There is a difference between a risky endeavour and certain death.

Instinctively, we accept risk of death when the reward justifies it. Being a successful astronaut is rewarding - in terms of prestige if nothing else.

A compelling scientific mission that will add to human knowledge is arguably more rewarding for civilization, but not for the individual who dies, and the reward is too abstract for our instinctive response.

Plus it's not obvious that there is a lot that live astronauts can do that do that robots can't. Simply 'being first' will not be a compelling reason for others to enable suicide, or be left to watch it helplessly from a distance.

is that Darth Vader managed to commit massive violations of civil and human rights and have probably the two most costly military projects in history fail on his watch, despite which he was completely ineffective in his counter-terrorism policy. His career as a public servant was a series of disasters.

So, about the same as most Earth politicians.

If oil can leak out, bacteria can leak in.

(It doesn't matter whether that's true or not; it's enough that it sounds plausible.)

The problem illustrates technology egos gone mad.

Of course they know 99% of even technical people simply cannot fix software of this complexity. They are waiting for everyone else to point out how inadequate ordinary people or even ordinary software developers are compared to masters such as themselves, because they would rather listen to that than follow through with whatever commitment they made.

He tried to *relocate* it, not close it.

I think the point about replacing blood is just to get the refrigerant to all parts of the body quickly. But if there was any temporary oxygen deprivation, there could be brain damage and then you've got zombies.

It could be worse. Before the printing press, proper names were generally translated, not just transliterated.

All we know is that prison doesn't deter the people who end up there. It's possible that prison is the reason why so many law-abiding people are law-abiding.

Justice has to be *seen* to be done, or people will stop believing in it.

Depends on your definition of 'mass unemployment'. There have been substantial economic dislocations in the past and a great deal of human suffering until the job and labour markets adjusted.

Now technological advances give us economic dislocation on a nearly continuous basis.

...were on to something. Not that mechanization is evil - it is progress. But what we're seeing now that we have not faced in the past is technology and automation advancing faster than society's capacity to restructure the economy so that everyone has an opportunity for some basic livelihood. Extremes of poverty and desperation are not a good alternative.

Also known as "oil".

Not so much. For years afterwards, the Nazis' best military hardware was the stuff they got from Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia didn't just lose territory, they had to leave everything behind in the frontier defences.

Great. Now there will be a war to decide whether 'Rus' means Russia or the original Kievian Rus.

England ceased to exist in 1707.

I think this might be the one theory about creationism that makes any sense. They know perfectly well evolution (actually the theory is natural selection - evolution was the observation that everyone agreed about) is true, so they advance a position they know to be wrong because that is the only way they can be sure they will face rejection.