As Glenn notes, this seems to be gender feminism’s major contribution to spaceflight.
I ruffled some feathers this weekend at Space Access by having the temerity to point out that there will be some people who will oppose our expansion into space, because they don’t trust us to do it “right,” and with “social justice.” So much will they oppose it that they may even get violent about it. They do, after all, call themselves “warriors,” and they use a lot of eliminationist rhetoric, like “Smash patriarchy.” I got an email or two about it.
My quick take: Saying that I am “picking a fight” with these people is like saying that the New York Times was picking a fight with the Japanese by reporting that they had bombed Pearl Harbor. As I noted in my talk, they went after the gamers, and the SF community. They’re already on their way to go after the space settlers, as the above linked piece indicates.
I’ll have a longer take at Ricochet or PJMedia.
[Update a few minutes later]
Sort of related: Why Joss Whedon left Twitter.
[Update a while later]
Here’s one hot off the press (Monday) from D. N. Lee (the Scientific American blogger whose tweet I highlighted in my talk). This is much more mild than the tweet, but it gives you an idea of what we’re up against.
So much will they oppose it that they may even get violent about it.
Like code pink violent? Free entertainment I guess.
Kate Paulk wrote a wonderful 3-part post on her visit to Ravencon, and coined a great one: “Glittery Warriors of the Social Justice Hoo Haas”. Much fun.
Looking forward to your longer take.
As we get larger numbers of people in space, the likelihood increases of getting a bad apple in the bunch. The astronaut corps has historically been a tiny select group taking great pride in its professionalism, but we’ve still had Lisa Nowak’s mad trek from Houston to Orlando to confront a sexual rival. Once we move from “space exploration” to serious exploitation of space resources and get hundreds or thousands of people living and working off Earth long-term, it’s inevitable that, humans being humans, someone is going to commit a serious crime not just between missions, but while they’re up there. It may be rape, it may be murder, it may be something else, but the proper response is to bring criminal proceedings against that individual, not bewail how we’ve brought about the first rape or murder or whatever in space.
A lot of these people seem to really hate humanity. It’s almost Calvinistic, absolute depravity, but without the redemption of irresistible grace.
A lot of these people seem to really hate humanity.
Yes, there are elements of society that express species self-hatred. You can easily find examples of environmental extremists who not only think the world is over populated but who would gladly kill 90% of the population to usher forth their idea of utopia.
There is still a possibility, particularly considering the SJW ideas of Rape, the Lisa Nowak is the first woman raped in space. She flew on the same mission with her lover, the affair began during their survival training, we don’t know if they did or didn’t on orbit, and the relationship ended after the mission when she learned he was cheating with another woman. Some might claim that her “yes” was conditioned on his faithfulness, and that he lied to get her “yes”. If she had known his lie, it would have been “no”, thus rape!
It is confusing to me, other than the possibility they had being on the same mission. I did read Insty’s link to the “yes can mean no” diatribe, and that it rubbish. It didn’t even consider the concept of perfidy, just that a woman who later regrets giving consent can feel raped later.
@Leigh Kimmel
You can say it is Ultra-Calvinistic… Paging Moldbug…
Assuming the people upset were Democrats, do they even know what their own activist groups are up to?
Probably not necessary to pay much attention to these idiots. They are unlikely to have spaceships anytime soon. I suppose they could cause problems at bottlenecks like the US Congress.
Just as likely that the first woman space rapist has been born.
That last link is why people think Democrats hate the USA. No one would be surprised to see Obama saying the same things. Just look at how she said Mars would be conquered rather than settled or explored. Could also go off on her racist inhuman comments about indigenous peoples or “white” people.
The lady doesn’t want to take part but she wants to order people how to do it. She is the same type of person who would have been clamoring for natives to be converted but she wants to force a different ideology on society so she probably thinks its OK.
Maybe it’s because some people think that space development will be run by a centralized bureaucracy such as NASA, or maybe because feminists think they will still own the narrative, but the the idea that the future of space development will go along pc lines is absurd and laughable.
Perhaps the pc police will eventually come-a-knocking at a space colony, but I don’t think their arrival will culminate in an enforcment of pc policy. Instead, it will probably be more along the lines of what happens to the Investigator of Moral Climates in Bradbury’s story, Usher II (The Martian Chronicles.)
Does the TSA know about space?
What planet is this? I don’t recognize it.
Getting away from these idiots is a good reason for colonizing.
There will be crime. It will be dealt with by people aware of survival issues.
Re your point about people opposing expansion into space on “social justice” grounds: I’ve had problems along these lines with British Marxist academic sociologists. You probably won’t want to plough through all of this:
http://www.astronist.demon.co.uk/space-age/essays/Sociology0.html
but may want to glance at it to get an idea of what they’re saying, and how I responded.
Stephen A.
Oxford, UK
If Martian colonization is a land grab … a land grab from whom?
Regardless of our personal views on the matter, there is an objective answer to your question, if you are an American.
For background, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty
For specifics, see Article 1 and Article 6 http://disarmament.un.org/treaties/t/outer_space/text
Claiming that humans, as a species, own everything in the universe doesn’t quite mesh with the idea that no one owns the universe.
Granted I now live in the People’s Republix of Cambridge, MA, but I definitely censor who I talk to about settlement because I’ve already talked to some people that want to stop us on those grounds.