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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   25707 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 11, 2025

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It seems like there are still pockets of competence to be found and an increasing motivation to overcome short term political obstacles and create some robust institutions

Increasing motivation does not imply increasing ability. It doesn't matter how much people want to overcome the political obstacles if those obstacles are totally insurmountable. And it looks to me like they are just that.

I think that even in the worst case scenarios of the U.S. FedGov starting to collapse, state governments are capable of acting as a backstop.

I disagree. First, because as FedGov starts to collapse, one of the highest priorities for uses of its fading power will be to crush any and all rivals, particularly state governments. And even without that, well, it might just be me looking at the government of my state, but I don't see this capacity.

If Starship is successful and we get some orbital infrastructure, its JUST possible we can get some self-sufficient or semi-self sufficient off-world communities.

I attended talks by the Mars Society back at Caltech in the early aughts, so I'm far from unfamiliar with the topic of space settlement — and the barriers involved. Barring some miracle, I don't see us getting any kind of long-term off-world presence of biological humans, let alone "semi-self sufficient communities" in the next hundred years.

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