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Notes -
Some hard science news, that nevertheless became part of culture wars.
As you probably heard, third recorded interstellar object is on the way. It stands out of sample of three, just like the previous two.
The usual suspects, most prominent Avi Loeb and John Brandenburg of ancient nuclear war on Mars fame sound an alarm to warn from incoming alien invader.
Mainstream science dismisses the concerns and sees the object as ordinary red colored D-type asteroid.
< tinfoil hat> well, what are they supposed to do? </tinfoil hat>
Not that "we" as mankind could do anything if ayys were really here. See just Avi Loeb's proposals.
Nah. I cannot imagine better way to ensure Earth's swift destruction than to introduce aliens to United Nations. Compared to this plan, doing nothing at all is the superior alternative.
The simulation masters have been teasing the alien reveal for almost a decade now, almost as much as they've been hinting at a WWIII/Nuclear exchange arc. I'm hoping it happens during Trump's term, at least.
More seriously, I think it is important to track these things and try to identify them, and interacting with them would be cool as hell, but I'm coming around to the idea that we're (currently) alone in the universe, and probably because we're one of the first true intelligent species to reach a point where we can really think about extraterrestrial life in a serious way.
IF these interstellar objects are sent by other intelligent civilizations then they're probably intended to kill us. And if so the tech difference is probably sufficient that we can't do anything about it.
Incidentally, this is just another reason why not mucking about with our civilization and bootstrapping some off-planet industry is a good idea.
Some days it feels strange that there's not more agreement on the following:
We absolutely have the tech to get into space and establish a presence there, if not full colonies.
There are literal gigatons of resources in space that we could make use of, to say nothing of energy.
Literally EVERYTHING ELSE in the universe is out there in space. Whatever you really care about or want, there's more of it out there.
Humanity has no compelling reason to stay on this one planet until we get wiped out by something.
THEREFORE, we should be removing every possible barrier, bureaucratic, economic, or otherwise, to getting our space industries to commercial viability.
It can be a competition, sure, but stop it with environmental reviews and such that are pure deadweight loss.
But then I look around and realize that the mindset of people who both appreciate why space is important AND have the chops to actually build the industries necessary to realize an outer space economy is incredibly rare, especially on a global scale. I'd guess a majority of humans are focused on/optimized for bare survival on the day-to-day, another huge chunk, especially in the West, are in a distracted hedonism loop, and of the remaining who might otherwise learn towards space exploration, many (half?) have been mindkilled by lefty politics, effective altruism, or some other nerd-sniping ideology or political orientation that diverts their focus.
Compared to what we're doing with our efforts to improve conditions on earth. Which involve depleting whole national treasuries in first world countries to keep third world countries afloat, failing at that, then opening up the floodgates to allow their citizens into the first world countries directly, without considering the second-order impacts this has on sustaining advanced industries like spaceflight. And other things.
Also depleting said treasuries to keep some of the most nonproductive, anti-civilization native citizens comfortable, for minimal perceptible gain. This isn't even a racial point, this is just a "questioning of national/international priorities" point.
Although I'm aggressively libertarian, I could be convinced to become a single-issue voter for whatever politician or party made it their platform that they would drop all corporate taxes on any company in the "space travel and industry" space to zero, protect such companies against all threats to their ability to operate, and oppose, with (sanctioned) violence if necessary, anybody who is either directly or indirectly attempting to keep humans stuck on this rock in the name of, e.g. 'social justice,' 'environmentalism' 'equality,' 'tradition,' 'religious belief,' or any variant of Luddism.
Simply put, I have literally never heard a viable moral objection to humanity becoming a multi-planet, let alone multi-stellar civilization, and unless the whole of humanity actively agrees that we really shouldn't do it, I think there's a moral imperative to get out there ASAP.
Oh, and, incidentally, This means I kind of have to support Trump to some degree. And oppose the Dems, because they're the ones trying to hamstring Elon Musk and SpaceX.
This doesn't mean I think Trump's a good guy, or that Dems are evil, but right now it is actually 'impossible' for me to imagine a future where we have a booming space industry if the Democrats gain control of the FedGov.
Sorry for the screed. But it is relevant because it actually BARELY FACKIN' MATTERS if we can detect these interesting objects hurtling through space if we lack the capability to reach out and touch them.
The fact is that we are sitting at the bottom of a rather inconvenient gravity well.
The early modern European powers colonized the world because that was a very profitable thing for them to do. Crossing the Atlantic with a ship full of spices or gold was hard but doable.
By contrast, going to the Moon today is much harder today than crossing the Atlantic was in 1500. If the moon was full of gold nuggets which you just had to pick up, that would still not pay for the expense to bring them to Earth.
Settling Antarctica or the shallow parts of the sea is actually much easier than settling space.
At some point we will probably get Netflix to sponsor a human Mars mission as reality TV, but settling there?
Migrating to North America was a great idea for many because even if you made it across with just the clothes on your body, there was plenty of land (once you genocided the natives). You just had to clear the land and then you could grow your favorite staples from the old world.
By contrast, until we get von-Neumann machines, in space you will depend on Earthcrafted goods for a very long time. Just imagine the settlement of the Americas in a world where every plank of wood had to be shipped in from the old world for the first 100 years.
Rookie mistake, you can usually make better use of those by manufacturing things in space anyway. (there's an Isaac Arthur video for everything).
Yep. But when the boats got big enough, now we can import whole fucking bridges from China.
We're really just quibbling about scale here. If enough industrial capacity gets built in space (robots probably a necessary step here) it brings the cost of operating in space down rapidly.
The question is why would humans 'prefer' to edge out into space and expand horizons for everyone.
And my point is, as stated
So its simply a matter of lack of humanity's real will to do something, to sail beyond the horizon without any guarantees of what was out there, or if they'd survive or ever return.
But as stated, EVERYTHING ELSE is out there. Its pretty much self explanatory why someone would want to leave earth to check it out, unless they just felt too comfortable to be budged. But that only lasts as long as our sun does. So once again, we either get off this rock, or we die, never knowing the answers.
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