In news:1143543202.451711.13260@z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com,
ianparker2@gmail.com <ianparker2@gmail.com> typed:

I think evolution is the key, because technology tends to evolve
over time. but it also tends to rely on it's evolution in the
present as well, because in order to have hi-tech self replicating
robots and sophisticated machine at the top end, you also need
mining and heavy industry which includes technologies that are
thousands of years old at bottom end of the evolutionary chain, well
someone or something still has to bang stones together :)

I disagree. I think there is a lot of loose thinking about Evolution
and what is entailed. In a Genetic Algorithm you can define what
"fitness" is, and this can be used to solve NP hard problems. To
extract a LOT of material from the Moon/Asteroids you need self
replication for the simple reason that it is impractical to transport
everything from Earth. The "semi open" loop would be where self
replication was almost possible but you still needed to send chips to
the Moon.

I'm referring to the very outset of such a project, because in the beginning
even though you would most likely have sufficient resources on the moon you
couldn't have self replicating machines without mining and heavy industry in
place. If you didn't establish an industrial and manufacturing base, they
wouldn't be able to self replicate and would have to transported from earth
either pre-assembled or in flatpack form, but flatpack items weigh as much
as
assembled items.

Of course the other problem we have of is there are many processes in
manufacturing that are reliant on Earth gravity and air pressure. Absence of
air pressure and gravity which on the moon is AFAIK is about 1/5 of the
earth's, would have an affect on melting points of metals, how you would
mould them into ingots, and mill them out, etc. Whether some forms of
manufacturing would be practical on the Moon is therefore another question.
You could I suppose end up with steel with such low molecular density that
it could end up with the tensile strength of a bar of soap

Of course it's interesting to note Communism grew out of idea's that
have existed in religion for thousands of years, which could suggest
a bit of tampering, though since it culminated in the coldwar and
the possibility of wiping ourselves out in a nuclear holocaust, it
was an experiment that seems to have failed. But in terms of space
exploration as a race of beings, I think it will become necessary
over time to develop a culture which is much more to do with
cooperation and the furtherance of our species as a whole, than
individualistic greed. So Communism is probably our evolutionary
destiny. Which I guess is one reason there appears to be a cover-up
about many of these things. Space exploration requires cooperation
and political ideologies that are at variance with Capitalism and
the whole notion of nation states. Because in order to expand into
space, ideally one would need to establish a World Government,
because it would require the cooperation of all nations and people
and all the resources of our planet.

No madam, totally untrue. You do NOT have to be a communist to try to
improve the standard of living of the less foretunate. Indeed, quite
the reverse. Poverty in India and China will be eliminated by getting
RID OF socialist philosophy.

I'd agree up to a point, Socialism can be oppressive and dulls down
enterprise. But who needs Socialism when you can oppress and disenfranchise
the masses with massive amounts of debt, and considering the gap between
rich and poor in the US is larger than in any other Western Nation on the
planet, and it is the number one Capitalist economy the statistics don't
look good.

It's oppression and disenfranchisement which is the enemy of freedom and it
doesn't really make a lot of difference to the poor whether it is the banks
or their government that are oppressing them and keeping them from the means
of bettering their situation. Well in the US you have people who are too
poor to access proper health care, if they can't work (due to health) and
earn money to pay for private care then they are totally screwed. You also
have people in the US who are millions of dollars in debt, having more debt
than they can ever pay off in their entire working life. That sort of
oppression doesn't provide a land of opportunity or incentive, it dulls down
enterprise and is every bit as oppressive and effective as a means of
control as a communist totalitarian system.

But as long as you control education and pump the masses with propaganda
which tells them they are FREE! By George! most of them are stupid enough to
believe it.

It has been said that Capitalism is an evolutionary self ordering
system, and this has been put to the IDers in America. Religion is the
opiate of the people, God therefore cannot have created the Universe
or life, yet ID is an essential part of the philosophy. We can quite
easily see why. If Evolution can self order, if self ordering can be
demonstated in a mathematical way the whole structure falls. Indeed
Adam Smith demonstated self ordering. In a dynamical system
instabilities can arise, but these are dealt with by putting dampers
on short term fluctuation. If we put dampers on long term trends we
are basically negating the whole of economics.

Socialism (and is offshoot Greenery) believes that resources are
fixed. In fact the world is awash with energy and we can expand our
resources with the use of technology. A capitalist system is the only
one that is capable of making the necessart ajustments. Of couse a VN
machine represents a rather spectacular expansion of resources.

The trouble is though unless there is cooperation in space, you are going to
get people, companies and nations arging over bits of the Moon and prepared
to go to war about it.

BTW Apologists of Marx and Lenin say that Stalin betayed the
revolution and that Lenin warned or Stalin. Complete bollocks! Stalin
was Lenin's protog�, he did all Ls dirty work for him. Lenin imposed
a police state from the word go. In december 1921 he made over a
million Russians stateless. In fact the rot really set in with Marx
who talked the most unadulterated drivel. ID is an intrinsic part of
Marxism, without it the whole system falls. If Lenin and Stalin had
been straight caudillos in the Latin American tradition they might
have survived. Communism collapsed, in part at least, because
ideologues stuck their noses into science, tried to grow wheat where
it simply would not grow, and interfered with the development of
computers to such an extent that they could not compete with the West
technologically.

Well I don't think Communism works. But I don't think it's Communism or
Capitalism that's the problem. I think negative aspects of human nature
which cause the problems.

-- 
Amanda