Fragment of a convo I had on IRC:
<e> by coincidence, I wrote a novel about the sun becoming a
red gian, and a novel about aliens throwing an extinction
rock towards earth. I guess these are common ideas.
<teiresias> e: You're in some good company, at least with the
dropping rocks thing. Quoting Spider Robinson about
Robert Heinlein: "I first heard it from Robert
A. Heinlein, half a century ago, and it will never
change. This may sound like melodrama, but it happens
to be cold fact: the first party to establish a
permanent lunar base owns the world, forever."
<teiresias> I was thinking about that earlier today, and thinking
that this was a good reason why we shouldn't cede the
development of space to little shitstains like that
eugenics boy Leon Musk.
<teiresias> Because the only thing that the eugenics-loving,
test-tube-baby fathering, Trump-fellating, video game
playing drama queen really cares about is Leon Musk.
<teiresias> I've been reading the Isaacson bio of Musk, and I
speculate that he just plays at being an autist on
stage. Really he's just a regular old cunt, or as the
old Romans would have said 2000 years ago, a cunnus.
One with lots of money and shitty parents. He doesn't
have Aspergers or anything, but he sure is an ass
burger all right.
<e> in the long run, Musk could be more dangerous than Trump.
<teiresias> Musky-poo hasn't talked about wanting to set up a base
/ colony on the Moon. He's all "Mars Mars Mars". But
I don't trust him. Not as far as I can throw him.
Right now I trust Bezos more, mainly because he
*appears to be* simply a greedy little Ferengi who
wants to sell you shit and that's his main reason for
wanting to go to space. OTOH, maybe he just hasn't
unmasked yet.
<e> If I'm just waering my science hat, then I only care about
Mars. There is zero chance of finding life on the moon or
even remnants of life, but there is a teeny tiny chance
for Mars, and that is profound.
<teiresias> Very teeny though. Aren't several of Jupiter's moons
better candidates?
<e> course the moon may be a necessary step to get to Mars,
there is some debate about that.
<e> Yes but those are harder to get to, harder to explore.
<e> plus they are in massive radiation bbelts.
<teiresias> That seemed to be the theory back in the day. To get
to multi-planetary civilization, you start by
colonizing the moon / L5 and build factories up there
where you don't have to fight a gravity well.
<teiresias> Anyway these are the kinds of projects we need to be
doing as nations and peoples united toward a common
goal. Maybe we could even form an organization to do
it. I think "United Earth Space Probe Agency (UESPA)"
is a fine name.
<e> ESA is a model for this, but pig headed countries like USA
and China insist on (mostly) going it alone.
<teiresias> Re: Musk, here's Walter Isaacson quoting Musk's daddy:
"In an email to Elon dated “Father’s Day,” Errol wrote,
“I’m sitting herefreezing cold in a hanger wrapped in
blankets and newspapers. There is no electricity. If
I’m bothered to write to you like this, you can bother
to read it.” That was followed by a rambling screed in
which he called Biden a “freak, criminal, pedophile
president” who was ou
<teiresias> t to destroy everything that the U.S. stood for,
“including you.” Black leaders in South Africa, he
said, were engaged in anti-white racism. “With no
Whites here, the Blacks will go back to the trees.”
Vladimir Putin was “the only world leader talking.” He
followed up with a subsequent email showing a picture
of a stadium scoreboard saying, “TRUMP WON—F**K Joe
Biden,” adding the comment, “This is
<teiresias> irrefutable.”"
<teiresias> Really rich, a guy who got a child on his 15-year-old
step daughter calling Biden a pedophile.
I think my new Star Trek head canon is that Musk is Khan Noonien Singh's baby daddy. The more recent Trek timelines said 2026-2053 for World War III, and we're pretty damned on-track for it.
We did kinda avoid that DS9 episode Past Tense. Instead of building sanctuary districts to house the homeless, they just sorta left them out on the street to fend for themselves. But who knows, maybe if housing costs keep spiraling out of control, Sanctuary Districts will become a thing after all.