Dumb Wannabe Colonists
GroundHog
Lots of crock on this newsgroups from wannabe space colonists about
how mankind in general, and Americans in particular, must go out into
space and multiply.
Dumbasses. I have been around the world, and your average American is
anything but a pioneer. The US citizen in a third world country:
complains about the food; drinks only bottled water; can't stand the
weather; won't learn the local languages; can't stand the locals;
despises anything not blessed by the touch of mom'n'apple pie;pines
away if he can't follow Oprah or the Superbowl on satellite TV.
The pioneering type ?!!!
Forgawssakes, what do you imagine life on a space colony to be like,
Star Trek? With holodecks, huge open spaces, pleasantly designed
decors? Get a brain. The first few generations in space will live a
hard, dangerous, confined life under conditions that will make
Alcatraz seem like a spa resort. Big, rolling hills in O'Neill
cylinders? Don't get fooled by the ads. They will come, but the first
couple of space-borne generations will have to build 'em.
What kind of American, or indeed Westerner, would give up a life on
humdrum ol' Earth to live the rest of his life in cramped, uncertain,
unpleasant conditions ?
'Cos believe you me, the romance of pioneering in space will wear off
real quick once the public realises there are no holodecks, or green
bountiful parks in moon domes, or exciting battles with fierce alien
invaders, just 10 cubic meters of cramped quarters, recycling your own
urine, living in your own sweat, facing the dangers of decompression
daily, seeing the same goddamn faces every day,knowing that down below
on Earth people are laughing, and loving, breathing fresh air and
running in spring sunshine,meeting people and living life.
Who would want to colonise space under such conditions?
That's right: the people we all love to hate and despise:
The poor from the Third World.
Sure you don't see them in Star Trek. Sure the crew of the Enterprise
is white, male and of American origin. (Noticed how every time the
Enterprise goes back in time, it goes back to the American past?)
But WASPs are not the people who risk their lives on shaky home-made
rafts on the open sea in search of a better life. They are not the
ones who leave their homelands in search of opportunity. They have not
known civil war, or hunger or hardship. They are not the ones with
nothing to lose.
Cubans. Haitians. Somali's. Phillipino's. Timorese.
They are the immigrants of the 21st century. They are the ones fleeing
persecution and poverty, seeking a better life. They have far more in
common with the passengers on the Mayflower than the overfed,
overweight, self-satisfied, self-righteous, tax-paying, groundhogs
sitting behind their computers and filling the Net with wannabe
hogwash, boasting about their ancestor's deeds and imagining
themselves to be their spiritual heirs.
And no claptrap about "Yeah, but Cubans can't build spaceships, only
shaky old rafts". Colonists don't build ships. They colonise. Or die
trying. And when launchers have been privatised, when the American
public in 2030 has tired of the short-lived space-colonisation fad,
and turned to watch Star Trek reruns, who will be the ones who scrape
up their life's savings, sell off a son or daughter to pimps, and
travel in dangerous, untrustworthy rockets to face an uncertain future
in the moon colonies (while American taxpayers whine about all these
foreign immigrant types living in colonies paid for by THEIR money,
and isn't it time they did something about it, bla bla bla ..)
The ones with nothing to lose.
And that means NOT you.
The Old Wolf
GroundHog wrote:
>
> Lots of crock on this newsgroups from wannabe space colonists about
> how mankind in general, and Americans in particular, must go out into
> space and multiply.
Lots of crock from troll boy about fat lazy Americans and the fighting
spirit of the poor and down trodden.
Apparantly in your worldly travels you haven't had the time to review
your history books, nor read very closely the postings your diatribe was
supposedly in response to. First, nobody posting really give a rats ass
who the hell "else" goes, the main consensus was "I WANT TO GO!" and "MY
GOVERNMENT SUCKS NUGGETS FOR TRYING TO SCREW ME OUT OF EVEN TRYING TO
GO!"
From a historical point of view, which major explorers were
poor-not-a-pot-to-piss-in-dirt-munchers? Magellan? Byrd? Drake? Cook?
Columbus?(Chris was doing fine till AFTER the fact) Were the "Investors
in the Virginia Adventure" poor? Poor investros, yeah.. that happens.
At any rate, my plans involve building a business, building a ship,
cramming my not so fat, driven, American ass into it, sucking down
reprocessed urine and sweat for a nice long trek to Mars on my own dime,
scrunching my bootprints into the dirt and flipping the governments
collective I.Q. salute back at all you socialite-kissy-kissy-gimme-love
and-human-companionship-space-is-scary-and-if-I'm-too-chicken-shit-to-go
I-should-feel-the-need-to-get-down-on-those-who-have-a-pair-trolls.
In closing, gimme the keys, you wanna send your tired poor hungry down
trodden the same direction? Have a blast, I'll have neighbors to help me
check for leaks and share hydroponics and terra forming theories with.
If I'm lucky enough not to plow into the planet and buy it, who knows,
maybe my grand kids will be sitting under the blue skies of Mars sipping
beer when Earth takes the nice comet or asteroid spanking it's due for
and will wonder if the cockroaches will make better space explorers.
Later
P.S.
The original crew of the Enterprise was multinational. But, being as
it's a Science "Fiction" show, I don't see that it has much bearing
anyway.
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
UNIX: We get more done on one command line then most OS's do all day
---------------------------------------------------------------------
http://users.accesscomm.net/~kane
Gregg Germain
GroundHog (Stan...@Sea.Level) wrote:
: Dumbasses. I have been around the world, and your average American is
: anything but a pioneer. The US citizen in a third world country:
: complains about the food; drinks only bottled water; can't stand the
: weather; won't learn the local languages; can't stand the locals;
: despises anything not blessed by the touch of mom'n'apple pie;pines
: away if he can't follow Oprah or the Superbowl on satellite TV.
: The pioneering type ?!!!
Like a lot of people, you forget that in any society there are
a lot of people who are different than the "typical American" you
describe.
There are also a lot of people in most every developed country just
like the Americans you describe.
You say you have been all over the world?
I'd say you haven't traveled enough.
All you have to do is sign on 3 weeks of your life to the U.S.B.
Niagara as a volunteer crewmember.
You will be quite surprised at the kinds of people your shipmates
are, and the life you will lead:
You will work 18 hours a day. And not get paid.
You will clean the heads every day.
You will sleep on the deck or in a hammock - I found both equally
uncomfortable.
Every 10 days or so you will work solely inthe galley doing anything
the cook tells you to do - and a lot of it you won't like.
You will chip paint, scrape paint, brush on paint.
Swab the decks.
Work rain or shine
Chip in at any task that is not yet completed even if you have
finished your assigned tasks.
Stand a lot of watches when you would rather be sleeping.
All for the sheer pleasure of sailing on a square rigger and being
part of the crew.
Do that, and you will see that not ALL americans like the soft life
and only think of themselves.
: But WASPs are not the people who risk their lives on shaky home-made
: rafts on the open sea in search of a better life.
90% of the crew on every square rigger I've crewed on (and I've served
aboard 3) are WASP crews.
: The ones with nothing to lose.
: And that means NOT you.
Every one of the people I'm talking about have lots to lose in order
to do what they do. Mainly their life.
--- Gregg
Saville
gr...@hrc2.harvard.edu #29 Genie
Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics #1762 CRIS
Phone: (617) 496-7713 "A Mig at your six is better than
no Mig at all."
Dwayne Allen Day
GroundHog (Stan...@Sea.Level) wrote:
: Dumbasses. I have been around the world, and your average American is
: anything but a pioneer. The US citizen in a third world country:
: complains about the food; drinks only bottled water; can't stand the
: weather; won't learn the local languages; can't stand the locals;
: despises anything not blessed by the touch of mom'n'apple pie;pines
: away if he can't follow Oprah or the Superbowl on satellite TV.
: The pioneering type ?!!!
I realize that this is a troll, but the situation that you describe is not
inconsistent with a "pioneering spirit." The typical American is never
willing to put up with conditions that he can improve. That is why your
typical Third World country (or England, for that matter) never does
anything about the lousy plumbing and the United States sends in the Peace
Corps...
DDAY
--
Charles Bronson, Bronson Pinchot, and Pierce Brosnan: all incredible
actors.
Frank Crary
In article <330349...@Sea.Level>, GroundHog <Stan...@Sea.Level> wrote:
>Lots of crock on this newsgroups from wannabe space colonists about
>how mankind in general, and Americans in particular, must go out into
>space and multiply.
>anything but a pioneer. The US citizen in a third world country:
The "average American", probably. But there are exceptions.
A few years ago, I was in Italy. You wouldn't believe what
they charge for bottled water in Rome, and there aren't any
public sources of water on the streets, other than actual
fountains (i.e. the ones most Americans consider displays
only, and birds swim in.) I noticed that the Romans were,
occasionally drinking from them, and in L'Aquila, I rather
shocked a Korean friend by doing so myself. Two points:
There are people from first world nations that are not
so sensitive as the average, American tourist; people
from less developed nation can be as sensitive to things
like water as the average, American tourist.
>...can't stand the weather...
Actually, the most annoying weather I've ever seen was
summer in Charleston, SC. I've found Europe and Mexico
to be very nice in comparison.
>...won't learn the local languages...
I will not start telling stories about the times someone
asked me for directions, as if I were a local. And I can
at least get by in Spanish, German and Russian, and could
make myself understood in Italy. In tourist traps, I do
tend to ask, "Do you speak English?" But that's simply
because they are, in a tourist trap, likely to be more
fluent in English than I am in the native language.
>...can't stand the locals
As a matter of fact, I like the attitude of the average
Roman more than I like the attitude of the average American,
even when the Roman in question is trying to charge me
an absurd price. The impression I got is that they are
interested in taking care of themselves and their own,
and don't try to hide this bias. I'd rather deal with
that than Americans who pretend to be acting fairly.
>despises anything not blessed by the touch of mom'n'apple pie;pines
>away if he can't follow Oprah or the Superbowl on satellite TV.
>The pioneering type ?!!!
Well, you've described the average American, but not all Americans
are average. Out of a nation of over 250 million people, don't
you think that there are some who are sufficiently atypical
to be "pioneering types"?
>What kind of American, or indeed Westerner, would give up a life on
>humdrum ol' Earth to live the rest of his life in cramped, uncertain,
>unpleasant conditions ?
Well, me for one. But I agree that only a few percent of the
American public would feel the way I do (at most.) But early
colonies would be lucky to have a population of a thousand.
It would only take one in 250,000 Americans to populate such
a colony.
>Who would want to colonise space under such conditions?
>That's right: the people we all love to hate and despise:
>The poor from the Third World.
See my above comments about water in Italy and the attitude
of a Korean, although it is debatable whether or not Korea
is part of the third world. However, colonists would need
a sizable understanding of modern technology, so we can't
exactly recruit colonists from Somalia or the slums of Calcuta.
When you talk about colonists from the third world, you
probably mean developing nations, so the example of my Korean
friend is applicable.
>And no claptrap about "Yeah, but Cubans can't build spaceships, only
>shaky old rafts". Colonists don't build ships. They colonise. Or die
>trying.
That is true on Earth, but in space, a colonist would have to
know quite a bit about technologies like life support systems,
just as the colonists of America had to know quite a bit about
framing to survive.
Frank Crary
CU Boulder
Joseph Michael
In article <330349...@Sea.Level> Stan...@Sea.Level "GroundHog" writes:
Troll? Who cares - Flame Thrower On! :-)
>Lots of crock on this newsgroups from wannabe space colonists about
>how mankind in general, and Americans in particular, must go out into
>space and multiply.
>Forgawssakes, what do you imagine life on a space colony to be like,
>Star Trek? With holodecks, huge open spaces, pleasantly designed
Could be! Holodeck is at http://www.stellar.demon.co.uk/holodeck.htm
>decors? Get a brain. The first few generations in space will live a
>hard, dangerous, confined life under conditions that will make
Not very likely - if anything in massive terraformed asteroids
http://www.stellar.demon.co.uk/asteroid.htm
or Moon base http://www.stellar.demon.co.uk/omega.htm
neither of which use humans as components in a space
construction or infrastructure programme.
>'Cos believe you me, the romance of pioneering in space will wear off
>real quick once the public realises there are no holodecks, or green
No holodecks?? Wrong there!
>bountiful parks in moon domes, or exciting battles with fierce alien
>invaders, just 10 cubic meters of cramped quarters, recycling your own
>urine, living in your own sweat, facing the dangers of decompression
With cities built under the ground, you would not have to worry about
decompression. Alien invaders? Well I gonna take my space invader game
with me. Recycling urine? I'll toast to that! (Oh yuk! You have a point there!)
>daily, seeing the same goddamn faces every day,knowing that down below
>on Earth people are laughing, and loving, breathing fresh air and
>running in spring sunshine,meeting people and living life.
>Who would want to colonise space under such conditions?
Me.
.--------------------. .--------------------------.
| Joe Michael \______________________/ J...@stellar.demon.co.uk |
: \__________________________/:
| Futuristic . Shocking . Mind Blowing . Shape Changing Robots |
:-------. :
| \ http://www.stellar.demon.co.uk/ |
`---------+--------------------------------------------------------------'
Cathy Mancus
In <33036C80...@accesscomm.net>, The Old Wolf <ka...@accesscomm.net> writes:
>From a historical point of view, which major explorers were
>poor-not-a-pot-to-piss-in-dirt-munchers?
Amundsen, for sure. He was routinely in debt at the start of an
expedition. I see no evidence that he had any business skills whatsoever.
--Cathy Mancus <man...@vnet.ibm.com>
Jeff Greason
In article <330349...@Sea.Level>, GroundHog <Stan...@Sea.Level> writes:
|> Lots of crock on this newsgroups from wannabe space colonists about
|> how mankind in general, and Americans in particular, must go out into
Rest of an obvious troll deleted...
Without getting into the name-calling the author would like to see, I
do think he raises a common misconception I'd like to address.
That is that colonists are somehow automatically poor in their home
society. That simply isn't true.
The kind of immigration going on today is *not* colonization. Given a
choice of existing societies, people are simply "voting with their feet"
for where they'd like to live. Many of these are choosing to move to
a place where they can earn better money -- unsurprisingly, many of these
were poor in their home society.
But colonization is an attempt to "start over" in a place where there are
many options other than simply joining a new society. And if you look at
the European colonization of America, or the American colonization of the
West, you find different forces at work. And it becomes easy to find examples
of colonization efforts started with substantial capital, including people
who obviously had a lot to lose (in economic terms).
But not everything in life has a dollar value. People have, throughout
history, "abandoned their baggage" when the circumstances called for it.
Not all, of course -- not even most. But more than enough to sustain
a flow of colonists.
|>
|> The ones with nothing to lose.
|>
|> And that means NOT you.
I have plenty to lose -- but I also hope that in my lifetime, a move to
an extraterrestrial location will be within my means, and will offer me
something to gain. Something which you obviously wouldn't understand.
Disclaimer: While I am an Intel employee, all opinions expressed are my own,
and do not reflect the position of Intel, NETCOM, or Zippy the Pinhead.
============================================================================
Jeff Greason "We choose to go to the Moon in this decade,
<gre...@ptdcs2.intel.com> and do the other things, not because they
<gre...@ix.netcom.com> are easy, but because they are hard." -- JFK
dtak
None of them really had any money. Scott/Amundson/Nansen/Shakleton/Peary
etc. - they all had to go around and find patrons/sponsors/loans to one
degree or another. Even Peary, who was to claim the North Pole for the US,
wasn't awash in funding from the government.
This was one reason the rights to any written work on the expedition
usually resided in the hands of the leader (i.e. Amundson). This allowed
the authoring and selling of the "official" account of the trip, and the
lecture circuit. These activities brought in cash that went to pay off the
many loans and keep the organization going for another try.
Dave
dtak
-----
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Richard Alexander
In article <33036C80...@accesscomm.net> The Old Wolf wrote:
>If I'm lucky enough not to plow into the planet and buy it, who
>knows, maybe my grand kids will be sitting under the blue skies of
>Mars sipping beer
Actually, I believe the skies of Mars are pink.
Richard Alexander
address expires end of Feb 1997
PS: I WANT TO GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Michael Martin-Smith
In article <330349...@Sea.Level>, GroundHog <Stan...@Sea.Level>
writes
>Lots of crock on this newsgroups from wannabe space colonists about
>how mankind in general, and Americans in particular, must go out into
>Dumbasses. I have been around the world, and your average American is
>anything but a pioneer. The US citizen in a third world country:
>weather; won't learn the local languages; can't stand the locals;
>away if he can't follow Oprah or the Superbowl on satellite TV.
>The pioneering type ?!!!
>Star Trek? With holodecks, huge open spaces, pleasantly designed
>hard, dangerous, confined life under conditions that will make
>cylinders? Don't get fooled by the ads. They will come, but the first
>couple of space-borne generations will have to build 'em.
>humdrum ol' Earth to live the rest of his life in cramped, uncertain,
>unpleasant conditions ?
>real quick once the public realises there are no holodecks, or green
>invaders, just 10 cubic meters of cramped quarters, recycling your own
>urine, living in your own sweat, facing the dangers of decompression
>on Earth people are laughing, and loving, breathing fresh air and
>running in spring sunshine,meeting people and living life.
>
>Who would want to colonise space under such conditions?
>
>The poor from the Third World.
>is white, male and of American origin. (Noticed how every time the
>Enterprise goes back in time, it goes back to the American past?)
>ones who leave their homelands in search of opportunity. They have not
>nothing to lose.
>
>Cubans. Haitians. Somali's. Phillipino's. Timorese.
>They are the immigrants of the 21st century. They are the ones fleeing
>persecution and poverty, seeking a better life. They have far more in
>common with the passengers on the Mayflower than the overfed,
>overweight, self-satisfied, self-righteous, tax-paying, groundhogs
>sitting behind their computers and filling the Net with wannabe
>hogwash, boasting about their ancestor's deeds and imagining
>themselves to be their spiritual heirs.
>
>shaky old rafts". Colonists don't build ships. They colonise. Or die
>public in 2030 has tired of the short-lived space-colonisation fad,
>and turned to watch Star Trek reruns, who will be the ones who scrape
>up their life's savings, sell off a son or daughter to pimps, and
>travel in dangerous, untrustworthy rockets to face an uncertain future
>in the moon colonies (while American taxpayers whine about all these
>foreign immigrant types living in colonies paid for by THEIR money,
>and isn't it time they did something about it, bla bla bla ..)
>
>
>And that means NOT you.
Among 250 million Americans and my own fellow countrymen I expect there
will be a few thousand eccentrics/survivalists/or individualists to be
found - enough to get started - who will accept the challenges; I agree,
not the average, but then the average never does anything very much
anyway! For myself, I will be very ancient by 2030, (80+ if you want to
know!) if I'm here at all! Maybe a good candidate for some benefits from
microgravity, like no Zimmer needed.
I do not mind who colonises space, actually; the idea of humans moving
out into space is not directed solely at the West - at least by myself.
I am interested in the long term opportunities for expansion of humanity
and its genetic evolution by adaptive radiation into Space, dispersal
away from the threat of mass extinctions or planetary eco- disasters,
and the ultimate transformation of the Galaxy into a larger-scale Gaia.
Similar in some ways to the settlement of dry land from the sea 350
million years ago - not done in comfort, I would guess! If , as you
imply, the West is too decadent to do this, I will settle for others
with the courage/desperation to do it. I have articles in print reaching
several "middle rank developing" countries over coming months, in their
own languages, some being promoted by "local" scientists putting space
forward as an Idea. What we can do, with our resources, is to create the
technology, and sell the idea to the younger generation in most
countries on Earth by cultural means. Our culture is, after all, very
infectious , at least unless decadence becomes more marked. At least our
accumulation of wealth will then have served a higher purpose
--
Michael Martin-Smith
John Savard
GroundHog <Stan...@Sea.Level> wrote:
>I have been around the world, and your average American is
>anything but a pioneer. The US citizen in a third world country:
>complains about the food; drinks only bottled water; can't stand the
>weather; won't learn the local languages; can't stand the locals;
>despises anything not blessed by the touch of mom'n'apple pie;pines
>away if he can't follow Oprah or the Superbowl on satellite TV.
>The pioneering type ?!!!
What is a base on Mars, or an L-5 colony, going to be like?
Will it be luxurious? Hardly.
But neither will the conditions be so appalling that there won't be
Americans willing to go. After all, the U.S. Navy has a considerable
number of people in its submarine crews...and a far lesser number of
people are needed, and far more would volunteer, to endure such
conditions to go into space.
Getting into space is expensive, and it's a high-tech affair. Thus,
the U.S. has the best chance of getting to, say, Mars first, ahead of
everyone else. If the U.S. misses that chance, instead of a mission to
Mars eventually coming within the reach of some Third World nation,
the chances are better it will never happen.
Of course, China isn't just any Third World nation...
John Savard
John Savard
The Old Wolf <ka...@accesscomm.net> wrote:
>If I'm lucky enough not to plow into the planet and buy it, who knows,
>maybe my grand kids will be sitting under the blue skies of Mars sipping
>beer when Earth takes the nice comet or asteroid spanking it's due for
>and will wonder if the cockroaches will make better space explorers.
Tell them to remember to colonize Earth after that happens.
Mars is _closer_ to the asteroid belt than Earth. So it gets hit more
often.
John Savard
Michael Martin-Smith
In article <5e7bk8$e...@tor-nn1-hb0.netcom.ca>, John Savard
<sew...@netcom.ca> writes
Neither is Japan, or, within a generation or so, India or Brazil to name
but two others
--
Michael Martin-Smith
Michael Martin-Smith
In article <5e7c90$f...@tor-nn1-hb0.netcom.ca>, John Savard
<sew...@netcom.ca> writes
Mars is also smaller and lighter, so maybe it doesn't?
--
Michael Martin-Smith