[lateStarter]

Yeah; if our survival depends on diplomacy, I'm gloomier than ever about our prospects.

I agree. Not to get off-topic, but can anyone provided an example of diplomacy that served to benefit the general populace from anytime in all of recorded history. If needed, we can start another thread on the proposals - because I can't think of any.... And don't even think about marching out anything regarding Churchill or Roosevelt during WWII...

[smallpoxgirl]

I agree. Not to get off-topic, but can anyone provided an example of diplomacy that served to benefit the general populace from anytime in all of recorded history.

Well...I guess the Cuban missle crisis comes to mind. Also the SALT treaties. The nuclear weapons non-proliferation treaty. International convention on land-mines. The Kyoto accord.

[Heineken]

The land-mine and Kyoto initiatives mostly failed b/c the US refused to go along.

The SALT measures accomplished little, really---the world is still bristling with thousands of nukes.

The Cuban Missile Crisis diplomacy worked b/c the alternative was total nuclear annihilation. The choice was so stark and straightforward---far different from the Byzantine complexities posed by most of today's problems.

[smallpoxgirl]

The land-mine and Kyoto initiatives mostly failed b/c the US refused to go along.

The SALT measures accomplished little, really---the world is still bristling with thousands of nukes.

The Cuban Missile Crisis diplomacy worked b/c the alternative was total nuclear annihilation. The choice was so stark and straightforward---far different from the Byzantine complexities posed by most of today's problems.

Certainly SALT, Kyoto, and the Land-mine intitiative could have done more. I'm not sure that saying they didn't do enough is the same as saying they didn't benefit us. I think the major problem with diplomacy is that it is all about government doing less bad things and not government doing anything good. "See aren't we great. We didn't blow up the planet today." Yeah. Ok great, but we'd have all been much better off if ya didn't build the bombs in the first place. "We reached an agreement that we're going to dump 10% less greehouse gasses into the environment per year by 2020." Gee. Swell.

[Heineken]

The weakness of diplomacy is that it always involves making compromises, greatly diluting the effectiveness of whatever proposals are being made.

The only thing that could save us now, of course, is immediate, radical action by a united world. Not gonna happen.

[0mar]

Peak oil is not a permanent reset button on technology (unless there's global thermonuclear warfare) but more like a pause button. A pause button for 50 years or more maybe but just that a pause button.

There is no reason at all, given sufficient time, that we should be stuck in mideval european technology indefinately. Eventually, new sources of energy will be found (in our lifetimes is the real question). We will still have the accumulated knowledge of 200 years+ of science, the ability to read and write is not going away since literacy rates are higher now than they ever were.

If humanity doesn't extinguish itself during the peak oil crisis, I have no doubts that we will eventually reach the stars. The physics says we can. Probably not in our lifetimes or even our children's lifetimes, but yes, eventually we will.

[Zardoz]

...I have no doubts that we will eventually reach the stars. The physics says we can...

The physics dictate just the opposite.

Einstein said that we will never get past more than a small fraction of the speed of light, so even a pointless trip to one of the "nearby" stars, which we know for certain have no habitable planets, would take hundreds of years.

If we ever discover another habitable planet, it will be thousands of years away. Any time spent thinking about interstellar travel is time wasted.

[Lore]

...I have no doubts that we will eventually reach the stars. The physics says we can...

The physics dictate just the opposite.

Einstein said that we will never get past more than a small fraction of the speed of light, so even a pointless trip to one of the "nearby" stars, which we know for certain have no habitable planets, would take hundreds of years.

If we ever discover another habitable planet, it will be thousands of years away. Any time spent thinking about interstellar travel is time wasted.

Wa'sa matter you!... never heard of warp drive?

[0mar]

...I have no doubts that we will eventually reach the stars. The physics says we can...

The physics dictate just the opposite.

Einstein said that we will never get past more than a small fraction of the speed of light, so even a pointless trip to one of the "nearby" stars, which we know for certain have no habitable planets, would take hundreds of years.

If we ever discover another habitable planet, it will be thousands of years away. Any time spent thinking about interstellar travel is time wasted.

I'm thinking more of the lines along wormholes/blackholes. There's no need to accelerate to the speed of light when you can literally walk to the planet in question. The only real hurdle right now is energy. It takes something like the entire energy of the solar system to open a wormhole for milliseconds.

[Heineken]

Our off-and-on fantasies of reaching and colonizing other planets seem to have intensified a bit lately (as illustrated by the latest comments from Stephen Hawking).

Wonder why.

[rwwff]

Wonder why.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

The shuttle is flying again, and the newscritters are apparently interested in it. That'll probably fade with another launch or two.

[Battle_Scarred_Galactico]

If we ever discover another habitable planet, it will be thousands of years away. Any time spent thinking about interstellar travel is time wasted.

I agree, unless someone discovers how to bend spacetime or create wormholes at will we are staying right here with our more pressing issues. That type of knowledge is so advanced I think it would have to come from an ET source, hardly likley unless we are being observed in some sort of "Zoo" hypothosis.

The whole debate is just escapism from the real issues.

[Heineken]

Wonder why.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

The shuttle is flying again, and the newscritters are apparently interested in it. That'll probably fade with another launch or two.

No, I think all the talk about PO, global warming, overpopulation, dying oceans, mass extinctions, and other disasters has some people thinking that now that we've wrecked the earth it's time to move on elsewhere, as if we actually could.

[Odin]

The hatred of one's own species oozing through this thread is pathetic. I consider leaving this rock and colonizing the universe to be our destiny.

[rwwff]

The hatred of one's own species oozing through this thread is pathetic. I consider leaving this rock and colonizing the universe to be our destiny.

I prefer to embrace and love reality; not a fantasy destiny.

[Zardoz]

The hatred of one's own species oozing through this thread is pathetic. I consider leaving this rock and colonizing the universe to be our destiny.

You're assuming we'll survive long enough as a species to somehow develop the widgets needed to violate all the laws of physics.

Never happen. We'll never be able to carry our destructive ways to another habitable planet. That's nature's way of doing damage control.

[CrudeAwakening]

The hatred of one's own species oozing through this thread is pathetic.

Far from hatred; just a realistic appraisal of mankind's report card thus far.

I consider leaving this rock and colonizing the universe to be our destiny.

Don't forget, this is the best rock we're ever likely to find. That's why we evolved "here", and not "there".

[Heineken]

The hatred of one's own species oozing through this thread is pathetic. I consider leaving this rock and colonizing the universe to be our destiny.

You're assuming we'll survive long enough as a species to somehow develop the widgets needed to violate all the laws of physics.

Never happen. We'll never be able to carry our destructive ways to another habitable planet. That's nature's way of doing damage control.

Right. Plus, looks to me as though the "space program" (which is primarily a weapons program) is actually moving backwards. We made it to the Moon in 1969, and it's been exploding Space Shuttles to nowhere ever since. We're a hell of a long way from Alpha Centauri!

But if we play our greenhouse-gas cards right, we'll soon be able to visit the sterile, baking plains of Venus without even leaving home.

[jaws]

Duuuuuude, you think space travel is hard? Just imagine how hard it's gonna be to get out of the Matrix first.

[Anthrobus]

Zardoz, you are totally right, the laws of physics rule.

But please stop showing these unquieting pictures...