Re: Bruce Perens talks to BBC
On Sat, Jan 24, 2004 at 06:29:49AM -0500, Paul Morgan wrote:
> On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 00:46:13 -0500, Antonio Rodriguez wrote:
>
> >
> > Thank you Collin. Beautiful reading. Scary. To think that so many of the
> > statements made in science fiction have come through, to know how dark
> > life can be made to be on the surface of this ball, or on the surface of
> > the other near hovering balls. Already some are talking about colonizing
> > Mars. The resources to be spent in making a basically dead ball habitable
> > are much larger than the resources needed to fix the problems of this
> > already habitable ball. They know it. They know how to weigh their
> > purses.
> > Thus, they are not interested in doing it for the good of humanity, but for
> > the purpose of acquiring another post to control. Buzzards well know
> > that from the heights is easier to attack and capture.
>
> Humans are built to satisfy innate curiosity, which gives rise to the
> desire to find out how things work and build new things, especially if it
> seems difficult, or, even better, impossible.
>
> Of course, the miserable state of many of our fellow earthlings is
> deplorable, no one can argue against that, but it is important to follow
> more than one thread.
>
> What if Sir Isaac Newton had devoted his life to feeding the poor, and
> there was no Principia Mathematica, for instance?
>
You never know. However, let me ask you a question: What if the ancients
had devoted their efforts to make sure that no human could use any of
their thoughts without paying a fee? See for example the following,
which I think many will find avenue opening:
http://www.varchive.org/lec/aaas/challenge.htm
If teachers and students had to pay a fee for every single written book,
not many books could be opened. Libraries as we know would not exist
either.
> Oh, and NASA operates within a democracy, and is funded by, a democratic
> government. In a democracy, it's not "they". It's "we". And I have
> difficulty picturing the good voting citizens of the USA as "buzzards".
>
Well, there is also what is called the power of money. Have you heard
about the dispute of the drug trading through the Canadian border? Could
we say that the good voting citizens are served? Wait and see who wins.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/24/business/24mail.html
> Not to mention the fact that the US is following more than one thread by
> being by far the largest donor of aid to poorer nations, and, together
> with the UK, is in the forefront of the battle to gain others the right to
> live in peace and freedom. I have recently found it interesting that
> those who decry human rights abuses are also frequently those who are
> critical of US/UK efforts to remove the perpetrators of those dreadful
> abuses. On the other hand, there are not a lot of Iraqis praying for the
> return of Saddam, nor are there many Afghanis eagerly awaiting the
> resurgence of the Taliban; but there are large numbers in both nations
> grateful for the efforts of their liberators.
>
There is no much that I can tell you about this.
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