Re: Are politicians averse to leaving LEO?



Martha Adams wrote:

I don't think we can invoke any kind of Darwinism for the early economics of space settlements. That is because the space environment will be so hard and harsh, anyone there will be too concerned with survival and growth, to have any resources left over for competition. To learn a little about humans here on Terra in such a position, read Farley Mowat's "The Snow Walker."

The big problem with using any sort of classical Darwinian evolution in regards to space colonization is that no evolving species had a alternative in regards to extinction _but_ to evolve.
When the going got really rough, the total population of a particular species either had enough genetic diversity in it via mutation or inherited characteristics that were broad enough that it could deal with the new situation (cockroaches) or it died off in no time flat.
Unfortunately, this works best for very primitive and basic species, giving them the ability to live in widely different situations, or ones that have very short lifespans so that their few offspring that can survive a very radical shift in their environment can quickly reestablish their population in the new world (change the world in such a way that only one in one billion cockroaches survive, and those survivor's offspring will inherent their genetic code and be up to their total pre-catastrophe numbers inside of a century, since their primary predators will now all be extinct.)
How do you pull that off with people?
You've got to talk them into living off-Earth, even though their life on-Earth would probably be more pleasant.
Even if you could talk those space colonists into such a thing, how about their children or grandchildren?
The history of Chinese and Russian Communism shows that once once the founding ideological generation dies off, it's very hard to talk their successors into supporting personal privation to achieve the "Great Dream".
Keep an eye on Israel in this regard, as I'm pretty sure that when the "Sabras" (native-born Israelis) take over the government entirely, they are going to have a very hard time understanding why their ancestors decided that settling down in such a desolate and hostile area of the world was such a "Holy Mission" and great idea.
It made sense when the Pogroms and Holocaust were going on, but what about today?

Pat
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