Hedonism and its effects.

[emprworm]

i looked and re-read edric's comments, but cannot find a reply to that. I also notice Edric saying "great cultures of the past"

uhhh...and what cultures might those be?

[Falconius]

Will to work??? Western society is the most hard-working civilization that ever existed! Hell, we glorify productivity!

Science advanced in Europe thanks to the undeniable intellectual abilities of all Europeans. Unlike the Muslims advanced in their golden age thanks to invading, plundering and wiping out the Byzantines.

Western culture is not to blame for all the greatest genocides and mass slaughters in the history of humanity. Don't you DARE call us uncivilized! We did not wipe out any non-Europeans nor steal lands. The entire world now integrate into our financial system, even if it is a form of slavery. We spawned Hitler and Stalin, but also Abraham Lincoln and the Wright brothers. We created nuclear weapons, better us than them, eh? We prevent the world from facing total annihilation. We dedicate vast stretches of the planet to reservation -> we are the first civilisation to do so.

i love my civilisation and i am dedicated to see it prosper, advance and spread to other worlds!

Do you hate me for my exactly opposite oppinion Edric O?

[emprworm]

good words, Mr Default Atreides.

Western culture is also the only hope for humanity to ever reach space and get off this planet.

[Anathema]

And why would we want that? Most of the planets in the solar system aren't worth colonising.

[emprworm]

it is feasible to create artificial environments. planets are used for their gravitational pull. im not big into this subject, but it seems reasonable to me. there is even methods that I have read to reverse the greenhouse effect on venus and make it habitable. but i dont know how credible that is.

[Anathema]

Greenhouse effect? Thought you didn't believe in that :P

You mean colonies as a solution for overpopulation? That's unfeasonable. Transporting large amounts of people is simply to expensive to carry out. Though you could send a small bunch of people there and let them colonise it, but then you didn't solve anything.

[emprworm]

i believe in the greenhouse efffect! why would you say otherwise? I'm just not convinced that HUMANS are causing one here on earth. However, the physics behind the effect are surely scientifically viable.

[emprworm]

earthnuker, to have a habital planet, you need 3 things:

land mass with an acceptable amount of gravity condusive to life

atmosphere condusive to life

input solar energy condusive to life

now with Venus we meet criteria 1 and 3.

With mars we meet criteria 1 (3...? not sure bout that)

So all we need for venus is #2. Well, what is an atmosphere? It is simply a large quanitty of gas mixed in certain proportions. There is no magic in this- just a volume of gas is all it is, held in place by gravity.

It seems to me that it is scientifically feasible to create an entire atmosphere from scratch. The gasses are held in place by gravity. Winds are generated automatically by pressure and temperature. Understandably, we are centuries away from this ability, but it seems much more likely and more feasible to then to venture to other star systems, which i dont see how such a thing would ever happen.

[Anathema]

I'm not saying it's not possible to terraform a planet, but massive migration to another planet is unfeasonable.

[quoudam72]

We created nuclear weapons, better us than them, eh? We prevent the world from facing total annihilation.

And what is so great about inventing nuclear weapons? What do you enjoy more the nice clouds they make or the devestation they leave. Better you than them BAH! Neither one is the choice I would choose. Because all the West has done with the bomb is intimidate other countries (just ask a few nations about being threaten to be 'bombed back to the stone age'). I have not seen anything that nuclear weapons can be justifited for nothing (and you can scream WW2 and the Empire of Japan all you want). There are no winners with nuclear weapons. Personally I think our leaders should be the ones to fight bunch of arm chair warriors. I said it they should be the ones to fight inside a cage or ring I do not care with bare knuckles and no weapons. They talk and talk we need better weapons and that is all they do is talk. Winston Churchill should have walked up to Hitler and punched him in the face and proceeded to beat his @$$. And you can say what you want about violence but a good @$$ beating might stop the world from having to suffer another WW or another Hitler. Thank-you I am now finished. >:( ;D :-X

[Caid Ivik]

To make our living easier and longer we, western people, proceeded with science. But of course it was disused for military purpose. That made abominable nuclear and other mass-destruction weapons. These are able to annihilate all live on planet. Until it was mankind invincible, and if we want to stay in this way, we must colonize other worlds. Other thing is that we'll once deplete all natural resources. And then we'll need a new planetm, or we would become again primitive. Western civilisation has true chance to make human a spacing race. This chance must be used, but there must be no defeatism, like EdricO is showing.

Our culture has very good material and philosophical core, it must survive anything. Crisis like nowadays is, too.

[VigilVirus]

We created nuclear weapons, better us than them, eh? We prevent the world from facing total annihilation.

And what is so great about inventing nuclear weapons?

It could be argued that if nuclear weapons have not been developed, the world would be go into chaos afterwards, many new WW would have followed destroying the countries of Earth.

I mean a WW in 1917 and then in 1941. We haven't had one since. Why? Because of the deterrance effect of nuclear weapons.

[Caid Ivik]

Yes. As were being improved conventional weapons, becoming still more deadly and destructive, creation of such doomsday machine was only cure for western militarism.

[Acriku]

"As if to balance the pain and suffering, War has also been a breeding ground for some of our greatest dreams and accomplishments" - Holtzman

[Falconius]

i'm sure this argument can go backwards and forwards -> but my personal anecdote:

Now that we know how to destroy this planet in a matter of minutes ->

it is time to get off... :D

(And i can imagine that some day in the far future a sertain Falconius the 11th might say: Now that we, the Republic of Venus and the Independant Marsian Colonies know how to destroy this solar system in a matter of minutes ->

it is time to ****** off... >:( )

[Edric O]

Western culture is also the only hope for humanity to ever reach space and get off this planet.

Hahahahaha! Our underfunded and neglected space programs can't even afford to buy toilet paper for their employees! NASA is a rotting corpse and the ESA never really got off the ground in the first place.

Why? Because going into space is NOT profitable. A capitalist has no reason to go into space. No demand = no supply. As long as capitalism reigns, we will NEVER get off this planet! (in any meaningful way)

Bah, where is the famed human curiosity? Where is our ancient desire to explore? GONE! Drowning in the mundane repetitive tasks of everyday life. We are turning into mindless drones.

[Edric O]

Our civilisation was flawed by these dechristianisating philosophy, but it mustn't be crushed, destroyed, but it must return to its core, to very heart of christianity.

*gives a sad, weary smile*

You don't see it, do you? Returning to our core is exactly what we are doing now. It's not that our civilization is de-christianising, it's that it was never properly christianised in the first place. We are, by our very nature, an atheist civilization. Didn't you ever wonder why no meaningful religion ever came out of Europe? We are spiritually weak. We cannot return to something we never were. There is no hope of redemption for our civilization. Only by starting from scratch can we build a truly Christian and civilized culture.

And now for Emprworm:

I wanted to hear edric comment on my example of cities who built up weapons technology to defend against barbarian hoardes (such as the mongols). In this example, the proliferation of weapons and the technological progress the society made because of weapons research was not to conquer, but to defend vs. uncivilized non-western hoardes.

Yes, that's true. But tell me, which uncivilized hoardes were attacking the Roman Empire, for example? European ones.

[quoudam72]

Can you still buy your way to space through what is left of the Russian Space program (RKA). That is if the junk lifts off (Plesetsk launch failure) the ground and stays in orbit (MIR space station). Seriously I would like to see a collective program of space exploration with many nations but what are the chances of that happening.

[VigilVirus]

Don't criticize MIR now, don't you know how long that station actually worked? Do you know of any US spacestations of that size that worked for so long?

[Acriku]

Heh NASA a rotting corpse? If you actually lived here (I live within a few miles of Cape Canaveral) you would know that NASA is thriving with experiments, planning, solving things, etc. It is far from a rotting corpse. You piece of mind-washed something or another ;)

[Edric O]

I don't care how much they work. I don't see any RESULTS. We haven't advanced one inch in terms of manned missions since 1969!! THAT is what I call a rotting corpse.

[Acriku]

Fine Edric, make your own Space Administration and see how far you go 8)

The latest launch, Endeavour, completed the following objectives:

# Rotating the Expedition Five crew with the new Expedition Six crew of commander Ken Bowersox, Soyuz commander Nikolai Budarin and science officer Don Pettit.

# Installing the $390 million P1 truss to the station's growing backbone, which now has the complete heat-dispelling radiator system for the outpost and eventually will include a full set of electricity-generating solar wings.

# Outfitting the truss segment during the course of three spacewalks, which included connecting power, data and fluid lines between the P1 and the rest of the station.

# Transferring more than one ton of equipment and supplies between the shuttle and the station -- delivering fresh stuff to the ISS for use by the Expedition Six crew and returning completed experiments performed by the Expedition Five crew.

# Repairing a carbon dioxide removal system on the station with the help of new parts carried into space by Endeavour.

# Deploying a small pair of experimental satellites for the Air Force from Endeavour's cargo bay after the shuttle undocked from the station.

[Edric O]

I suggest reading the books "A case for Mars" and "Entering Space" by Robert Zubrin, a brilliant space engineer. He scientifically proves that a hell of a lot more COULD be done right now, but no one wants to.

NASA is useless. The fact that they are getting better and better at being useless doesn't comfort me.

[Acriku]

Heh NASA is useless. I guess I can understand why you would say that, not being in the United States and all. And what you deem useless is valuable to the people who want to learn.

[quoudam72]

Excuse me Mr. Vigilant Evil but yes MIR was in orbit for 15 years but the Russians also stop funding the space staion in 1999 leaving it to rot before reentering the earth's atmosphere in 2001. That does not mean I support the American program because I crictized the Russian program. It was the Russians who had the first manned space flight in history (Yuri Gagarin 1961,Vostok spacecraft ) and also the first woman (Valentina Tereshkova 1963, Vostok-6 spacecraft) not to mention some other impressive projects for it's space program. Too bad the Russian government could not learn how to manage money better and maybe the US would have someone to compete against (not forgetting India, Great Britain and China). ;D