[lit-ideas] Re: Not all doom and gloom
- From: Andy <min.erva@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, THEORIA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 18:41:28 -0800 (PST)
Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: One of the subjects
I?ve been interested in over the years has been paleo-anthropology. I say
that in case my note might inspire anyone to ascend a high horse and accuse me
of being confused and sloppy . . . although I might get a little sloppy since I
haven?t read all the books I?ve read recently. Even so, be warned. My sword
has recently been coming out of its sheath with alacrity.
Andy: Lawrence, you can put your shield away. Freudian slip. Sword away.
Your interest is admirable.
Lawrence: I reject Leakey?s thesis [of a limited duration for humans]
because of one of his assumptions, namely that this earth is to be our home for
as long as we last. I fully expect homo sapiens to go out and people every
habitable or near-habitable planet and moon in our solar system and then head
out into space. I mistrust the science that says we can?t fly faster than the
speed of light, not because I have studied this science, but because it is so
new, relatively (pun intended), and we keep discovering that what we thought
was impossible in the past has, in ways we couldn?t in earlier generations have
imagined, become not only possible, but normal. I expect we shall find a way
to travel into space long before our 200,000 years has elapsed ? and once out
in space, or perhaps even out in our solar system, there may be nothing to put
a cap on our life span? So pshaw, Richard Leakey. You will be wrong about
this particular species . . . .
Andy: We're uniquely designed for planet Earth. Even climbing to the top of
Mt. Everest takes significant acclimating. We can't tolerate prolonged periods
in water, can't breathe in water. We need the ozone layer to protect us from
solar radiation or we'd fry. We have to stay in a relatively narrow range of
temperature. Even eating a McDonald's style diet, essentially not at all what
we were designed to eat, gunks up the system. If we were to find another
planet it would have to be virtually exactly like Earth. Otherwise, we'd have
to have constant never ending life support. Where would that life support come
from?
Lawrence: Unless, once out there, we adapt in such a radical way that we do
form a new species. I don?t expect us to encounter a new species (my apology
to Ufologists), but perhaps the impetus for species development no longer
exists here on earth because we have either wiped out, put in cages, or
domesticated all the competing species,
Andy: If we've wiped out other species, then we've made life on earth less
habitable for ourselves as well. We're just one species out of millions, even
if we are (cough cough) the tenants from hell.
Lawrence: but out in space, that is, out on other planets in the galaxy,
that might change.
Andy: You're assuming other planets would have the same environment as
earth. Even on planet earth simple migrations wiped out populations due to
differences in geographic isolation. In Germs, Guns and Steel Jared Diamond
argues European superiority was the result of simple geography and germs; we're
all equally endowed mentally and physically. The Europeans gave the New World
smallpox; Africans gave Europeans malaria. Bubonic plague came out of nowhere
seemingly. What if the planet has germs that we have no defenses for or food
we aren't equipped to digest, assuming we can tolerate their atmosphere? What
if aliens landed here and tried to colonize earth and use earth as their
resource? What would earthlings do? Why would another planet be more
welcoming? (Didn't the aliens in War of the Worlds get killed off because they
got sick from our germs? I didn't see the movie.)
Lawrence: I recall reading Ted Kaczynski?s Unabomber?s Manifesto and
thinking he was assuming like Richard Leakey that this earth was to be our home
for as long as we last; except, he wanted to do an environmental thing and
clean up our environmental footprint ? live in harmony with earth. Killing a
few humans couldn?t hurt, and it was intended to call attention to his ideas,
which have been accepted to a certain extent by the Environmentalists ? not
that anyone would claim to be a disciple of Ted Kaczynski . . . at least I
don?t think anyone would
Andy: That's like saying food is bad because people obsess about it.
Kaczynski has nothing whatsoever to do with environmentalism even if in his
mind he latched on to it for whatever he got from it.
Lawrence: (I?ll have to ask Irene).
Andy: When?
Lawrence: But Kaczynski assumed his solution would save mankind. But what
good is saving mankind when all the doom-and-gloom described earlier in this
thread is waiting inexorably just off stage,
Andy: It's not waiting for us. We're causing it. If we're causing it we
can also stop causing it. To stop causing it is a heck of a lot easier than
colonizing Pluto. Also, the only way we can get to Pluto (and at the moment
even Mars is a three year trip) is with solid fuel made out of, you guessed it,
oil. Think the Saudis would be interested in such a project? How about
Chavez? Failing that, we'd have to develop a high powered sling shot, but if
we could do that, we wouldn't need cars or trucks so we could just stay on
planet earth. We'd have to work on the brakes a bit though.
Lawrence: holding the curtain and snickering?
Andy: That's Rush Limbaugh you're hearing.
Lawrence: Whereas if we move our genius (relatively) species out into space,
we shall cease to be subject to this planet?s environmental limitations ?
including, perhaps, Leakey?s time limit.
Andy: We wouldn't be subject to this planet's environmental limitations but
we'd still be subject to another's. And boy, do I think you'd miss old Mother
Earth.
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