Re:Yes (Score 1)

Hmmmm well maybe. Some things do change. Your using one right now. When this was the ARPANET most people assumed you could not have a computer network that ran by any of the means that were then popular, which were central control and someone to answer to. I used to describe what I worked on and how it worked and people assured me it couldn't work that way. People wouldn't do anything for the general good, self interest is everything and the Ayn Rand told me so. The problem with conventional wisdom is it is accepted by all until something different comes along. Then the new thing becomes completely obvious and everyone says "why did I believe conventional wisdom". This happens all the time form the stock market, to technology. I remember my cynical ecofriends saying that "oh computers will come to nothing..." of "no large poretion of the general public will accept computers. The sad thing would be to allow obviously cynical and gloomy conventional wisdom to set the tone and start out in a bad manner. One can argue that much of the behavior of the New World Colonization came from the societies that they spring from that had a correspondingly dim view of the world. This was all done before the re-flowering democracy in the world. The people who ran it and controlled things had an imperialistic worldview. They held that by default their worldview and ways of doing things were the only right way and God Almighty had given them the power to do what they did. Remember when all of this started which was around 1500 at the very dawn of the modern world. So there is chance that the jump to space could be a different sort of thing. The socities that wish to do it and could do it are different than the empires that controlled the past. Even in the past one can look that things that sprung out of the democratic model that came from Great Britain ended up better than one would expect from the cynical world view. One is talking about the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, India et al. Lots of mistakes were made and lots more will be made no doubt, but overall the tone has been positive. Since this is probably going to be done by people who are highly technical and we know we are different.;) There will be less of a gung ho conquer the universe sort of attitude. Furthermore the privations of space will enforce a higher level of cooperation on people. I mean go to Northern Canada or even the Northen Provinces of China which are far from Bejing often will behave more cooperatively than the people near the Imperial Capitals. All of this being said it would be a big mistake to not at least establish a presence in space at the L points. I mean that would be a nice set of jumping points from the Low Earth Orbit we have now to the realms of the moon and deeper space. It would be good to start with a democratic and optimistic worldview. Rather than a gloomy depressing one that gives one the feeling of "why bother" We know have the benefit of hindsightand realization of what went wrong and we can try to fix it. There will probably be some of the human folly that attends all things humans do but perhaps this time it will be better. Have Fun, Sends Steve