[FPSPACE] Cometary Impacst, Terraforming, and Maslow's Hierarchy

[Kosmos327 at aol.com]

Mike,
 
I think your characterization of Ed is quite a bit harsher than he  
deserves. At no point has Ed suggested "One True Way" or even suggested than  
anyone is a heretic. As far as I understand, Ed is the only one in this group  
that has done serious studies on the frequencies of cometary impacts. As such 
he  is the only member of this group that truly understands the danger(s) we 
 face.
 
This is not to suggest that there is no one else in this group that is  
knowledgeable on the subject. Simply that Ed has devoted himself to the subject 
 and as such is as passionate about his understandings of the dangers that 
(and I  say this part VERY seriously) other members of this group are 
laughing off. 
 
Your idea of the necessity of man spreading himself around the cosmos to  
guarantee the survival of our species is science fiction at this point. We 
can  write all about it, but are nowhere near having the technology or even 
knowledge  to accomplish something of this magnitude. And there's a real good 
chance  that we will be hit by something big long before Man will have 
planetary  travel.
 
If we were to liken this subject to psychology - specifically "Maslow's  
Hierarchy", planetary travel,  colonization, and especially terra-forming  are 
at the top of the pyramid. Survival of the species would then be at the  
base. We can't get our species out there if we've already been wiped out. I  
think Ed has his priorities in order.
 
Regards,
 
David L. Rickman
 
In a message dated 7/28/2009 11:07:32 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
mike at heney.net writes:

Why is  it infuriating to you?  That suggests you believe that there is One 
 
True Way - and anyone who thinks otherwise is a Heretic.

I LIKE to  see different people pushing different solutions.  People having 
 
different causes.  The fact that there are people working hard on "X"  
frees me to focus on working on "Y".  And we advance along many  fronts.
But to suggest that others are wasting their time because they're  not 
working on YOUR priority is misguided at best.

Add to this the  fact that "defense in depth" is really a good idea.  You 
claim that  "one is heading our way".  Which is true.  And if you keep  
projecting forward, so is another.  And another.  And at some  point, 
there'll be one that's really really big - bigger than we can  handle.
Or maybe we're mistaken about what we CAN handle, and out  mitigation 
attempts fail.  In that case, having an emergency backup  population on the 
moon, or Mars, or scattered throughout the solar system,  suddenly becomes 
a Really Good Thing, if species survival is your  goal.

There is no One True Way.  It's fine to evangelize your  passions - but not 
at the expense of those of others.


On Sat,  25 Jul 2009, E.P. Grondine wrote:





**************An Excellent Credit Score is 750. See Yours in Just 2 Easy 
Steps! 
(http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1222377107x1201454434/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072&hmpgID=62&bcd=Jul
yExcfooterNO62)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.friends-partners.org/pipermail/fpspace/attachments/20090728/03fefbf2/attachment.html