Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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I want to start a project of better visualization of the problems we face. We ask children to visualize in school but we all could use it. In the common economic discussions trillion dollar budgets and a million dollars are discussed interchangeability shows lack of visualization. The West is heading for currency collapse but austerity measures in Greece just add to unemployment not debt reduction, why is this so hard to visualize?

One clear way to shore up the US economy is to end foreign bases and end the embargo of Cuba. Boycotts hurt both sides, the Cuban economy is smaller so it hurts them more. The US economy is shaky so at some point embargo’s may be the straw that makes us fall apart.

Bumblebees spread beehive syndrome, and all flee the hive after a bee sips from the genetic insecticide in the corn syrup in a discarded soda can. Corn that got cross-pollinated by the wind. How would organically labeling food ingredients help the situation? Only corn from the Southern Hemisphere could be truly labeled, not genetically modified. In the past laboratories blew up, on occasions when an experiment went wrong. The earth not just the mountain section of France and Switzerland is the laboratory when it comes to Large Hadron Collider research.

I want to start a project of mass visualization, but before I post any depressing thoughts, I think I must enclose a little excerpt on the good news in the last election. The Republicans lost much of their base as many Orthodox Jews voted Democrat and Cuban-Americans stopped listening to their hysterical leaders, booting two out of office. Suddenly around the country most Council for a Liveable World candidates won. Suddenly far fewer Americans believe that pot or gay marriage will destroy our country. It is for a moment at least suddenly easier to try to solve out collective problems.

Now that I got that paragraph out of the way, I want to go on with my project of visualizing the world around us.

The following link is about visualizing large sums of money and finance in general,

http://usdebt.kleptocracy.us/

Even many professional economists and physicists envisioned far more as a child then their everyday efforts to skillfully ticker with known formulas a little. Visualizing is considered something for kids to do; something only high pressure salesman ask others to do. A very few individuals continue visualizations all their life, such as Albert Einstein.

We live in a universe with the very small and very large, tiny gamma rays can pass through almost any object so the space between the planets circling the sun must be comparable with the space between atoms circling a molecule. And their must be space as between the stars sub-atomically, if gamma rays can pass trough without bumping directly into some resistance. Gravity increases four times as it gets closer, like swinging a heavy ball around ones head puling it harder toward oneself and it goes faster. Space junk before it hits the atmosphere ends up circling at the speed of about three times a day. If the earth had no atmosphere and was solid with nothing lighter than lead, space junk would circle several times faster before hitting the shrunken earth. The Echo Satellite which I liked to look for at night, much slower, the moon once a month around the earth, the earth once every 365 days around the sun with less pull. If the earth shrunk to a black hole, space junk would spin around until reaching the speed of light and go no faster so instead quickly fall toward the black hole that was the earth.

We consider this kind of visualizing something for smart children, but if this is true then Einstein never grew up.

Enclosed are some links for visualizing quantity,

Google the following and click on quick view, GOOGLE THIS PPT FILE,

http://www.hstwohioregions.org/sitefiles/The%20MegaPenny%20Project.ppt

The ancients had a similar illustration concerning a chessboard. A story of a king impressed by his astrologers predictions offered to give his servant any reward of whatever he wanted and got asked for a seemingly humbly request a grain of wheat (or other versions say a grain of rice) doubled for each square on a chess board and if 16 grains equal a penny, what takes the place of rice and wheat grains in our world, a cubic mound, one quintillion pennies, would be comparable with a cube as high as Mt Everest (scrawl the above link for a fire on quadrillion).

Time visualizing,

http://www.costellospaceart.com/html/time_and_the_speed_of_light.html

Visualizing scale

https://richerramblings.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/visualising-scale/

When it comes to visualizing the four dimensions, the old stand by is Flatland,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland

Where in a two dimensional world certain members appear to have magic by using the third, jumping over barriers appearing to others to be passing right through walls. Actually it is more like us in this corner of the universes living on a frozen lake as amoeba-like oily intelligent blobs that slither around the surface of the frozen lake with little understanding of height. In other words the fourth and fifth or more dimensions are all around us but we don’t notice. If this isn’t true it would mean that dimension is the wrong concept when applying it to time.

There are no sites links that I could find on the dangers and hopes of genetic engineering. However insecticide was genetically implanted on corn for animal feed back in 1991. I see no sense of terror that it might invade the Southern Hemisphere or hear of anyone manually importing Southern Hemisphere bumblebees to our national parks. Now there is fear that the man-make insect terminator genes might spread to rice, wheat and any other plant not helped by insects,

http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0040035

There are fantasist genetic experiments cross-breading goats with spiders to create thread stronger than steel, wide goats might live longer if their hair was resistant to being torn apart by wolfs. Creatures with hard to digest inbreed thread or glass-like bits near their muscles and bones from whatever man-made source would crowd out animals who were easier to digest. Labeling foods for genetically modified products is actually of small comfort.

Some dangerous experiments should be done despite the danger. There was suggestions even 45 years ago on lubricating the fault lines to only have small earthquakes from then on. If things went wrong and their was a huge one instead there would be no Japan disaster or any other huge earthquake in today’s world. I don’t know what is equally dangerous and necessary when it comes to food production. Of course none of this is safe.

Physicians like Otto Rossler has extreme trouble visualizing Hawkins Radiation. But those who skillfully push formulas around find it extremely handy and convincing. Hawkins radiation is one of the main reasons Large Haddon Collider research is considered safe despite the fears among some, of an out of control black hole. Another reason is that there are immense forces in the universe, the idea that puny little humans can make major change is very, very unlikely. However, what if dark matter was really small black holes which make up most of the universe.

Puny humans adding one more hole would be a small change in the universe. If the moon collapsed into a black hole it would disappear from the sky. During what was once a eclipse of the moon would instead appear very weird, as light from the stars near by bent to a great degree.

But what if physicists made a mistake that there is a minimum size that a micro black hole could shrink without becoming unstable. If this is miscalculation is true then there would be ever shrinking holes. They could be in the middle of many celestial objects including our earth. When a light wave or something else passes over it, it might result in a little hole like a bullet hole, possible making the wave shift ever so slightly toward the red. On the other hand I could wrong because why wouldn’t it make the wave narrower more toward violet. If it was in temperature close to absolute zero the object baring down on the mini-micro hole might stick to it instead of making a hole when passing through such as in the helium cooling coil of the Large Hadron Collider. I hope the cooling coals or horizontal not vertical preventing an updraft that might keep the hole growing for a short while as gravity pulls it to the center of the earth. Tremendous cold right next to intense heat may not occur without human help.

Now back to the fourth and more dimensions and if time is a dimension time travel all around us like with creatures living on the surface of a frozen lake, that have a dim concept of height.

In the collider experiment some particles are synch together like a flock of geese or a chorus line all appearing moving and disappearing together,

http://sciencestage.com/r/particles-flock-strange-synchronization-behavior-large-hadron-collider

http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/hadron-collider-reveals-universal-urge.html

Maybe we don’t actually see a moment but several moment segments at the same time so quantum physics is like a little time machine, when something reaches the speed of light it moves over in time if it moves faster we see evidence of more of a wave gamma ray extremely hot and fast moving away from us in time if cooler we detect infrared heat waves that we get to observe a wide section. If you take a one tenth second timed picture of a water wave you would see a fuzzy line where the wave moved during the filming but a far faster wave in an iron bar would be closer to a picture of an ink line. All the waves could move endlessly in time but we note only perhaps a billionth of a second, longer as time speeds up for the object moving away from us so we see a slightly wider than perhaps a billionth of a second and thus more of the wave segment of a wave that if we could see all the time segments would extend endlessly in time not the line segment we see but and endlessly wide sweep.

So the object behind a light wave is perhaps there or not there depending on which time segment it is actually in.

At one point astronomy consisted of a series of epicycles as new information was obtained a new epicycle was added,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysterium_Cosmographicum

With Hawkins radiation and dark matter instead of just invisible ordinary matter with the same proprieties as visible matter we are going through a somewhat similar constantly tinkering with a theory instead of looking for a new one

The problem is the entire earth is a laboratory ready to come apart if something goes wrong. Safety first or else sooner or later one mistake will be the last .

Note: The below is exclusively about the United States of America, yet the theme is international.

Each time an extreme weather event takes place humanity is reminded again that basic preparation for an off-grid experience did not take place across large swaths of an affected population. Ironically, it does not begin to take place, publicly and en masse, after the event.

Saving humanity will have a lot to do with teaching a kid to build a fire, in the near term. More esoteric “preservers” and “shields” have their place, but “Scout” knowledge can produce immediate quantitative and qualitative improvements in humanity’s survival capabilities, fast.

After weather-induced disasters, our tendency is toward construction of physical things – better towers, more resilient dams, improved architecture. Seldom do we do anything to improve ourselves. Thousands remain helpless and dependent in the face of the Hurricane “Sandy” aftermath.

We have the resources in abundance to mobilize a citizenry education program. Many veterans have expert-level qualifications in survival training, for example, and with Internet and iPads their knowledge could be disseminated to every public school auditorium and town hall equipped with electricity at nominal cost, while also providing the instructors with competitive compensation.

To practice and train in the practical skills of preparedness, schools, towns, cities and parks could coordinate to deliver on- and off-site programs all citizens could reasonably take part in over a specified period of time. The goal should be to ensure within a specific time frame every citizen is aware of and able to employ a holistic set of preparedness actions in the event of an emergency. It’s a simple, clear and achievable objective.

It is what we do or fail to do as a society and as individuals to prepare for and learn from risk events that makes them more or less harmful now and in the future. The “existential risk” of extreme weather events, or extreme geological events, or terror events or financial avalanche, or their compounding, barring total annihilation, is the systemic and chronic damage which mutilates the fabric of society over time, making us weaker each time we face a new emergency, and also more prone to creating a new emergency or failing to prepare adequately for the next.

A citizen-wide preparedness program for unplanned emergency off-grid events could be designed for fun, building of comradery and orientation of adults and children toward a grounded, active, positive engagement with a highly variable world, thus doing much to off-set the negative impacts of an increasingly disaster prone environment and also much to build a more internally cohesive society. The literal ROA for investment in citizen preparedness should be exponential if the programming is organized with care, especially when including and evaluating the investment into human capital as an asset class. The very act of addressing how we handle disaster will diminish the potential for disaster itself.

A more self-sufficient and stable citizenry would help to increase public wealth and decrease public debt by limiting or eliminating the public expenditures made after an emergency (through the Federal Emergency Management Agency or through deployment of the military for example). Insurance claims of many types would decrease, new markets for sustainable goods and services would emerge, and dependence for survival upon non-sustainable resources like fossil fuels and coal-powered electricity would be tempered, all with increasing measure and positive impact over time.

A logical step for such a program would be for a public official of rank to announce it as a national priority. This could set a helpful tone of willingness, support or mandate. Local councils and agencies could also come together in confederation and create the same effect. Organizations disposed to the dispensation of preparedness skill sets could also use this time to create momentum.

Becoming competent in the ability to intelligently face adverse conditions is the most important skill required in society today. Until the time when all or a majority of people are able to act with sustained rationality and functionality in an unfamiliar situation or emergency, systems will continue to decay or collapse faster than ability to repair damage or survive impact peaceably.

EOH events are events that cause the irreversible termination of humanity. They are not events that start the physical destruction of humanity (that would be too late), but fundamental, non-threatening and inconspicuous events that eventually lead to the irreversible physical destruction of humanity. Using nations and civilizations I explain how.

(1) Fundamental: These events have to be fundamental to the survival of the human species or else they cannot negatively impact the foundation of humanity’s existence.

On a much smaller scale drought and war can and have destroyed nations and civilizations. However, that is not always the case. For example, it is still not know what caused the demise of the Mayan civilization.

The act of war can lead to the irreversible destruction of a nation or civilization, but the equivalent EOH event lay further back in history, and can only be answered by the questions who and why.

For example, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria is the EOH event that triggered a domino effect which started with Austria-Hungary’s declaration of war against Serbia, and Central Powers (including Germany and Austria-Hungary) and the Allies of World War I (countries allied with Serbia) to declare war on each other, starting World War I.

In this case Europe was not destroyed as it still had the capability to rebuild, but it led to massive loss of human lives.

Lesson: This illustrates that an EOH event acts like a trigger. Therefore, EOH events must have the capability to trigger destruction in such a manner as to annihilate the capability to rebuild, too.

(2) Non-Threatening: They have to be non-threatening or else these types of events cannot take hold and become main stream.

The Hindu numeral system designed for positional notation in a decimal system, invented (trigger event) in India, was transmitted via the Arab traders to Europe where it took root, and bloomed into the counting and mathematical systems we now accept universally.

Note, the Roman Empire, essentially Southern Europe, Mediterranean and parts of the Middle East, used a comparatively awkward system, by contrast, and this has not survived into general usage today.

The development of mathematics in a Europe, hungry not to be left behind, led to the development of the sciences and engineering not envisioned by India. And several hundred years later came back to India in the form of the British Raj, and changed how Indians live.

Lesson: This illustrates that for an EOH event to prosper it requires a conducive environment – in this case a Europe hungry not to be left behind.

(3) Inconspicuous: They have to be inconspicuous to facilitate the chain reaction of irreversible events. If these events were visible to the majority of humanity when they occur, people could intervene and prevent these chain reactions to irreversible destruction of humanity.

The 9/11 attacks on the Twin World Trade Towers was inconspicuous simply because no one believed that commercial airplanes could be used as weapons of destruction. The subsequent chain reaction, the sequential collapse of building floors, lend to destruction and major loss of lives.

Lesson: Inconspicuous does not necessarily mean ‘cannot be seen’ as the 9/11 example illustrates that it would also encompass ‘cannot be believed’.

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In summary an EOH event is a non-threatening inconspicuous trigger in a conducive environment, that chain reacts into irreversible physical destruction of the foundations of humanity in a manner that prevents rebuilding.

By this definition there are two EOH events within our comprehension.

The first that comes to mind is the irreversible expansion of our Sun into a red giant will lead to the total destruction of humanity with the inability to rebuild if we remain on Earth, and is triggered by the inconspicuous exhaustion of hydrogen in the Sun’s core which switches to the thermonuclear fusion chain reaction of hydrogen.

Therefore, the EOH event is the exhaustion of hydrogen.

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The second are experiments in small black hole production. The hypothesis that small black holes can be used for interstellar propulsion (https://lifeboat.com/blog/2012/09/debunking-the-black-hole-interstellar-drive) lends a conducive environment to trigger the funding for such experiments. The realization of small black holes without experimentally proven controls will lead to the irreversible chain reaction of black hole growth as it consumes matter around it at increasingly faster rates. This will result in the complete destruction of humanity and everything within our reach, in manner we cannot rebuild.

Therefore, the EOH event is the approval of funding into small black hole experimental research. And with CERN we have achieved an EOH event.

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Benjamin T Solomon is the author & principal investigator of the 12-year study into the theoretical & technological feasibility of gravitation modification, titled An Introduction to Gravity Modification, to achieve interstellar travel in our lifetimes. For more information visit iSETI LLC, Interstellar Space Exploration Technology Initiative.

Solomon is inviting all serious participants to his LinkedIn Group Interstellar Travel & Gravity Modification.


Technology is as Human Does
When one of the U.S. Air Force’s top future strategy guys starts dorking out on how we’ve gotta at least begin considering what to do when a progressively decaying yet apocalyptically belligerent sun begins BBQing the earth, attention is payed. See, none of the proposed solutions involve marinade or species-level acquiescence, they involve practical discussion on the necessity for super awesome technology on par with a Kardeshev Type II civilization (one that’s harnessed the energy of an entire solar system).

Because Not if, but WHEN the Earth Dies, What’s Next for Us?
Head over to Kurzweil AI and have a read of Lt. Col. Peter Garretson’s guest piece. There’s perpetuation of the species stuff, singularity stuff, transhumanism stuff, space stuff, Mind Children stuff, and plenty else to occupy those of us with borderline pathological tech obsessions.

[BILLION YEAR PLAN — KURZWEIL AI]
[U.S. AIR FORCE BLUE HORIZONS FUTURE STUFF PROJECT]

I do not regret voting for this President and I would and will do it again. However.……I am not happy about our space program. Not at all. One would think there would be more resistance concerning the privatization of space and the inferior launch vehicles being tested or proposed. Indeed there would be objections except for a great deception being perpetrated on a nation ignorant of the basic facts about space flight. The private space gang has dominated public discourse with very little answering criticism of their promises and plans.
This writer is very critical of the flexible path.

It is a path to nowhere.

Compared to the accomplishments of NASA’s glory days, there is little to recommend the players in the commercial crew game. The most fabulous is Space X, fielding a cheap rocket promising cheap lift. There is so little transparency concerning the true cost of their launches that one space-faring nation has called the bluff and stated SpaceX launch prices are impossible. The Falcon 9, contrary to stellar advertising, is a poor design in so many ways it is difficult to know where to begin the list. The engines are too small and too many, the kerosene propellant is inferior to hydrogen in the upper stage, and promising to reuse spent hardware verges on the ridiculous. Whenever the truth about the flexible path is revealed, the sycophants begin to wail and gnash their teeth.

The latest craze is the Falcon “heavy.” The space shuttle hardware lifted far more, though most of the lift was wasted on the orbiter. With 27 engines the faux heavy is a throwback to half a century ago when clusters of small engines were required due to nothing larger being available. The true heavy rocket of the last century had five engines and the number of Falcon engines it would take to match the Saturn V proves just how far the mighty have fallen.

Long, long posts, doubling as SpaceX advertisements, swamp any forum where the deception is exposed. The most popular and endlessly repeated dogma concerns fuel depots. Refueling in space is hyped as the answer to all problems. Unfortunately the chances of making it work with the selected propellant- liquid hydrogen- are not good. This kind of blasphemy is sure to bring howls of protest on any forum where it appears. The sad truth is the American people are being conned into throwing away the Heavy Lift Infrastructure that is the only path to Beyond Earth Orbit Human Space Flight. SpaceX is more of an exploitation company to charge the taxpayer twice than aerospace company. Everything they are pushing- from the engine design to friction stir welded stages, to the heat shield on the capsule has all been developed by NASA on the taxpayers dime. They use NASA labs and engineers for token payment and then advertise low prices. It is a scam. Worse than a scam, it is a distraction from and drain on funds from the only real possibility for space travel on the horizon; the Space Launch System (SLS).

LEO is not space exploration. It is not space travel. It may have qualified as space flight at one time but not anymore. It is endless circles at very high altitude. If any achievement deserves the “been there” scoff it is Low Earth Orbit.

Human beings left Earth at 24,200 mph (38,938 km/hr) in December of 1968. In December of 1972 we returned and have not gone back. We did continue Heavy Lift launches after Apollo with the Space Shuttle- but the STS did not launch humans beyond earth orbit. Due to lack of funding the Shuttle regrettably launched a hundred tons of wings, landing gear, and never full cargo bay over one hundred times so they could come right back. What little stayed up there at very high altitude going in circles is that higher price tag people cry about.

To expand the human race into the solar system requires nuclear energy. We will not be assembling, testing, and lighting off any nuclear systems in LEO. We do however have a human rated capsule with a powerful escape system almost ready that is suitable for transporting fissionables directly to the Moon- where we can assemble, test, and light off nukes. To send that capsule directly to the moon, and the human beings to construct a base that can support a nuclear mission, we need an HLV with hydrogen upper stages. The hydrogen upper stages are what made Apollo successful by making a heavy payload go fast. That vehicle is a few years away and sooner with more money. The DOD has vast resources it expends on weapons that do not protect us from two clear and present dangers; impacts and plagues. I often give examples on this site of “cold war toys” that are “hideously expensive” and do not seem to work right or do anything magical. That big rocket is the magic that will open the solar system to human colonization. Private space efforts are not capable of making any of it happen. This is why I consider the whole “new space” movement as being essentially rich hobbyists selling tourist trips. My thoughts on this “narrow and inflexible path” are based largely on the work of Freeman Dyson and Eugene Parker- and the discovery of millions of tons of water on the Moon.

Despite having “been there,” the Moon is the next step in opening up the solar system to human exploration and colonization. Low Earth Orbit is being sold as space travel even though to travel, you have to go somewhere. The battle cry of “cheap lift” is promoting the equivalent of the “liar loans” that wrecked the housing market. Falling for this something for nothing too good to be true rip-off will leave the U.S. trapped. Decades more of nothing but more endless circles at very high altitude. Mars is used as a marketing gimmick but is really just a rock with a deep gravity well. Everyone seems to think it is “just close enough” for chemical propulsion. It is not. If you are going to build the necessary Atomic Spaceship (and we would have to have a moonbase to launch a nuclear mission) you might as well go someplace really interesting.

All those places are in the outer solar system.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120628190006.htm
To establish a moonbase requires the Space Launch System to be put into service. There is no substitute for a Heavy Lift Vehicle with hydrogen upper stages.

The 130 ton lift of the proposed SLS is also at this time slated to be used as a crew vehicle. This was one of the worst mistakes of the shuttle program. The crew capsules being tested and built by SpaceX and Boeing pack seven astronauts into a vehicle without a proper escape system and, in the case of SpaceX, doubling as a cargo vehicle. Both of these vehicles have an escape-system-that-is-not-an-escape-system. These underpowered hypergolic systems are not very good at saving a crew but will work great raising the orbit of tourist space stations. This is another one of those worst mistakes being repeated.

Infomercial hype aside, the falcon “heavy” and Delta IV are not HLV’s. This misinformation deceives the public and makes the average citizen think the SpaceX hobby rocket is a Saturn V. At a thrust of around 100,000 pounds each it would take 72 merlins to equal the thrust of the SRB’s on SLS, not counting what the 4 liquid hydrogen engines also produce- with much greater efficiency than Kerosene.

The real problem with the U.S. space program is obvious to anyone looking at how much money is spent by the DOD. It is always interesting to hear sermons about how critical surveillance satellites are to fighting illiterate mountain tribesman. Any DOD contractor hearing complaints about NASA wasting money breaks down in maniacal laughter. One of my favorite talking points is that we can train our young people to clear buildings with automatic weapons or we can train them to build spaceships; either way the money will get spent.

Take a look at military spending increases and it is obvious funding for spaceflight can go up. And there IS a valid DOD mission BEO and BELO (Beyond Earth and Lunar Orbit). The valid military mission is impact defense and establishing outposts in the outer system- but this is hard money the aerospace industry wants nothing to do with. Unlike so many easy money weapon systems, spaceships have to actually work.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120905134912.htm

It is a race against time- will this knowledge save us or destroy us? Genetic modification may eventually reverse aging and bring about a new age but it is more likely the end of the world is coming.

The Fermi Paradox informs us that intelligent life may not be intelligent enough to keep from destroying itself. Nothing will destroy us faster or more certainly than an engineered pathogen (except possibly an asteroid or comet impact). The only answer to this threat is an off world survival colony. Ceres would be perfect.

Christian Astronomers

Posted by Gary Michael Church in asteroid/comet impacts, biological, biotech/medical, business, chemistry, climatology, complex systems, counterterrorism, defense, economics, education, engineering, ethics, events, evolution, existential risks, finance, futurism, geopolitics, habitats, homo sapiens, human trajectories, life extension, lifeboat, media & arts, military, nuclear weapons, open source, physics, policy, space, sustainability, transparencyTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments on Christian Astronomers

“The more anxiety one produces, the more the discussion there would be about how real and how possible actual existential threats are.”

John Hunt recently queried me on what steps I might take to form an organization to advocate for survival colonies and planetary defense. His comment on anxiety is quite succinct. In truth the landing on the moon was the product of fear- of the former Soviet Union’s lead in rocket technology. As we as a nation quelled that anxiety the budget for human space flight dwindled. But the fear of a nuclear winter continued to grow along with the size of our arsenals.

Interestingly, at the height of the cold war, evidence of yet another threat to human existence was uncovered in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico in 1981; Chicxulub. But even before the dinosaur killer was discovered, perhaps the greatest threat of all to humanity was born in 1973 when Herb Boyer and Stanley Cohen created the first genetically modified organism. The money to answer both of these threats by going into space continues to be expended by the military industrial complex.

Mile wide rocks in space and microscopic organisms on earth are both threats to our existence, but the third and undoubtedly greatest threat is our own apathy. Why do we expend the tremendous resources of our race on everything BUT keeping it from going extinct?

The answer to this important question is our own fear of death. As I have written previously, we are as individuals in the predicament of a circus freak on death row. It is a bizarre yet accurate characterization. None of us expect to live forever, but then we do not expect to die tomorrow either. We are in limbo between certain death and temporary life and cannot face the reality of the first while obsessing over the banalities of the second.

Examples of our determination to stay distracted can be found in the babbling of gravity modifiers, CERN doomsday prophets, and various other fruit flavored contributors to this blog. We desperately want to believe in UFO’s, conspiracies and fantastical solutions so we do not have to face the disquiet we experience whenever we pass a funeral home or graveyard. I am happy to pummel these idiots with the harsh language they deserve- especially when they destroy the credibility of sites like this which are trying to accomplish something worthwhile.

So I am thinking there is so much anxiety being monopolized that there is little market left for me capitalize on. Something different is required; as Bill Gates advised young entrepreneurs recently, “Don’t do what I did.” It has all been done and no clever marketing or deceptive advertising is going to build cities on other worlds. Space tourism is not going to save us- if anything it is a dangerous waste of time and money.

What is required is a popular culture renaissance that can focus the energy of several generations in a single direction. The uniqueness of this crossroads in history can be found in considering the nearly unbelievable difference in the level of scientific knowledge today compared to a half century ago. There is nothing more evident to the mature members of the western world than it’s age- our standard of living has brought about fewer children while the less fortunate parts of the world have accelerated their reproductive rates. Disparities in wealth and standards of living are stark evidence of the circus freak scenario. Very few of us are aware that there is a possible escape from this death sentence we are all born under. A standby of science fiction for decades has been the freezing of human beings for space travel. To delay death indefinitely and be resurrected when a cure for a disease or old age is found is a familiar concept. The parallels with Christianity are unmistakable.

We, as in my fellow human beings who were born around 1960, are seeing the culture we grew up in fade away as no other generation ever has. We lived through decades of threatened nuclear holocaust only to see our hoped for space age future dismantled by consumerism and profiteering. Personally, I find the presence of skulls everywhere to be the most poignant and disturbing portent of things to come. The veterans who fought in World War II and were everywhere when I was a boy would never have allowed this emblem of the Nazi SS to become so popular. It was the symbol of ruthless and murderous force as being the only meaningful feature of reality. 60 million human beings were killed in the fight against the evil it represents. And now it is back.

To counter to the present lack of vision I would like to introduce an agent of change in the form of a idealized past age. What better ideal than the movement that conquered fascism originally? Christianity did in fact conquer the Roman Empire- and as it is said we are all children of Rome, then we are also children of the carpenter from Nazareth. A technological analogy that can be discerned when considering the original Christianity and the modern world is the Gladius and the Atom Bomb. The Romans learned the fine points of using their infamous short swords by watching gladiators fight to the death- a funerary tradition they inherited from the Etruscans they assimilated. The training of professional gladiators was applied to the military and made “Drill a bloodless Battle and Battle a bloody Drill.”

The sword made the Roman Empire and Christianity inherited this prize. The Atom Bomb has kept modern civilization from World War for over a half century- but so far there is no great social movement that will inherit this mighty construct before it falls into a new dark age. The Fermi Paradox points to the possibility that this empire could well be the last; there will be no more cycles of civilizations rising and falling if we become extinct. If so then this really may be the end of the world- with no need to throw away reason in favor of the Book of Revelation.

What is most curious is that while the sword had no utility outside of murder, the Atomic Bomb holds the power to transcend this arena of earth and allow humankind to populate the galaxy. If this civilization can survive to travel to new worlds then the last empire will have risen- the last because it can never fall again.

So, to form a society of believers in life, in the future of the human race, the goals must be clear and easily understood;

If the human race is to survive, the individual must have some hope of surviving. The immediate need is a way to delay death and that procedure is practically a reality with advances in cryopreservation.

If the human race is to survive, new worlds must be found and colonized. The immediate need is for survival colonies off-world and atomic spaceships to establish those colonies and defend the earth from impact threats.

If the individual and the race as a whole is to survive, action must be taken. The immediate need is an organization to take money in and distribute it to the corporations and politicians that can direct the massive governmental resources necessary to accomplish a great rescue with cryopreservation and to construct spaceships to establish off world colonies and deflect impact threats.

Figuratively, metaphorically, the Christians conquered the old empire and the Astronomers who harness the power of the sun will inherit this empire. Since the more catchy titles have been taken by religious cults, I suggest the organization that will initiate action be called,

The Society of Christian Astronomers

My first call is for the money to copyright the title of the society and a brand I have in mind.

Four years ago MARCUS WOHLSEN wrote about genetic engineering as a hobby. We are faced with a growing list of pathogens that with a little modification could bring about the end of civilization. It could happen tomorrow.

If you are afraid of guns in the United States, the only solution is to leave. There are millions of guns, many more than estimated, sitting in closets and packed away from when grandpa died. We face the same situation with the Hanta virus, and several others that are in the environment. There is no getting rid of them and no stopping anyone with not-too-expensive lab equipment from playing god and changing them into the end of the world.

The solution is survival colonies in space. Though it sounds bizarre, these colonies should be “manned” by fertile women and maintain sperm banks. 99 men and one woman is the end of the world, while 99 women and a sperm bank is a new one.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/25/do-it-yourself-dna-amateu_n_153489.html

http://www.cdc.gov/hantavirus/

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/avian/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/20/genetically-engineered-bird-flu-recipe-lab-bred_n_1160709.html

The Truth about Space Travel is Stranger than Fiction

Posted by Gary Michael Church in asteroid/comet impacts, biological, biotech/medical, business, chemistry, climatology, complex systems, cosmology, counterterrorism, defense, economics, education, engineering, ethics, events, evolution, existential risks, finance, futurism, geopolitics, habitats, homo sapiens, human trajectories, life extension, lifeboat, media & arts, military, neuroscience, nuclear weapons, physics, policy, space, sustainability, transparency, treatiesTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments on The Truth about Space Travel is Stranger than Fiction

I have been corresponding with John Hunt and have decided that perhaps it is time to start moving toward forming a group that can accomplish something.

The recent death of Neil Armstrong has people thinking about space. The explosion of a meteor over Britain and the curiosity rover on Mars are also in the news. But there is really nothing new under the sun. There is nothing that will hold people’s attention for very long outside of their own immediate comfort and basic needs. Money is the central idea of our civilization and everything else is soon forgotten. But this idea of money as the center of all activity is a death sentence. Human beings die and species eventually become extinct just as worlds and suns also are destroyed or burn out. Each of us is in the position of a circus freak on death row. Bizarre, self centered, doomed; a cosmic joke. Of all the creatures on this planet, we are the freaks the other creatures would come to mock- if they were like us. If they were supposedly intelligent like us. But are we actually the intelligent ones? The argument can be made that we lack a necessary characteristic to be considered truly intelligent life forms.

Truly intelligent creatures would be struggling with three problems if they found themselves in our situation as human beings on Earth in the first decades of this 21st century;

1. Mortality. With technology possible to delay death and eventually reverse the aging process, intelligent beings would be directing the balance of planetary resources towards conquering “natural” death.

2. Threats. With technology not just possible, but available, to defend the earth from extinction level events, the resources not being used to seek an answer to the first problem would necessarily be directed toward this second danger.

3. Progress. With science advancing and accelerating, the future prospects for engineering humans for greater intelligence and eventually building super intelligent machines are clear. Crystal clear. Not addressing these prospects is a clear warning that we are, as individuals, as a species, and as a living planet, headed not toward a bright future, but in the opposite direction toward a dead and final end.

One engineered pathogen will destroy us forever. One impact larger than average will destroy us forever. The reasoning that death is somehow “natural” which drives us to ignore the subject of destruction will destroy us forever. Earth changes are inevitable and taking place now- despite our faith in television and popular culture that everything is fun and games. Man is not the measure of all things. We think tomorrow will come just like yesterday- but it will not.

The Truth about Space Travel is that there are no stargates or warp drives that will take us across the galaxy like commecial airliners or cruise ships take us across oceans. If we do wake up and change our course, space voyages will take centuries and human expansion will be measured in millenia. We will be frozen when we travel to distant stars. And this survivable freezing will mark the beginning of a new age since being able to delay death by freezing will completely transform life. The first such successful procedure will mean the end of the world as we know it- and the beginning of a new civilization.

Though unknown to the public, the atomic bomb and then the hydrogen bomb marked the true beginning of the Space Age. Hydrogen bombs can push cities in space, hollow moons, to some percentage of the speed of light. These cities can travel to other stars, such as Epsilon Eridani with it’s massive asteroid belt. And there more artificial hollow moons can be mass produced to provide new worlds to live in. This is not fiction I am speaking of but something we could do right now- today. We only lack the procedure to freeze and successfully revive a human being. It is, indeed, stranger than fiction.

In Beam Propulsion we have the answer to bending the rocket equation to our will and allowing millions and eventually billions of human beings to migrate into space. Just as Verne and Wells made accurate predictions of the decades to come, we now are seeing the possible obvious future unfolding before our eyes.

But the most possible and probable obvious future at this moment is destruction. The end of days. Unless we do something.
You and I and everyone you know is involved in this. Let’s get started.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/meteor-explodes-over-england-violent-force-212434670.html

What will it take before the public realizes that we are on the endangered species list as long as we have no defense against impacts?

If the “golf ball sized” exploder had been another Tunguska and London was incinerated it might become quite clear that we need to get into space in a big way.

Will it take a major disaster? The unfortunate truth is that a rock or snowball just a little bigger than what might wake the human race up- might also render our species extinct.