The Answer To All Of Our Problems.

Space Exploration.

Throughout time, humanity has thrived upon expension of resources. Well, there's three ways to expend resources.

1) Destroy them.
2) Use them to expand.
3) Use them to create weapons, that are expended by destroying others.

We seem absolutely bent on Door #3.

We're always "THIS NATION IS BETTER THAN THAT" and then we produce guns and equipment and uniforms and vehicles and bombs to be used in battles.

The production drives our economy forward, giving everyone jobs, and makes everyone happy - but we've got to kill to do it.

Why not go with expansion?

If everyone on earth just said "Screw it, there's enough space in the Universe for all of us" and then put everything they had 24/7 into Space Exploration and Colonisation, then they'd be spending resources, something they think is bad, but is actually pure good.

We'd build rockets and houses and homes and buildings and shuttles and suits and tools and items and research labs and spaceships - expending our resources massively, so that we have more jobs and drive the economy and everyone is happy. Yay!

If we just did it, everything would be fine for everyone, but we won't, so war is our only means of survival, which puts us down in the dumps and dooms us here to hell.

Oh well.

Any comments on why, or how to initiate this change?

The three main problems are
Greed
Most Humans are very war like, and subconciously like war and killing
Ethnic/language difference

However I agree that this is what should be done, however alot of new tech used for positive things comes from the R&D of weapons

I agree! Let me know when you've convinced bin Laden to go to the moon rather than conquest Israel and the west.

Originally posted by iori_komei
however alot of new tech used for positive things comes from the R&D of weapons

Same way they could be developed in space programs... or actually it would be even better because military has tendency to not release their inventions.

www.sti.nasa.gov...

After two days, that's all you can muster?

A sad, "It'd be nice but we like war too much." and some cynical outlooks?

Well, I hadn't felt like it could really be impossible to get this kind of thing off of the ground - but if the most outwardthinking and revolutionary minds on the internet can't rally behind the idea in a real form besides a "Should but won't" - then perhaps it can't be done.

This is why anything out there isn't coming to say Hi. It's because we aren't ready yet. We can't just let go of our anger and say "We owe you one but man, we don't care. It isn't worth it." Hate in return for hate will forever be our creed.

It saddens me.

It's sad, that's true. But you can't change everyone's minds. People, in general, are very pre-occuoied, uneducated, selfish, animals. It's not nessicarilly their fault. Perhaps it's their environment, who knows? The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of the people on this planet don't care much either way about space travel. Sure, they may occasionally become excited when NASA or the ESA release beautiful or dramatic pictures. But these are people who often are poor, disenfranchised, and disenchanted with the world. I unfortunately don't think the emotional climate of the world right now is producing much of the kind of enthusiasm and optimism you're displaying. But don't be discouraged. The space program needs more supporters like you.

To be honest, I agree. Space exploration is going to be the unifying factor some day. Nothing will eliminate people like Osama, but it is only human to want to know more. Human nature dictates we explore. Human problems dictate the necessity.

I support the further advancement of space exploration, all I'm saying is that its human nature to fight and war.
Actualy a few concepts for interstellar (FTL) engines have been made, of course the hyperspace drive (technicly not moving FTL) the alcubierre warp drive, gravity drives, artificial worm-holes.
Though we like to war, the curious side of our nature tends to be more dominant than the needless agression side.

So it probably wont be to long before you hear "Warp 7, engage".
(NOTE: when I say not to long I mean with in the next 50-200 years.)

The reason I'm so .. unwilling to accept this..

It's because the.. think about it.

This is a proposed answer to all of our societal and economical problems that exist today. I'm not trying to take any sort of credit for this idea, because I know it isn't mine. I thought of it without being handed it or seeing it - but I know it's someone elses in origin.

The thing is - the proposal is one to bypass the problems of human behaviour, and the only objection raised is that there are problems with human behaviour.

Though the situation is more complex, the best analogy I can find is this:

"The following should fix your car, sir. Just apply it."
".. But.. my car is broken."
"Well, this will fix it."
"Pft, not if it's broken."

-- That's the way I feel about it. It just pains me. I've always been the sort that thinks agnostically, with a twist. That there's no physical way to prove the existence of any sort of creator figure or benign overruling force, and that there is not even any sure bet that there is one - but (here's my twist, which isn't that uncommon) - If you can 'figure it out' and manage to just happen upon the answer, or to just stumble upon the reason we exist, or the reason they exist, or some piece of knowledge like that - that it would be sort of like the lottery had just been won.

Suddenly, a ray of light would shoot down, or at the least the skies would open in the mind of the finder, and all would become clear.

A booming recognition that "An answer has been found" would come to them, and once they knew the answer, all they had to do was go do it.

Of course this is a silly notion, and I don't advocate that it has any firm backing or makes any sort of theological or idealogical sense. It's just crap that I'm typing at 2:00 AM when I'm running low on sleep, and it made sense a month ago when I was speaking about it with people.

The point is, given that religious idea, which I happen to enjoy, because it gives a logical agnostic view with a sense of hope. But in reality, when the idea is applied to humanity, it fails out.

Even if the answer is found, no one can just suddenly act upon it.

It's .. sad.

(Post Script: Please, if what you've read in this post offends you or is confusingly written, or is just stupid, then I'd like to remind you first that I'm sorely sleep deprived, and second that I'm not some nut who thinks he has all the answers - I just like thinking about them, because they're the most interesting things to think about aside from physics. As Hawking put it in Brief History, "The search is to know the mind of God" - more specifically and scientifically, to know the fabric and make of existence itself. At present, physical and theological means are both equally viable paths to arrive at conclusions, with the major difference being that one path is relative to the observer and the other is objective within the universe. I don't claim to have found my personal god, but do claim to have thought about this more than I need to. The sleep-needing crap ends now, I apologise.)

Viendin

No need to apologize. There are lots of "thinkers" around here.
Makes it interesting.


There is another kind of greed, the insatiable thirst for knowledge.
Someday it might be our saving grace, who knows..