“humans will survive for hundreds millions of years. But I’ll be long gone in like 40 and I’ll have gotten everything I every wanted. So change nothing, and fuck you.”
Homo Sapiens may survive for 10 million years, but I don’t think that is where the smart money is.
2015:
Like other Republicans, Paul would repeal Obamacare, partially privatize Social Security, move Medicare to a " premium support" system for future retirees, and block-grant Medicaid and food stamps. But he’s also proposed budget cuts of 20 percent or more to NASA, the National Institutes of Health, the FDA, and the EPA — and cuts of 60 percent or more to the National Science Foundation, State Department, and Interior Department, among many others. Plus he’s proposed eliminating the Departments of Energy and Education entirely. “It’s the most detailed expression of what a libertarian approach to budgeting would look like to date,” Matthews writes.
Off to a great start!
So… he’ll push for a massive NASA budget increase, right?
I maintain that we have a battle of world views going on here. In some ways it’s about the myths we believe in. Most environmentalists believe in what I call the Hobbit Paradigm: we live in a beautiful garden, and if we grounded ourselves in relationships with our communities (including nature) we would have a good and sustainable life. Many technocentrists believe in what I call the Star Trek Paradigm: humans are limitlessly ingenious, technological solutions will save us, and Nature is viewed with an anthropocentric utilitarian ethic.
I do not believe in the Star Trek Paradigm. It’s hubris. I also don’t think it’s a very pragmatic paradigm. We live in a world we evolved to live in. Not worrying about this world because we think terraforming other planets and setting up space bases might be a possibility is not comprehending the Good or risk very well, IMHO.
I suppose a third paradigm is cold-blooded, individualist Realpolitik; It’s a dog eat dog world, fuck you, I’m just trying to get mine as hard as everyone else is. In this case Space Colonisation is just a beard to disguise a callous and usurious relationship to the beings is this world.
That makes the conflict one of story, of myth, which means no one will have their minds changed by facts. They’re belief systems. We need to expose those fundamentally short -sighted or selfish beliefs. We need to tell better stories, and expose the ridiculousness of the other stories.
You can easily be an environmentalist and still believe in the Star Trek paradigm. While we, that is mankind, might have the ingenuity to find technological solutions to most of our problems, we do not have the political or economic systems necessary to actually put these solutions into reality.
