From: Neal Blaikie (nrb@porterville.k12.ca.us)
Date: Tue Mar 13 2001 - 14:12:21 MST
I read your initial post and then went over to their website to look around.
While I share a few of this group's concerns about the militarization of space, I
too noticed that their rhetoric very quietly went from anti-military/anti-nuke to
what seems to be a general opposition to space development (or, at least,
capitalist space development). They're either being subtle or vague, I'm not sure
which.
Unfortunately, this is all too common with left/liberal oppositions to misuse of
technology: they quickly evolve (devolve?) into general anti-tech,
anti-capitalist rhetoric, mainly because the left always attracts more
back-to-nature types and well-meaning but scientifically ignorant naysayers. As a
lifelong advocate of space develoment/exploration, this is very frustrating for
me. Just because I share some of the same concerns and agree with many of their
positions in regard to social issues (although I rarely agree on the solutions),
I don't want to automatically be lumped in with everything they stand for (or
against). I also don't want to be lumped in with just any old gung-ho pro-tech
camp either. The consequences of our implementation of any technology are
important to look at and plan for, but neither out-and-out rejection nor blind
acceptance are realistic or useful approaches.
Neal
Greg Burch wrote:
> On march 13, 2001, Damien Sullivan (howdy, Damien!) wrote
>
> >On Tue, 13 Mar 2001 08:22:12 EST
> >GBurch1@aol.com wrote:
> >
> >> space development. These indicate a small note of some green ideas opposed
> >
> >> to general commercial development, though:
> >
> >> >like we would any other vital wilderness. The heavens must be viewed
> >as a
> >> >preserve from weapons, nuclear power and massive commercial development.
> >> >The sky is not for sale.'
> >
> >Any chance they had orbiting advertisements in mind?
>
> Actually, that was one of the featured examples in other parts of the article
> to which the author and the quoted source was opposed. But I found this
> interesting because the tone of these kinds of statements in the piece wasn't
> limited to just that example. The rhetoric slipped into a general opposition
> to "exporting capitalism into outer space."
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