colonize Mars, develop additional resources there, and be prepared to receive more people and resources. Somebody has to do it.
It is not colonization as the outpost will never be self sufficient. It will always be dependent on supply shipments from earth. If a couple of supply runs fail the outpost is dead.
This is part of the human spirit. To explore. To find new land, new opportunities.
It is not human nature to sit in a dark hole waiting for the next supply mission so you can turn the lights back on because something went wrong and power levels are low.
Wanting to go to Mars to create a future does not make one a moron.
Wanting to go does not make one a moron but thinking that Mars One will get you there is. Thinking it is exploration is just drinking their coolaid; It is not factual. There will be no exploration.
To do so means you judge all explorers, past and present, equally.
Now you are putting words in my mouth and that is wrong. I applaud explorers who go where no maps exist to find out what is there. Some of the sail era exploration was done to prove the world was round and how big it actually was. That does not apply to Mars as we know what is there and have detailed maps. Throwing away billions of dollars that could be better used to fix problems here on Earth is a bad idea.
Assuming there are as many republicans as democrats and the average between republicans and democrats is 55% it appears that more than 66% of nonaligned people believe in evolution.
There is a big difference between what someone believes and what someone says they believe. The main cause is needing to belong. Someone may say they believe something to fit into the mold they want even though they actually believe something quite different.
I knwe someone would bring up the sailing days explorers analogy. Here are reasons it does not apply; 1; it is not exploration. When Columbus et all went out on ships they were going to unknown territory. They were looking for new lands and new people. We have already been to Mars with rovers, sattelites and telescopes. We have a pretty good idea what is there. 2. The exploration voyages had completely different reasons. The main two reasons for sailing era exploration was to found new self sufficient colonies and/or return wealth to Old World. A small outpost on Mars would always be dependent on Earth for parts and supplies and there is nothing on Mars that could be economically returned to earth. Some people want to go to Mars because we can. Just because we can does not mean we should. 3. The sail era explorers had some hope of returning home alive. Mars dwellers have zero chance of returning alive. 4. The only way to explore in the sail age was by risking lives to do it. Our technology has advanced much further than that. We have rovers that can go to Mars and do almost all the exploration a person can do; all without spending exorbitant amounts of money and condemning people to death on another planet.
Would the next Chuck Yeager break the light speed barrier if some egghead said there was a proven 23.234% chance his nuts would shrivel up and fall off?
Maybe, maybe not but I bet he would have said no if they said there is a 95% chance you will die in 5 years and a 100% chance you will never be with your family again.
They're only going to go if they have met a minimum amount of safety standards and have access to some pretty impressive technologies to bring with them.
Which will cost billions of dollars. Since they are having trouble scraping together millions of dollars that makes Mars One a scam. They know the funding is not there but they will put as much money in their pockets until people stop believing their hype.
Telling somebody that has vastly more information and technology at their fingertips that they are morons for even attempting something like that is a little offensive,
I'm not the only one whothinksthat. That is also the point. You are assuming that the objective of the people behind Mars One is to get to Mars. That is their stated objective. I think their objective is to line their pockets with as much money as possible before everyone realizes it is a scam. I think the people behind the project are smart; I think the people who fell for it and gave them money are the morons.
The issue is that failure taints the next expedition to another planet or moon that might succeed. No matter what they officially call it the new expedition will be called "Mars Two". With that failure record attached to the project good luck finding funding. Secondly all the wasted investment in a project that is in reality a scam could have gone to something actually useful.
You missed a major issue. Most people are not willing to spend billions to send people on a suicide mission to Mars for no gain. Thee is nothing that people can do that can't be done with rovers and for a much lower cost.
There is a big difference between 100% safe and 1% safe. This Mars mission is much closer to the latter and therefore a scam. The problem is that if anything goes wrong they are dead as they have no backup or hope of rescue.. I put their chance of surviving more than 5 years at about 5%.
Has anyone looked at the site? Look at this page. Notice they lump Donations and Merchandise together but forget to subtract the costs related to the merchandise. Revenue is not net revenue. Note the expense graph does not even have a section for merchandise expenses and displays percentages and not dollar amounts. Why no dollar amounts? Maybe because they don't want us to know how much money they are hiding. Note they say "income from donations and merchandise have not been used to pay salaries" so what are they used for and where does the money to pay salaries come from? Also, technically speaking, if a person is paid through a contract it is not a salary so people could be paid from those revenues.
On this page they say "On December 10th, Mars One launched their first ever crowd-funding campaign, focused on bringing funds and attention to the first mission". There is no link. Where is the campaign? Maybe they don't want us to see how badly it is going.
Norbert Kraft, MD, received "The NASA Group Achievement Award 2013", it is one of the most prestigious awards a group can receive, and is presented to selected groups who have distinguished themselves by making outstanding contributions to the NASA mission
This makes it seem that Dr. Kraft received the award for work on Mars One but Mars One never appears in the list.He got the award for work on another project. Also notice that between the annual and semi-annual awards 44 different groups were recognized in one year. How many groups are working on space related projects? The award does not seem all that prestigious to me. It looks more like NASA slapping themselves on the back.
I like this segment;
Lansdorp says, “We fully anticipate our remaining candidates to become celebrities in their towns, cities, and in many cases, countries.
If by celebrity you mean laughing stock you may be right. You have seen Jersey Shore.
This is one of the biggest scams in history to make money for the people pushing it.
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder how long those limbs last under the hard use they will be put through.
It doesn't matter if the 2nd amendment makes it harder to govern.
Some would say that is a good thing. I bet it would have been much easier in the 1770's for the British to govern the colonies if the colonists had no guns. One of the reasons behind the right to bear arms is to be able to bring down a despotic government.
Going up the chain may have worked a hundred years ago but there are millions of illegal guns on the market today. Going up the chain is closing the door after the horse got out.
Many rights are denied legal minors such as the right to vote. The right to bear arms seems to be another one not afforded to minors. I don't see a problem with that.
Laws like this target gun owners who follow the law. The problem is that most of the violence is perpetrated by people who could not buy a gun legally anyway. There are some cases of legally owned guns being used illegally but that is not the norm. This law will do nothing to curb the illegal gun trade.
Local laws like this have little or no effect except moving the legal gun dealers and the jobs out of the jurisdiction. All gun buyers who would normally do business in Chicago will do is drive outside the city and buy their guns. The result will be the same.
Banning the sale of a legal product that is protected by the constitution will be almost impossible. When a higher court refuses to hear the case the politicians can say "At least we tried". This is a PR stunt as they just want to look like they are doing something even when they know it will not work. What a waste of time and money that could be better used elsewhere.
If putting forward real information about a subject rather than references to articles that do not support your position is trolling I guess I am a troll. You have yet to post an article that does not support my position.
Is that your best well founded argument? You funny.
I'm talking about the proteins they encode.
The quote about section 409 of the Act, which regards nucleic acids as RAS, has noting to do with the proteins produced so why did you quote it. The section you didn't reference, the one about section 402(a)(1) of the Act, does cover those concerns.
Do you recall the Starlink corn recall?
Wow, you can't even keep a coherent argument. The Starlink recall was because the corn was approved for animal feed and not human food. This goes against your argument that there is no rigorous approval process for GMO human food. There was no proof that Startlink was bad for human just that it had yet to be approved for human consumption.
The CDC studied the blood of these 28 individuals and concluded there was no evidence the reactions these people experienced were associated with hypersensitivity to the Starlink Bt protein.
Hysteria and money grab all around brought on by the anti-GMO crowd and not based on scientific evidence.
Anyway, I haven't put forth any "what ifs".
From your post
If complications arose in the production of the protein within the potato itself, they couldn't have known.
That's a "what if".
Studies done thus far have put forth opposing conclusions about the safety of GMO crops and I'm inclined to err on the side of caution.
Citations needed and please take into consideration the source of these reports. If you do not believe the food producer's reports because they may be bisaed you must also look at the reports funded by the anti-GMO crowd with the same skeptical eye as they too have an agenda. By the way, here is a quote from the Starlink article:
However, because the Cry9C protein lingers in the digestive system before breaking down, the EPA had concerns about its allergenicity, and PGS did not provide sufficient data to prove that Cry9C was not allergenic.
This is evidence that the EPA does not "just take their word for it" and are concerned with the aditional chemicals produced. Had they taken the companies word Starlink would have been approved for both human and animal food.
For me, the safety issue is ancillary to the considerations of unfair patent litigation
So you conceed that your safety argument has little or no bearing so you pull in something else equally suspect. Sure Monsanto probably went the wrong way on a few cases but the most important one, suing a company for re-selling seeds, was spun by the anti-GMO crowd into something that it was not. The GMO crowd made it sound like the farmer was sued for selling seed that had a few incidental GMO seeds in it. That is not true. The seed farmer would buy soybeans timed to be right after a farmer who used GMO seeds. He also purchased the soybeans as feed stock and not seeds. He would then dose his crop with so much Roudup, far above normal application, to kill all non resistant plants and then sell the crop as seeds. He was a seed farmer who deliberately broke license agreements and specifically grew seeds. This is far different than the poor farmer who made a sold a few seeds and got slammed, which is what was portrayed by the anti-GMO crowd. How about you dig a little before taking sides.
the rights of consumers to know just what they're consuming,
That would be great if every consumer were scientists who could decide whether or not a GMO food was a danger. That is not true and consumers are guided by hype and hysteria. Look at the number of people who still believe in chemtrails even though there is no valid evidence that they even exist. The average person is not equipped to decide what is safe and what is not; that is what scientists are for.
Make claims I have 'no facts to stand on'
You have yet to cite an
those foods are exempt from the food additive regulations.
You still don't get it. As a food, anyone can eat any nucleic acid on the planet without being harmed. That is why it is not treated as an additive.
3) When GMO crops are evaluted, they are not done so with sufficient rigor.
There is enough rigor for the scientists involved. It is a simple chemical analyses that to find all the anomalous chemicals in the GMO plant. None have been found so far. All your "what if's" are just fear mongering when you have no facts to support your stand.
Where Bt crops are involved you might want to look here
Genetically engineered foods are overseen by the FDA, but there is no approval process.
They are also overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the EPA where there is an approval process.
I like the selective emphasis.
FDA encourages informal consultation between producers and FDA scientists to ensure that safety concerns are resolved. However, producers remain legally responsible for satisfying section 402(a)(1) of the act, and they will continue to be held accountable by FDA through application of the agency's enforcement powers.
how about this alternate emphasis
FDA encourages informal consultation between producers and FDA scientists to ensure that safety concerns are resolved. However, producers remain legally responsible for satisfying section 402(a)(1) of the act, and they will continue to be held accountable by FDA through application of the agency's enforcement powers.
Again you missed the paragraph before that one.
Section 402(a)(1) of the act will continue to be FDA's primary legal tool for regulating the safety of whole foods, including foods derived from plants genetically modified by the new techniques. Section 402(a)(1) of the act will be applied to any substance that occurs unexpectedly in the food at a level that may be injurious to health. This includes a naturally occurring toxicant whose level is unintentionally increased by the genetic modification, as well as an unexpected toxicant that first appears in the food as a result of pleiotropic effects. Such substances are regarded by FDA as added substances whose presence adulterates the food if present at a level that "may render" the food injurious to health.
FDA does not expect that there will be any serious question about the GRAS status of transferred genetic material.
Obviously GMO organisms are safe because we have no expectations they won't be safe.
Way to take a statement out of context. They are talking about whether or not to class transferred genetic material as an additive (section 409 of the Act) that needs separate approval. There are other sections of the act that GMOs fall under. The consumption of the genetic material itself is not an issue; What the genetic material produces is and that is covered by other regulations from agencies including the EPA and the USDA.
Picking and choosing what to post is a weak way to argue.
This is even all beside the point of the question I posed which is "Does a county have the regulatory authority to pass a bylaw that bans GMO's?"
According to this regulating GMO's is a federal responsibility. Will the ban and/or fines even hold up in court?
United States regulatory policy is governed by the Coordinated Framework for Regulation of Biotechnology This regulatory policy framework that was developed under the Presidency of Ronald Reagan to ensure safety of the public and to ensure the continuing development of the fledgling biotechnology industry without overly burdensome regulation.The policy as it developed had three tenets: "(1) U.S. policy would focus on the product of genetic modification (GM) techniques, not the process itself, (2) only regulation grounded in verifiable scientific risks would be tolerated, and (3) GM products are on a continuum with existing products and, therefore, existing statutes are sufficient to review the products."
I am pretty sure that a ban with no scientific review or investigation would fail tenet #2.
The general "treatment" for kidney stones to to fill the patient full of pain killers and/or smooth muscle relaxants and wait. Later an ultrasound would be done to see if other measures need to be taken. Kidney stones are rarely if ever life threatening; They are just very painful.
One example is not "many". I tried to do a Google search for issues with Canadian customs and could not find any. Again you miss the "and other issues".
The TSA is not a single entity. Sometimes several people make mistakes in a row. "The TSA" does not make these decision; people who work for the TSA do and people make mistakes. There are many references to the fact that he has been crossing the border for several years with no problem. That would be relevant if there was only one inspector but there are hundreds. Different inspectors under different circumstances may see things differently. We also don't know the whole story. Perhaps the agricultural inspector, who's job it is to protect the US from insects, saw a bug come out of one of the flutes and overreacted.
All this righteous indignation over something that is in all probability a mistake is just stupid and a weak reason for jumping on the "bash the TSA" bandwagon. This is one incident. If it happens many time there may be an issue. I think Hanlon's razor is probably applicable here.
"Razgui, who’s been performing with The Boston Camerata since 2002..."
So what? Boston is in the US and Canada has different laws.
There are three reasons cited in the story;
1. limited due to distribution agreements with the brands we sell in the United State
2. general uncertainty and unpredictability of delivering orders to our Canadian customers
3. other logistics constraints
Yet you concentrate on the Canada customs without actually looking into what they mean.
Zappos also won't ship to any other country in the world. Perhaps the issue is that Zappos does not know how to deal with any customs agency. The uncertainty may be caused by the fact that not all shipments are inspected and many of those that are have screwed up paperwork.
By your standard every police force andborder agency in the world is the Gestapo as they have these powers and sometimes use them.
1) it is not exploration to go where we have already been and mapped by other means.
2) The reasons are irrelevant to the exploration. All that counts is that people threw themselves into the unknown for a *reason*.
It is not the unknown if one had detailed maps of the place. If you want to compare the Mars mission with the sail era explorers you have to compare everything and not just cherry pick the things that match your idea. The motivation for sail era exploration is part of it.
It's not just exploration. It's colonization. If I go to Mars, I am not coming back. There is no point to a trip like that to *come back*. The point is to colonize Mars, develop additional resources there, and be prepared to receive more people and resources. Somebody has to do it.
It is not colonization as the outpost will never be self sufficient. It will always be dependent on supply shipments from earth. If a couple of supply runs fail the outpost is dead.
This is part of the human spirit. To explore. To find new land, new opportunities.
It is not human nature to sit in a dark hole waiting for the next supply mission so you can turn the lights back on because something went wrong and power levels are low.
Wanting to go to Mars to create a future does not make one a moron.
Wanting to go does not make one a moron but thinking that Mars One will get you there is. Thinking it is exploration is just drinking their coolaid; It is not factual. There will be no exploration.
To do so means you judge all explorers, past and present, equally.
Now you are putting words in my mouth and that is wrong. I applaud explorers who go where no maps exist to find out what is there. Some of the sail era exploration was done to prove the world was round and how big it actually was. That does not apply to Mars as we know what is there and have detailed maps. Throwing away billions of dollars that could be better used to fix problems here on Earth is a bad idea.
Assuming there are as many republicans as democrats and the average between republicans and democrats is 55% it appears that more than 66% of nonaligned people believe in evolution.
There is a big difference between what someone believes and what someone says they believe. The main cause is needing to belong. Someone may say they believe something to fit into the mold they want even though they actually believe something quite different.
I knwe someone would bring up the sailing days explorers analogy. Here are reasons it does not apply;
1; it is not exploration.
When Columbus et all went out on ships they were going to unknown territory. They were looking for new lands and new people. We have already been to Mars with rovers, sattelites and telescopes. We have a pretty good idea what is there.
2. The exploration voyages had completely different reasons.
The main two reasons for sailing era exploration was to found new self sufficient colonies and/or return wealth to Old World. A small outpost on Mars would always be dependent on Earth for parts and supplies and there is nothing on Mars that could be economically returned to earth. Some people want to go to Mars because we can. Just because we can does not mean we should.
3. The sail era explorers had some hope of returning home alive. Mars dwellers have zero chance of returning alive.
4. The only way to explore in the sail age was by risking lives to do it. Our technology has advanced much further than that. We have rovers that can go to Mars and do almost all the exploration a person can do; all without spending exorbitant amounts of money and condemning people to death on another planet.
Would the next Chuck Yeager break the light speed barrier if some egghead said there was a proven 23.234% chance his nuts would shrivel up and fall off?
Maybe, maybe not but I bet he would have said no if they said there is a 95% chance you will die in 5 years and a 100% chance you will never be with your family again.
They're only going to go if they have met a minimum amount of safety standards and have access to some pretty impressive technologies to bring with them.
Which will cost billions of dollars. Since they are having trouble scraping together millions of dollars that makes Mars One a scam. They know the funding is not there but they will put as much money in their pockets until people stop believing their hype.
Telling somebody that has vastly more information and technology at their fingertips that they are morons for even attempting something like that is a little offensive,
I'm not the only one who thinks that. That is also the point. You are assuming that the objective of the people behind Mars One is to get to Mars. That is their stated objective. I think their objective is to line their pockets with as much money as possible before everyone realizes it is a scam. I think the people behind the project are smart; I think the people who fell for it and gave them money are the morons.
The issue is that failure taints the next expedition to another planet or moon that might succeed. No matter what they officially call it the new expedition will be called "Mars Two". With that failure record attached to the project good luck finding funding. Secondly all the wasted investment in a project that is in reality a scam could have gone to something actually useful.
You missed a major issue. Most people are not willing to spend billions to send people on a suicide mission to Mars for no gain. Thee is nothing that people can do that can't be done with rovers and for a much lower cost.
There is a big difference between 100% safe and 1% safe. This Mars mission is much closer to the latter and therefore a scam. The problem is that if anything goes wrong they are dead as they have no backup or hope of rescue.. I put their chance of surviving more than 5 years at about 5%.
Has anyone looked at the site?
Look at this page. Notice they lump Donations and Merchandise together but forget to subtract the costs related to the merchandise. Revenue is not net revenue. Note the expense graph does not even have a section for merchandise expenses and displays percentages and not dollar amounts. Why no dollar amounts? Maybe because they don't want us to know how much money they are hiding. Note they say "income from donations and merchandise have not been used to pay salaries" so what are they used for and where does the money to pay salaries come from? Also, technically speaking, if a person is paid through a contract it is not a salary so people could be paid from those revenues.
On this page they say "On December 10th, Mars One launched their first ever crowd-funding campaign, focused on bringing funds and attention to the first mission". There is no link. Where is the campaign? Maybe they don't want us to see how badly it is going.
From this page;
Norbert Kraft, MD, received "The NASA Group Achievement Award 2013", it is one of the most prestigious awards a group can receive, and is presented to selected groups who have distinguished themselves by making outstanding contributions to the NASA mission
This makes it seem that Dr. Kraft received the award for work on Mars One but Mars One never appears in the list.He got the award for work on another project. Also notice that between the annual and semi-annual awards 44 different groups were recognized in one year. How many groups are working on space related projects? The award does not seem all that prestigious to me. It looks more like NASA slapping themselves on the back.
I like this segment;
Lansdorp says, “We fully anticipate our remaining candidates to become celebrities in their towns, cities, and in many cases, countries.
If by celebrity you mean laughing stock you may be right. You have seen Jersey Shore.
This is one of the biggest scams in history to make money for the people pushing it.