I expect that we'll see "hens" willing to go and able to pay for themselves to go. Then I don't see the problem.
But the primary "problem" still exists - it's still a desolate rock, and no pretence on the part of deluded hens will make it otherwise. So the original analogy is still false.
And that looks to be how it will occur too since space travel on Other Peoples' Money just doesn't seem to be working out.
The basic reason it is not working out is because there is no reason for humans to travel in space. IF there were some resource we needed from space, we could collect it remotely. We are experiencing some liebensraum issues on earth, but that's not a problem solved by sending humans into space due to the basic physics of space travel/colony supply.
As another poster noted, we already orbit a star so yes, a star is within reach of a human lifetime.
Good point - Mars orbits the same star as the earth, so we are already effectively amongst the stars by being on earth. Making statements like "my descendents will live amongst the stars" seem pretty foolish.
And we have some ideas for how to make that rock a lot more attractive.
Great! Get back to us when it's done. Looks like you forgot to mention that it will take tens of thousands of years, and even then the Mars will not be as liveable as earth, since it lacks the basics that make earth liveable - exposure to solar energy, tectonic activity, huge amounts of h20, a big spinning core of iron.
If your criteria for a human life is on some scale of "boredom, scarcity, and fear",
It's not
then interstellar travel isn't that bad.
N/A
We're bored,
No, we're not - if we are non developed world, we are hungry, if we are developed world, we are scared, more like
some of us seem keen on imposing artificial scarcity (eg, consumer materialism or sacraficial environmentalism), and fear never went away. So how would that be worse, if say we were at the same time heading to another solar system and doing something?
You've inadvertently hit the nail on the head there by disclosing the oft discussed attraction of interstellar space for it's slashdot based fanbase. Escapism. As you say, there are real problems here on earth, like coping with climate change, and we implicitly recognise as responsible adults that we need to change our behaviour to ensure the earth is liveable for our earth bound descendents. We'd rather not think about that, rather, we like to pretend we are on the verge of some great leap forward in human history. As a child, I liked to pretend I was Doctor Who with a TARDIS. But now, I'm an adult and I face up to my responsibilities, even when it is unpleasant.
Aye, and chickens that stay in the eggshell end up as omelettes. Amnniosis is only healthy when it's temporary.
False analogy. The earth is not an egg shell - it's the chook yard, the feeder, and the jungle from whence came our ancestors. The person who wants to leave earth then, is equivalent to a hen who wants to leave the yard and live on a desolate rock in the middle of the ocean, and pretends that's better. And expects the other hens will pay for her to go.
Only albumen idiot would think the earth is more than a temporary home for us.
Only an idiot fails to realise there are no stars within reach of a human lifetime. Only an idiot thinks that consigning their children to die of old age in a tin can in the darkness and vacuum of interstellar space is glorious and that their descendents will thank them for granting them a life of boredom, scarcity and fear. Only an idiot thinks that a dozen humans shivering under a dome on some frigid, dead rock in space is adventure, freedom and the ultimate expression of human destiny.
No problem, you can stay behind, I don't mind. My descendents will live among the stars and yours can have what's left down here. Sure. And your granddaughters will kiss magical space frogs that transform into princes for them to conveniently marry. And you grandsons will carry tridents, live under the sea and make it with mermaids.
If we were to send just one geologist to Mars he could do more science than any of the robots that have been sent their in the first hour of his arrival.
In the first hour the geologist would not even get her surface suit on. Even when she gets her suit on, she can only venture out for a few hours at a time because the weather on mars is REALLY bad and humans would not survive a night outside. This gives the geologist a few square kilometres that can be covered regardless of how many times she ventures out - humans move at less than 4 km/h under their own power in a bulky surface suit. Oh and the suit would classify as a robot.
In contrast, Mars Global Surveyor (a robot) surveyed the ENTIRE SURFACE of mars in a matter of months - something humans did not achieve for thousands of years on earth. Until we sent robots into space.
Of course the human could cover more ground if we provide her with a vehicle (a locally controlled robot to carry her around). But since she would not be able to see scientifically significant formations or detail of rock when travelling at any speed, someone (something) would need to scout ahead to ensure that her destination was worthwhile. Perhaps we should send a robot to do the scouting...
That said, manned space flight shouldn't be about science.
It's good to see some admission that humans have no scientific reason to be in space.
It should be about conquering and colonizing a new frontier.
Conquering?? Colonisation? Colonies have to have a reason to be - they aren't a goal in their own right.
Hopefully soon, commercial space flight will focus more on the exploitation of space resources than pure science and we'll really start to see the worth of manned space flight.
What resources are there in space that we need? We need
- soil nutrient (none of that in space)
- water (little, if any, in space comparative to earth)
- right temperature (ditto)
- sunlight (the whole earth is bathed in sunlight)
We like (but don't need per se)
- metal (the whole earth is a ball of iron)
- energy sources for cooking, heating, travelling and toolmaking (energy gathering from space is a net loss equation if humans are sent)
- complex carbon molecules for making plastic (few, if any, of these in space)
Even if some suitable resource were to make the effort of distance worthwhile (let's call that resource unobtainium) Why would need to send humans to get it? We could just send robots to do such menial work.
Hell, get me up to the ISS and you'd need armed guards and crowbars to pry me out of there.
I know the feeling - I've put on weight the past few years as well
To insure the continuation of the race, and by that I mean the whole human race we need to get off this fragging planet.
Who is offering this insurance?
Who gets the payout in the event of a claim?
But in all serious, no. The earth is currently supporting 6 billion human beings - there are some problems - we are running low on soil nutrient, and clean water. And for some reason we like to burn the remains of our long dead ancestors (and the forests they lived in) as a way of generating energy, which cause numerous problems - climate change and reliance on a limited resource for both manufacturing and energy. But these are issues of behaviour and habit, a lack of self reflection on the part of those who want to leave rather than address the problems does not change the underlying cause - habit. A little like destroying your marriage by refusing to wash the dishes. And notably, these things (soil nutrient, water, balanced atmosphere) aren't present anywhere else.
So you can rail against the Earth if you like, I think the Earth is heart wrenchingly beautiful, full of promise and memory, plenty large enough for a lifetime of discovery, learning and reflection. I suspect that anybody who thinks otherwise probably hasn't seen enough of it, or thought enough about it to form a valid opinion.
I don't see why we should gamble that nuclear or biological war won't wipe out the human race. Your assurances are after all worthless.
You obviously didn't think it through. Even in the event of a nuclear war, the Earth will still be more liveable than Mars or the Moon, even supposing a day arises when a colony of humans on those bodies was independent of earth. If it were possible to establish a colony on the moon in order to survive a man made disaster, it would equally be possible and easier to establish a facility on earth to do the same thing. In which case, we ought to do the latter, since morally speaking, we need to preserve ALL life, not just a select few species or individuals in the event of a disaster
And any war on earth will be a war on the Moon/Mars as well, unless you mean the colony to only preserve one lot of ideals and one culture.
And even if humanity can survive any such event doesn't mean that all cultures will.
How will a colony preserve culture? Colonies develop their OWN culture, by definition. Why would a colony of survivors on Mars want to preserve the ideals of a society on earth that failed to protect itself from extinction?
Also, there are other types of human catastrophes. For example, a stagnant global government (particularly something along the lines of a "hydraulic empire" might be stable on geological time scales. Runaway global warming is another potential threat.
If we can't manage our own behaviour and the relatively robust environment on earth well enough to ensure our own survival, then we ought to be extinct - we deserve extinction, if such a moral expression can be inserted into the mechanics of evolution.
If we can't manage our own behaviour and the relatively robust environment on earth well enough to ensure our own survival, then we could never do so on Mars or on the Moon.
If we CAN manage our own behaviour and the relatively robust environment on earth well enough to ensure our own survival, then your argument for a colony somewhere else is debunked.
Some global warming skeptics believe that the Earth's climate is still recovering from the Little Ice Age and that human activity has nothing to do with present temperature trends. There is a wide consensus among climate scientists, however, that the present sharp upturn in temperatures is primarily caused by the increased proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere caused by human activity.
Also noted in the article:
1. Little Ice Age was not part of the regular climate cycle (causation linked instead to discrete natural phenomena or possibly anthropogenic influences - or a mix of both) - so the earth is NOT, as you assert, coming out of an ice age that peaked in the middle ages.
2. The LIA was probably not as widespread as some would have us believe - for example http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=32 indicates that many of the phenomena described can be explained by other causes.
3. The LIA caused massive loss of human life. If something as minor and short lived as the little ice age can cause such devastation, it is difficult to see why you would present it as a reason to be blase about a more widespread and severe event, such as global warming - particularly given that we are fully utilising the resources we expect to be affected by climate change (arable land, fresh water) and we have lost much of the mobility we had 400 years ago.
That's because such remarks are never backed up with a convincing (insightful/informative) argument. Picking random excuses that conflict with known data (eg "It's the suns fault!", "Ummm... we're coming out of some mini ice age!", "It's the fault of those tree huggers over there! Look over there!") and which have been refuted again, and again, and again will not get you modded insightful. Why would it?
Where would you rather live? France, where routine protests stifle legislative progress?
So in France, when the people speak, the government listens? Sounds terrible. Or how about Germany, where making a politically unpopular statement (such as denying the Holocaust) is illegal?
In Australia, you can be charged with sedition. You canbe locked up for essentially disagreeing with government policy and suggesting that those corrupt pigs should be pulled away from the trough (by force if necessary). Much better in Australia - in germany you get locked up for speaking your mind, whereas in Australia, you have to speak your mind before they lock you up.
The English-speaking countries are doing quite well for themselves.
Certainly the Australians who gave $0.5 billion in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein with the tacit blessing of the Australian government are doing quite well. After all, they aren't guilty of any wrongdoing. Whereas those Iraqi scientists we locked up and tortured for 6 months (and then released without charge) - they were guilty. Guilty as sin. How do I know? The government told me.
Probably redundant - but no. As it was, that guy got sympathy around the world, and when his fellow protesters got shot and arrested it became a huge international incident - because they were unarmed protesters against and overwhelming strong military. Had he been carrying a gun he would never have even made it into the square, let alone highlight his issue for the world to consider.
The ability to fight against abusues when no other choice has been given to you.
There's other choices, they just take more courage.
It also make a very big global statement about the government whose people must fight with violence to be heard.
What we will hear is "there's a bunch of barbaric terrorists who are addicted to violence and are being legitimately suppressed by the government". Your ideology is inseperable from the ideology of ETA, or the IRA, or the Mujaheddin. If you want world support, protest using peaceful means, a commitment to peace demonstrates you are the good guys. Nobdoy cares if yet another violent insurgent group goes under.
Whose to say the people sriving those tank dn't feel the same way as the people who ahve to lash out towards there leader?
They (the army) are far more likely to be sympathetic to your cause if you aren't shooting at them. Or shooting at others, for that matter.
You get 100,000 armed people storming key places where the government is ran, and kills all the leaders, you now have a ew form of government that can arise.
Yes - it's called a dictatorship. often with the adjective 'brutal'. Happens all the time.
If you get a million people armed and angry at the government, the effectiveness of thos 'tank' will be negligable.
Tanks shmanks. Cluster bombs. The US accidently killed 14000 people in Afghanistan recently, mainly through cluster bombing. Imagine then, a deliberate attack. A deliberate cluster bomb attack by a moderately sized airforce on a crowd of one million would kill enough that the rest would slink away in fear.
If your not armed, what options do you have that you don't have when you are armed?
Your integrity. The ability to win sympathy. The ability to win the day and at the same time, uphold the principles of democracy. If you must win your way through violence, you've most likely lost already.
Do you imagine that the climate will change just a little, and then stabilise, regardless of how much more CO2 we poor into the system? That is not what happens at all - the ecosystem (and available nutrient) will continue to degrade until we stop poisoning it or until there is nothing left, at which point, we die. Although we'll probably die before then. Even if the human population is decimated (likely, with consequent decrease in drinkable water and arable land) such that no new gas is added to the system, it will take eons for the earth to recover naturally.
Don't fight global warming, it's a losing battle. However, human can and will do what we do best...and that's adapt.
Surely, there can't be a clearer demonstration of our inability to adapt than our refusal to adapt NOW when it is relatively easy, rather than 50 years time, when our industry is crippled, we are starving and riddled with disease, and the problem to be fixed is orders of magnitude worse than it is now.
The idea is that during a revolution, an armed populace vastly outnumbers the army.
Of course "the idea" dates from a time and place when the firepower available to the populace was roughly equivalent to that available to the government. Outdated since the arrival of the gatling gun - let alone the vast, vast gap between the semi automatic rifle or shotgun (legal for Aussie citizen) and the kind of stuff the RAAF or Australian Army has (eg Metal Storm)
They might kill you, yes, but not everyone.
The same principle can be applied with more effect using a strategy of unarmed, peaceful revolution. Shooting an armed revolutionary can be seen as a valid thing for a government to do. Shooting an unarmed civilian is not - shoot a few and you'll have no support, and no army to do your bidding.
Here's your source.
Hmm. hat e to be the one to say it, but did you notice the date on that study? And the comment that the data was insufficient to indicate any overlal trend at all? But now, 4 years down the track, we have significantly MORE data, and that data tells us that the ice sheet is melting.
I'll dig up some others but did you know C02 was higher duing the dinasaur era?
Yes. And I also know that it's irrelevant, since climate change is about OUR survival during a period of rapid change, not how well adapted creatures survived millions of years ago. In periods of rapid change, which creatures survive? The ones that adapt. Everytime I speak to someone like you, I'm reminded of how unlikely it is that our soiciety will pull together when it comes to the pointy end of the matter - you can't even face the obvious reality of the situation, let alone adapt.
We're not even making a dent on the Earth, I'm afraid.
Science says differently. Logic says differently. Observation says differently. Climatologists accept the truth almost universally. You suffer from a condition called denial.
Let's please not forget that there is also a damn good reason that Russian, Germany and France did not want ANYONE going into Iraq.
All three countries had companies that will the full knowledge of the respective governments, were exporting/importing material, include weapons to Saddam in return for cuts from the UN sponsored gravy train embargo and providing cuts to Saddam in return........
As did the US - and their coalition partner Australia. In fact, it's recently been revealed, that with the full knowledge of the Australian Government, the Australian Wheat Board paid $300 Million dollars to Saddam Husseins regime in kickbacks alone. Yet both of these countries were baying for Iraqi blood. So the "they didn't want to join because they had contracts with Iraq" is just a furphy (a tall tale) - everybody knew that with a puppet government installed in the usual train, it would be a cinch to get contracts to the value and more that they had with Hussein. The US even had the man picked out - Chalabi. Pity about him being a criminal, consequently he only made deputy PM. But he was nice enough to give us back our wheat contracts.
Whilst I am not condoning what was done and the costs ($ and lives) associated with it, the knowledge that Saddam and his cronies had WRT chemical/Nuclear weapons was a genie just waiting to be given out the bottle to anyone.
What weapons? He had no weapons, and if that sort of thing scares you, I don't know how your cowardice permits you to get out of bed in the morning. Apart form that, I see that Bush has decided to help India build nuclear weapons - even they are NOT signatories to the NNPT. Doesn't that strike you as hyprocritical at all?
Even that one time other nut in Libya has come to realise that his stance on these sorts of weapons had no place if he wanted Libya to progress.
One time nut?? One time nut?? His policies are just the same, his absolute rule is unchanged, as is his aggression. Whats different? He owned up to something he didn't do (the Locherbie bombing) and now he is once again a darling of the West, just like Saddam used to be.
Lets not forget this is the guy that used chemical weapons on both on Iran and his own people, something that had not been seen since WWI and something even Hitler who was himself gassed never authorised in combat.....
There you go again with ridiculous comparisons with Hitler. And by the way, have you heard of Agent Orange? And what did Rumsfeld say when he heard that Saddam had gassed the Iranians + Kurdish rebels? Nothing at all.
You actually believe *WE* are responsible for the problems *you* see with the earth?
Well, yes. That is the logical thing to believe after all - we already know that due to our overconsumption the earth is in a period of mass extinction of a kind not experienced since the start of the last ice age (or possibly earlier). Mass Extinctions, Acid Rain, deforestation, heavy metals in the food - all are accepted fact, all are accepted as being OUR fault. The increase of CO2 in the atmosphere matches our output - who else should we blame? The temperature change we are experiencing matches what would be expected from the measured increase in CO2 and other greenhouse gasses - what reason have we to think our CO2 is not the cause of the observed changes?
Did you know other parts of Antarctic ice are increasing at rates of 26 gigatons per year?
Have you a source for this? Or by 'other parts' did you mean sea ice (which has broken off the ice shelf - due to global warming?).
The time for plausible deniability for our big mistake is over, I'm afraid. Time for us to suck it up.
Jokes are funny. There is no humour (and no truth) attached to comments that suggest that France is more likely to surrender on any given occasion than the US. I am happy to laugh at jokes that poke fun of Australia, even ones that legitimately criticise my country and it's attitudes (eg on climate change, or immigration policy, or slavish capitulation to every dumb thing the US does). It's called caricature, it's a legitimate form of humour that emphasises a particular trait - although it is debatable whether caricature can be extended to a whole nation in that manner. However, comments that imply that French people are cowards don't arise from caricature, because French people are not unusually cowardly. These comments arise from American anger over the fact that the French Government was right in not supporting the invasion of Iraq, the French Government was right in expressing doubts about the veracity and importance of the evidence for WMD, the French Government was right to express doubts about the possibility of a peaceful, prosperous nation arising in the post Saddam era. The people that weren't scared of Hussein or his fabled weapons were the ones who showed courage. Those people who were scared of Hussein and his fabled weapons, so much so that they silently agreed to the deaths of some 20000 Iraqis and 2000 US soldiers are the ones lacking in courage.
Conclusion
A statement must be funny to be a joke.
I live on the same planet as you do, and apparently you aren't considering the fact that while there are SOME situations where robots can do the job, they can't do ALL of them.
It's certainly true that robots can't do everything, but neither can humans. For example:
Humans can't survive in a vacuum - Robots can
Humans can't function in extremes of temperature - Robots can
Humans need transport back to earth - Robots do not.
Humans have a better brain, it's true. But that advantage is far less significant than any of the disadvantages listed above - how smart does an explorer need to be? Not terribly, if the Mars rovers/Huygens are anything to go by.
Or is having dreams too *** expensive these days?
I have a dream that involves me owning a house in Tuscany with a gardner and personal stockbroker. Should the government fund my dream? Or should funding for dreams be actually allocated on a merit basis?
No, sorry. I don't see the connection between space travel and mining nearby asteroids. I mean, it's not as if having decided to mine the asteroid we would need humans in space to make it happen. Siting and plunking some form of engine(s) on the asteroid doesn't require a human to be there. Slowing it into orbit around the earth doesn't require direct human intervention. Mining the ore, refining it, launching it into the earths gravity well certainly doesn't either. Why is this justification for "Space Travel"?
Hmm. There's the whole problem of displacing people, Soviet style, to another place where they've never been and don't want to go to, simply because they happen to be poor and we happen to be rich. Think about someone doing that to you, might give you a bit of a grasp of why a lot of people are so angry in the world today. Secondly, no habitable planets within a lifetime of travel anyway - the nearest solar system outside our own is something of the order of 16 years worth of travel - even in the best possible scenario, people would spend barely more time once there then they spent getting there. Chances are most or all would die in transit. Thirdly, the poor are poor because it is necessary for the rich to exploit some people in order to be rich - that's the way the economic system works. If you sent the poor away, a group of rich people would need to be selected from the ranks of the rich to be poor in their place. Otherwise there would be chaos - who would work in the sweatshops/sell us cheap oil/work as our servants?
There is still some dispute over whether human activity is contributing significantly to global warming
There isn't really. That is like saying, because a person doesn't immediately accept they have lung cancer after getting the diagnosis, that there is still a chance they don't have it, and it didn't cause it. In reality, bad news is hard to absorb, some people absorb it more easily than others. To accept blame is another step again.
Even though the basic science has not changed in 5 years (although we've done more of it) far more people accept the most likely reasons now than previously - they've moved on from the denial stage. Others have not - yet.
In fact, the lack of evidence tells us nothing, because in the case that a Divine Being exists, no evidence is expected. No conclusion can be reached either way based on evidence. To claim that a lack of evidence leads us to the negative when no evidence is expected in the positive is irrational.
The burden of proof is on the claimant, not the skeptic. It is not my job to make someone else's argument then disprove it.
If that is so, then the burden of proof is on YOU. YOU are the one asserting a particular position, of which, from my experience as an ex-atheist, I am highly sceptical!
In all of human history no one has provided any factual or even compelling evidence for god or gods. Furthermore, theism is not based on observance but mysticism, emotionalism, and ritual; it's is an inherently irrational system.
Irrelevant: since no particular theistic position is up for discussion, and you are making a defence of atheism, which must prove the non-existence of a Divine Being, regardless of what some other person might or might not believe.
Finding religion wrong does not require counter-evidence, it requires an examination of its own axioms.
Which is why I am trying to get you to examine the axioms (the Presumptive Beliefs) that underly atheism. Yet for some reason, you keep trying to change the subject/play semantic games.
Your analogy falls down because gravity (at least, it's effects) are observable, whereas a Divine Being is not. So to draw conclusions about the unobservable based on observations is irrational.
Slashdot Mirror
But the primary "problem" still exists - it's still a desolate rock, and no pretence on the part of deluded hens will make it otherwise. So the original analogy is still false.
And that looks to be how it will occur too since space travel on Other Peoples' Money just doesn't seem to be working out.
The basic reason it is not working out is because there is no reason for humans to travel in space. IF there were some resource we needed from space, we could collect it remotely. We are experiencing some liebensraum issues on earth, but that's not a problem solved by sending humans into space due to the basic physics of space travel/colony supply.
As another poster noted, we already orbit a star so yes, a star is within reach of a human lifetime.
Good point - Mars orbits the same star as the earth, so we are already effectively amongst the stars by being on earth. Making statements like "my descendents will live amongst the stars" seem pretty foolish.
And we have some ideas for how to make that rock a lot more attractive.
Great! Get back to us when it's done. Looks like you forgot to mention that it will take tens of thousands of years, and even then the Mars will not be as liveable as earth, since it lacks the basics that make earth liveable - exposure to solar energy, tectonic activity, huge amounts of h20, a big spinning core of iron.
If your criteria for a human life is on some scale of "boredom, scarcity, and fear",
It's not
then interstellar travel isn't that bad.
N/A
We're bored,
No, we're not - if we are non developed world, we are hungry, if we are developed world, we are scared, more like
some of us seem keen on imposing artificial scarcity (eg, consumer materialism or sacraficial environmentalism), and fear never went away. So how would that be worse, if say we were at the same time heading to another solar system and doing something?
You've inadvertently hit the nail on the head there by disclosing the oft discussed attraction of interstellar space for it's slashdot based fanbase. Escapism. As you say, there are real problems here on earth, like coping with climate change, and we implicitly recognise as responsible adults that we need to change our behaviour to ensure the earth is liveable for our earth bound descendents. We'd rather not think about that, rather, we like to pretend we are on the verge of some great leap forward in human history. As a child, I liked to pretend I was Doctor Who with a TARDIS. But now, I'm an adult and I face up to my responsibilities, even when it is unpleasant.
False analogy. The earth is not an egg shell - it's the chook yard, the feeder, and the jungle from whence came our ancestors. The person who wants to leave earth then, is equivalent to a hen who wants to leave the yard and live on a desolate rock in the middle of the ocean, and pretends that's better. And expects the other hens will pay for her to go.
Only albumen idiot would think the earth is more than a temporary home for us.
Only an idiot fails to realise there are no stars within reach of a human lifetime. Only an idiot thinks that consigning their children to die of old age in a tin can in the darkness and vacuum of interstellar space is glorious and that their descendents will thank them for granting them a life of boredom, scarcity and fear. Only an idiot thinks that a dozen humans shivering under a dome on some frigid, dead rock in space is adventure, freedom and the ultimate expression of human destiny.
No problem, you can stay behind, I don't mind. My descendents will live among the stars and yours can have what's left down here.
Sure. And your granddaughters will kiss magical space frogs that transform into princes for them to conveniently marry. And you grandsons will carry tridents, live under the sea and make it with mermaids.
In the first hour the geologist would not even get her surface suit on. Even when she gets her suit on, she can only venture out for a few hours at a time because the weather on mars is REALLY bad and humans would not survive a night outside. This gives the geologist a few square kilometres that can be covered regardless of how many times she ventures out - humans move at less than 4 km/h under their own power in a bulky surface suit. Oh and the suit would classify as a robot.
In contrast, Mars Global Surveyor (a robot) surveyed the ENTIRE SURFACE of mars in a matter of months - something humans did not achieve for thousands of years on earth. Until we sent robots into space.
Of course the human could cover more ground if we provide her with a vehicle (a locally controlled robot to carry her around). But since she would not be able to see scientifically significant formations or detail of rock when travelling at any speed, someone (something) would need to scout ahead to ensure that her destination was worthwhile. Perhaps we should send a robot to do the scouting...
That said, manned space flight shouldn't be about science.
It's good to see some admission that humans have no scientific reason to be in space.
It should be about conquering and colonizing a new frontier.
Conquering?? Colonisation? Colonies have to have a reason to be - they aren't a goal in their own right.
Hopefully soon, commercial space flight will focus more on the exploitation of space resources than pure science and we'll really start to see the worth of manned space flight.
What resources are there in space that we need? We need
- soil nutrient (none of that in space)
- water (little, if any, in space comparative to earth)
- right temperature (ditto)
- sunlight (the whole earth is bathed in sunlight)
We like (but don't need per se)
- metal (the whole earth is a ball of iron)
- energy sources for cooking, heating, travelling and toolmaking (energy gathering from space is a net loss equation if humans are sent)
- complex carbon molecules for making plastic (few, if any, of these in space)
Even if some suitable resource were to make the effort of distance worthwhile (let's call that resource unobtainium) Why would need to send humans to get it? We could just send robots to do such menial work.
I know the feeling - I've put on weight the past few years as well
To insure the continuation of the race, and by that I mean the whole human race we need to get off this fragging planet.
Who is offering this insurance?
Who gets the payout in the event of a claim?
But in all serious, no. The earth is currently supporting 6 billion human beings - there are some problems - we are running low on soil nutrient, and clean water. And for some reason we like to burn the remains of our long dead ancestors (and the forests they lived in) as a way of generating energy, which cause numerous problems - climate change and reliance on a limited resource for both manufacturing and energy. But these are issues of behaviour and habit, a lack of self reflection on the part of those who want to leave rather than address the problems does not change the underlying cause - habit. A little like destroying your marriage by refusing to wash the dishes. And notably, these things (soil nutrient, water, balanced atmosphere) aren't present anywhere else.
So you can rail against the Earth if you like, I think the Earth is heart wrenchingly beautiful, full of promise and memory, plenty large enough for a lifetime of discovery, learning and reflection. I suspect that anybody who thinks otherwise probably hasn't seen enough of it, or thought enough about it to form a valid opinion.
You obviously didn't think it through. Even in the event of a nuclear war, the Earth will still be more liveable than Mars or the Moon, even supposing a day arises when a colony of humans on those bodies was independent of earth. If it were possible to establish a colony on the moon in order to survive a man made disaster, it would equally be possible and easier to establish a facility on earth to do the same thing. In which case, we ought to do the latter, since morally speaking, we need to preserve ALL life, not just a select few species or individuals in the event of a disaster
And any war on earth will be a war on the Moon/Mars as well, unless you mean the colony to only preserve one lot of ideals and one culture.
And even if humanity can survive any such event doesn't mean that all cultures will.
How will a colony preserve culture? Colonies develop their OWN culture, by definition. Why would a colony of survivors on Mars want to preserve the ideals of a society on earth that failed to protect itself from extinction?
Also, there are other types of human catastrophes. For example, a stagnant global government (particularly something along the lines of a "hydraulic empire" might be stable on geological time scales. Runaway global warming is another potential threat.
If we can't manage our own behaviour and the relatively robust environment on earth well enough to ensure our own survival, then we ought to be extinct - we deserve extinction, if such a moral expression can be inserted into the mechanics of evolution.
If we can't manage our own behaviour and the relatively robust environment on earth well enough to ensure our own survival, then we could never do so on Mars or on the Moon.
If we CAN manage our own behaviour and the relatively robust environment on earth well enough to ensure our own survival, then your argument for a colony somewhere else is debunked.
Thanks for playing.
Some global warming skeptics believe that the Earth's climate is still recovering from the Little Ice Age and that human activity has nothing to do with present temperature trends. There is a wide consensus among climate scientists, however, that the present sharp upturn in temperatures is primarily caused by the increased proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere caused by human activity.
Also noted in the article:
1. Little Ice Age was not part of the regular climate cycle (causation linked instead to discrete natural phenomena or possibly anthropogenic influences - or a mix of both) - so the earth is NOT, as you assert, coming out of an ice age that peaked in the middle ages.
2. The LIA was probably not as widespread as some would have us believe - for example http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=32 indicates that many of the phenomena described can be explained by other causes.
3. The LIA caused massive loss of human life. If something as minor and short lived as the little ice age can cause such devastation, it is difficult to see why you would present it as a reason to be blase about a more widespread and severe event, such as global warming - particularly given that we are fully utilising the resources we expect to be affected by climate change (arable land, fresh water) and we have lost much of the mobility we had 400 years ago.
That's because such remarks are never backed up with a convincing (insightful/informative) argument. Picking random excuses that conflict with known data (eg "It's the suns fault!", "Ummm... we're coming out of some mini ice age!", "It's the fault of those tree huggers over there! Look over there!") and which have been refuted again, and again, and again will not get you modded insightful. Why would it?
I can understand arresting the postman, the manager and the judge. But the finnish chap, he's a lumberjack, and he's ok. For sure that was a mistake.
So in France, when the people speak, the government listens? Sounds terrible.
Or how about Germany, where making a politically unpopular statement (such as denying the Holocaust) is illegal?
In Australia, you can be charged with sedition. You canbe locked up for essentially disagreeing with government policy and suggesting that those corrupt pigs should be pulled away from the trough (by force if necessary). Much better in Australia - in germany you get locked up for speaking your mind, whereas in Australia, you have to speak your mind before they lock you up.
The English-speaking countries are doing quite well for themselves.
Certainly the Australians who gave $0.5 billion in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein with the tacit blessing of the Australian government are doing quite well. After all, they aren't guilty of any wrongdoing. Whereas those Iraqi scientists we locked up and tortured for 6 months (and then released without charge) - they were guilty. Guilty as sin. How do I know? The government told me.
Probably redundant - but no. As it was, that guy got sympathy around the world, and when his fellow protesters got shot and arrested it became a huge international incident - because they were unarmed protesters against and overwhelming strong military. Had he been carrying a gun he would never have even made it into the square, let alone highlight his issue for the world to consider.
There's other choices, they just take more courage.
It also make a very big global statement about the government whose people must fight with violence to be heard.
What we will hear is "there's a bunch of barbaric terrorists who are addicted to violence and are being legitimately suppressed by the government". Your ideology is inseperable from the ideology of ETA, or the IRA, or the Mujaheddin. If you want world support, protest using peaceful means, a commitment to peace demonstrates you are the good guys. Nobdoy cares if yet another violent insurgent group goes under.
Whose to say the people sriving those tank dn't feel the same way as the people who ahve to lash out towards there leader?
They (the army) are far more likely to be sympathetic to your cause if you aren't shooting at them. Or shooting at others, for that matter.
You get 100,000 armed people storming key places where the government is ran, and kills all the leaders, you now have a ew form of government that can arise.
Yes - it's called a dictatorship. often with the adjective 'brutal'. Happens all the time.
If you get a million people armed and angry at the government, the effectiveness of thos 'tank' will be negligable.
Tanks shmanks. Cluster bombs. The US accidently killed 14000 people in Afghanistan recently, mainly through cluster bombing. Imagine then, a deliberate attack. A deliberate cluster bomb attack by a moderately sized airforce on a crowd of one million would kill enough that the rest would slink away in fear.
If your not armed, what options do you have that you don't have when you are armed?
Your integrity. The ability to win sympathy. The ability to win the day and at the same time, uphold the principles of democracy. If you must win your way through violence, you've most likely lost already.
Do you imagine that the climate will change just a little, and then stabilise, regardless of how much more CO2 we poor into the system? That is not what happens at all - the ecosystem (and available nutrient) will continue to degrade until we stop poisoning it or until there is nothing left, at which point, we die. Although we'll probably die before then. Even if the human population is decimated (likely, with consequent decrease in drinkable water and arable land) such that no new gas is added to the system, it will take eons for the earth to recover naturally.
Don't fight global warming, it's a losing battle. However, human can and will do what we do best...and that's adapt.
Surely, there can't be a clearer demonstration of our inability to adapt than our refusal to adapt NOW when it is relatively easy, rather than 50 years time, when our industry is crippled, we are starving and riddled with disease, and the problem to be fixed is orders of magnitude worse than it is now.
Of course "the idea" dates from a time and place when the firepower available to the populace was roughly equivalent to that available to the government. Outdated since the arrival of the gatling gun - let alone the vast, vast gap between the semi automatic rifle or shotgun (legal for Aussie citizen) and the kind of stuff the RAAF or Australian Army has (eg Metal Storm)
They might kill you, yes, but not everyone.
The same principle can be applied with more effect using a strategy of unarmed, peaceful revolution. Shooting an armed revolutionary can be seen as a valid thing for a government to do. Shooting an unarmed civilian is not - shoot a few and you'll have no support, and no army to do your bidding.
I'll dig up some others but did you know C02 was higher duing the dinasaur era?
Yes. And I also know that it's irrelevant, since climate change is about OUR survival during a period of rapid change, not how well adapted creatures survived millions of years ago. In periods of rapid change, which creatures survive? The ones that adapt. Everytime I speak to someone like you, I'm reminded of how unlikely it is that our soiciety will pull together when it comes to the pointy end of the matter - you can't even face the obvious reality of the situation, let alone adapt.
We're not even making a dent on the Earth, I'm afraid.
Science says differently. Logic says differently. Observation says differently. Climatologists accept the truth almost universally. You suffer from a condition called denial.
As did the US - and their coalition partner Australia. In fact, it's recently been revealed, that with the full knowledge of the Australian Government, the Australian Wheat Board paid $300 Million dollars to Saddam Husseins regime in kickbacks alone. Yet both of these countries were baying for Iraqi blood. So the "they didn't want to join because they had contracts with Iraq" is just a furphy (a tall tale) - everybody knew that with a puppet government installed in the usual train, it would be a cinch to get contracts to the value and more that they had with Hussein. The US even had the man picked out - Chalabi. Pity about him being a criminal, consequently he only made deputy PM. But he was nice enough to give us back our wheat contracts.
Whilst I am not condoning what was done and the costs ($ and lives) associated with it, the knowledge that Saddam and his cronies had WRT chemical/Nuclear weapons was a genie just waiting to be given out the bottle to anyone.
What weapons? He had no weapons, and if that sort of thing scares you, I don't know how your cowardice permits you to get out of bed in the morning. Apart form that, I see that Bush has decided to help India build nuclear weapons - even they are NOT signatories to the NNPT. Doesn't that strike you as hyprocritical at all?
Even that one time other nut in Libya has come to realise that his stance on these sorts of weapons had no place if he wanted Libya to progress.
One time nut?? One time nut?? His policies are just the same, his absolute rule is unchanged, as is his aggression. Whats different? He owned up to something he didn't do (the Locherbie bombing) and now he is once again a darling of the West, just like Saddam used to be.
Lets not forget this is the guy that used chemical weapons on both on Iran and his own people, something that had not been seen since WWI and something even Hitler who was himself gassed never authorised in combat.....
There you go again with ridiculous comparisons with Hitler. And by the way, have you heard of Agent Orange? And what did Rumsfeld say when he heard that Saddam had gassed the Iranians + Kurdish rebels? Nothing at all.
Well, yes. That is the logical thing to believe after all - we already know that due to our overconsumption the earth is in a period of mass extinction of a kind not experienced since the start of the last ice age (or possibly earlier). Mass Extinctions, Acid Rain, deforestation, heavy metals in the food - all are accepted fact, all are accepted as being OUR fault. The increase of CO2 in the atmosphere matches our output - who else should we blame? The temperature change we are experiencing matches what would be expected from the measured increase in CO2 and other greenhouse gasses - what reason have we to think our CO2 is not the cause of the observed changes?
Did you know other parts of Antarctic ice are increasing at rates of 26 gigatons per year?
Have you a source for this? Or by 'other parts' did you mean sea ice (which has broken off the ice shelf - due to global warming?).
The time for plausible deniability for our big mistake is over, I'm afraid. Time for us to suck it up.
Jokes are funny. There is no humour (and no truth) attached to comments that suggest that France is more likely to surrender on any given occasion than the US. I am happy to laugh at jokes that poke fun of Australia, even ones that legitimately criticise my country and it's attitudes (eg on climate change, or immigration policy, or slavish capitulation to every dumb thing the US does). It's called caricature, it's a legitimate form of humour that emphasises a particular trait - although it is debatable whether caricature can be extended to a whole nation in that manner. However, comments that imply that French people are cowards don't arise from caricature, because French people are not unusually cowardly. These comments arise from American anger over the fact that the French Government was right in not supporting the invasion of Iraq, the French Government was right in expressing doubts about the veracity and importance of the evidence for WMD, the French Government was right to express doubts about the possibility of a peaceful, prosperous nation arising in the post Saddam era. The people that weren't scared of Hussein or his fabled weapons were the ones who showed courage. Those people who were scared of Hussein and his fabled weapons, so much so that they silently agreed to the deaths of some 20000 Iraqis and 2000 US soldiers are the ones lacking in courage.
Conclusion
A statement must be funny to be a joke.
It's certainly true that robots can't do everything, but neither can humans. For example:
Humans can't survive in a vacuum - Robots can
Humans can't function in extremes of temperature - Robots can
Humans need transport back to earth - Robots do not.
Humans have a better brain, it's true. But that advantage is far less significant than any of the disadvantages listed above - how smart does an explorer need to be? Not terribly, if the Mars rovers/Huygens are anything to go by.
Or is having dreams too *** expensive these days?
I have a dream that involves me owning a house in Tuscany with a gardner and personal stockbroker. Should the government fund my dream? Or should funding for dreams be actually allocated on a merit basis?
No, sorry. I don't see the connection between space travel and mining nearby asteroids. I mean, it's not as if having decided to mine the asteroid we would need humans in space to make it happen. Siting and plunking some form of engine(s) on the asteroid doesn't require a human to be there. Slowing it into orbit around the earth doesn't require direct human intervention. Mining the ore, refining it, launching it into the earths gravity well certainly doesn't either. Why is this justification for "Space Travel"?
Hmm. There's the whole problem of displacing people, Soviet style, to another place where they've never been and don't want to go to, simply because they happen to be poor and we happen to be rich. Think about someone doing that to you, might give you a bit of a grasp of why a lot of people are so angry in the world today. Secondly, no habitable planets within a lifetime of travel anyway - the nearest solar system outside our own is something of the order of 16 years worth of travel - even in the best possible scenario, people would spend barely more time once there then they spent getting there. Chances are most or all would die in transit. Thirdly, the poor are poor because it is necessary for the rich to exploit some people in order to be rich - that's the way the economic system works. If you sent the poor away, a group of rich people would need to be selected from the ranks of the rich to be poor in their place. Otherwise there would be chaos - who would work in the sweatshops/sell us cheap oil/work as our servants?
There is still some dispute over whether human activity is contributing significantly to global warming
There isn't really. That is like saying, because a person doesn't immediately accept they have lung cancer after getting the diagnosis, that there is still a chance they don't have it, and it didn't cause it. In reality, bad news is hard to absorb, some people absorb it more easily than others. To accept blame is another step again.
Even though the basic science has not changed in 5 years (although we've done more of it) far more people accept the most likely reasons now than previously - they've moved on from the denial stage. Others have not - yet.
In fact, the lack of evidence tells us nothing, because in the case that a Divine Being exists, no evidence is expected. No conclusion can be reached either way based on evidence. To claim that a lack of evidence leads us to the negative when no evidence is expected in the positive is irrational.
If that is so, then the burden of proof is on YOU. YOU are the one asserting a particular position, of which, from my experience as an ex-atheist, I am highly sceptical!
In all of human history no one has provided any factual or even compelling evidence for god or gods. Furthermore, theism is not based on observance but mysticism, emotionalism, and ritual; it's is an inherently irrational system.
Irrelevant: since no particular theistic position is up for discussion, and you are making a defence of atheism, which must prove the non-existence of a Divine Being, regardless of what some other person might or might not believe.
Finding religion wrong does not require counter-evidence, it requires an examination of its own axioms.
Which is why I am trying to get you to examine the axioms (the Presumptive Beliefs) that underly atheism. Yet for some reason, you keep trying to change the subject/play semantic games.
Your analogy falls down because gravity (at least, it's effects) are observable, whereas a Divine Being is not. So to draw conclusions about the unobservable based on observations is irrational.