[ExI] skylon, peds vs traffic deaths, paleo diet, sb-solar, frida, trance music, ..

Sat Apr 16 21:09:29 UTC 2011

for some reason, recent posts on extropy have Resonated with me, inspiring me to reach out and commend :)

first i want to thank all recent contributors for impressing me with your depth of contemplation, insights, data analysis, and latitude of consideration :)
truly commendable :)
thx Brent for posting that music .. i think we sometimes forget how important music is for a balanced and fully human life :) (no matter how transhuman we'd like to think of ourselves;)
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the post on frida was interesting considering the potential impacts on human manufacturing..
some immediate concerns: can the bots do more than assembly? i tried to find out on the manufacturer websites..
they'd be more useful if they could also do detailed fabrication such as the hand-work i recently performed in a Thai sweat-shop (see http://my.nowpublic.com/world/work-units-and-uniform-wage-scales )
the manufacturer seemed more conventionally obsessed with customer perceptions of safety and robotic acceptance while i would have gone for functionality and diverse applications ^^
.. the impact on manufacturing nations is an interesting consideration.
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sb-solar was raised indirectly by Keith H by providing a ref for skylon which i'll get to later..
sb-solar, after looking at http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/ 's version of it, looks a LOT more tempting if we put it in the context of skylon
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paleo-diet is relevant to 'how we got here' but a little irrelevant about 'where we're going' in terms of diet..
if it was efficient, tolerable, and tasty, we could eat blood-red meat 3Xs a day .. or soy-based protein .. or solient-green (or yellow or..;)
i think you get my pt .. if we had food synthesizers that took some base protein, say soy, and shaped/colored/textured it to anything desirable, say a dripping 'hamburger' with all the 'toppings' (again - soy based protein made to look like toppings), many on this list would accept (i'm guessing) that food source - as long as the source protein was environmentally sound, sustainable, and robust (and manufactured/texturized in like ways) .. so .. let's research into texturing existing environmentally sound sustainable robust proteins so we can 'all' (those of us who crave it) have our slobbery dripping (tho fake and actually healthy) hamburger. 8))::::
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as the recent discussion on ped vs traffic fatalities has evinced, this can be a convoluted topic depending on how you'd like to spin the statistics
but since that was my major in university and one favorite expression of my late father was: "you can massage data to 'prove' any hypothesis", let's take the red pill and see just how far the rabbit hole goes:
most every city wants to be perceived as 'ped safe' - so they'll massage the data to appear safe
traffic fatalities can indeed be complex with multiple causes .. a friend of the family recently complained about a driver who had a heart attack:
"i can't believe he still had a license! they should have taken that away from him!"
but if they took away your license for a medical condition and possibility of negative incident, i think you'd object (even for national safety)
for Americans, freedom (and privileges such as driving) is paramount compared to potential negative impacts (see http://my.nowpublic.com/world/thousands-march-slutwalk-rally )
(this article is about the freedom of 'sluts' to dress any way they like irregardless of potential rapists lurking about slobbering over their next victim .. scroll to the bottom to see my comment)
.. to reiterate my late father: data can be massaged to 'prove' any hypothesis .. so we must look at everyone's 'punch line' / bottom line to see what they're arguing for in order to understand why they spin data a particular way.
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skylon - i saved the 'best' for last because this concept has the greatest potential to improve/impact future human society.
we .. need .. cheap (and safe) .. orbital .. lift capacity (if we're to 'live the dream' we saw glimpses back in the 60s).
was it only me who was disillusioned by our lack of vision after those years???
was it only me who was disappointed by our diminishing lack of interest (much like a john's hard interest goes limp when he finds the price of the trick;) in space ventures???
if indeed American space efforts back then were mostly based on "let's beat the Russkies!", i pity Americans!
.. our space initiatives must be: enduring, thrust for meaning, enhance overall capacities, and preferably indicate a paradigm shift (as with skylon required technologies).
.. i'm not all (-) about our space initiatives .. skylon, if properly backed/funded/endorsed, could be that next paradigm shift required to lift us to the stars :)
we need to focus, as national priorities, on dependent technology: sabre and 'skylon skin' (exterior surface) prototypes and manufacturing essentials
so any industrial, mechanical, and materials engineers reading this post should 'get a move on' and volunteer (at least) for this project.
any investors should get involved likewise.
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if we want to 'bootstrap ourselves' (lift ourselves out of the quagmire we've created for humanity), we need an objective and doable plan which differs distinctly from the human-earth focused perspective prevalent today.
we cannot 'save ourselves' by focusing only on human problems (or human created problems such as the ozone hole) .. our destiny is not on this planet Earth.
our destiny is 'out there'..

sam iam / Salvatore G. Micheal
plz visit the following websites when u have time:
https://www.msu.edu/~micheal/before-2012.pdf
https://www.msu.edu/~micheal/BW-docs.pdf
https://www.msu.edu/~micheal/WfM.pdf
https://www.msu.edu/~micheal/resume.pdf
Iam University
Plz protect, cherish, and cultivate innocence everywhere everywhen.

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