have a great deal of respect for you

Sorry, I should have made it more obvious that I was writing tongue in cheek about the monarchy. Not about SpaceX though. I'm pretty impressed.

It doesn't work to do this with a democratic government. We need a monarchy :-(

Or perhaps a font of sage wisdom? You know, like a Council? Composed of wise people, you know, like one's Elders? Something any sentient species ought to be able to figure out. Speaking of which, I feel another press release coming on...

K'Breel, Speaker for the Council, addresses the publication of the new report thusly:

"WE HAVE TRIUMPHED! Our skilled operatives from the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Propaganda; Planetary Research Council have successfully infiltrated the blueworlders' technological and informational systems. One notable document, Pathways to Exploration makes clear the disarray in which the blueworlders' long-term invasion plans lie, drawing on the history of meat-controlled spaceflight to justify future programs in organic space exploitation. Although the report promotes the invasion of our world as the horizon goal for the program, it takes into account funding levels necessary to maintain a robust tempo of execution, current research and exploration projects and the time/resources needed to continue them, and intertribal cooperation that would be required to further oppress the citizens of our fair red world."

"And its conclusion? Although the mechanized threat remains, and we salute those still fighting pitched battles with the two active land-based invaders, Pathways to Exploration makes it clear that it is not possible for the blueworlders' organic-based self-replicators to invade our world, at least not without a sustained commitment to funding at a higher level than their own tribal leaders are currently providing."

When an intern from the defense engineering board suggested that improving the capabilities of the blueworlders' EDL systems, radshielding, and propulsion and power systems were ultimately matters of engineering and not physics, and could ultimately be addressed if the tribals of the blue world ever get it into their oxygen-addled brains to work together to achieve a common goal (as, the intern suggested, the way any sentient species does), K'Breel had the intern's gelsacs addled by immersing them in a suitably-merciful quantity of liquid oxygen.

Thus spake K'Breel, Speaker for the Council of Elders, Committee on Native Spaceflight; Arenautics and Defense Engineering Board; Defense Studies Board; Division of Blueworlder Social and Physical Sciences; Committee on Gelsacular Statistics.

It doesn't work to do this with a democratic government. We need a monarchy :-(

It seems to me that SpaceX is on the path to a solution that might be affordable by a single administration, though.

I kept thinking "I am the very model of a modern Major Perl Framework..."

I am the very model of a modern Major Perl Framework,
But here I am on Slashdot, trying harder from my job to shirk,
From HackerNews to 4chan there's no forum in which I won't lurk,
I am the very model of a modern Major Perl Framework!

There's a semi-famous SciFi story first published in a 1990 edition of OMNI magazine:

THEY'RE MADE OUT OF MEAT

Quite relevant, and quite funny.

Someone also made a seven and a half minute film of the story. It has a few cute video aspects, but overall it didn't come off so well and it's missing a few lines. I definitely recommend the original text link above rather the video version, but here's the video link anyway.

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Maybe you were infected by a stray creationist meme, chuckle.

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I can imagine a world without war, a world without hate, a world where everyone lives together in peace. I can imagine us attacking that world.

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It's a damn sight better than "all the experts think that, therefor I'm going to spin a wild conspiracy theory and believe the opposite!"

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The Slashdot population leans heavy on the tech and science geek side, people who are generally pretty good at finding reliable websites like the National Academy of Science, and secondary websites that reasonably reflect reliable mainstream science.

Usually.

Except when it comes to fucking climate change, when suddenly a substantial portion of our population buy into some wacky conspiracy theory that the entire mainstream science community is in on some conspiracy to publish lies, and they start actively rejecting the fucking United States National Academy of Science as presumptively unreliable, and instead start digging up random blatantly trash websites that gain "reliable" status when they see that the info supports the "right" side of the issue. And you start running into "climate" papers cited to support a point - papers filled with blatant errors - and when you google the author's name to try to figure out what sort of idiot wrote it, it turns out the author wasn't a climate scientists at all..... no... the author was a "combustion engineer".... and then you think "WTF is a combustion engineer" and you find the link to his professional page you see (drumroll please) he's a combustion engineer specializing in how to burn coal better. And you can't help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. Because the otherwise competent geek you were debating with fell into paranoid conspiracy nonsense throwing out everything he knows about reliable science, and rejecting sites like the National Academy of science as "unreliable".... and instead found himself a "reliable" junksite that said what he wanted to hear.

You can use reliable sites to figure out what to believe, or you can use what you believe to determine which websites are reliable. One of those two options doesn't work so well.

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I could point out that in 20 years of tracking the climate you'd EXPECT typically one result breaking the 95% confidence band on the high side and one result breaking the 95% confidence band on the low side.... and that I'm pretty sure we broke the 95% confidence band on the high side in 1998... but never mind that....

The whole warming thing is basic undeniable laws of physics. Sunlight shines down, hits the ground or ocean, and turns into heat. And basic laws of physics, CO2 blocks thermal infrared energy from leaving. Heat energy is trapped, Q.E.D. the basic principal and basic fact of global warming is an absolute undeniable result of basic laws of physics. The only complicated part is exactly what will happen with that trapped thermal energy. Where will it go and what will it do.

Surface temperatures have been rising slightly slower than predicted for the last few years, however the ocean temperatures have been rising faster than predicted for the last few years. That means the total warming balances out right just as expected. As I said, basic laws of physics, a pretty well predictable amount of heat energy was trapped, exactly as predicted.

The complicated part is how that heat energy will flow in the climate system and what abnormal effects it will produce in climate system. And just as we (in general) expected, it resulted in random anomalies in climate circulation - there was anomalously high rate of ocean mixing carrying more of the heat energy into the deep ocean.

The earth is warming exactly as expected, and weird random shit is starting to crop up in climate circulation patterns, just as anticipated. (I believe Donald Rumsfield would call these "Known Unknowns. We can predict that the climate is going to start doing weird shit we've never seen before, even if we can't predict exactly what that random shit is going to be. The overall heating of the Earth is a pretty well Known Known.)

Changes in ocean circulation is a core expected "unknown". The slight increase in vertical mixing we got is pretty insignificant, it gives a temporary slowing in the land-temperature rise. But another very possible change in ocean circulation patterns would be a shift or shutoff of one of the north-south circulation loops. If that happens.... well.... then they're going to start saying the "Alarmists" were overly optimistic. No one can even guess at the odds of that, so scientists focus on the known-knowns of the total amount of warming and sea level rise.

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The laws of physics aren't PROVEN! They're JUST THEORIES!
Checkmate, warmists.

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Indeed, there is a heavy overlap. Furthermore there's a well established correlation between conspiracy theories in general. Someone who believes in one conspiracy theory is more likely to believe in others. Anti-vaxxers and moon-landing deniers are more likely to be warming-deniers or creationists, creationists and warming-deniers are more likely to be anti-vaxxers or moon-landing deniers. Oh... and toss in 9/11 Truthers of course.

Once you start believing NASA/Doctors/Biologists/Climatologists/Geologists or whoever are in on some vast global conspiracy of deception, it's easy to expand and merge the conspiracies.

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Lead was eliminated from gasoline (and our air) by government mandate. The same goes for keeping mercury and other crap out of our water.

So either agree that it is reasonable and appropriate for the government to restrict/prohibit the usage of the atmosphere/waterways as an unlimited dumping ground for industrial waste, or go move to some communist country toxic hellhole city in China or Russia where society polluting HASN'T transformed by government mandate.

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