[extropy-chat] Space colony behind the moon?

[Robert Bradbury]

On 10/18/06, Russell Wallace <russell.wallace at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The point being missed is that what we need isolation from isn't matter,
> it's ideas.


So are you saying we should return back to the cave man days when ideas were
in much shorter supply?

The reason Earth isn't big enough is that it's not _psychologically
> perceived_ as big enough, not now that we can span it in hours in person and
> in milliseconds by proxy.
>

But adjusting the psychological perceptions of people with a few milligrams
of assorted substances is *so* much easier & cheaper than hauling bodies out
of gravity wells...

Materially it could support everyone in comfort and safety - considerably
> more than its current population if its resources were used more efficiently
> - but that's not how our psychology works. We need the _perception_ of an
> open frontier, so that our efforts will start being turned outwards rather
> than inwards against each other:
>

But shouldn't we stop reinforcing perceptions that people have that the
frontier is someplace "out there".  It is instead within our minds regarding
what is and is not really possible -- call it the "pre-nano-reality wall".
That is the open frontier that we need to overcome because that undermines
the perception of resource shortages which in turn plays off of the
predisposition (presumably genetic) to roam, accumulate resources and make
copies of ourselves.

As an aside -- in "The Case for Mars" Zubrin comes very close to making a
case for nanotechnology (when he argues using Martian material and robots to
produce Martian solar power satellites).  But he fails to grasp that once
you have the technology to start dismantling Mars and launching it into
space you can keep going and finish the process completely.  Whenever I come
across the proponents of Mars colonization (blogs, etc.) I don't hesitate to
point out that by the time they are able to get "there" it will likely no
longer be "there".

Robert
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