First of all, this is giving EMP weapons more leverage if you rely too heavily on it. The ephemeral nature of security is also a problem.

I'm also reminded of some plans by some to use RFID tags to decide who is allowed to trade on the market and who is not. I'm wondering whether the efficiency gains are worth the effort. For so little privacy, I at least demand the availability of a far denser power source than diesel to me, i.e. where is my nuclear powered flying car.

Forget it, if you are having a degree that deals with a specialized field like IT, you are in a minority. The rest of the population won't stand up for you, unless you have something tangible to offer. I hear Linux doesn't quite have the market share for that.

Since you mention the familial homeland, I'm wondering whether Germany would allow Americans with a German ancestry back in, as it did with the Volga-Germans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_Germans). They settled in Russia some 200 years earlier and were now allowed back in, because the conditions for them in Russia sucked.

Of course this requires that Germany doesn't go down the same path.

There have been ill spent investments before, appealing to authority won't change that.

I don't question the part of your argument where you want to keep resources in orbit. The issue is with shipping them to earth. Then you have to ponder the energy spent on transport. If you can get it with less energy from earth (almost a given) then mining asteroids won't do anyone any good.

Here is a link going into more detail.
http://www.nss.org/settlement/nasa/spaceresvol3/pmofld1a.htm
I particularly like: "This discussion of geochemical availability and extractive metallurgy implies that extraction of minor elements in space is questionable unless specific natural concentrations are discovered or energy becomes very inexpensive.". So energy is the catch, either nature has invested it already or you have to invest it to concentrate ores.

Slashdot got dumbed down, which may explain the anti-technology trend.

The other thing is that the asteroid mining thing may only be viable for really rare but useful stuff.

The thing is there could be realistic concerns about energy efficiency regarding mining asteroids that could be a deal breaker. Notice that asteroids probably have there minerals finely mixed since there is little geological activity there to concentrate ores.

I don't know how rare earths behave. If they are available in similar concentrations in either place then we can stay on earth.

The energy situation is worth pondering though, and some opposition to fancy tech might result if it is not energy efficient.

There is slavery in western societies, just much less than in other parts of the world.

So is the following to your liking or more yellow journalism:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAE-xqFr0iQ

No, we need all the energy to deal with the problems global warming may cause, also to continue growth. Beyond that gas flows much faster than oil.

This is my sarcastic contribution of the day, although it might turn out to be reality.

Also if past performance is any indication the sun is going to cook us all.

"But as long as the industry tends to exclude more than half of the potential workforce,"

Men are expendable, why don't we keep it that way, and waste them on irrelevant stuff.

Sweet!

http://xkcd.com/305/

Naw, porn sucks, people should just have sex. Also porn doesn't give you any physical contact, which according to some is important.