[ExI] Perception of time

[Ben Zaiboc]

The Avantguardian <avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Ben Zaiboc <bbenzai at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > As a member of a species that seems to find it infeasible to even colonise a
> > single moon 1/4 of a million miles away, I'd like to see that paper!

> It is most certainly feasible
...


In another thread, Eugen observed:
> Species will occupy every niche available


Well, it seems one of you is wrong.

Otherwise, where is our moon colony?  The fact that not even a single base has been set up there, despite having proven, /over 30 years ago/, that we can get there, suggests that the moon is not an available niche for us, at least not up to now, and maybe not ever, for biological humans. As Eugen has also observed, machines can be people too.  If anyone does any off-earth colonising, it will almost certainly be machine-people.  Biologicals may possibly follow, once the hard stuff is done, but I suspect the probability of O'Neill cylinders filling the sky is low-to-zero.  Martian cities ditto.  Plucky asteroid miners living on the wild frontier of the Kuiper belt in their pressurised domes are right out.

As far as colonising the moon is concerned, it's not distance that's the important factor, it's energy.  Maybe we can start thinking about going back to the moon when we stop denying ourselves energy abundance (it's not an energy shortage that we have, it's an energy short-sightedness).  I'm not holding my breath.

Ben Zaiboc