World seabird numbers still falling

[slider]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17302442

### - quite sad really, but is apparently all just part of 'the' biggest +
more pertinently: 'the most rapid' extinction event in the entire history of
this planet to date!

we should all be sooo proud of ourselves and our wonderful technology!

NOT :)

[thang ornerythinchus]

On Fri, 9 Mar 2012 05:09:25 -0000, "slider" <sli...@anashram.com>
wrote:

Slider, you need to get a sense of perspective.

1. There have been extinction events since the dawn of life. 98%
of all recorded species are gone. Life is destined, if the time line
is long enough and the perspective broad enough, to perish.

2. In a few billion years, the sun (which is standard G type main
sequence, ie, no nova, just red giant and brown dwarf) will go. Any
residual life on this orb will go too.

3. If we, mankind, have not developed sufficient technological
(or something else entirely) capacity to have left this orb and built
on, and lived on, other worlds or artificial worlds or whatever, we
will go too.

4. You and I will be long dead, and long forgotten, by then.

5. So fuck your silly seabirds about which I give not a shit.

You don't read enough and you have lost your sense of proportion and
your sense of childlike wonder. Tis' gone slider, 'tis gone.

Get out of your fucking flat and look for faces in the clouds.

Life be in it.

thang

[slider]

thang wrote :)

### - heh hey it's alright thang, don't worry about it sport, seabirds are
definitely NOT the equivalent of canaries down a coal mine anyway so there's
absolutely no need for you to be concerned about anything at all, honestly!

don't let it even trouble your mind!

(sly grin ;-)

[slider]

### - erm, science fact for dummies, ok? :)

http://www.celsias.com/article/overfishing-threatens-survival-seabirds/

plus maybe read enough of it and you'll even get to the part where it says...

"Seabird populations are one of the best ways to judge the health of marine
ecosystems"

or don't you trust science either now thang? :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M95JzEXgc78

(nice tune from quite a nice kids/rites of passage movie :)

[Jeremy H. Donovan]

There's no doubt that the health of our marine ecosystems is in mortal
peril. But it's not 'because of technology'; it's because of our lack
of wisdom in living, and in utilizing and regulating our technology
and economic systems.

Pace of Ocean Acidification Has No Parallel in 300 Million Years:
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/pace-of-ocean-acidification-has-no-parallel-in-300-million-years-paper-finds/

The scariest quote: "ocean acidification is now unfolding at at least
10 times the rate that it was during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal
Maximum."

So this is likely to go well beyond the realm of the worst mass
extinction events. If we don't turn situations like this around, we
can expect unprecedented destruction. And it's not like it's 'okay'
for us to calmly and smugly preside over a new mass extinction on the
grounds that most species have always gone extinct (actually upwards
of 99.99% of all creatures that have lived have gone extinct). As a
species with advanced self-awareness we are responsible, and must
become 'beneficial top level predatory tyrants' and take great care
with our home. At a minimum we must insure that it isn't US who go
extinct. Even if we do learn to travel to other suitable worlds (and
I think we must), it would take hundreds of years to get to the point
where we could move massive numbers of people to those other worlds.
And even if we do that, do we then just start wasting the ecosystems
on our new planets too? How repulsively ugly. So we have to become
better caretakers of the world in which we live, and we have to do it
now.

[slider]

jeremy wrote...

> There's no doubt that the health of our marine ecosystems is in mortal
> peril. But it's not 'because of technology'; it's because of our lack
> of wisdom in living, and in utilizing and regulating our technology
> and economic systems.

### - totally agreed it's not the technology per se, most of which is indeed
ingenious, rather it's humanity's lack of 'experience' in wielding and/or
applying it, as you say: with (or as in most cases: without) wisdom....

iow + unfortunately, we're gaining said experience at the direct + express
expense of our own. life-sustaining. bio-sphere environment, of which the
below 'seabird-canaries in the coalmine' indicator is only one of so many
nature-wide all telling the same sad tale...

the only thing in question being will humanity grow up and become wise enough
'in-time' to avert disaster on a global scale!

something which is by no means certain + is looking increasingly unlikely...

------------------------------

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure
about the universe" --uncle albert :)

[thang ornerythinchus]

On Sun, 11 Mar 2012 12:15:28 -0700 (PDT), "Jeremy H. Donovan"
<jeremyh...@gmail.com> wrote:

>There's no doubt that the health of our marine ecosystems is in mortal
>peril. But it's not 'because of technology'; it's because of our lack
>of wisdom in living, and in utilizing and regulating our technology
>and economic systems.

There *is* doubt. While there may be trends, correlations,
potentials, probabilities and so on, nothing is proven because the
time scales are too small and it is too difficult at our state of
technology to plug all the variables into simultaneous equations
capable of predicting with great precision the future "health" of our
marine ecosystems.

We still have difficulty predicting the far easier state of the
planet's weather for more than a week or so. Used to be we could only
do that for a day or two, now it's up to a week. After that, chaos
(mathematically) reigns and we don't know enough to be able to plug in
even relatively simple weather variables. So how can we predict with
decent statistical confidence the state of the *climate* in 20 years?

Don't be like Slider and over-simplify. Use your noggin.

>
>Pace of Ocean Acidification Has No Parallel in 300 Million Years:
>http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/pace-of-ocean-acidification-has-no-parallel-in-300-million-years-paper-finds/
>
>The scariest quote: "ocean acidification is now unfolding at at least
>10 times the rate that it was during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal
>Maximum."

A couple of things Jeremy. I will be interested in your *considered*
response.

1. I read this blog. The "scariest" quote in my book is "...the
Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum 55 million years ago...did produce a
rapid proliferation of new species as land animals adjusted to the
environmental shifts. Our own lineage, the primates, apparently
blossomed during that event, filling new ecological niches."

To me it's "scary" that a single event out of thousands over the last
3 or 4 thousand million years on this little ball of dirt gave rise
("apparently") to US! Without this blip on the space/time contingency
line, WE would not be here - perhaps reptiles with intellect, or just
nothing but beasts and plants, would have inherited this planet.

Thank God for large pulses of CO2!

2. I also read the actual article on which the blog you linked to
this thread is based. It says nothing like you have intimated. I
expect that sort of cherry picking of Slider, because he doesn't read
much and tends to react reflexively (Pavlovianly) to key words like
"carbon dioxide" and "acidification" - but I have come to expect more
of you.

The abstract of the *scientific paper* at
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/335/6072/1058.abstract

is full of beautiful disclaimers, as it should be, such as:

"Ocean acidification ^^may^^ have severe consequences for marine
ecosystems...assessing its future impact is difficult because
laboratory experiments and field observations are limited by their
reduced ecologic complexity and sample period..."

The abstract goes on to say that because of this, the researcher
looked at the fossil evidence of past co2 pulse outcomes and found
"similarities" but again could only draw correlations. My
paraphrasing here for brevity.

You didn't read the abstract and cherry picked the blog. I believe
you have some sort of training, perhaps a degree? You should be more
analytic and less histrionic - leave the latter to Slider, he is very
good at mumbo jumbo and high noise to signal ratios.

>
>So this is likely to go well beyond the realm of the worst mass
>extinction events. If we don't turn situations like this around, we
>can expect unprecedented destruction. And it's not like it's 'okay'
>for us to calmly and smugly preside over a new mass extinction on the
>grounds that most species have always gone extinct (actually upwards
>of 99.99% of all creatures that have lived have gone extinct). As a
>species with advanced self-awareness we are responsible, and must
>become 'beneficial top level predatory tyrants' and take great care
>with our home. At a minimum we must insure that it isn't US who go
>extinct. Even if we do learn to travel to other suitable worlds (and
>I think we must), it would take hundreds of years to get to the point
>where we could move massive numbers of people to those other worlds.
>And even if we do that, do we then just start wasting the ecosystems
>on our new planets too? How repulsively ugly. So we have to become
>better caretakers of the world in which we live, and we have to do it
>now.

It's around 98% of discovered animals and flora and in-betweens such
as crinoids, but the vast majority, bacteria, virii, prions and so on,
don't leave fossils so you may be right, it may be 99.9999999% have
left us forever.

But it was the last pulse of CO2 and its destructive outcome which
made us, or more precisely killed the inhabitants of the biological
niche which then became inhabited by our progenitors. One door
closes, another one opens.

Advanced Gaia theory by the way posits that we should and probably
will dirty our nest (our Gaia - earth mother) to the extent that we
will have no recourse but to leave it and populate other planets or
artificial planets/biomes, in space. There may be no lasting damage
to the earth (well the top one hundredth of one percent of the planet,
that is, the biosphere) but getting us off it will in fact guarantee
our future as a species. It's a bit like young birds making the nest
so filthy that they must try to fly, or die attempting. Nature's way
perhaps with apex animals such as we.

In any case, nature has attempted our extinction many times in the
past. Due to Toba, for instance, it has been supposed that human
numbers were reduced to around perhaps 15000 people, around70000 years
ago. Genetic diversity proves we have never dropped to one or two
breeding pairs (the edge of extinction) but it's thought that
individuals dropped to around 2000 or so for as long as 100, 000
years, situated in sub saharan africa. To me, that reinforces the
imperitive to get off this fucking planet, quick smart, schnell
schnell!!

Don't be like Slider Jeremy, I know you are capable of reason and
rationality - I'm doing my best to inculcate those virtues in him, but
it's a long hard arduous road, believe me. I don't know if I will
ever cure him.

thang

[thang ornerythinchus]

On Mon, 12 Mar 2012 00:05:27 -0000, "slider" <sli...@anashram.com>
wrote:

>jeremy wrote...
>
>> There's no doubt that the health of our marine ecosystems is in mortal
>> peril. But it's not 'because of technology'; it's because of our lack
>> of wisdom in living, and in utilizing and regulating our technology
>> and economic systems.
>
>### - totally agreed it's not the technology per se, most of which is indeed
>ingenious

Jusus wept, you are such a fucking hypocrite. You spend blather time
talking about how technology is wicked and evil and reason and logic
have practically destroyed mankind, now you say that most of
technology is "indeed ingenious". Can't you keep your mind on track?

, rather it's humanity's lack of 'experience' in wielding and/or
>applying it, as you say: with (or as in most cases: without) wisdom....

Oh what utter hippie peace-love-dove bullshit. A surgeon when he is
saving your life is wielding his instruments without wisdom? A
computer being used to access unprecedented indices is wielded without
wisdom?

A gun used to shoot a Nazi is used without wisdom?

Individuals generally become wise Slider if they are fortunate enough
to live long enough, because wisdom is nothing less or more than the
accumulation of experience - don't touch that hot top, it burns, it's
*wise* not to burn yourself again. Get the drift?

I think what you mean to say is that sometimes our species' need to
resource it's civilisation gets in the way of our long term security.
Rapid use of possibly non-renewable fossil fuels, for one thing - but
even there, theory of abiotic petroleum points to possible never
ending oil resources.

Stop your one line aphorisms.

>
>iow + unfortunately, we're gaining said experience at the direct + express
>expense of our own. life-sustaining. bio-sphere environment, of which the
>below 'seabird-canaries in the coalmine' indicator is only one of so many
>nature-wide all telling the same sad tale...
>
>the only thing in question being will humanity grow up and become wise enough
>'in-time' to avert disaster on a global scale!

How do you define "disaster" in that context? Please, think before
putting pen to paper. I'm interested, please respond.

My definition would be near extinction of homo sapiens - following
homo neanderthalensis, which expired 28000 years ago. I don't really
care about extinction of other species, so long as *ours* survives.

thang

thang

[slider]

### - the following is all your 'own' words and logical arguments
(beliefs actually it later turned out) re how 'anyone' who thinks nicotine
ever has any 'positive' uses or value has definitely got something wrong with
'them' and the way they think/reason... when in truth it later transpired that
'you' was the one who was totally incorrect + also the one with the faulty
reasoning...

later, however, you completely retracted the below + apologised for all that
invective you'd tried to palm off onto me when you suddenly realised that all
along you'd been the one in the wrong...

my point of all this being... are you sooo 'completely sure' and 'certain'
that 'this time' you're so totally correct re the current debated state of the
planet as you, again, so emphatically assert and claim?? (i.e. i would have
thought your equally emphatic blunders re nicotine might have at least taught
you a lesson in reticence heh:)


thang previously reasoned very incorrectly...

> A few things here. Firstly, I don't think I know about tobacco, I
> know I know (did phil 101 first year uni, ever heard of epistomology?)
> It kills people, by the millions. You would either have to be a
> fucking addict and playing the self-justification game (delusional) or
> just plumb low IQ to not understand that tobacco kills tens of
> millions of people every damn year. You know this slider because you
> live in London and you are an educated caucasian who was once involved
> in the marketing game (yes, everything is a game, I have covered that
> topic previously).
> Secondly, "hearsay" is a strictly legal term and does not apply to
> scientific evidence. The evidence is purely mathematical, stochastic
> (statistical), to levels of confidence, another mathematical concept.
> There is no cult, no imagination, no conspiracy. I'm surprised you
> believe in that crap. Brainwashing is a concept from the 1950s, as in
> "The Manchurian Candidate" (a damn good movie actually and one of the
> better ones Frankie did in his prime - have you seen it?) I'm a
> libertarian and a very well educated, both formally and informally,
> thinker. Yes, unlike most people on this clod of earh, I actually
> think. And I know that tobacco is the enemy, and that the
> corporations which foist its extremely addictive components on
> humanity are also, ergo, the enemy. Its about fucking time that
> executives in tobacco corps were subject to kidnapping, torture,
> dismemberment, etc (I'm just kidding but its a wonder that something
> along those lines hasn't happened yet, say an angry ex-military fellow
> who has been made a widower by tobacco)
> Thirdly, how can you blithely say that I haven't even bothered to
> check it out? how do you know that fucking tobacco didn't kill a
> close relative, how do you know I haven't read the relevant
> literature? Jeez slider you talk some shite sometimes, just open your
> mouth and out it falls like fucking lava.
> And finally, to say as you do that it is "fashionable" to be an
> anti-smoker is just ridiculous. Clearly you have no truck with
> published medical reports, by people who cut the fucking cancer out of
> peoples throats and lungs and then have to tell relatives that, sorry,
> he/she passed away because the cancer was too prevalent or he/she was
> too weak to survive the surgery which involved taking all the flesh
> off right down to bone, or total removal of one lung and partial of
> the other remaining lung, etc, you get the picture.
Some of the
> things you say are just stupid, and you being you, you will never,
> ever admit that, even though it is patently true. You have a total
> blockage against ever admitting you are wrong, even though you are
> more often wrong than right. You just like arguing and I wonder if
> your inability to admit you are wrong is partially, or wholly, the
> cause of your present personal predicament

>>Its a cunt of an addiction which
>>> is so on the nose that in most civilised (read: educated) countries
>>> its illegal to display them openly in shops. It adds billions to the
>>> average public health system costs, it causes untold misery to the
>>> dying and their loved ones, it proves the species is generally as
>>> stupid as a box of chisels and generally unable to exert the moderate
>>> will power necessary to stop suicidal practices such as smoking. I
>>> mean, slider, you would jump to avoid a speeding car heading towards
>>> you, wouldn't you? Well, smoking tobacco is analogous to that car in
>>> slo mo.

I have an old aquaintance who has
> terminal emphysema from smoking, he was totally unlucky. He hates
> smoking and attributes his emphysema to smoking, he has passed the
> point of self-delusion, unlike you. It causes death pal. Simple as
> that.

I am surprise by all this rubbish you are spouting because I
> thought you might be able to get over your mindset and actually admit
> something that is as clear as the sky is blue (well, perhaps not in
> London). But, you cannot, it just ain't in you is it? Its not in your
> nature to admit ever that you are wrong. You need to learn a little
> humility.

> If you can demonstrate that smoking tobacco (and chewing it as well)
> does not cause cancer and emphysema and gangrene of the extremities
> and heart disease and so on, then I will certainly admit I am wrong.

> However, it is you who has no argument and who would be laughed out of
> any face to face debate on this whole planet, and you know it.

You
> are an example of "the right man" as discovered or recognised by A E
> van Vogt. Here is a good read for you:
>
> http://phinnweb.blogspot.com/2004/10/right-man-and-fear-of-losing-face.html
>
> I'm a little like that, but at least I can admit when I am wrong, hard
> as that may be to do. You, simply, cannot.

> Have you ever visited someone in hospital suffering from terminal lung
> cancer? I have. Its horrible. This lady thought she was going to
> walk out of hospital, but she was in self-denial. She couldn't
> breathe and had to have huge needles into her lung through her chest
> to drain out the pus. They sent her home to die and her death was
> apparently horrendous.

> Yet, according to you, its just a "point of view". Are you fucking
> cracked, tapped or just plain insane?

> Slider, you must, you must, be just arguing for the sake of arguing
> here. Either that, or...

> Nicotine is the drug, tobacco, especially after treatment by Philip
> Morris etc, is the killer with all the tars and so on. And there is
> another sweeping statement by you, that society learns from its own
> mistakes. Not always mate, look at what's happening in Afghanistan
> for instance - the Yanks have not learnt from the experience of the
> Russians, the English, and many before, who perished in that ancient
> place.

>>I'm not having a fit, I'm not the addict here,
>>> you are. I woke up one morning about 8 years ago, decided I would
>>> never smoke again, and didn't. Ever. The secret is to loathe it and
>>> also, of course, to have sufficient will power and self discipline.

> Nicotine isn't good for anything, except killing insects. Therefore,
> on your arguement, you should stop forthwith.

> I gave it up because I knew it was hurting me. Even now, when I run,
> there is the remnant damage in my lungs that is evinced under physical
> stress. I used to smoke because I liked it, but I later realised that
> it was just another addiction and I don't like, nor need, addictions.
> Possibly the most addictive drug I ever used was speed, however.
> That's another story.

>>> I didn't attack you, and your perception that I did is what is wrong
>>> with smokers - they self justify the stinking deathly addiction, which
>>> has a grip of iron on them, and detest anyone of reasonable intellect
>>> actually pointing out how stupid, irrational and self harming the
>>> addiction is. Address is what I did, not attack. You don't want to
>>> face the fact that you need a crutch, are hopelessly addicted to one
>>> of the most harmful drugs known to man (what other drug than nicotine
>>> is used as a most potent agriculotural insecticide?) and ignore the
>>> self defeating irrationality that you practice day in day out whenever
>>> you light up a smoke. I do not believe that you only use it with dope
>>> either.

> Your problem is you hear, but you don't listen. When you hear, you
> also don't properly assimilate. And, your inflexible mind has caused
> so many problems in your life (you know this) that, if you could heal
> the hurt which has caused such inflexibility, you might actually have
> a different POV on life and be able to love again and put all the
> pieces of your life back together again.

> How can an inorganic molecule (CN) be as bad as a human being's
> behaviour? Hello? This is your problem, your problem is you haven't
> yet learnt how to think properly. You need to learn incisive
> self-criticism, especially of your thought processes. Its called
> logic and the avoidance of thinking errors.'

i.e. basically it was all just bs and blather on your part coz you felt
'justified' in doing so, even though later you turned out to be wrong and had
to retract it... the 'point' being that you're now currently just doing it all
again albeit on the equally contentious/debateable topic of man-made global
disaster!

iow, you really have to 'try' to be more 'reasonable' thang and not let your
beliefs continue to sway you as to the truth of certain matters 'before' you
commit to it...

i.e. 'evidence' first and conclusions 'later' based on the evidence, is the
only way to go lest a person ends up making an utter fool of themselves by
having to retract and apologise every time otherwise...

i mean lol, in order to get your own way you're even shouting at and bullying
jeremy by calling 'him' names now! ("don't be like slider jeremy!" --thang)

LOL ;-)

--------------------

"If at first an idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it."
--Albert Einstein

"Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or
else you say something true, and it will sound like it's from Neptune."
--Noam Chomsky

[thang ornerythinchus]

On Wed, 14 Mar 2012 09:06:11 -0000, "slider" <sli...@anashram.com>
wrote:

Move on slider, build a bridge and cross it. Eat right and think
right.

thang

[Jeremy H. Donovan]

Thang, after carefully reading your 'response', I'm back to the same
place I'm always in with you: wondering how anyone in his or her
right mind would ever want to talk with you? That the health of our
oceans is currently in mortal peril is absolutely not in any doubt
whatsoever. There are garbage heaps the size of Texas in the middle
of our oceans right now. Many major species of major game fish that
we've eaten for hundreds of years are severely depleted to dangerous
levels. Coral are kind of like the canary in the coal mine when it
comes to oceans, and the world's coral are in mortal peril. One thing
I can always count on is: you never know shit, Thang.

[Jeremy H. Donovan]

Dead zones increasing:
http://www.vims.edu/research/topics/dead_zones/index.php
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100311141213.htm

Coral around the world declining (and they support huge important
ecosystems):
http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-03-viral-disease-herpes-gaining.html
http://jezebel.com/5897251/the-worlds-coral-reefs-might-be-dying-of-herpes

85 percent of ocean fisheries fully exploited, over-exploited or
depleted.
http://news.discovery.com/earth/oceans-fish-fishing-industry.html
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/02/24/us-worldbank-oceans-idUKTRE81N09S20120224

Yeah, they keep arguing about the size of the patches... but Marine
debris is recognized as a major pollution problem around the world.
And it's not just one patch...hello??:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean_Garbage_Patch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_Garbage_Patch
http://www.oceanconservancy.org/our-work/marine-debris/the-pacific-garbage-patch.html

What is the monetary value of a healthy ocean?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120322100417.htm

[thang ornerythinchus]

What response? You've come in with no connection to the thread and I
haven't got a clue what you're prattling on about.

Mate, you are a man who spent formative years chasing a mirage and
then spent the rest of your years (to date) trying to repress growing
bitterness at the realisation of the extent to which you were misled,
actually no, the extent to which you ^allowed^ yourself to be misled
by a cultish charlatan.

You still carry a torch for him, even though you know that he
defrauded you and many many others.

And then you interpose yourself in a discussion I have with slider and
in such a way I have no fucking idea to what you refer or to what you
take offence.

Fuck your seabirds.

You talk in terms of hundreds of years and depleted fish. So what.
You want an omelette, you break a few eggs. I have more interest, an
overwhelming interest, in the survival of our species and if that
takes a few subservient species' untimely demise, well so be it. We
need to eat, we need to develop, we need to evolve - we are the
epitome of nature, the apex, Gaia's pride and soon we will kick
ourselves out of the nest and move on, in such a way that even the
next inevitable asteroid (imagine how many seabirds and fish species
^that^ will knock off) won't eliminate our species.

You appear to be a traitor to your species. If so, and I suspect you
are, I have no fucking time for you.

thang

[karmabum]

thang comes out wildly swinging left and right, albeit eloquently :)

### - ahem, 'traitors' don't defend, and/or advocate for, humanity's
liberation from religious indoctrination, so you're totally wrong (again!)
there thang, plus the rest of your above argument, if you can 'call' it an
argument lol, is just a collection of equally similar emotional left-hooks,
upper-cuts and outbursts coupled with outright, unquestionable assertions as
to the validity or not of already ostensibly academically accepted criteria,
"fuck your seabirds" (utterly hilarious btw haha;) being the equivalent of
stating 'fuck the canaries in the coalmine, just send down more workers! we
need coal!' ;-)

which, if you understand, is actually a somewhat rather extreme right-wing
pov? (hitler actually said + acted upon something very similar, and we all
know what happened to him!:)

the point being, that if one goes down 'that' road (the road of breaking eggs
to make omelettes for example) one either allows oneself to go to extremes in
order to realise ones goals and aims, or, after, e.g. the 'experience' of
hitler, plus assuming one 'remembers' the experience as having been
inappropriate to the advancement to humanity, one more rationally +
judiciously deliberately draws a line in the sand beyond which (e.g. as
experience has already proven) it's just not safe nor reasonable to go!

i.e... we put our fingers in the fire, we got burned, and if we've learned
anything we'll be a bit more bloody careful next time about allowing ourselves
to become so right-wing orientated??

accordingly, your argument as such basically all boils down to: 'fuck this
planet if we fuck it all up coz our ultimate destiny is all out there in the
stars anyway, so who gives a fuck!' - and well, ya see that's patently all
wrong and in-error coz we've already had this conversation before re man's
'travel to the stars' etc, and coz well, our little old planet earth doesn't
have anything even remotely resembling it for at least several 'light years'
in any direction + we've already covered that kind of impossible distance,
and/or the likelihood of us ever getting there for the foreseeable future, in
a previous discussion and ruled it out!!!

that rather than looking forward to 'abandoning' our nest as the route to
mankind's longevity, we should instead perhaps be being a little more
'realistic' and 'down to earth' and more simply just try to preserve the
habitat/environment we already have?

and because ultimately, at the rate we're fucking everything up here at home
we just ain't ever gonna be going to the stars soon enough to save our bacon
from what we're doing to ourselves in the meantime!

i mean, if your idea of utopia is people all living in totally artificial
environments on mars, or underground on the moons of saturn or some such
potentially-realisable rubbish + all at the expence of planet earth, then
maybe it could all come true one day, maybe... but that sure as hell ain't my
(plus i conjecture: anyone's!) sane idea of utopia!

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"You've been living in a dream-world Neo!" --morphious :)