…and its enemies (to steal a phrase from Virginia Postrel). Why space settlement is important.
[Via Clark Lindsey and Trent Waddington, who made it]
83 thoughts on “The Future”
Comments are closed.
…and its enemies (to steal a phrase from Virginia Postrel). Why space settlement is important.
[Via Clark Lindsey and Trent Waddington, who made it]
Comments are closed.
Why the video had at least 4 minutes of dumb hippies crying about the “dying earth?”.
Great talk, indeed … and explosives are indeed the only way to respond đ
“They want to regress back past the Industrial Revolution” isn’t nearly as convincing or as jaw dropping a claim as “We want to regress back past the Industrial Revolution”.
Also see Trent’s hilarious video documenting the untold man-years of squandered effort spent on NASA’s cancelled crew transportation systems.
Greason is shocked that we are heading toward and dark ages. Then we see those that believe the dark ages is a good thing. The only way to avoid this dark age is to start a new frontier. Greason is a great speaker that needs more exposure.
Great video guys.
I particularly loved Greason’s line: “…they are waiting for the gift of Life”
Great speech. He definitely gets it.
I presume this was made and posted to youtube with Greason’s blessing.
I question the tactical wisdom of going out of one’s way to pick a fight with environmentalists.
We’ve come a long way from the days when Shubber Ali advocated space advocacy making common cause with the environmental movement.
Jim, do you really not see the difference between an environmentalist and a misanthropic ecofascist?
I like the idea and applications of solar power, electric vehicles and space development. I also think that climate change is a real observable phenomenon, antrophogenic or not.
I do not consider myself environmentalist or ecofascist.
Greason has always made a ton of sense, but you are never going to bestow this philosophy on the traditional von Braunian crowd of “space enthusiasts”.
Space Settlement is indeed critical to humanity’s future, but advocates keep making the mistake of believing that NASA needs to have a role in it.
We’re actively destroying dams here in Washington State now.
Jim, do you really not see the difference between an environmentalist and a misanthropic ecofascist?
The latter is a subset of the former. They tend to be quite passionate and hence rise to positions of influence in environmental organizations. And every time you call them names like misanthropic ecofascists they’ll indignantly demand “How dare you call the hundreds of thousands of members of the Sierra Club misanthropic ecofascists?”
What was your point again?
Sadly, the Dark Age we all fear has to come before we can open the frontier.
Today, the Revolution holds power around the world. We can’t hope to fight them; they have the metaphorical Maxim gun, and we have not. Their program,as the video notes, is the establishment of a techno-utopia for the revolutionary vanguard, and the scouring of the rest of humanity from the face of Mother Earth. Ultimate goal: an enlightened few walking alone among the unspoiled beauty of a depopulated world, its needs met by technocommunism. the lives of its members extended to the maximum by technological means, their humanity — and the hole in their souls they cannot plug with all their orgasms, hedonism, and soma — genetically engineered away. They seek to be the eternal Mandarins of a Heaven on Earth, and they are willing to do away with humanity — their own included — to achieve the ultimate Liberty. This is C.S. Lewis’ “Abolition of Man”.
Fortunately, they can’t succeed, because the Revolution is contrary to human nature and the teleology of the Universe, not to mention the Will of You Know Who. Their attempts to “immanentize the Eschaton” have instead created a Hell on Earth, one that has gotten hotter each day since 1789. (This is the true global warming). The global technocratic system is already starting to come apart — and once it does, the Revolution’s rod of power — the State Almighty — and its ability to enact its utopian schemes will crumble in its hands. Thing fall apart; the center cannot hold. I have heard The Future, and it is beautiful.
And then? Once the Gods of the Copybook Headings explain it again, the Tribes return. They will resurrect a new Empire amid the ruins of the old, as they did in A.D. 800, and, in time, wind send forth caravels of their own, this time to the stars.
The way home does not go around the Dark Age. It goes through its center, and out the other side.
What was your point again?
Before we waste time trying to answer that, why don’t you explain what yours is?
Rand, I believe his point is that your stern words offend their delicate sensibilities.
Before we waste time trying to answer that, why donât you explain what yours is?
The following wasn’t clear?
I question the tactical wisdom of going out of oneâs way to pick a fight with environmentalists.
Environmentalists are numerous, well organized, and very influential. Space advocates…not so much. I think environmentalists can do a great deal of harm to space advocacy without even intending to; if they intended to things could get ugly quickly.
No-one is fighting them because no-one sees them as wanting anything wrong. While I don’t claim that all environmentalists want to end civilization, I do think the majority of them have asked themselves more than once “why can’t we just go back to being an agrarian society?” and not understood why they rejected that question, if they did. To be clear.. I think many people (environmentalists or not), independently invent the concept we know as “subsistence farming” and ask why humanity need progress beyond that.
I think for the vast majority of environmentalists the only answer they’ve come up with for not advocating the downfall of civilization and the end of progress is “tactical wisdom”.. they know they won’t win converts with that sort of rhetoric. So there’s a certain irony in you suggesting that I’m somehow being unwise in sticking something into this hornet’s nest.
As for asking Jeff’s permission.. I wouldn’t waste his time.
Would the first real space colonies have anything more than subsistence farming?
Farming would certainly be part of a settlement, but you’d be amazed how fast you could get beyond that with the right people and resources. You start by giving everybody ownership then let them be.
A good machinist can make just about any tool needed. A good chemist and geologist would find everything needed for an industrial society. The hard part has already been done in the last few hundred years.
G’day,
Jim, its not about eco-nuts vrs the space advocates, its about eco-nuts vrs technological civilization. These people are against dams, power stations, large scale farming etc. etc. taking them on, showing people they are wrong and there is an alternative is not only correct but oure duty. Trent is to be commended for his efforts.
ta
Ralph
Al Says:
“Weâre actively destroying dams here in Washington State now.”
Rachell Maddow must be really surprised.
Maybe we have different ideas about subsistence farming. To me, it means you don’t trade your crop.. you make just enough to feed yourself and your family. As such, you really can’t afford fertilizers or pesticides or, well, anything. You get your water, air and sunlight for free.. and presumably you already own the land.
Now, if you think you can do that in space, then I guess you’ve got that whole terraforming thing down eh?
@Trent Waddington:
I don’t understand why you mixed the space talk with the Hippies video
Is it to contrast ? Or is it to signify that the Earth is dying and hence we must escape ?
sams, do you know what a dark age is? Do you know what happened to the Romans? “the Hippies” are the horde. They don’t see the value of civilization and want to bring it down. The entire message: industrial civilization is required to get into space and the frontier of space is required to save civilization – oh yeah, and the enemy is at the gates right now.
Understand?
reader – As I’ve said elsewhere but bears repeating, anthropogenic climate change is undeniable, at least in some areas of the world. Just not by the same route as usually discussed.
Desertification on the southern edge of the Sahara, for example, is almost certainly caused largely by overgrazing by domestic animals; and this problem is because of the lack of high technology in that area. Of course, most of this problem was casued before anybody at all had the technology to avoid it.
I’m also quite sure that the climate of the various areas of the world that have been deforested for centuries is significantly different from the climate before that happened, and a lot of that has happened in the last millennium. England’s landscape, for example, is almost entirely man-made.
@Trent Waddington:
No need to be condescending man, what is you freaking problem ?
For one thing your video isn’t clear and it is kind of hard to know what message you intend to transmit.
Your ”hippies hord at the gates” theory is kind of beside the point and over-exagerate the eco-lonny threat.
Do you really think that the Big-Government-Commies will want all the power the control industrial society gone so they go back to control a bunch of hippie farmers ?
It is like telling Louis XIV to renounce his kingdom for a feudal castle in IX century normandy, it won’t happen.
Maybe your video isn’t so self-evident that I must be a moron, but maybe it is not clear and what you intend to say … but maybe even what you say isn’t a great theory.
Everyone else got it. Hands up anyone who watched it and didn’t get it? Just sams? Ok then.
I actually wasn’t trying to be condescending.. if you’ve ever spoken to me before on this blog you’d know when I’m being condescending. I actually just assumed you must be a little slow and was trying to be nice about it..
Greason saying “that’s how a new dark age starts” and Jensen saying “we’ve gotta tear down civilization” right after one another wasn’t enough? Jensen saying that we have to do *whatever is necessary* to save the planet and screw civilization and then Greason saying “to me, spaceflight is about avoiding another dark age” wasn’t clear enough for you? Was the ending not clear enough for you?
Should I have put in a diagram? Ok, here’s one: http://quantumg.net/choose.png
“It is like telling Louis XIV to renounce his kingdom for a feudal castle in IX century normandy, it wonât happen.”
Or… maybe.. it’s like the barbarian hordes that burned the glorious Roman empire and caused a dark age that lasted ten centuries. I think your problem is that you missed the whole middle of the video where they made it abundantly clear that they’re not “telling” anyone anything.
A hard-core green would see this video as a validation and support for the green movement. “Yes of course we are killing our planet and only a radical solution will allow us to save it or get off of it before it dies.” The video is clever in that it says different things to different people.
@Trent Waddington:
There wasn’t much technological difference between the Roman Empire and the Barbarians. In fact the fall of Rome was more the end of a political system than the end of technological golden age.
In contrast the difference between what the ecoloons want and what we have already is abysmal. Stagnation might occur under ecoloon rule, but regression is ludicrous.
Huh? Wow, you’re really demonstrating that you are slow. There’s no technological difference between mainstream society and the ecofascists either. Notice how Jensen talks about using explosives? When they talk about armed resistance do you think they’re thinking bows and arrows or something? The destruction of that “political system” as you call it was exactly what these idiots are preaching. The rest of us call it “civilization”.
This is hilarious.. you get upset at me for being condescending when it is abundantly clear that you have no understanding of the basic concepts that are under discussion here. And what’s worse, is that you’re the rare kind of idiot who insists that he does.
@Trent Waddington:
” is that youâre the rare kind of idiot who insists that he does.”
ObamaCare does have dick enhancement surgery covered … soon you won’t need to satisfy your urge to feel superior on the interWebs anymore.
Anyway I don’t see any impeding ecoloon menace worth the hassle.
ETA:
Monster-rocket ”lets do Apollo again” government induced madness is more likely than the Ecoloon taking over.
Do just shut up.. you’re embarrassing all of us.
So Trent, when did ya get covered by ObamaCare. That’s a new one to me.
Sams, if you haven’t noticed, our current admin and the ecoloons are fellow travelers. Before 9-11 it wasn’t likely that 19 guys with knives would fly planes into skyscrapers (even if SF predicted it.) After 9-11 it was a fact.
How many ecoloons does it take to do something stupid or vile? Most people that talk about bombing don’t do it… but some already have. How likely is it that humans will do what they’ve already done? Given enough time it’s a certainty (well, that’s what evolutionist tell me.) Let’s see, any other ox left to gore? Gore? Nevermind.
@ken anthony:
Except that Al Qaed didn’t took over after 911 and most of what happened was more USG reaction than terrorist action : Pat down, airport striptease, expansion of law enforcement.
No sharia law, no annexation of US to Islam or even retreat of US from middle east happened, even if these were the terrorists supposed goals.
What would an ecoloon bombing of a Nuclear plant or refinery cause as a likely reaction ? Increased security measures and restrain of civil liberties most likely, but besides that nothing else.
The Ecoloons would never be more powerful than the ”Green Energy” lobby, which is made of hard core socialist, scheming politicians and wealthy crony who make millions out of it.
sams, that thing you just did.. that’s not very nice.
@Trent Waddington:
This is what you said of me :”\is that youâre the rare kind of idiot who insists that he does.”\
Your tone was as if you genius is so great that the only people not understanding it must be an ”helpless idiot”. Should I instead bow and say ”Thank you” ?
I was merely providing feedback in a video you did and got insulted because Mr Michael Angelo genius is beyond criticism.
No.. you were just being petty. As I said EVERYONE ELSE GOT IT. That means you’re stupid.. I’m sorry if you can’t deal with that.
ken anthony – The ecoloons have already done it, albeit on a small scale. It’s an established practice among them to hammer steel spikes into trees, thus causing catastrophic damage to logging machinery and occasionally seriously injuring people caught by flying shrapnel.
@Trent Waddington:
It seems that declaring others ”idiots and stupid” is the way of feeling smart for you right .
What is petty is insulting people over the interwebs.
@Fletcher Christian:
That is kind annoying, but are they able to do this at a large scale and bring civilization to a halt by doing terror sabotage ?
USG reaction
I’d have to agree that the response shows that citizens need to get this govt. back under control. Real life seems like a work of fiction these days.
I found this talk be way more important than the current ”Hippies are going to destroy civilization” video by the same speaker.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy2kIPLsUn0
I would say the ecoloons have already done tremendous damage. Thanks to them, we’ve had no new oil refineries or nuclear plants built in several decades. They’re becoming quite successful at shutting down coal fired power plants. They’re trying to stop much of the coal mining in the Appalachians and Australia. They’ve turned California’s central valley into a vast wasteland, as Victor Davis Hanson often laments.
Where society goes is a choice that society makes, and if too many members choose to use the power of government to force it from advancing, returning to some mythical agrarian utopia, the result is at first just stagnation, then regression. But the same worldview is usually paranoid and Marxist, so you end up with repression, staggering poverty, and mass graves.
Ask the victims of the Khmer Rouge how an agricultural eco-utopia works out in practice, or the mother’s of the tens of millions of children who died from malaria to save the planet from DDT. Modern society has always battled the forces of self-destructive stupidity, from barbarian hordes to Luddites to Maoists to the various branches of environmentalist wackos. The record is decidedly mixed and our current winning streak isn’t guaranteed to go on forever.
“Notice how Jensen talks about using explosives?”
Jensen is fine as long as we are playing by Marquis of Queensbery rules. If and when his ilk actually become a credible threat, they will be put at the end of the barrel of a gun swiftly. When the dogs of war are let slip, he will find he is not remotely prepared to reap the whirlwind.
He can talk about explosives all he wants. How many years was he in the military? I will bet his experience with explosives comes from a copy of the ‘Anarchists Cookbook’.
If they are lucky, they will be allowed to rebuild what they damaged. If not, then they will be brought to an end. I look at him an I see an undisciplined radical. He looks like a drug abuser, he is skinny and not in good physical condition. If he were the badass he thinks he is, his outward appearance would show it. I bet I have more upper body strentgh in my right arm than he has in his entire upper torso. He is a disruptor at best, he lacks the true mindset and capability to be a real destroyer. He is like a dog chasing a car, oblivious to the outcome of actually catching it.
The overwhelming bulk of the arms and the talent are concentrated amongst the pro-civilization forces. People like Jensen are tolerated by the grace of and at the lesiure of people like me like I tolerate a mosquito inside my car until it tries to bite me.
“No-one is fighting them because no-one sees them as wanting anything wrong.”
No Trent, no one is fighting them because they have yet to make sufficient nuisance of themsleves to warrant it, at least in a physical sense. They are being fought politically now by the likes of the tea party and they are starting to lose. As the economy worsens, their arguments progressively fall on deaf ears.
They are the by-product of a comfortable, well-to-do society. If society starts to become less so, they will be the first to go under the bus. All this Earth worship crap is a fad created by prosperity. It cannot exist without it. Jensen proposes to make war on the very thing that makes his current status possible. It is ultimately a self-correcting ideaolgy.
It can be almost as dangerous to over-estimate you enemy as to under-estimate him. Don’t fall into that trap.
” from barbarian hordes to Luddites to Maoists to the various branches of environmentalist wackos. The record is decidedly mixed and our current winning streak isnât guaranteed to go on forever.”
Thank goodness we have a Second Amendment.
Weâve come a long way from the days when Shubber Ali advocated space advocacy making common cause with the environmental movement.
Ah, to be young and naive. Every generation of space activists have people who say, “The environmentalists are our natural allies” and think they are that idea is original. I’ve hear it since the early 70’s. Shubber Ali didn’t invent it, and neither did Dennis Wingo.
The other thing that hasn’t changed since the 70’s is that the predicted army of environmentalist allies never shows up. That’s not surprising because if you read environmentalist literature you’ll see their goal is social change. Technological fixes like Moonrush are viewed as uninteresting or even dangerous (because they would remove the threat that “requires” the desired social change).
Exactly Ed. They don’t want the problem ‘solved’. If the problem is ever solved, they become irrelevant.
As for asking Jeffâs permission.. I wouldnât waste his time.
I am really surprised at this. Common courtesy demanded that he at least be informed if not his permission sought. Your hornet’s nest analogy is apt. I hope you know what you’re doing and I hope Greason is okay with it.
Bring it back on topic. Its kinds of interesting throwing the anti-environmental rhetoric in as one of the major reasons Dr. OâNeills vision caught hold among many folks, whereas earlier proposals for space settlement were mostly ignored, was the hopeful contrast it presented to the emerging anti-growth view that emerged as a result of the Club of Romeâs book, âLimits to Growthâ. Basically he was lucky enough to be at the right place at the right time for his space settlements idea to catch hold.
http://www.nss.org/resources/library/spacemovement/chapter04.htm#impact
Reaching for the High Frontier
The American Pro-Space Movement
1972-84
by Michael A. G. Michaud
[[[One of the most striking things about the High Frontier concept is that it excited many people who had not been space enthusiasts and who had no connection with NASA, the aerospace industry, or space science. Many saw it as a breakout from the limits to growth and accepted the idea that space was an essential part of an optimistic scenario for the future. Even the distinguished foreign policy journal Foreign Affairs carried an article by Louis J. Halle entitled “A Hopeful Future for Mankind,” half of which was about O’Neill’s vision.[60] O’Neill’s synthesis suggested that the imaginative use of technology could provide solutions to a host of interlocking problems, including energy shortages and the protection of the environment.]]]
It was even popular among some segements of the environmental movement.
[[[Many of those in the environmental movement of that time were unsympathetic to the space program, but O’Neill turned some into supporters of the new vision. Stewart Brand, publisher of The Whole Earth Catalog and editor of Coevolution Quarterly, took up the O’Neill cause in print in the fall of 1975 with an editorial entitled “Apocalypse Juggernaut, goodbye?” and later produced a book on space colonies.[61] Brand says O’Neill’s appeal lay in the prospect of alternative societies and of breaking the limits to growth. “It was the first new ball game since the American continent filled up,” he adds. Brand himself became a supporter of space colonization because it offered a constructive alternative to the use of high technology for war,[62] a reminder of the older “moral equivalent to war”argument.]]]
But the world has changed greatly since the 1970âs. The various doomsday predictions have failed to materialize and so the public basically ignores both space settlement proponents and environmentalists today, which is why so many green products and green energy projects fail. Although the philosophical arguments involved may appeal to a certain segment of the population the vast majority makes decisions based on consumer economics. They buy Toyota Prius not because of the environment, they are actually worst on it then traditional cars, but because of the MPG, tax credits and ability to use the carpool lane without needing to carpool. Most folks put solar panels on their roofs because of the tax credits and high electric bills.
Speeches like this are good for the spirit of advocates, but it will be the crafting of quality business models, ones based on market economics rather then government policies or subsidies that will make space settlement realities.
M Puckett,
I agree with you. The best solution is to ignore them as they get power from being attacked as it gives them creditability.
Trent, I know you may see it differently being in Australia where they are making a nuisance of themselves as a result of the current drought cycle there. But then Australia is already a lost cause in regards to space settlement having ratified the Moon Treaty in the 1980’s. If Space Settlement is your goal you should be thinking of looking for a Flag of Convenience country to set up under.
The battle of ideas tends to be settled when reality happens. Today we have no settlers. But now that we have people with both the resources and vision it will not be long before we do. Technology was never the problem. The question is, do we still have enough freedom. Will we regulate the possibilities away. Will someone overreach? “We claim this planet in the name of Norway!” Things are going to start happening fast, very soon. It may be a bit soon to be popping the corn, but it will happen.