From: alizard@pil.UUCP
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: re: Space: The Final Frontier
Date: Sat, 07 Nov 92 00:01:45 PST

Re: Space: The Final Frontier ) was Witches and death (
By: gil #0 @Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick) USEnet      

>In article <gate.uDDoTB1w165w@pil.UUCP> alizard@pil.UUCP writes:
>
> > this is from last night... Gil, you appear to be qualified to speak within
> > your discipline and from your observations, your qualifications to speak
abou
>t
> > what it takes to feed the industrial complex it takes to make the
electronic
> > devices you take so lightly appear to be non-existent.
>
>Are you really trying to berate me with a repeated posting of the same
>senseless crap you have already regurgitated? Or are you just trying
>to give me the shits completely?

Why is it senseless? What makes my previous post senseless? All
I've seen from you in contradiction of my previous statement is
some non-responsive bullshit about my emotional state.

>Your original comment, fellow, was to the effect of how lucky we all
>were to have the living standards bestowed upon us by the industrial
>complex, to which I responded to the effect that such toys are a dime
>a dozen; even Aboriginal people in far outback Australia use computers
>and have access to satellite communications, none of which has had any
>significant impact on their standard of living at all beyond a very
>marginal enhancement of their ability to keep in touch with one
>another. Big deal!

You really ought to look a lot further into the relationship between urban
and rural cultures before you comment on this any further. Do modern
aborigines use axes? Do you have any idea of what level of investment goes
into a steel industry, from mining through finished product?  While good steel
implements CAN be made by blacksmiths, handmade goods of this kind cost
several times as much. Pricing them out of people's reach. You seem to think
that the goods and tools you take for granted will appear out of nowhere in
response to your sending a check to a mail order distributor. Your emotional
response to this is comparable to that of the South Sea cargo cultists. If
you don't like where your high tech comes from, don't use it to berate its
creators for not being paragons of virtue.

Your vision in any case is severely limited, I fully expect to see a few
years from now the aborigines you work with telecommuting via satellite to US
software companies... (it's a profitable thing to get into, and doesn't take a
whole lot of investment, this is one reason why programmers and engineers in
India are already doing this.) which suggests that you should study native
folkways while you still can.

>All these clever toys are available off the shelf, further, comprising
>only a supply-side economic stimulus to the industrial complex which
>is imposed on other people when it might as well consider the demand-
>side stimulus arising from what people themselves want. I repeat; what
>people have been asking for is adequate nutrition, health care and
>education, which is the province of mature women not the uninitiated
>boys who think all these gadgets are so fucking brilliant.

In any case, you think that the solutions for ANY of these problems you cite
don't have anything to do with new technology? I, among others, are WORKING
on some solutions to these problems. What do you have to contribute? Have a
talk with local providers of the services you assert the need for before you
tell us what technologies humans really need.

These technologies and the theories underlying them are created by "mature"
women as well, you should re-examine your ideas about sex role
specialization. Before someone else flames you for sexism. (I'm leaving this
to the women scientists and technologists on this newsgroup, as I think
they'll do a better job than I can.)

As for "off the shelf", most of what is "off the shelf" wasn't a few years
ago. Technology progresses due to the efforts of creative, greedy people.
Whether you progress intellectually or not.

>The question arises on how the industrial complex manages to attract
>such a massive portion of world resources while hungry people are
>simply ignored? Doesn't it make you wonder how Yeltsin was able to
>borrow (what was it, $21 billion?) to save his Russian "democracy"
>while none of the Southern African states get a brass razoo to help
>their people recover from the effects of the same "Cold War" you had
>been fighting with the USSR? Believe me, it was pretty bloody hot in
>their part of the world.
>
>Maybe it is simply that Russians make better satellite launchers (now
>available to the US at the bargain basement price $2-5 million) while
>the poor people in Africa can barely grow maize. You can already grow
>better crops than the Africans, too, I gather? Why would you want such
>lazy black good-for-nothings around anyway? Why don't you just shoot a
>few more and help get rid of such a burden on the world economy?

As for Russian aid vs. aid to other Third World countries, it isn't their
availablily of missile launchers, it is the thousands of nuclear warheads
that fit them that worries the US. Quite properly, your viewpoint is colored
by the fact that you don't live on ground zero. Staying alive is a first
priority in all cultures I ever heard of.

As for the lower price of Soviet launch capability, these are closeout
prices... if we were effectively liquidating our space program, we'd be able
to match these prices.

As for shooting blacks...Shoot potential customers? I'd look into choosing a
different selection of recreational drugs if I were you.

>I don't give a fuck what it takes to feed the industrial complex,
>beyond that which is forceably taken *from* others against their will
>to that purpose. What we are concerned about at this end is what it
>takes to feed families and build hospitals and schools.

You may not care, but your guinea pigs have to whether they know it or not,
how well the industrial complex works defines what prices they pay when they
buy from the First World. If scarcities of critical raw materials raise
prices on goods, your research subjects will be the first priced out of the
market. It might be Keflin (a broad spectrum antibiotic), not the latest
486-66 DOS clone that your people find themselves unable to get. Conversely,
if average prices for technological products drop, your research subjects
will be able to afford more of what they want or need from us.

That's the biggest financial justification for massive public investment in
ultra low cost space industrial capability. So everyone can realize the
benefits of cheaper products made by methods that do a lot less environmental
damage. Maybe cheaper satellite dishes don't matter to you personally, since
its government money anyway... but cheaper satellite dishes due to advanced
industrial techniques that are physically impossible on Earth will make it
possible to serve more and smaller villages that it isn't cost-effective to
serve at this point in time. Or just cheaper digital thermometers. Will it
matter to your guinea pigs? Ask them a few years down the line. Your
definitions of their needs are no longer of that much interest to me.

Feeding families... talk to our American organic farmers...

Building hospitals and schools? After the physical plant, we need cheaper
high tech tools to assist in providing medical and educational services, so 1
doctor or teacher can serve several times as many people. Especially
important in areas with little, no, or rare medical access. (more doctors?
Any idea how much of an allocation of social resources it takes to educate a
doctor? Let's see some numbers.) In any case, everything I've ever seen in a
hospital is the product of an advanced technological civilization. What do
you claim to know about medical technology?

>Or are you another of these Sci-Fi Dweeb Wizards, or something?
>
>Fucking mindless deadshit.

Your name calling is an admission to the entire newsgroup that you ran out
of ideas several minutes ago. Of course, your admission was unnecessary, we
already read your post.

You seem to take your lack of familiarity with how a technological
civilization really works and how that working affects Third World cultures
as a sign of spiritual superiority. I take it as simple ignorance that isn't
worth glorifying. Maybe you should look up George Bush and share your
respective ignorance. He might treat it with more respect than I do.

                                                 A.Lizard
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