[extropy-chat] Bluff and the Darwin award

[The Avantguardian]

--- Russell Wallace <russell.wallace at gmail.com> wrote:

> There is a threshold we need to reach;
> it is not the badly-named
> "Singularity", but Diaspora - the technology to live
> sustainably off Earth.
> With a quarter trillion stars in our galaxy alone,
> there'll be room to find
> a way forward come what may; but we need to attain
> that level of technology
> first, and the truth, as many a driver with children
> in the back seat has
> had to point out, is that we are not nearly there
> yet.

Amen, Brother. Thank you for this beautiful post.
 
> The Earth isn't going to be demolished to make room
> for a hyperspace bypass,
> or eaten by grey goo, or blown up by Skynet, but we
> - humanity - may die
> nonetheless, looking up at the unattainable stars as
> our vision fades and
> goes out, not a mark on us from any outside force,
> merely strangled by our
> own illusions.

Or pummeled by an asteroid we saw coming for 30 years
because we wasted so much money defending against
bogey-men like Iraqi WMD, the "war on terror", and
grey-goo.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9871982/

Relevant details:
He worried that the funding might not be available to
make high-quality radar readings of Apophis by 2013 —
particularly readings from the Arecibo radio telescope
in Puerto Rico, the world's largest single radio dish.
"It's no secret that Arecibo is fairly precarious
right now, and especially the radar function, because
that is not needed for the bulk of radio astronomy,"
Schweickart said.

The B612 Foundation said the National Science
Foundation should make sure there is reliable radar
capability "to support early warning of pending NEO
[near-Earth object] impacts and rational deflection
mission planning."

Schweickart said NASA should also boost research into
advanced propulsion methods that might come into play
for deflecting near-Earth objects — such as Project
Prometheus, the nuclear propulsion program that was
recently pared back."



Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"A human being is part of the whole called by us 'the universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening the circle of understanding and compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

-St. Einstein

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