Interesting thought piece. I agree with most of it. But, not this: "Well, I don’t know about you, but *someone* on Earth needs to be in charge and it sure as hell won’t be a planet bent on individualism!"
We're much better off with no one in charge, with maximum decentralization, with individuals and groups that spontaneously form being able to take up whatever experiments and projects that they find interesting and/or profitable.
Putting someone in charge, allowing one person or one committee to direct everyone's efforts, invariably leads to failure. It's why the wisdom of the crowds has always exceeded the wisdom of the tyrant. Just my two cents.
Good points. I do think to become intergalactic it would have to be a unified effort amongst world leaders, not necessarily political but cultural, technological, philosophical.
Ostensibly it would be a democratic electoral process ...but maybe I'm too optimistic!
I do wonder what would happen if a existential threat came across this planet what would we do? Hopefully it wouldn't turn out how we handled Covid...
Since at this point in time, we can’t get along well enough that someone might destroy the planet as a good place for humans. We continually are very evil and aggressive towards each other with innocent people paying the highest price for this, I’m not sure we’re a species that is worth saving and populating other worlds. Maybe if we survive and evolve to be less totally self centered collectively we might be worthy. If we don’t then it’s not a great cosmic tragedy anyhow.
I like this bit “The universe is a fucking nightmare.” 😉
It is 😜
Interesting thought piece. I agree with most of it. But, not this: "Well, I don’t know about you, but *someone* on Earth needs to be in charge and it sure as hell won’t be a planet bent on individualism!"
We're much better off with no one in charge, with maximum decentralization, with individuals and groups that spontaneously form being able to take up whatever experiments and projects that they find interesting and/or profitable.
Putting someone in charge, allowing one person or one committee to direct everyone's efforts, invariably leads to failure. It's why the wisdom of the crowds has always exceeded the wisdom of the tyrant. Just my two cents.
Good points. I do think to become intergalactic it would have to be a unified effort amongst world leaders, not necessarily political but cultural, technological, philosophical.
Ostensibly it would be a democratic electoral process ...but maybe I'm too optimistic!
I do wonder what would happen if a existential threat came across this planet what would we do? Hopefully it wouldn't turn out how we handled Covid...
Thanks for the food for thought.
Yeah, I 100% agree with that. If COVID taught us anything, it is that we can and should do better. Good point!
Since at this point in time, we can’t get along well enough that someone might destroy the planet as a good place for humans. We continually are very evil and aggressive towards each other with innocent people paying the highest price for this, I’m not sure we’re a species that is worth saving and populating other worlds. Maybe if we survive and evolve to be less totally self centered collectively we might be worthy. If we don’t then it’s not a great cosmic tragedy anyhow.
I think it would be a tragedy in the sense that our cynical postmodern iconoclastic attitude seems very new.
We're a species with incredible feats... tho I am biased lol
BUT I do agree that if we don't shape up and evolve we might just be cavemen writings on the wall. Thanks for the comment