Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to re: motivation

re: motivation
louis — (archived)

Johannes, I'm all with you on this one.

When I said you need "nutcases" with "religious fervor", I consider myself to be one of those. :-)

I merely said that colonizing space is not necessary from a purely utilitarian point of view. We have all we need on this planet. But then, pure utilitarianism has never driven societies.

What's more: anti-utilitarian forces are much more potent (religion, myth, superstition). Let's not forget that conquering the Moon was not only based on a scientific program, but on an ideological agenda too (showing the world that the Free West could be there first, and not the base communists).

In short, you really need an ideological pulse to motivate people to colonize space.
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Now you could say that "the unthinkable" in this context (say, an asteroid whiping out life on earth, somewhere a few millennia from now) - is itself both a utilitarian concept and its opposite. So this is quite interesing.

There's a school of thought in anthropology which has successfully eliminated the divide between utilitarianists and anti-utilitarianists; they're called post-structuralists, and they say that such things like religion and art are always BOTH needed AND useless at the same time; the useless is necessary and useful.

Your idea of a Martian refuge is both myth and science. When you are describing its necessity, your account is full of "mythical" presuppositions.

But that doesn't diminish its value.

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