[ExI] oooohhh pioneers

[spike]

> ...On Behalf Of Emlyn
> Subject: Re: [ExI] oooohhh pioneers
> 
> 2010/3/30 spike <spike66 at att.net>:
> > The Lights Out For the Earth Hour exercise is perhaps the most 
> > environmentally destructive activity ever dreamed up by any 
> organization.
> >
> > spike
> 
> lol Spike.
> 
> No doubt many of those involved would sympathise with your 
> reasoning (and so hotly deny an impending baby boom)...

There is something else too.  We moderns have a wildly high level of sensory
input constantly during the time we are awake: we play video games with the
TV playing in the background, possibly while reading email.  We live in a
contantly frenetic information environment, and all that stuff relies on
electricity.

Willa Cather alluded to one of the big challenges of the pioneer life: the
long stretches of crushing, oppressive boredom.  We just have no idea.  I
challenge you: turn off everything, any night, just for a while.  See how
long it takes you to crumble in a whimpering heap under the non-stress of
sudden information vacuum.  Do try it.  For just half an hour, or 15
minutes.  Do. 

Get a large number of people doing that and I can calmly assure you the
result will be fucking.  I recognize that the previous sentence sounds like
it is missing a word at the end, but this is one of those cases where the
term is used not as the universal adjective but rather in the more literal
sense.  Naked twister time.  Given a large enough number, and if even a very
small fraction will result in an unexpected pregnancy, and some fraction of
those will choose to go to term.  If even one extra birth occurs per million
participants, the environmental impact will far outweigh the savings of a
million people turning off electricity for an hour.

> ...How do you expect to get a decent borg cube going 
> with a measly 6 billion people, after all? Emlyn

I expect the borg will be spherical, but I get your drift.  I too agree that
people are both the problem and the solution, but mostly the solution.

spike