Archimedinejad: And now about that lever...


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Archimedinejad: And now about that lever...

Post by SandChigger »

Archimedes supposedly said, "Give me a lever and a place to stand, I can move the world!"

With the new capability demonstrated by its launch yesterday of the Omid ("Hope") satellite, Iran now has a "place to stand". All the crazies need now is a few bombs as leverage.

Time to move to a new planet!
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Re: Archimedinejad: And now about that lever...

Post by Seraphan »

SandChigger wrote:Archimedes supposedly said, "Give me a lever and a place to stand, I can move the world!"

With the new capability demonstrated by its launch yesterday of the Omid ("Hope") satellite, Iran now has a "place to stand". All the crazies need now is a few bombs as leverage.

Time to move to a new planet!
Do you have any link about this?
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Post by Freakzilla »

Have we tried diplomacy yet? :o
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Post by SandRider »

no, not really...
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Post by Freakzilla »

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Post by Sole Man »

Obama likes them to have nuclear weapons that can kill us. It boosts thier "self-confidence."

[EDITED BY THE ALMIGHTY MODERATOR]

(Wait, what the hells?)
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Post by Freakzilla »

We don't edit posts here, everyone knows that. You either behaive of get banned.
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Re: Archimedinejad: And now about that lever...

Post by SandChigger »

(Freak, was that deliberate? Misspelling so Sloey could understand it?! AH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA! :lol: )

I'd forgotten that Iranians are greenish blue and have antennae. :roll:
Seraphan wrote:Do you have any link about this?
About Omid? Or Iran? Or alarmist speculation about either? What?

Anyway, nah. Just google it! ;)
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Re: Archimedinejad: And now about that lever...

Post by Freakzilla »

SandChigger wrote:(Freak, was that deliberate? Misspelling so Sloey could understand it?! AH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA! :lol: )
I wish, maybe it was subconscious.
I'd forgotten that Iranians are greenish blue and have antennae. :roll:
I hear they have tails and cloven hooves too.
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Post by SandChigger »

Yeah. :roll:
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Post by Drunken Idaho »

I'm sure you all think I'm naive, but I'm really not concerned about Iran. They want to be able to have nuclear energy, and just because he bashed the Jews, everyone thinks he's going to use the technology to nuke Isreal and/or everyone else. I think he's a bit smarter than that, despite his denying the Nazi holocaust. Surely he realizes that a Nuke in Isreal would be overkill. The damage to surrounding nations (his included) would be too great, and it would screw over the holy land for everyone who wants a piece.

There's a damned-good chance I'm wrong, and if all diplomatic avenues fail and he represents a genuine threat, then I would support a military effort against him.
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Post by GamePlayer »

That's not naive. Nuking the Middle East is a great idea. It would effectively end that place as a topic of conversation. Imagine how it would improve water cooler talk! :P :wink:

Come to think of it, maybe we should nuke Obama too :)

Seriously, I wouldn't be willing to bet that Iran knows better. I know I'd sleep better if I knew they don't have nukes and will never get them. I'm not saying I underestimate them as crazy, but I think they are extreme. When I think rational and diplomatic, Iran is a country that never enters my mind. Until the Middle Eastern nations somehow get out of this cycle of fighting that they are in, I won't be happy to know that any of them have nukes, Iran included.

I agree, it's best we get off this planet as soon as possible. Our species has always been at the mercy of chance on this planet; nuclear warfare is simply a more poignant and immediate perspective on the danger of extinction. The sooner mankind secures a method of propagation beyond a single planet, the safer we'll all be.
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Post by Freakzilla »

Between ice ages, asteroids and supervolcanes we're lucky to have made it this far.
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Post by SandChigger »

GamePlayer wrote:That's not naive. Nuking the Middle East is a great idea. It would effectively end that place as a topic of conversation. Imagine how it would improve water cooler talk! :P :wink:
Hey, it's been on my "List of Places in Need of Surgical Strikes" for years.
I agree, it's best we get off this planet as soon as possible. Our species has always been at the mercy of chance on this planet; nuclear warfare is simply a more poignant and immediate perspective on the danger of extinction. The sooner mankind secures a method of propagation beyond a single planet, the safer we'll all be.
"The Golden Path demands it." :P
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Post by Freakzilla »

Until we develope some FTL propulsion or similar we're screwed. Other solar systems are only getting further away.
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Post by MICAH »

My feeling is that they don't want it for a nuclear bomb. all they need is the depleted uranium so they can use it in anti-tank & bunker buster weapons like the US used in Iraq. The use of depleted uranium weapons completely does the same thing without the mushroom cloud. If I'm not mistaken this skirts past the Geneva Convention. Now I personally feel Ahmadinejad is off his rocker for thinking the Holocaust didn't happen buuuut..any forward thinking person would have to admit that the State of Israel HAS done some questionable things here lately and in the past. However F'd up Iran may be(which they are), they just happen to be the most vocally critical.
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Post by GamePlayer »

SandChigger wrote:Hey, it's been on my "List of Places in Need of Surgical Strikes" for years.
I'm afraid to ask :)
"The Golden Path demands it." :P
Indeed! :)
But you know, the theme of seeding humanity among the stars isn't getting enough attention. I think that's why the Golden Path is such a compelling idea. Environmentalism has it all wrong; they want to save the planet when we should be trying to sustain habitation off world. I mean, let's say for the sake of argument that humanity completely abandoned polluting industries and non-renewable resources (I know it's crap, but just bear with me). Even if we assume the Earth will become some marvelous environmentalist's wet dream and all their hopes come to pass via some "sustainable" utopia on this planet, humanity is still imprisoned on this world. To paraphrase Tolkien, whether by the WMD or the slow exhaustion of resources over time, humanity will still be parted. There is no future for us here on Earth, only death.

My worry is that our species will come to this realization too late, once the capability to leave has been lost to us :(
Freakzilla wrote:Until we develope some FTL propulsion or similar we're screwed. Other solar systems are only getting further away.
It does seem difficult, but I think we can achieve sustainable artificial habitation off world whether it's near Earth or elsewhere in the system. There's enough resources within the Sol system that we could build virtually anything we can conceive, but we must have the desire to do so.

Nowadays, it feels like more and more the desire for space exploration is being abandoned. No one seems to care about the possibilities of space anymore. Our love affair with the stars seems to have died like a bad Hollywood marriage. It's being treated like a fad. Now everyone is back to more immediate concerns, saving the planet and shit. Short term thinking at the expense of any long term plan.
Baraka Bryan wrote:I keep telling my girlfriend that I'm outta here as soon as they decide to colonize mars. they plan to start a moon base and build ships for launch from there by 2020. she always cries when i talk about it tho....
Damn straight. If someone offered me a chance to colonize space, I'd be signing up that day! Pioneer spirit, baby! :)
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Post by SandRider »

I thought about this the other day when you mentioned it, GP.

I wrote an article back in the 80s, never published of course, just passed
around my (thinking) buddies - called "Locality", which is the term the
quantum guys were using at the time as shorthand for the inability to
exceed the speed of light. (haven't kept up on that stuff in a long time,
so I don't know if that term is still used in that way)

It was a real simple argument - earth is a finite system, if we don't get
off it the species will die here, on way or another, sooner or later.

The main hindrance to really "Scattering" the species to the stars is locality.
Therefore, the main thrust of all human endeavor should be the solving
of locality. I said we needed to be cramming quantum physics down the
children's throats ASAP.

But instead, I got "American Idol" ....
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Post by Freakzilla »

SandRider wrote:The main hindrance to really "Scattering" the species to the stars is locality.
Therefore, the main thrust of all human endeavor should be the solving
of locality. I said we needed to be cramming quantum physics down the
children's throats ASAP.

But instead, I got "American Idol" ....
That's what we get for sending our kids to government (public) schools. Employees and citizens who are mezmorized by shiney things.
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Post by GamePlayer »

SandRider wrote:I thought about this the other day when you mentioned it, GP.

I wrote an article back in the 80s, never published of course, just passed
around my (thinking) buddies - called "Locality", which is the term the
quantum guys were using at the time as shorthand for the inability to
exceed the speed of light. (haven't kept up on that stuff in a long time,
so I don't know if that term is still used in that way)

It was a real simple argument - earth is a finite system, if we don't get
off it the species will die here, on way or another, sooner or later.

The main hindrance to really "Scattering" the species to the stars is locality.
Therefore, the main thrust of all human endeavor should be the solving
of locality. I said we needed to be cramming quantum physics down the
children's throats ASAP.

But instead, I got "American Idol" ....
Locality huh?

*awaits the inevitable linguistic association from my chigga*

Seriously though, that's exactly my point. If nuclear armageddon were to strike tomorrow, what option would humanity have other than to spend the next thousand years digging ourselves out from under it (if we even could)? What good is going green if it all goes dead?

I think escaping Earth should be our highest priority. I know growing up, everyone feared the Cold War, but it wasn't the Cold War itself that I feared. It was the lack of escape and the lack of a future. Even the prettiest and most comfortable prison is still a prison and the Earth is a pretty but finite prison. Sooner or later our meal ticket isn't going to drop a pellet down the chute. We have space travel, so let's start space traveling.

Well, if America isn't interested in space exploration any more, I hear Iran just launched a satellite. The great Middle Eastern hope! "I weep for the future" :wink: :P
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Post by A Thing of Eternity »

Freakzilla wrote:Until we develope some FTL propulsion or similar we're screwed. Other solar systems are only getting further away.
No way, I'm all about STL space travel. As long as we can get up to at least 0.10C we'll be fine. Just have to live with the fact that each colony will probably be cut off forever from the rest of humanity, aside from some decades/centuries out of date radio signals.

The problem is really finding anywhere worth going.
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Post by Drunken Idaho »

Hold on now, as a sci-fi enthusiast, obviously I'm all for colonizing other planets. That way our eggs aren't all in one basket (as put by FH in The White Plague).

BUT, with such limited technology (IE: no FTL) then all we have really is Mars. I'm all for terraforming the place (I already own an acre of land plus mineral rights) but other than the red planet, our options are pretty limited without FTL.

This means that it is not wise to abandon environmentalism just yet. In fact, it's vital to the survival of the species while we figure out an efficient way of interplanetary travel. And since we're nowhere near a solution, then we better take care of our current rock.
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Post by GamePlayer »

Whoa, let's pull back the reigns a bit. I don't think I'm exactly on the same page when it comes to off world habitation :)

We don't require a planet to secure space colonization. In fact, colonization of planets has never made any sense to me, at least not in the foreseeable future. Once the more immediate problems of space colonization have been solved, Space habitats are much more practical for our immediate future. Space habitats are not only wise because they are simply more feasible given our current level of technology, but because once the first permanent establishment in space is built, humanity would have a pipeline for easily accessing the solar system's vast resources. From there, its upward and onward.

It seems the wiki actually has a pretty decent article on Space Colonization as well. That's a shocker :)

Digressing, I'm not suggesting we rush forward to boldly Trek like Kirk, Spock and McCoy. That's obviously not practical. However, there are many intermediate steps between extra-solar system exploration and the exploration of our own system. The vast majority of science fiction has been greatly prejudiced toward space beyond the Sol system. But to my mind, it seems likely we may spend a good century or two in our own system before we even start venturing further out. Our solar system is a veritable goldmine of resources and contains more than we could hope to use in thousands of years. So there's not much need to explore further out until we get FTL.

Space colonization is not as far-future and high-concept as we're often lead to believe. In fact, our science fiction may actually harm our own perception of the realities of space by simply projecting stories too far ahead, in which case people have a tendency to dismiss them as "fantasy" rather than "possibilities". But that's a whole other discussion :)
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Post by SandChigger »

And now North Korea is making noises about trying to get their "Tepid Dong" up again.

MAKE NO MISTAKE: Every day we do nothing towards establishing an off-world presence brings our species one day closer to extinction.

Forget about the stars for the short term. This system has more than enough to keep people busy for a millennium or two.


But I'm putting my money on people doing nothing until it's too late. Look at this petroleum-dependency bullshit.

Ach, what's the point....
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Post by SandRider »

Freeman Dyson had workable plans for the L5 colony in the seventies.

After the shuttle program got going, he beat his head against NASA
to get them to carry the external full tanks the extra little bit into
orbit, instead of letting them fall back and burn.

He thought those tanks could easily be converted into modules for a
station, or pushed on out for the L5 colony. (What are we, like well
over a hundred shuttle launches now ? That woulda been a lot of
little tin cans to play with )

He finally went fucking nuts over NASA's refusal to listen to him, and
dropped out of sight. (I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed
by madness ...
)

and I think we're going to have to be on the absolute brink of enviromental
destruction of this planet before the Powers get serious about getting off.
And then it'll only be the Rich Folk .....
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