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UF Philosophy Corner: Ethics | by MatthewDBA | 2009-03-31 07:55:43 |
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Basically yes. | by vectorz | 2009-03-31 08:14:03 |
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What is so important about it, though? | by MatthewDBA | 2009-03-31 08:19:47 |
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Vested interest, kinship selection, | by toysbfun | 2009-03-31 08:34:47 |
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How often does an individual | by MatthewDBA | 2009-03-31 08:45:44 |
| The most cogent argument I've seen for the |
by twixt |
2009-03-31 09:51:31 |
need for a permanent presence in space is to prevent the extinction of the species if some moron on earth decides to make the planet uninhabitable in order to satisfy their own megalomaniacal urges - or in order to take revenge for other humans for frustrating their megalomaniacal urges.
Insurance policy. Yup, works for me. And the greater the diversity and number of those space-based societies, the more robust the protection of the species as a whole.
So, not just one space-based project - many. For the same reason we now have many libraries so a bunch of madmen cannot wipe out knowledge the way the Great Library at Alexandria was destroyed by fanatics opposed to multiple schools-of-thought.
And once we decide that space-based colonies are a good idea for the above reasons, their size and diversity are mandated with certain minimum-parameters for the most selfish of reasons. Because most people find that living without a society to interact in gets boring. Their quality-of-life is severely constrained without that society.
And since nobody gets along with everybody, the group must be large enough so there is a high probability that most individuals in that group can find at least one person with which they get along.
This means first-colony-size of *at least* small-town numbers for long-term viability and genetic stability. Better if we have colonies of varying sizes from village to city.
And the reason we want multiple space-based colonies is because planet-based colonies are subject to the same limitations as produced the dark-ages. Knowledge destruction and reversion to a peasant-agrarian-society-matrix by megalomaniacs can occur in any colony that is not utterly dependent upon technology for its very survival.
Thusly, having diversity in space-based cultures is the best means of ensuring the continuity of the human knowledgebase - as well as human existence. And the rationale for this is again a quality-of-life issue. The quality-of-life of a human in a technological society is immeasurably higher than that of a peasant in an agrarian feudal society. And that agrarian feudal society seems to be the default matrix that megalomaniacs establish - from an examination of the historical record.
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[ Reply ] |
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So you're saying | by MatthewDBA | 2009-03-31 09:57:16 |
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Yup. Because if we hadn't done this in the past, | by twixt | 2009-03-31 12:28:08 |
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Isn't that a bit circular? | by MatthewDBA | 2009-03-31 13:00:29 |
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And what is the difference between | by twixt | 2009-03-31 13:24:20 |
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