Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to re: . . . but only a nation to build a world . . .

americaforming
Robert — (archived)

(By analogy with "terraforming", of course)

Dontcha think there's a teeny-tiny bit of hubris in the notion of America "building a world"? In no small part that's because you're not really talking about building a world from scratch. That would be child's play compared to the reality of transforming an existing world to remake it In Our Image, in general against the wishes of the present inhabitants of much of the world. (If you try to tell me that everybody on Earth secretly wants to be American, I'll point out the hubris in that too, not to mention the arrogance of speaking for several billion other people.) Where terraforming is easiest if there's no existing biosphere to resist, so too would amercaforming be easier in a vacuum. We don't have that luxury. (Good argument for focusing on Mars instead, perhaps?)

Yeah, the 21st century will be "interesting", but more in the sense McFly points out. We're looking at a world of hurt ahead of us if we don't discover some humility right quick.

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