Hi Christine:
Americans living in the last decade of the 20th Century are overall an emotionally driven rather that cooly thinking lot. They react with fear to many situations and try to legislate safety in a universe that operates on risk and the unknown. 100 or 200 years from now the people of the future will look back and marvel at how primitive most were and how short-sighted in their view of earth and Man's place in the universe.
"Terrence, I don't think I'm much of a Luddite--well, maybe a little. I have to say that I find it a lot less stressful to live around animals and trees and running water than in cities. On the other hand, I don't have to worry about dying of a simple infection like people who lived a long time ago do, or being burned at the stake, so I think it is an oversimplification to say that life was actually less stressful. It was just stressful in different ways."
That is true.
"I keep reading what you write, and am struck over and over again by the fact that it is slick but not based on much science. You think it is cool to venture into outer space, and I think it is definitely interesting, but I don't think earthlings have an inherent right to
colonize space (and especially to scatter orbiting space litter everywhere)."
Traveling into space is more than "cool", it is necessary for the longterm survival of our race. Would you say that a baby venturing from its' cradle to crawl and walk is "cool" -- but unnecessary? Of course not! Yet we are still in our cradle.
We are not very advanced yet. One problem is: once we get something right, others come along and try to "improve" it, so we often end with garbage and finally reinvent something that worked well in the first place decades before the irrelevant quest for "improvement" started. In the last few decades -- more than ever in history -- science has been subverted by political agendas. Truth is subverted to the whim of the moment and what people want to believe is treated as reality.
"Actually, I think that you, like Michael Cummings, operate from a top down approach--you have a philosophy,"
Starting with a philosophy is the foundation of all thought and action -- it is not starting at "the top", but just the opposite!
". . .which is in favor of vast personal freedoms and against any redistribution of wealth. . ."
And what "right" can another morally have in demanding that which an individual creates from their own mind, their sweat and tears, their risk? Redistribution of wealth is political and economic thuggery which is accomplished truly only at the point of a gun.
""--and you will use whatever you can to defend that theory,"
How about reality and facts? My -- what a concept!
"whether it is scientifically provable or even logical. But you cannot really promise that the earth is not being destroyed, even though there is a debate about how long it will take, and whether the process is reversible or not. What if you're wrong?
The earth has been destroyed and rebuilt many times during the past 4 1/2 billion years. The question is whether we can take total control of the changes and put them to our use -- in other words, can we understand the ecology of planets to the degree that we can master them, rebuild them to our specifications, etc.? I'm talking planetary engineering and re-engineering biospheres to suit Man's designs. Environmentalism will fall into the dust of history as did the flat-earthers of the Dark Ages.
"Why not take some sort of middle road which protects the most important personal freedoms, but funds the best scientists to explore environmental issues?"
Some of the best ecologists have made amazing progress in their discipline during the past 25 years -- poltitical scientists gravitate toward the psuedo-science of environmentalism.
"I think it's kind of funny to assume we will be able to create oxygen factories. Why not just make sure we don't get to a place where they are necessary?"
Since the Moon, Mars and other planets will be colonized (whether environmentalists are for it or not), manufacturing oxygen from the environment will be a very lucrative technology.
Father Terrence |
