[extropy-chat] Moon news

[Kevin Freels]

Supposing that in the next 50 years, AI and MNT is coming along well enough
that we can actually upload ourselves. And suppose that we could create a
copy of ourselves for "just in case" scenatios. Wouldn;t it be nice to be
able to send out a couple of other planets for safe keeping? You would then
be distributed a bit further just in case something happened to the Earth.

It would be really nice if you could send that copy to the Moon
inexpensively on some regularly scheduled transport to a settlement that is
already established. Especially if this settlement has built a storage depot
just for this kinf of thing about 10 miles below the surface.

With the geological instability of this planet, and all the other wacky
things that can occur such as nearby supernova destroying our ozone layer,
my first priority when I upload is going to be to get a copy off of this
planet. If we do this. Even if it is just to the Moon, at least then the
infrastructure will be there for me to do so. Just think of how the
interstate highway system has affected our lives. How has it affected cars?

I still wonder about the proposal. I like it, but what if that is what he is
after? What if he really doesn;t care about this and simply wants my vote?
What if he lands it at congress and it flops. Then he could ask for my vite
and say he tried and that he needs to be re-elected with MORE reps in
congress that will support it.

Besides the fact that this will set up the infrastructure to get us humans
more spread out, I think this proposal does another important thing. It gets
people thinking about the future and thinking beyond their own natural
lifespans. Future thinking is critical to MNT.

There will be lots of opposition to this and I know there are a lot of
people here who don;t like Bush, but I think this entire proposal is more
critical to MNT than many of you may realize. There is plenty of money to go
around. It's not as if they have to rob the poor to get it done. If the
government decided to invest billions in MNT, they could still do so without
hurting the space program. We can also go back to the moon without hurting
the chances of MNT getting money. Many of you seem to think that if they
spend money on this, they won;t spend it on MNT.

Personally, I think that we would be more likely to see more government
investment in MNT if the administration sees a positive return on its
investment in the future. There will be a lot of opposition to this thing.
Much of it will be from Bush haters that really wouldn;t mind such a
program, but will attack it just to attack Bush.

Every one of us needs to get behind this thing. It is something that needs
to be done. For years people like us have bickered about the best way to do
this. We will never know the "best" way. It doesn;t matter either. We just
need to do it. Sitting around on our asses for the last 30 years because we
couldn't decide between the shuttle, moon, Mars, or asteroids will only
leave us right here for another 30-50 years. We're our own worst enemy.For
all our brain power, people like us never really understood politics.

The moon, Mars, asteroids, MNT, all of it is important. Let's not pass on
one because we couldn;t agree which to do first. We're too smart for our own
good. This is what happened when Bush Sr proposed something similar.

Standing up in front of people and stating "I think it is a good idea, but I
would rather see....." Is not going to help anyone. We need to be saying "I
think it is an excellent and necessary step in the right direction. For all
of Bush's other faults, he finally is doing something right"

Kevin Freels