Self-Sustaining

Posted on by
Reply

Elon Musk wants to get a self-sustaining colony going on Mars in his lifetime—his current goal is to get that started in the next four years with crewed flights, albeit not yet with colonists along. I agree with him in the goal of a self-sustaining colony and with his rationale—that getting off planet in a sustainable way using only the resources available on the second (and further) planets is critical to the survivability of homo sapiens.

I have questions, though.

What will be the long-term effect of living lifetimes in Mars’ gravity field, which is roughly 38% that of Earth’s? What effect would that great difference have on human (and food animal) gestation?

At the very bottom of human metabolism, of Earth-adapted metabolism in general, are a suite of minerals that plants, animals, essential bacteria need. Many of these are used in trace amounts only, but they seem to be critical. Will all of these minerals be present on Mars? What will be the effect, even if the minerals are present in some amount, on the bacteria on which all the other life depends, and on the plants on which all the animals depend?

And one more question: say a self-sustaining colony has been a going concern for some number of generations. With those generations’ adaptation (focusing here solely on the human population) to Mars’ gravity and to that planets’ mineral suite—especially in the latest generations there—will those folks ever be able to come back to Earth and live and operate in our much higher gravity field? Will those folks even still be homo sapiens, or will they be something different—homo mars? It seems likely the two populations still would be capable of interbreeding, much like homo sapiens with homo neanderthalensis and with denisova hominin.

Getting sustainably off planet will facilitate our ability to survive natural disasters and our own machinations, and thereby extend the life of homo sapiens as a species. But evolution won’t be stopped by getting off planet. That will only generate new pressures that guide evolution, new pathways for evolution to follow. And that includes the evolution of homo sapiens, even here on Earth.

A Hard Question

Posted on by
Reply

It has a simple answer; unfortunately, it also has a gaslighting answer.

A San Francisco shoplifter was fatally shot in the end game of a fight with a store security guard who was trying to recover the merchandise being shoplifted. The headline and the first clause of the subheadline ask the question and gaslightingly answer it:

A Shoplifter Gets Shot Stealing Candy at Walgreens. Who’s to Blame?
More than a year after the killing, the official answer is no one….

The article went into many pixels worth of description of the event, but the question posed in the headline never was seriously answered. The perfectly straightforward, utterly simple answer to the headline question is: the shoplifter is to blame. The shoplifter even had two opportunities through which to avoid the outcome. His first, and most important, opportunity was to not have shoplifted in the first place.

His second opportunity was to surrender the stolen goods when confronted by the security guard instead of fighting with him.

But even in this city’s pretense of tightening shoplifting laws, the emphasis remains on holding the criminal blameless.

No One Is Answering the Question

Posted on by
Reply

Or even asking it. During the ongoing Israeli effort to push Hezbollah into stopping its attacks on Israeli citizens, that nation continues to be pressured by folks in the West, most especially our own…administration…to agree a cease fire, as though this would cure everything, or at least stop things for some period of time.

This pressure, though wholly ignores (I don’t agree that these oh-so-smart folks are missing it) the environment and the broader context in which the fight is occurring—a fight, mind you, whose current round the terrorists in Gaza and Lebanon began ‘way last October and continue to prosecute against Israel. That environment, that context, is the terrorists’ Prime Directive to destroy Israel and exterminate the Jews in that nation.

Thus, the question, which is so obvious, it (I repeat) cannot be being missed; it’s being carefully, cynically ignored: how does any nation—here, Israel—have a cease fire, or any sort of negotiation at all, with an enemy whose avowed goal is the destruction of that nation? Especially when that enemy says it has no concerns for its own damage or how many of its own civilians die in the process?

Government “Influence” over US Industry

Posted on by
Reply

The headline says it all:

Harris Puts Government Intervention at Heart of Economic Policy

And this:

Her plans are largely an extension of Biden’s yearslong effort to use government tools and finances to boost key sectors of the economy. The approach, known in economic parlance as “industrial policy,” is also increasingly supported by some Republicans, who have relaxed their free-market convictions….

Harris’ policy proposals are reminiscent of 1930s Italy and modern-day People’s Republic of China. Too many Republicans are going along with this sort of degradation of our economy.

Aww, You Poor Babies

Posted on by
Reply

Baby Boomers are at grandparenting age, but their children aren’t having so many children of their own, so the Boomers aren’t getting to be grandparents. They’re not happy about it, either.

It’s true enough that our nation’s birthrate is well below the rate necessary to maintain, much less grow, our nation’s population, and that’s having detrimental effects on our economy and our ability to support Baby Boomers and subsequent generations of retirees in their dotage. It also makes us more dependent on immigration to fill our labor gaps.

But that doesn’t make women their parents’ baby making machines for the sake of those parents’ wishes to have grandchildren.

Professor Rachel Margolis of the University of Western Ontario:

Almost everyone grew up with at least one grandparent, and when you grow up with a grandparent around, you think about that as part of family life[.]

There’s a hint there. Children no longer want their parents living with them, for a variety of reasons both good and bad. Parents no longer want to live with their children, also for a variety of reasons both good and bad. One outcome of that is 74-year-old Ann Brenoff, whose children have no plans to have children:

I want to tell family stories to my grandkids. I want them to have memories of me. I don’t think it will happen. It’s selfish, I know.

That family life was an ideal environment for passing on family lore and for creating memories that include grandparents, especially so for the grandchildren. That family life also was instrumental in providing the mutual support of adult children for (grand)parents and vice versa along with the large advantages for grandchildren from growing up in three-generation households. Now, it’s supplanted by increasing dependency on charity, or government, or nursing homes and “retirement communities” in lieu of “family” support while actual family falls by the wayside.

For future reference (particularly today’s generation of child-bearing age, and the generation just entering that age): you want the part of family life that is grandchildren, then act like you still want to be part of a family and not like you want grandchildren as your personal entertainment. Do that from the moment you have your own children and revive a sense of family responsibility, instead of inculcating, however sub rosa, an attitude of gotta get off on my own as soon as my children are out of the house, and gotta get out on my own as soon as I’ve left my parents’ house.

You bet it’s selfish to want grandkids just for your personal entertainment.