quote:Humanity doesn't have thousands of years left.
That is, if we don't begin to expand to new lands.
The words "Bull" and "Shit" come to mind, though I can't say in no particular order.
I'm for seeing space exploration as much as the next guy, but let's be realistic here. I'm quite sure humanity won't spontaneously explode unless we start colonizing the moon.
Right now population growth in the developing world is somewhat coming under control (we're not quite applying the brakes yet, though we have eased off the accelerator). The UN now expects that in a century things will stabilize somewhere around the 10 billion ugly bags of mostly water-mark, in other words within the Earth's carrying capacity. There's no innate need to expand bacterially over everywhere and everything for fear that we're going to run out of agar.
While a better space program may well make life easier for humanity through technological kicbacks, it isn't needed to save it.
[ February 28, 2002, 15:52: Message edited by: The_Tom ]
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
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Our species will endure for thousands of years to come. Our ancestors were able to adapt to climate changes which doomed many other species, including our closest relatives, on the family tree, the Neanderthals.
Space colonization will occur. Not just now, not just in the immediate future. Just in the distant future.
Registered: Sep 1999
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posted
It is not that earth can carry the human civilization, its whether or not that Earth can provide enough resources to all those 10 billion people will need. Right now, we are depleting many resources, most notably oil. We use billions of gallons a day varying from simply making a T shirt white down to running cars.
Human civilization is alot more detailed then describing 6 events in a million year history.
Humans always are fascinated to explore new lands, and that is why within 500 years of the New World, one of the many countries that have sprung up has become the most powerful country in the world. Also if you remember Americas had far more untapped resources then the Old World Had. Not only that, the Americas is far larger than Europe.
Space is the new land that humans wish to explore. Space is the new land that many wish live in, however problems on Earth itself is causing so mush chaos within space exploration. Though NASA has a budget in the billions, to fund another Earth to Moon tpye project would cost trillions of dollars. If we had the money, humans years ago would have landed on Mars. Then now we would be seeing NASA preparing for the colonization of Mars not theorizing possbile ways of getting there.
Its not the matter of over population, its the matter of cost. For thousands of years, currancy has been a controling factor in human life. Its the dominating feature in human civilization that we need to be conpensated for doing a job no matter how small or important. Unless we eliminate money, it'll be many more years before we will see human life on another planet again.
Star Trek solved this with a World war 3, which eliminated many major governments (Riker said this), so no government, no money being made or used due to value anymore.
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