MINSKY@MIT-OZ@sri-unix (09/14/82)
From: Marvin Minsky <MINSKY at MIT-OZ> Gee, I hope that people don't think that the L-5 society is especially concerned with colonies floating out there at the L-5 stability point. But I do think that there is nothing incredibly unreasonable about self-sufficiency, given enough technology and access to asteroids, or lunar materials. Things won't begin that way, to be sure, but given enough energy and material, why not. It better be part of the plan, anyway, because much as it would be nice to help the groudhogs, there's no way to guarantee against total destruction except by halting science. So far as I can see, we're almost absolutely certain to invent a human-extinction plague pretty soon. The geneticists are simply getting too good too fast for safety - and I think they're all convincing each other that the danger is small by pure peer pressure. -------