Bravo. Scott Ridley's new Alien saga incarnation Prometheus with Michael Fassbender as a robot looking to understand the origins and meaning of humanity, that though created by them, he has transcended and progressed from also illustrates the 'natural' urge both to leave earth and to make robots that look just like us!
Astronauts suffer greatly from lack of gravity but also from lack of fibre. Humans need to eat loads of it, particulary fresh leafy greens and fruit, every day. They also need to be exposed to bacteria in the air and soil- bit of a problemo in sterile space. A space ship would have to have loads of crops growing, it's going to be heavy. Great use of fossil fuels.
Factory farming is my great objection to progress. The thought of taking fellow earthlings with slightly different genes, to breed and eat into space or onto other planets fills me with bile.
Thanks, Jo. Good point on 'Prometheus' - even the robots have an urge to seek answers 'out there'! I suspect we've barely even begun to understand the full range of harmful consequences of moving 'into the stars'. They're not keen on discussing the impacts of trying to do so in further destabilising the climate, either.
A city on mars (Weinersmith) is an excellent review of why going to mars is a terrible idea. Issues that have not had much attention elsewhere are labour mobility, children and war. On mars, as a worker, your ability to leave and get another job would be minimal or zero, opening the door to all sorts of abuse. There has been no substantial research into how pregnancy, birth and child development (eg bone growth)would happen in low gravity, high radiation environments. Bringing children into this environment, without knowing how it will affect them, could be considered a form of child abuse. Massive projectiles launched from orbit create huge explosions, and there would be less of a barrier to releasing lethal bio-weapons as mars and earth do not share a biosphere. For this and many other reasons they conclude going to mars is a bad idea.
This is why I was annoyed to the point of yelling to the screen watching "Raised by Wolves". Did you watch that concept in which babies are grown outside womb by robots? LOL 😂
Wow! what a fascinating set of angles on the likely problems - many thanks, Rebecca.
'There has been no substantial research into how pregnancy, birth and child development (eg bone growth)would happen in low gravity...'
That's shocking - although it reflects the difficulty I had in finding solid material - especially when you think that gravity on Mars is 62% lower than here. Will definitely check out that book.
A Guardian article from 2016 "How many people does it take to put an astronaut in space?" extolling the career opportunities in the expanding UK Space Industry" inadvertently also exposed just how vulnerable any lives lived beyond Earth would be to events back on Earth. The industry, just in the UK "supports over 115,000" jobs in total. Just imagine the 'progress' we might make if all of that effort was diverted into maintaining a viable Earth bound existence!
'No doubt there were (and still are) a lot of clever people who fell for it but can we say that ALL of it was a mere "mistake"?'
No, clearly not. As ever, there will have been a mixture of gullibility, conscious lying and also 'selective inattention'. Erich Fromm noted 'man's capacity of not observing what he does not want to observe; hence, that he may be sincere in denying a knowledge which he would have, if he wanted only to have it'.
Many years ago I read Robert Heinlein's great novel, "Stranger in a Strange Land" raising some interesting questions regarding such colonisation of other planets and human nature, culture clash, spirituality, and the quest for understanding. Questions which resonate with me to this very day.
Bravo. Scott Ridley's new Alien saga incarnation Prometheus with Michael Fassbender as a robot looking to understand the origins and meaning of humanity, that though created by them, he has transcended and progressed from also illustrates the 'natural' urge both to leave earth and to make robots that look just like us!
Astronauts suffer greatly from lack of gravity but also from lack of fibre. Humans need to eat loads of it, particulary fresh leafy greens and fruit, every day. They also need to be exposed to bacteria in the air and soil- bit of a problemo in sterile space. A space ship would have to have loads of crops growing, it's going to be heavy. Great use of fossil fuels.
Factory farming is my great objection to progress. The thought of taking fellow earthlings with slightly different genes, to breed and eat into space or onto other planets fills me with bile.
Thanks, Jo. Good point on 'Prometheus' - even the robots have an urge to seek answers 'out there'! I suspect we've barely even begun to understand the full range of harmful consequences of moving 'into the stars'. They're not keen on discussing the impacts of trying to do so in further destabilising the climate, either.
A city on mars (Weinersmith) is an excellent review of why going to mars is a terrible idea. Issues that have not had much attention elsewhere are labour mobility, children and war. On mars, as a worker, your ability to leave and get another job would be minimal or zero, opening the door to all sorts of abuse. There has been no substantial research into how pregnancy, birth and child development (eg bone growth)would happen in low gravity, high radiation environments. Bringing children into this environment, without knowing how it will affect them, could be considered a form of child abuse. Massive projectiles launched from orbit create huge explosions, and there would be less of a barrier to releasing lethal bio-weapons as mars and earth do not share a biosphere. For this and many other reasons they conclude going to mars is a bad idea.
This is why I was annoyed to the point of yelling to the screen watching "Raised by Wolves". Did you watch that concept in which babies are grown outside womb by robots? LOL 😂
Well yelled! :o)
Insufferable idiocy, that one! No freaking Sci Fi has described any human future on this planet as anything but dystopian! It annoys me so much.
Wow! what a fascinating set of angles on the likely problems - many thanks, Rebecca.
'There has been no substantial research into how pregnancy, birth and child development (eg bone growth)would happen in low gravity...'
That's shocking - although it reflects the difficulty I had in finding solid material - especially when you think that gravity on Mars is 62% lower than here. Will definitely check out that book.
A Guardian article from 2016 "How many people does it take to put an astronaut in space?" extolling the career opportunities in the expanding UK Space Industry" inadvertently also exposed just how vulnerable any lives lived beyond Earth would be to events back on Earth. The industry, just in the UK "supports over 115,000" jobs in total. Just imagine the 'progress' we might make if all of that effort was diverted into maintaining a viable Earth bound existence!
Thanks, I'll try to find that piece.
The question that remains: Was it (all those quasi-religious ideas) a simple mistake? Or was there also something else?
No doubt there were (and still are) a lot of clever people who fell for it but can we say that ALL of it was a mere "mistake"?
Here I am definitely with Chomsky, when he says that these were: "new ways to milk the public for private gain" I’m 110% in agreement with this.
There ARE people who have done (and still doing) all this for a nice amount of money.
That’s it. Money makes people do a lot of strange things. I know it may be boring but hey life can be boring sometimes.
Incidentally I wrote today something similar about Zionists and Zionism which fit well into this.
So I define Zionism in 3 words: Nothing that expands.
'No doubt there were (and still are) a lot of clever people who fell for it but can we say that ALL of it was a mere "mistake"?'
No, clearly not. As ever, there will have been a mixture of gullibility, conscious lying and also 'selective inattention'. Erich Fromm noted 'man's capacity of not observing what he does not want to observe; hence, that he may be sincere in denying a knowledge which he would have, if he wanted only to have it'.
Many years ago I read Robert Heinlein's great novel, "Stranger in a Strange Land" raising some interesting questions regarding such colonisation of other planets and human nature, culture clash, spirituality, and the quest for understanding. Questions which resonate with me to this very day.