Because they took different titles. It's a good enough disguise to fool many. — Vera Mont

So we scared them so much, they are now in heavy disguises and working only in the shadows. Sounds like a big success for us. But , yeah still more to do, in ripping such out, by the roots no matter how well they try to hide.

Only it's not measured on the cosmic scale, but in human life-cycles. — Vera Mont

Human lifespan is also improving and may go exponential, due to tech advances.

I never said I made "quality wine", and if California is your hallmark, you'd be content with many Canadian vintages. — Vera Mont

True, you did not. I also drink some OZ wines and some cheeky wee French ones, that my sis, who married a Frenchman, sends over from time to time.

Apples, cherries, plums and pears can make acceptable wine and go on to become excellent brandy. To bring it a little closer to the fairway: in every culture I've heard of, alcohol and other psychotropic substances have played significant roles in social bonding, medicine, ritual and taboo. — Vera Mont

Yeah, I know, I have tasted quite a bit of various moonshines, Irish poitín, strange Polish vodka type creations, very strong versions of absinthe and even some petrol style tasting stuff I was told was Greek ouzo, etc All best avoided, if life longevity is one of your goals.

I just have not tasted the kinds of wines you mentioned you make. But if I am ever offered such I will have a try, as such is part of my birthright as a member of the Glaswegian swally appreciation population. Hic Hic!

So we scared them so much, they are now in heavy disguises and working only in the shadows. — universeness

Hell, no! They're wearing $6000 suits and sitting in boardrooms on top of very tall glass buildings or flying around in private jets, being served endangered species on platinum skewers, surrounded by mercenary armies with higher standard gear than the national army. Of course, some of them command national armies. They have nothing to fear: a hundred ranks of expendable commoners stand between themselves and any danger.

Human lifespan is also improving and may go exponential, due to tech advances. — universeness

Yeah. You get to be old, useless and helpless much longer.... assuming the bomb or tornado or riptide doesn't flatten your rooming house. Of course, with national healthcare schemes gutted by Covid and right-wing politics, that tech-assisted longevity will soon be available only to the aristocracy and their top-level catspaws.

I just have not tasted the kinds of wines you mentioned you make. — universeness

Home wine makers use all manner of fruits and flowers and herbs, some with great skill. I was an enthusiastic experimenter and not terrible at it. I even made a passable coffee wine that paired well with dessert. All the Hungarian and Italian home winemakers I've known stuck to red grapes -- where's the fun in that?
I stopped making them when the space I used was repurposed. It's quite a messy business.

Hell, no! They're wearing $6000 suits and sitting in boardrooms on top of very tall glass buildings or flying around in private jets, being served endangered species on platinum skewers, surrounded by mercenary armies with higher standard gear than the national army. Of course, some of them command national armies. They have nothing to fear: a hundred ranks of expendable commoners stand between themselves and any danger. — Vera Mont

So why don't they declare themselves King again? Seems to me they are afraid of something or they would reveal themselves for all to see, how can you be King if most don't even know you exist, in the same way the Kings of old existed and were known to all their subject and no-one could dare challenge their divine right to rule. These powers which wear expensive suits, seem to me to pale, in comparison to what I traditionally understand as the total power of a King of old. They do not even seem equivalent in power to totalitarian autocrats like Hitler or Stalin. Who, to me, did wield power that was comparable to the Kings of old. People like Elon Musk or Donal Trump currently almost seem like comical parodies of such horrors as Stalin and Hitler. They could become like such however if we let them. The real power remains with the masses, not the nefarious few. The problem is that the masses don't realise the real power they have, once they cooperate. United we stand!

Yeah. You get to be old, useless and helpless much longer.... — Vera Mont

Or you get to travel around the solar system in a very comfortable, robust, protected, life sustaining, exoskeletal suit, whilst engaging with your built in AI system, which controls your navigation and directly works with your brain to provide all the inputted sensor data you need to take whichever actions are required, to get you safely to the next, stepping stone space/moon based/ facility on your journey towards your exciting destination, to perform the very interesting task you have been assigned.

I stopped making them when the space I used was repurposed. It's quite a messy business. — Vera Mont

It's good to have hobbies, I still have a lot of fun doing my oil paintings and trying to finish my wee sci-fi book.

So why don't they declare themselves King again? — universeness

One of them is hoping to - already has the throne and succession lined up; another is shooting for godhood.

These powers which wear expensive suits, seem to me to pale, in comparison to what I traditionally understand as the total power of a King of old. — universeness

You're the one hung up on monarchy, not them. They're mostly okay, pulling the strings, enjoying the benefits of control, without having to show up for tiresome ceremonies, marry pallid princesses and getting overripe fruit thrown at them. A few like to put on a show.

Or you get to travel around the solar system in a very comfortable, robust, protected, life sustaining, exoskeletal suit, whilst engaging with your built in AI system, which controls your navigation and directly works with your brain to provide all the inputted sensor data you need to take whichever actions are required, to get you safely to the next, stepping stone space/moon based/ facility on your journey towards your exciting destination, to perform the very interesting task you have been assigned. — universeness

Sure.... All 8000,000,000 of us, plus the next generation and the next....

From the last page alone: praxis @universeness @Vera Mont @180 Proof
How would you describe this thread? — Amity

The phrase "hot mess" comes to mind.

Is it only a 'chat' or is there more to it? — Amity

I'd say there's more to it than mere blather.

Has it touched on philosophy? — Amity

Not that I've noticed but I haven't read all of it.

How valuable have the exchanges been? — Amity

Generally good though there are some odd ideas being bounced around.

What ideas/posts have made you think? — Amity

This:

Moral, is a matter of cause and effect. When the consequences are good it is moral. If the consequences are bad it is immoral. — Athena

How would this understanding apply to something like abortion? I think that for any normal person abortion 'feels' wrong, so one consequence of it is a bad feeling. That indicates that it's immoral, according to the cause & effect view. On the other hand, studies indicate that legalizing abortion reduces crime/poverty, a good consequence.

Things become less clear when it comes to personal rights, authority, and tradition. The values that shape our personal and social identities often disagree on the consequences of abortion.

Would it be out of place in the main area? — Amity

It was in place there for months, if I'm not mistaken. In any case, the topic seems to have only three major contributors and moving it to the lounge section didn't seem to bother them at all.

:cool:

:100:

:up:

Thanks for taking the time to answer my specific questions. Your responses make sense.
Love the 'hot mess'!

It was in place there for months, if I'm not mistaken. In any case, the topic seems to have only three major contributors and moving it to the lounge section didn't seem to bother them at all. — praxis

Interesting.
I wonder if the blethering aspect increased after the move.
Unfortunately, I think I've added to that!

One of them is hoping to - already has the throne and succession lined up; another is shooting for godhood. — Vera Mont

King Kim is a great example, look at how he and his supporting gangsters have to terrorise and supress any democratic socialist rumblings within North Korea. That system will fall, you and I both know that. I reiterate my insistence that the efforts of past and present grass roots movement/revulsion/fury against such systems have mostly destroyed them and we are doing all we can to stop them ever rising again. I do agree with you that that is the goal all good people everywhere are finding most difficult to guarantee.

You're the one hung up on monarchy, not them. They're mostly okay, pulling the strings, enjoying the benefits of control, without having to show up for tiresome ceremonies, marry pallid princesses and getting overripe fruit thrown at them. A few like to put on a show. — Vera Mont

Not 'hung up' as you put it, but more celebrating its global destruction via the power of the masses.

Sure.... All 8000,000,000 of us, plus the next generation and the next.... — Vera Mont

8 billion galaxies is a splash in the cosmic ocean, never mind 8 billion people. A human is currently one of the rarest objects in the known universe.

the topic seems to have only three major contributors and moving it to the lounge section didn't seem to bother them at all. — praxis

:lol: Well said!

I wonder if the blethering aspect increased after the move.
Unfortunately, I think I've added to that! — Amity

In my case, probably yes. The lounge, as it's name implies, is a more relaxed environment than the main page. So from that angle, perhaps as you suggested, @Jamal was justified in moving the thread here. But I still think ...... nah!, as I think many of those currently on TPF, who consider themselves, 'heavy hitters' in philosophy, are 'missing out' on many of the aspects of realpolitik and real human life, that has been exemplified in this thread and threads like it. This is of course only my opinion, and it remains strongly held.

I hope future on-line social media becomes publicly owned and financed only. Its mods/administrators elected by the membership and are democratically removable. However, this could only be achievable if state controlled horrors such as the current Russian, North Korean, Chinese state media can be guaranteed, not to be possible, due to very robust checks and balances established to combat such.
Perhaps AI could help us achieve this. I accept that such a reliable, fully democratic system has never been achieved in history, but that does not mean that such can never be achieved. Some publicly owned broadcast systems are quite good imo.

8 billion galaxies is a splash in the cosmic ocean, never mind 8 billion people. A human is currently one of the rarest objects in the known universe. — universeness

You don't see a logistical problem? https://qz.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-visit-the-international-space-1850461158 That's just getting one person into orbit, not across the galaxy or over to Andromeda, and does not even include the initial cost of constructing suitable containers. Where is all that metal and fuel supposed to come from?
I begin to suspect that your expectations of the future are less than realistic

Massive logistical problems Vera, absafragginlootly! My imagery of spacefaring individuals in AI augmented, exoskeletal, spacesuits, was at least restricted to travel within our solar system only.
I don't expect an ability to travel interstellar any time soon. Intergalactic travel is I suspect, still a very, very long time away, unless something like wormholes are real.
I think I might see a moon base get established before I die and maybe even the first human footsteps on Mars and maybe the first significant space station which can hold and maintain many more humans than something like the ISS. I was only trying to exemplify the kind of exciting human future, I am attempting to present to you. I was not suggest that all 8 billion people currently living on this planet can start becoming spacefaring, any time soon. But such thinking could encourage many more folks to support and yearn for us becoming a globally united species who have new and better cause, meaning and purpose, in their lives.

To boldy go ..........

I was only trying to exemplify the kind of exciting human future, I am attempting to present to you. — universeness

I understand that.

I was not suggest that all 8 billion people currently living on this planet can start becoming spacefaring, any time soon. — universeness

How many man-hours of their effort, how much of the natural resources on which they rely for subsistence, do ordinary people currently contribute to sending one rich buffoon into orbit for a couple of days? (Or under the ocean - but at least that buffoon won't do it again.) How much planetary degradation, how much pollution, how much climate warming does each exciting human adventure contribute to an already fatally damaged ecosystem?

Logistics, forsooth!

But such thinking could encourage many more folks to support and yearn for us becoming a globally united species who have new and better cause, meaning and purpose, in their lives. — universeness

More of that frickin subservience under the banner of cause, meaning and purpose! All that will happen is another damn race to grab most of it faster.

I think you should clean your own room before you go renovating the town.

How many man-hours of their effort, how much of the natural resources on which they rely for subsistence, do ordinary people currently contribute to sending one rich buffoon into orbit for a couple of days? (Or under the ocean - but at least that buffoon won't do it again.) How much planetary degradation, how much pollution, how much climate warming does each exciting human adventure contribute to an already fatally damaged ecosystem? — Vera Mont

How much waste is spent on allowing a nefarious few to have dominion over the planet? How much more could be achieved if the resources humans can access were employed in ways that would best preserve the planets ecology, meet the needs of the people on it, without destroying all other fauna sharing it and best progress our species to become the spacefarers we are compelled to become. With all due respect, I think your targeting system has malfunctioned. I am not afraid to recommend that the human race become extraterrestial, due to concerns that we will bring all of our bad habits with us, and be doomed to repeat all of the horrors some have perpetrated on Earth, everywhere we go outside of Earth. The universe is vast and the base resources it contains are abundant, we just need the tech to access them. We will not find new knowledge if we don't go seek it out, we wont find all the answers we seek on little Earth.

I think you should clean your own room before you go renovating the town. — Vera Mont

My room and my house are very well maintained but I am not hermitical. The universe beckons. Those who wish to exist only on Earth can do so, but such people have no right or power to stop our species from exploring where we have never been before. The curiosity of the cat was always far more limited than the curiosity of humans. Exploration is critical to human nature and culture.

"We embarked on our journey to the stars with a question first framed in the childhood of our species and in each generation asked anew with undiminished wonder: What are the stars? Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars."

Carl Sagan

How much more could be achieved if the resources humans can access were employed in ways that would best preserve the planets ecology, meet the needs of the people on it, without destroying all other fauna sharing it — universeness

Exactly! Conservation, cleanup, flood protection, urban agriculture, underground shelters, clean water, housing, refugee placement, fire prevention...
Compared to any feasible climate mitigating measures or emergency relief, the resources that required by the spacefaring few are hugely disproportionate.

I am not afraid to recommend that the human race become extraterrestial due to concerns that we will bring all of our bad habits with us and be doomed to repeat all of the horrors some have perpetrated on Earth, everywhere we go, outside of Earth. — universeness

Yet, that is precisely what will inevitably happen, unless we figure out how to stop behaving this way before we go anywhere else. We are not mature enough for extraterrestrial exploration without extraterrestrial despoilation.

The universe is vast and the base resources it contains are abundant, we just need the tech to access them. We will not find new knowledge if we don't go seek it out, — universeness

You're already putting resource exploitation before knowledge collecting. And you're a Sagan acolyte, not one of the potential interplanetary conquistadors.

The stars "beckon" mankind the same way a diamond beckons a jewel thief or a bottle calls to a drunk. They don't want you; you want them.

You're already putting resource exploitation before knowledge collecting. And you're a Sagan acolyte, not one of the potential interplanetary conquistadors. — Vera Mont

That's a big assumption Vera. You don't destroy a river by drinking from it. We will need to tap into extraterrestrial resources yes, but, I don't advocate for mindlessly exploiting resources in some dystopian mimicry of the nefarious rich, here on Earth. As an 'acolyte' of Carl, I follow his determined stance, against the way some have ravaged the Earths resources. He was 100% for space exploration and development and he was 100% against misuse of resources, as am I.

The stars "beckon" mankind the same way a diamond beckons a jewel thief or a bottle calls to a drunk. — Vera Mont

Only true for those with nefarious intentions or pathological addictions. As I suggested in my previous post, your targeting system is malfunctioning.

As an 'acolyte' of Carl, I follow his determined stance, against the way some have ravaged the Earths resources. — universeness

What makes you think you would be in charge?
Let me put it this way: If Picard were to visit Earth today, do you sincerely believe he would recommend us for Federation membership?

your targeting system is malfunctioning. — universeness

My targeting system is fine. I see who calls the plays, who pays the price and who gets left lying in the dust. Until that equation shifts significantly, we have no bright future anywhere.

To boldy go .......... — universeness

... where no Artilect has gone before. :nerd:

The stars "beckon" mankind the same way a diamond beckons a jewel thief or a bottle calls to a drunk. They don't want you; you want them. — Vera Mont

:smirk: :up:

What makes you think you would be in charge?
Let me put it this way: If Picard were to visit Earth today, do you sincerely believe he would recommend us for Federation membership? — Vera Mont

No, not as we are right now, but if we (or Gene Roddenberry) can imagineer the federation and its directives and mission statements then, I think we are also capable of creating such.
I don't advocate for any single leader, in fact I am against such, but I do advocate for checks and balances which are formed from the mentality of a human mind such as Carl Sagan's and are made as robust as possible (probably via AI and automation), against any who would try to usurp such checks and balances.

My targeting system is fine. I see who calls the plays, who pays the price and who gets left lying in the dust. Until that equation shifts significantly, we have no bright future anywhere. — Vera Mont

Using some of your own 'emotive' examples.

The stars "beckon" mankind the same way a diamond beckons a jewel thief or a bottle calls to a drunk. They don't want you; you want them. — Vera Mont

Your targeting system currently describes a person who thinks that humankind would greatly benefit from an attempt to unite all nations in a common cause, of space exploration and development as the equivalent of a jewel thief and an alcoholic. No, your targeting system is definitely malfunctioning.

"Until that equation shifts significantly, we have no bright future anywhere."
Do you think you are currently doing all you can to help 'shift the equation?'

To boldy go ..........
— universeness
... where no Artilect has gone before. :nerd: — 180 Proof

"An artificial intellect, a supposed artificial intelligence that may outstrip its human creators in mental capability."

Not enough 'human' for me in your projection. How about human/AI symbiotic augment, ya auld pessimist! A.K.A @Vera Mont

To boldy go where no human/AI symbiotic/Cybernetic augment has gone before.
Would more fit my own projection. HASCA's for short.

Humans, live their normal life, very similar to the way we do now, and then can, if they choose to, become a HASCA, as an alternative to death.

Your targeting system currently describes a person who thinks that humankind would greatly benefit from an attempt to unite all nations in a common cause, of space exploration and development as the equivalent of a jewel thief and an alcoholic. — universeness

That is not the person I described. The person I described has so far done everything in his considerable power to thwart all attempts at uniting people at all levels, from ethnically mixed and gender unmixed marriage, through trade unions, co-operatives and party coalitions to the United Nations. The one who spends $100, 000, 000 on an airplane that does exactly nothing but waste vast quantities of fuel, until it's ordered to destroy some other airplane. That's the guy who will be in charge of the next big project and the next - with total disregard to what you or I advocate.

Do you think you are currently doing all you can to help 'shift the equation?' — universeness

Yes. I believe - on the basis of evidence gathered over some decades - that no significant shift in power can take place in the present configuration of humanity. I believe that our only hope for a happy and stable future is the collapse of this civilization, as so many civilizations have collapsed before and made way for something new. That collapse will leave its survivors better equipped to start again than their predecessors had been, and with the benefit of some lessons learned the hardest possible way. May then...

That is not the person I described. The person I described has so far done everything in his considerable power to thwart all attempts at uniting people at all levels, from ethnically mixed and gender unmixed marriage, through trade unions, co-operatives and party coalitions to the United Nations. The one who spends $100, 000, 000 on an airplane that does exactly nothing but waste vast quantities of fuel, until it's ordered to destroy some other airplane. That's the guy who will be in charge of the next big project and the next - with total disregard to what you or I advocate. — Vera Mont

So we agree with what and who we don't advocate. The difference is that you think we cannot defeat the nefarious and I think we can. I think the nefarious prefer you to me.

I believe that our only hope for a happy and stable future is the collapse of this civilization, as so many civilizations have collapsed before and made way for something new. That collapse will leave its survivors better equipped to start again than their predecessors had been, and with the benefit of some lessons learned the hardest possible way. May then... — Vera Mont

There are a few James Bond movies with such plotlines:

The Spy Who Loved Me: Use stolen submarines to provoke a nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviets, then rebuild humanity under the ocean.

Moonraker: Fire a nerve agent from space to kill the entire population of earth, then create a new civilisation in space.

Even Deep Space 9 had a go, on the holodeck (things often went wrong on the holodeck), in an episode called 'Our Man Bashir' (No doubt a take off of 'Our Man Flint):


Are you a potential super villain Vera? I don't think we need to start again. We just need to do better.

I think the nefarious prefer you to me. — universeness

It doesn't matter. They're defeating themselves. They have to, because you and I and all the other powerless widgets, in spite of all our efforts, have failed to slow down their headlong rush to global annihilation.
You imagine a 'nefarious' few wielding Wizard-of-Oz style magic tricks that, once they're revealed, the Munchkins will no longer revere. You're putting an inordinate and unwarranted faith in the Munchkins.

You can reach for all the movies you like: they are fiction. This is fact :

This is an alphabetically ordered list of ancient civilizations.
Abbevillian industry, Acheulean industry, Aegean civilizations, Amratian culture, Ancestral Pueblo culture, ancient Egypt, ancient Greek civilization, ancient Iran, ancient Italic people
ancient Middle East, ancient Rome, Andean cultures, Archaic culture, Assyria, Aterian industry, Aurignacian culture, Australian Aboriginal peoples, Azilian industry, Badarian culture, Banpo culture, Big-Game Hunting Tradition, Boian culture, Capsian industry, Carthage, Chavín, Chellean industry, Choukoutienian industry, Clactonian industry, Dawenkou culture, Desert cultures, Dong Son culture, Dorset culture, El Argar, Erlitou culture, Ertebølle industry, Fauresmith industry, Gerzean culture, Ghassulian culture, Hohokam culture, Hongshan culture, Ibero-Maurusian industry, Indus civilization, Inugsuk culture, Ipiutak culture, Jōmon culture, Kachemak culture, Kurgan culture, Lapita culture, LBK culture, Longshan culture, Lupemban industry, Magdalenian culture, Maglemosian industry, Magosian industry, Mesopotamia, Minoan civilization, Mississippian culture, Moche, Mogollon culture, Mousterian industry, Mycenaean civilization, Nachikufan industry, Natufian culture, Nazca, Nok culture, Old Cordilleran culture, Oldowan industry, Osteodontokeratic tool industry, Paracas, Perigordian industry, Phoenicia, pre-Columbian civilizations, Qijia culture, Recuay, Sangoan industry, Solutrean industry, Stillbay industry, Tasian culture, Tayacian industry, Teotihuacán civilization, Thule culture, Trypillya culture, Urnfield culture, Villanovan culture, Woodland cultures, Yangshao culture, Yayoi culture

Civilizations, cultures and traditions that once throve, in which the people expected to continue doing what they did, living as they did, improving and innovating where they could. I didn't destroy any of them, yet they no longer exist. Everything has a lifespan - even in despite of mighty technology, life can only be prolonged for a finite duration. When it ends, something else takes its place. Whoever pronounces an imminent demise is a villain. SBI.

You imagine a 'nefarious' few wielding Wizard-of-Oz style magic tricks that, once they're revealed, the Munchkins will no longer revere. You're putting an inordinate and unwarranted faith in the Munchkins.

You can reach for all the movies you like: they are fiction. This is fact : — Vera Mont

The wizard of Oz and the munchkins are also fiction.
Egypt, Greece, Iran, Italy, Syria, India, China, etc persist. All the cultures/civilisations you mentioned changed. Even the ancient beaker people are still within us. As are the celts/picts/vikings etc, etc and probably some neanderthal, and Cro Magnon contributions. I already stated that there are more humans alive today than at any previous point in history. Despite our savagery towards each other. We have ever been in flux. It's just such a pity that that flux had to be so bloody at times and so more based on the competitive and savage rules of our jungle based Darwinian origins, than on the different stages of our enlightenment.

When it ends, something else takes its place. Whoever pronounces an imminent demise is a villain. SBI. — Vera Mont

A better and wiser augmented 'us,' is what will be the something else that takes our place, imo.

The wizard of Oz and the munchkins are also fiction. — universeness

Yes. That's where you seem to feel most at home.

We have ever been in flux. It's just such a pity that that flux had to be so bloody at times and so more based on the competitive and savage rules of our jungle based Darwinian origins, than on the different stages of our enlightenment. — universeness

Exactly. Dysentery is quite a messy condition. The different stages of enlightenment achieved not only the the vast present population, but also the numbers killed in each succeeding major conflagration. We haven't had a world war since the 1939-45 one... the next war is already begun and shaping up to be a doozy. Epidemics keep getting bigger, too. Wonder the scale of destruction is proportionate to the scale of destroyable targets.

A better 'and wiser augmented 'us,' is what will be the something else that takes our place, imo. — universeness

I hope you're right, but we have to make way for them, and that's never a tidy process. That's the part all optimists prefer to gloss over.

Yes. That's where you seem to feel most at home. — Vera Mont

Lions and Tigers and Bears Oh My! :scream:, but the wicked witch get's her ass melted and her troops switched to Dorothy, and her little dog to!

Pity Frank Baum was rather inconsistent in his own enlightenment:
When Baum lived in Aberdeen, South Dakota, where he was secretary of its Equal Suffrage Club, much of the politics in the Republican Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer dealt with trying to convince the populace to vote for women's suffrage.

and then, we have:

During the period surrounding the 1890 Ghost Dance movement and Wounded Knee Massacre, Baum wrote two editorials asserting that the safety of white settlers depended on the wholesale genocide of American Indians.

Many people have some good positions and some bad ones. I think that about you and you think that about me. But on the majority of issues that would directly affect our fellow humans, I think we have mostly common cause.

I hope you're right, but we have to make way for them, and that's never a tidy process. That's the part all optimists prefer to gloss over. — Vera Mont

See what I mean!

See what I mean! — universeness

Yes, I do. And thanks for the comparison to Baum; it should help keep me humble.

You don't see a logistical problem? https://qz.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-visit-the-international-space-1850461158 That's just getting one person into orbit, not across the galaxy or over to Andromeda, and does not even include the initial cost of constructing suitable containers. Where is all that metal and fuel supposed to come from?
I begin to suspect that your expectations of the future are less than realistic — Vera Mont

:up: Yes, well put. Many writers have compared our high-tech yet unstable culture with adolescence. Strong and bright but reckless and headstrong. And certain that their elders (indigenous cultures) have absolutely nothing important or helpful to offer.

Even with a stable civilization behind it, space travel requires an enormous amount of everything, as you suggest.

Even with a stable civilization behind it, space travel requires an enormous amount of everything, as you suggest. — 0 thru 9

Paramount requirement: stop making wars, preparing for wars, cleaning up after wars. Firstly, they keep disuniting both peoples and purpose and secondly, they're monstrously costly. If I were running a world government, that would be my first order of business: put every country on Earth out of the business war.
That's the only way we could possibly put a stable civilization behind such a monumental shared effort. Even so, it would have to be a robust civilization, not one that's in continual crisis from weather events and related displacements.... which we won't have any time soon, whatever else happens, and can't have at all, unless the present economic system collapses very soon.

Paramount requirement: stop making wars, preparing for wars, cleaning up after wars. Firstly, they keep disuniting both peoples and purpose and secondly, they're monstrously costly. If I were running a world government, that would be my first order of business: put every country on Earth out of the business war. — Vera Mont

Definitely! The business of death taints and poisons everything it touches with its bloody skeleton fingers. Even during ‘peace time’ it hovers over us darkly. I use the term ‘business of death’ too.
Because Death is in business, and business is good. No one ever went broke dealing weapons.

But how to put War out of business? What is the thinking and belief system that fosters warfare?
One answer might be that we live in a culture where warfare is inevitable. That we live in a dominator culture, a culture of oppression at every level.

To which the spokesmen for the status quo would plead that “the law of life is ‘survival of the fittest’, and we modern people follow that perfectly!”

To which I’d say “raspberries!” :razz:

What is the thinking and belief system that fosters warfare? — 0 thru 9

Follow-the-leader.

With or without AGI+, meat payloads are not – never have been or will be – mission critical. :smirk:

I would prefer 'wonderful organic, sentient, intelligent, progressive, unique, lifeform,' to 'meat payload.'
As an omnivore, I can eat meat, but not human meat, so the labels we choose to use are more important than your I hope 'tongue in cheek,' use of the label 'meat payload,' suggests. I could do something similar with,
fake/artificial/machine payloads are not - never have been or will be - the point of any 'mission' of discovery. Your mecha based technophilia, seems to trump your biophilia. :sad: