[NetBehaviour] Fleeting

[Johannes Birringer]

what a relief on another cold day to read you here on
this fantastical list. I was worried about the promethean
posturing the other day, as i am about offences against
the natural order. but i read something this morning
(by Annie Dillard, 'Total Eclipse'), and share with you -

She drives to witness an eclipse.  She captures the shadow-cone of the moon speeding towards her.

“It rolled at you across the land at 1,800 miles an hour, hauling darkness behind it like plague …
This was the universe about which we have read so much and never before felt: the universe as a 
clock-work of loose spheres flung at stupefying, unauthorized speeds.”

How to articulate the kind of inconceivable power that can obliterate the sun; 
“The universe was not made in jest but in solemn, incomprehensible earnest. 
By a power that is unfathomably secret, and holy, and fleet.” 


i like that fleet bit at the end

Johannes



________________________________________
 [Rob Myers schreibt]

I'd hope my use of sound effects would indicate a lack of entire seriousness.

But to run with this idea for a minute...

The initial environmental cost of shipping robots offworld to move the mining and refining there would very quickly become a net environmental and political gain. Strip mining, resource wars, refining within the Earth's atmosphere would all be reduced.

Transitioning to higher technology economies reduces fertility rates, so this would reduce new bodies over time.

Maintaining industrial society (with a reduced carbon footprint!) would maintain more existing bodies over time than simply waiting to drown or starve. This includes netbehaviourists... And turning the profits into UBI means that we aren't just treated as surplus population to be mourned properly when it's the economy rather than the environment that no longer supports us.

So while (as with everything we are discussing) I am not entirely convinced by asteroid mining, I'm also not entirely convinced by initial rejections of it for environmental or philosophical reasons. it's not a simple environmental nightmare or offence against the natural order. The latter would be promethean anyway. ;-)

Art can have an impact here. The popular imagination can be seized by or turned against these possibilities....

On Wed, 27 Apr 2016, at 12:05 AM, Annie Abrahams wrote:
a nightmare
you can't be serious Rob

On Wed, Apr 27, 2016 at 7:21 AM, John Hopkins <chazhop at gmail.com<mailto:chazhop at gmail.com>> wrote:
On 26/Apr/16 21:39, Rob Myers wrote:
"One solitary asteroid might be worth trillions of dollars in platinum
and other metals. Exploiting these resources could lead to a global boom
in wealth, which could raise living standards worldwide and potentially
benefit all of humanity."
Which means more effing bodies on the planet which means a dirtier nest. You know what goes into prepping the machines to get to an asteroid? You know what energy goes into raw ore refining? I presume this is a joke? or?
Might as well start reading vintage L. Ron Hubbard...