From: stanley@verga.enet.dec.com (My name is...)
Subject: Re: Singin' Those Apocalypse Blues
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 16:39:16 GMT


In article <1992Dec12.002631.8867@u.washington.edu>, grimoire@byron.u.washington.edu (John Greer) writes...
>In article <JOSHUA.92Dec11143746@bailey.cpac.washington.edu> joshua@cpac.washington.edu (Joshua Geller) writes:
>>
>>In article <1992Dec11.182521.19366@u.washington.edu> 
>>grimoire@byron.u.washington.edu (John G
>I can't speak directly to nanotechnology; I haven't read up on it.  But
>I remain highly skeptical of any claim that some technological gimmick
>is going to pull our nuts out of the fire.  I wish one would...but in
>the meantime, it might make sense to prepare some fallback plans in
>case it doesn't happen.
> 
>(Large-scale exploitation of extraterrestrial resources is another 
>matter entirely; there are enormous resources available offworld, and
>that could definitely do the trick, in the same way that the discovery
>and exploitation of the resources of the Americas pulled Europe out
>of its backwater status and stopped a spiral of famine, depopulation
>and disease that had been going on since about 1300.  Unfortunately,
>the space program in the US and CIS both is creeping ahead at a snail's
>pace, hamstrung by budget cuts and the pork-barreling that has made
>the Space Station Freedom project such an embarrasment.  (Wasn't it
>supposed to be functioning by this year?)  If we don't get offworld in
>a big way very soon indeed, these resources may not come on line soon
>enough to help -- and I'm not at all sure we have fifty years to spare.)

They need to be inspired... finding ruins on Mars would certainly do the
trick (and it does too).  More ufo sightings would help too maybe.


> 
>>add into this the decimation of the populace likely to occur in many of the
>>worst case nations, for various reasons, and you end up with a situation where
>>there are fewer have-nots and more to go around.

We're treading water... there has to be a way to break through though..

>>
>>>   So here we are.  A small minority of us, maybe, are wiling to accept
>>>   the sacrifices needed to ensure a future to this civilization. We don't
>>>   have the power to get the majority, who aren't, to follow suit.  

... oh come on.. of course we do... we're magickians..

>>
>>and I, for one, am very glad that you don't. just how, pray tell, would you
>>'get the majority ... to follow suit', were you able to? confiscatory taxation?
>>set up some camps? just take them out and shoot them? the possibilities are
>>endless.
> 
>I'm glad I don't either.  What I had in mind, as it happens, was education
>-- yeah, yeah, I know, typical liberal idiocy.  Doesn't Crowley mention
>somewhere that he always had trouble with the fact that he couldn't change
>a lifetime of bad habits with a few friendly words of explanation?
> 
>Seriously, though, one of the real (and deadly) temptations of the Path
>is the desire to use force (or politics, which is just another name for
>the same thing) to impose your understandings on the rest of the world.
>I've read enough eco-fascist literature to know that there are quite a
>few people who would gladly take the steps you mention in defense of the
>Earth...
> 
>It never works.  With luck, it's never a temptation I'll have to face.
>>
>>josh
> 
>-- John Michael Greer
>   grimoire@u.washington.edu


We can't just stand by and watch them die.. we need a way to funnell in
unlimited abundance and that means we have to find a way into space and
quick.  Why can't we bring space to us?
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