KFL@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU ("Keith F. Lynch") (02/22/86)
From: unmvax!nmtvax!fine@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Andrew J Fine)
So what do we buy with $2 billion dollars? One shuttle, good for 100
missions (best case) with 7 people each. Or enough food, clean water, and
other necesssities to feed Ethiopia for the next ten decades, easily.
Assuming that food, clean water, and other necessities for one
person cost just one dollar a day, and that shipping them to Ethiopia
costs nothing at all, since Ethiopia has a population of 32 million, 2
billion dollars would last just about two months. Not 'ten decades'.
Ethipoia's problems stem from it's socialist economy. Why should WE
bail them out? Why not the USSR? When did the USA become the world's
nanny?
Any what makes you think that any money that doesn't go to space
will go to Ethiopia?
Note that the 2 billion dollars is not being shot into space. The
money is staying right here on Earth, where it is benefiting hundreds
of thousands of people directly. It is of course benefiting all
mankind in the long run, unlike two months of feeding Ethiopia.
If you feel bad about the fate of Ethiopians, feel free to send them
your own food and money. Just don't ask the government to use my
money to subsidize Ethiopia's bogus economic system. And keep in mind
the harm you are doing to Ethiopia's farmers. (What if whatever
product you made was to be shipped in from another country for free -
you would soon find another line of work, right? And if all Ethiopian
farmers did so ...)
Why have satellites and information systems at all, except to invade the
privacy and keep records on a captive populace?
With the low cost of computers and other high technology items, they
are available for the use of individuals like you and I. As you must
surely be aware. You didn't enter this message with a quill pen by
candlelight.
Why have land and weather satellites at all, except to take advantage of
another nation's resources and vulnerabilities?
Resource satellites are primarily used to explore the resources of
the country that launches them. Though many countries have made great
use of landsat pictures the US made at considerable expense and
provided for free.
When there is a storm in Texas or Florida, few people are hurt,
since plenty of warning is given by weather satellites. Contrast that
with the situation in Bangladesh, where a year in which only a
thousand people perish from typhoons is considered lucky. Or with the
situation in Texas and Florida before weather satellites.
Why explore the planets, interesting though they are, except to find
more virgin landscape to despoil and riches to plunder?
Is this what people do? Would you rather live in a nice warm
apartment, or naked in the wilderness?
Man is a product of nature and what we do and build is just as
natural as anything else on Earth. Just as birds find nests better
than bare branches, and groundhogs find holes better than the bare
ground, similarly has man transformed his environment to his benefit.
Do you think the first creatures to release oxygen into the Earth's
atmosphere were evil? Should the atmosphere have remained in its
'natural' state, free of oxygen?
Do you think the first creatures to live upon the land were
despoiling the natural barren moon-like wilderness? Should the great
forests have been left in their 'natural', life-free state?
Do you think that a barren moon is to anyone's benefit? Do you
think evil is done by introducing life to that previously lifeless
cinder of a world?
Would Venus be ruined by an attempt to convert its poisinous red hot
atmosphere into temperate oxygen and blue seas, where life like us
might live in comfort?
Would empty space be despoiled by large free floating manned
colonies? Seems to me that space is the best place for our large
populations and heavy industries. So we can leave Earth's ecosystems
unspoiled.
Or do you think that heavy industries and mechanized farms should be
dismantled? And large populations reduced? Well, the former would
certainly take care of the latter, and it wouldn't be much fun.
Why put a man, or a women for that matter, in space? What is so special
about anyone that we must exhalt that person above all others in such an
eletist fashion?
I would like to see the day when anyone who wants to move to space
may do so. That day isn't yet, it's still to expensive. The shuttle
is the best bet we have currently to get to the next step. Not
everyone can ride the shuttle. Not everyone in 1492 could sail with
Columbus, either.
Why shouldn't that person be put to a task that serves the world rather
than that person's ego?
Put to a task? Put by whom? Are we slaves now? To be put to
tasks, tasks that serve the world in some tyrant's estimation? Like
Pol Pot's recent regime in Cambodia, in which he had everyone leave
the cities to be put to a 'useful' task in the countryside. The
results were as awful as any sensible person would have imagined.
Nobody is going into space except volunteers. If you want to
volunteer for one of these worthy tasks, go right ahead. Join the
peace corps instead of sending ignorant flames to the net.
... ( the concept of having to work for one's bread is deadly when there
is not enough work to go around ), ...
You mean when there is not enough bread to go around. There is
always enough work to go around, if only baking bread! Unemployment
is a product of stupid government regulations.
If humanity can simply change from mere descendants of carnivorous apes to
something totally gentle, altrustic, and noble, then Earth will be enough.
We are descended from herbiverous apes.
If we were all dead, Earth would also be enough. Is this what you
want? Or only most of us dead?
...Keithethan@utastro.UUCP (Ethan Vishniac) (02/24/86)
In article <[MC.LCS.MIT.EDU].826580.860221.KFL>, KFL@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU ("Keith F. Lynch") writes: > > From: unmvax!nmtvax!fine@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Andrew J Fine) > > If humanity can simply change from mere descendants of carnivorous apes to > something totally gentle, altrustic, and noble, then Earth will be enough. > > We are descended from herbiverous apes. We are probably descended from omnivorous apes. Certainly Chimpanzees are omnivorous and their lifestyle is often taken as a model for pre-australophithecines. Question for both of you, would you rather be descended from wolves or sheep? Why? Is there some way that this either would change your opinion of people? -- "Ma, I've been to another Ethan Vishniac planet!" {charm,ut-sally,ut-ngp,noao}!utastro!ethan ethan@astro.UTEXAS.EDU Department of Astronomy University of Texas
cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) (03/04/86)
> In article <[MC.LCS.MIT.EDU].826580.860221.KFL>, KFL@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU ("Keith F. Lynch") writes: > > > > From: unmvax!nmtvax!fine@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Andrew J Fine) > > > > If humanity can simply change from mere descendants of carnivorous apes to > > something totally gentle, altrustic, and noble, then Earth will be enough. > > > > We are descended from herbiverous apes. > > We are probably descended from omnivorous apes. Certainly Chimpanzees are > omnivorous and their lifestyle is often taken as a model for > pre-australophithecines. Question for both of you, would you rather > be descended from wolves or sheep? Why? Is there some way that this either > would change your opinion of people? > -- This debate about our eating habits of our ancestors reminds me of a discussion I had several years ago with a friend of mine who's a vegetarian. He made some disparaging remark about eating meat, and that it was unnatural, so I said, "Hold it, Steve, man has been eating meat for at least 250,000 years. There are evidences in the Peking Man finds of cooking and eating meat (i.e. other people)." Steve's response was, "A quarter million years? How long has man been on the planet? Three million? It's just a passing fad."