Scottish Academic: Mining the Moon For Helium 3 Is Evil 462
MarkWhittington writes "Tony Milligan is a teaching fellow of philosophy at the University of Aberdeen and is apparently concerned about helium 3 mining on the moon. In a recent paper he suggested that it should not be allowed for a number of reasons which include environmental objections, his belief that the moon is a cultural artifact, and that too much access to energy would be bad for the human race."
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
...a cultural what!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously - does this guy have any clue as to how frickin' BIG the Moon is? You could carve a hole in it the size of New York City and it would barely be noticeable. You could carve out the entire dark side of the Moon and no one would ever see it (and misnomer aside, it gets just as much sunlight, thus He3, etc...)
The environmental angle? Maybe if it all got brought back here, okay... having not RTFA, I hope he isn't worried about the Moon's "environment", namely because it really doesn't have one of note.
Re:Useless academic is useless. (Score:0, Insightful)
It's more than you'll ever get.
Well of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Too much access to large amounts of cheap energy would mean that we don't continue to buy it from current sources. We can't have that.
it's puritanism (Score:1, Insightful)
puritanism is that horrible feeling that somewhere, somebody might be having fun.
it's actually the basis of the entire "environmental" movement. humans can't just keep getting richer and better fed, we must be doing something wrong.
remember, nuclear winter? no wait, global warming, that's it! whatever it is, humans are causing it and it's bad. why didn't we listen to malthus!
Short sighted (Score:5, Insightful)
lol (Score:5, Insightful)
sounds like the sort of individual who's opinion I certainly give a fuck about
Thanks but no thanks. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, so the classic "we should all live in the dark and grow our own food" argument. Beautiful. Give King Ludd my warmest regards.
Free hint, Tony - Yes, many of the energy booms of human history have come along with a variety of ills. But they have also come along with the single greatest periods of progress as well, both social and technological. The industrial revolution caused a good bit of pollution, but basically made human slavery a net loss, economically. And fusion, as a nice perk, pollutes less than fission (which we already do), which in turn pollutes less than dinofuels (which we also already do because the hippies would rather let birds - and us - die that build more fission plants).
So in summary - Go fuck yourself, Tony. Live in the dark if you want. I like computers, and air conditioning, and cars, and concrete, and aluminum cans, and cheap plastic bottles.
Re:Useless academic is useless. (Score:5, Insightful)
Environmental objections... What environment? It's the god damned Moon. It's a lifeless near-vacuum.
Cultural objections... Culture has admired the Moon from afar. Helium-3 mining collects helium produced by billions of years of bombardment from solar wind. That means it only exists on the surface. You're not going to notice any difference between today's Moon, and a Moon mined of its helium.
Too much access to energy would be bad... Seriously, just go fuck off.
Re:Useless academic is useless. (Score:5, Insightful)
Aside from that declaring it "evil" is specifically a move to shut off debate?
It's an intentionally bad choice of words on his part, designed to garner publicity and be entirely unproductive. Referring to it as "bad" still allows room for the debate to exist - it puts him specifically on one side of it, but that's fine - whereas referring to it as "evil" shifts it from a "should we do this or not" debate to a debate about morality, which, honestly, is not what a debate about mining anything should be about.
For what it's worth, I agree with two of the three terms you're using to describe mining the moon (the point of disagreement being "completely futile", as I'd like to see advancements in automated mining technology, which would have uses down here in the old gravity well).
Re:Useless academic is useless. (Score:5, Insightful)
What exactly is wrong with the proposition that mining Helium-3 on the moon is evil
Seriously? How about the fact that it privileges an inanimate, lifeless celestial body over the development and happiness of the human race? Most environmental concerns focus on the danger (and immorality) of fucking up biospheres, but the moon has never supported life, and never will (unless we alter it even more radically).
Re:Useless academic is useless. (Score:3, Insightful)
Every now and then the Luddites reveal their true intentions.
Re:Well of course (Score:4, Insightful)
Fair enough. Lots of people seem to have in mind the old "too cheap to meter" idea when they talk about fusion. I could never see that.
I agree: fission is way cheaper than fossil energy when costs are properly apportioned, and people are rational about risk. Wish I lived in that world.
Re:Useless academic is useless. (Score:2, Insightful)
So if we used 10,000 times as much energy as we do now, it could be bad.
Or it could be good. Or neither. Or both. Care to explain why it might be bad?
Your statement is like that of people arguing against asteroid mining on the grounds that if we accidentally bring too much extra mass to Earth it'll collapse into a black hole.
Re:Man is actually part of the universe (Score:5, Insightful)
The elements in our bodies [wikipedia.org] come from exploding stars. [lbl.gov]
The earth coalesced from a swirling ball of gas and dust. Which had various quantities of these elements. Then yadda yadda, lifeorms started popping up. Of which man was one of the later variants.
Man needs this fishbowl of earth to survive in the universe, just like goldfish need a fishbowl to survive in our living room. Imagine if the goldfish could get to the refrigerator.
We're just trying to get to the refrigerator. Or maybe even go outside.
The earth is not the center of the universe. It's a smallish planet in the solar system. It's part of the universe. Just like man. Eventually the sun will red giant. If we don't go outside - leave the womb - we're finished. A fruit that died on the vine. Seems like we should be working on that problem now.
And the problem if mankind dies on the vine? Are we that critical to the universe that the universe will suffer if the human race is no longer here? There are two possibilities one, there is other intelligent life in the universe or two, there is not. If there is, then we are not unique, so our loss would not be a loss at all. If there is not other intelligent life, then our loss makes no difference as what we are trying to preserve is of no use, nobody but us cares about it -- there is nobody to leave a legacy for.
In either case, when mankind ceases to exist, our actual existence will not even have been a blink of the eye on the cosmic time scale. The Catholics say "Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return." That phrase was coined long before we knew much about the universe, but has more truth in it than many people realize. At some point in the future, the cosmic dust that created the human race will be returned to the universe. What we are will go on, in new forms, new stars, new planets, maybe even new lifeforms. But who we are will cease and there won't be anybody to care.
Re:Useless academic is useless. (Score:4, Insightful)
So when country X goes to the moon and mines the helium, are they going to come back and distribute it to all of the world's inhabitants or does it just belong to country X? I'm curious, because before mining the moon began, it would seem that we would need to know who owns the moon? Does it belong to the first one who gets there? Does it belong equally to all people? Or will it belong to some mining company?
I have no idea, but I think it's ultimately just an academic exercise. If a single country is able to immediately leap from initial mining operations on the moon to total dominance of the entire surface before anyone else can even start, that implies such an advanced level of technology that the rest of the world would be grovelling at their feet anyway.
Re:Useless academic is useless. (Score:5, Insightful)
Energy mined on the moon doesn't necessarily have to be used within Earths atmosphere either.
Re:missed it by a mile (Score:5, Insightful)
No wars of intervention to get at resources "owned" by another nation.
But there is the old fashioned war for control of a resource. We have nice friendly agreements about scientific study and no territorial claims at the moment, however at the moment we can barely get there and there is nothing we can economically exploit. If we get to the point where there is something very valuable to exploit and one or a small number of nations can control access to it then things may change with respect to no territorial claims and free access.
... there is so much surface area, that it is cheaper to mine than to wage war.
Wars/battles are sometimes fought to deny resources to someone else.
Priorities (Score:5, Insightful)
We are burning all oil here, probably getting out of that not renovable resource in this century or next. And that, in just 200 years of a civilization that been around for 10000 years, from a species that exist since 1 millon years ago, and will be out for anyone/anything here in the next billon years. And is it not just an energy source, it have a lot of derivatives that will be hard/expensive/impossible in practice to get from other sources. Compared to that, the limited amount of He3 that we could bring from the moon, and in a not very fast rate, won't count a lot.
Regarding the energy surplus, getting the same amount of energy from the sun (i.e. collectors in the desert, or satellites that somewhat beam down the energy) would have a similar effect.
The real problem is the civilization or the current culture, not using the moon as energy source or not. The current agenda is to use everything as if would be no tomorrow (thing that will happen if we keep acting like that). If you don't fix it, the moon won't matter anyway.
Re:Useless academic is useless. (Score:5, Insightful)
You realize that 'evil' is the /. heaadline, not the paper title. Indeed the paper itself doesn't appear to use the word. The article itself seems much more balanced than the article summary would like to make out.
For example, here's the start of the conclusion:
It's a lot less dramatic than simply claiming such mining is wrong in absolute terms.
Re:Useless academic is useless. (Score:4, Insightful)
Milligan prefers the term "ethically problematic." He doesn't actually use the word "evil" in the paper. Only Mark Whittington, blogger extraordinaire, dares make the connection.
Re:Useless academic is useless. (Score:5, Insightful)
Good point (and one that basically points out that Mr. Whittington is the one attempting to shut off debate, in this case by basically implying Milligan is a fucking loony).
That said, the author of the paper is still just wanking at best. :-) To point at one particular issue with his conclusion: the argument from "eco-minded critics" he claims sympathy with that we have more energy than we can handle without causing damage is an argument brought from ignorance at best and from willful intent to send humanity back to the Dark Ages at worst.
Basically, the issue is not that we need to necessarily reduce our energy usage, but that we need to improve our methods of handling energy production - which is something the critics he's referring to would find a ghastly prospect, having entrenched interests in making negative predictions about humanity.
And, of course, the implication in his conclusion that because there are risks, an action is not worth taking... well, I find that attitude ethically problematic as without risks, you stunt the potential of humanity.
Re:Useless academic is useless. (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody "needs" a longer and healthier life, adequate food, or any of the thousands and thousands of other benefits of affordable energy that makes modern civilization possible.
We didn't even "need" to pick up that jawbone as the black monolith "suggested".
Just a thought, though; Higher energy costs affect the poorest first and to the greatest degree in a negative way. The reverse is also true.
Want to see more people existing above poverty/starvation levels?
Lower energy costs.
Strat
Talk about a proactive jumpstart (Score:4, Insightful)
But I have to agree, it would be a waste to use all that energy on advertisements.
Re:Of course it doesn't. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Of course it doesn't. (Score:4, Insightful)