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)
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If we're lucky.
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This is probably the most publicity that Milligan will ever have in his life.
I'd give even money that he's just trying to punk the academic establishment - seeing what kind of publicity an insane "libtard" position paper can get.
Re:Useless academic is useless. (Score:5, Funny)
Of course it doesn't. (Score:4, Funny)
The Moon: A Ridiculous Liberal Myth
It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)
Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors .. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.
Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!
Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.
Re:Of course it doesn't. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Of course it doesn't. (Score:5, Funny)
It's short for True Christian's Compass and Spyglass Emporium. I prefer them to Doubtful Barry's Binocular Spectacular. Barry may be cheaper, but Christian sells better quality goods.
Re:Of course it doesn't. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Of course it doesn't. (Score:4, Insightful)
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:Talk about a proactive jumpstart (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually the plan isn't that far off. Theory wise we have pretty much everything we'd need to do economical Moon-to-Earth He3 transport today. And academics routinely look at least a few decades out when considering implications of other people's tech
* Helium 3 is not a geological resource, it's believed to be deposited fairly uniformly on Moon's surface by the solar wind, so mining is a matter of gathering the upper layers of lunar dust and processing it to extract helium. Not without it's challenges since we would be doing it on the moon, but in principle nothing terribly complicated.
*While getting from the Earth to the moon is challenging, the return trip is much easier. In essence once you're off the moon it's downhill all the way. Escape velocity is roughly 4.7x slower at 2.4km/s instead of 11.2km/s, which translates to about 22x less energy required. That's a *much* smaller, cheaper rocket, or even a rail gun or the like since there's negligible atmosphere to slow it down on the ascent. Aim it so that it leaves the moon on a collision course with the Earth's upper atmosphere and aerobraking allows for cheap and easy deceleration. Combined with reusable
At present the biggest problem is that nobody yet knows how to practically generate electricity from He3-based fusion, or any fusion really. Even nasty neutron-rich deutrium fusion is still mostly theoretical, and He3 fusion has a 4x higher Coulomb barrier, which radically raises the difficulty. The only current tech I can think of that has a shot at reaching those energies is the Polywell, and that is claimed to be likely able able to do hydrogen-boron fusion relatively easily, which is a reaction much easier to efficiently extract energy from, as well as using abundant Earth-based resources.
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, Informative)
Thanks. Two good paragraphs.
Current global power consumption, 15 TW, is enough to raise the surface temperature by something the order of a hundredth of a degree. So if we used 10,000 times as much energy as we do now, it could be bad.
Agreed, that's not an immediate prospect; and there are five and a half billion people who need more cheap energy.
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Every now and then the Luddites reveal their true intentions.
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A question... Is it global power consumption that raises the temperature or the methods of production of that power?
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All the energy used - not just the waste energy due to inefficiency - ends up in the form of heat when all is said and done. For example, that portion of the energy contained in the gasoline which is actually converted by your automobile engine into useful work (force times distance) ends up heating the tires due to rotational friction and flexing of the rubber carcass, and heating up the atmosphere due to air resistance.
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You're right but you got the details about the car wrong. Here's how all the energy from the gasoline eventually gets turned into heat.
An ICE turns 30% of the gasoline's energy into kinetic energy at best. The rest is turned into waste heat, dissipated through the radiator and other engine cooling devices, exhaust and engine itself. This is why EVs are so much better, they turn well over 95% of the energy from the battery into kinetic energy.
The drivetrain heats up due to inefficiency (can cost another 20-3
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Wow you misunderstood the hell out of that. The cycle is contributing to what denialists are calling "the pause" (no atmospheric warming for 15+ years). The warming's being absorbed by the ocean (bad) and this natural cycle in the ocean is also helping to counteract it right now.
Re:Useless academic is useless. (Score:5, Funny)
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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.
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why aren't they exploring x instead of y?
people who explore math instead of global warming are a drain on the global economy.
anthropologists are a net drain on intracranial induction, preventing me from experiencing life as gorillas know it.
all scientists researching something other than my interest waste my time.
done here?
Re:Useless academic is useless. (Score:5, Insightful)
Energy mined on the moon doesn't necessarily have to be used within Earths atmosphere either.
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Re:Useless academic is useless. (Score:5, Informative)
No the consumption of 15tw has raised the Global land temperatures by 1.5 degrees C over the past 250 years. (http://berkeleyearth.org/summary-of-findings)
And most of, if not all of that effect has been due to the (at the time) unavoidable pollution, not the simple expenditure of energy.
Helium 3 (fusion) suggests an energy approach that eliminates all of the green-house gas and pollution, leaving us with just the heat byproduct of using electrical energy. As our energy use becomes more and more efficient, even this is reduced.
However, with lower greenhouse emissions the excess heat would just dissipate into space, with no measurable ill effect. (Well some say it will balloon the gas envelop a tiny bit).
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Since fusion on a stellar scale is already producing approximately 120 watts/square meter to any spot near earth orbit, any outer space program capable of mining the moon is far more capable of erecting solar sails that can use part of the solar wind and light pressure to maintain geosynchronous orbits, even for locations not in the "24-hourorbit" geosynchronous orbit used currently for inexpensive satellite communications and patented by Arthur C. Clarke.
There is simply _no point_ to tritium based fusion p
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Since fusion on a stellar scale is already producing approximately 120 watts/square meter to any spot near earth orbit,
Off by one order of magnitude [wikipedia.org]: varies between 1.412 kW/sqm in early January to 1.321 kW/sqm in early July.
any outer space program capable of mining the moon is far more capable of erecting solar sails that can use part of the solar wind and light pressure to maintain geosynchronous orbits, even for locations not in the "24-hourorbit" geosynchronous orbit used currently for inexpensive satellite communications and patented by Arthur C. Clarke.
Harvesting the energy is not necessary the problem: the problem is transmitting it to the Earth surface.
We would be dealing with beaming down probably Mega-to-Terawatts of microwaves per station (Tera being more likely, doesn't make too much sense to take the cost of building a monster into orbit for just Mega).
I wonder what can go wrong with this? (hint: just imagine the beam crossing, by a "honest m
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
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The amount of energy currently used, if more properly distributed, may lift many people out of misery. Without any new, additional sources of energy. The US is of course a prime example of excessive energy use - 5% of the world's population using about 25% of the world's energy.
You're completely missing the forest for the trees.
When energy is cheap and plentiful, history shows that much wealth across society is created. With that abundance of wealth comes the ability to spend money on things like space programs and social safety-nets. If enough wealth and cheap energy is continued to be allowed to be created within sane and reasonable limits, then that allows space exploration/exploitation to continue to advance to the point that off-planet energy and resources can be efficiently-
Re:Useless academic is useless. (Score:5, Informative)
Too much access to energy would be bad...
And even this is ignoring that fact that we have no idea how get net energy from fusing He3. Fusing deuterium and tritium is orders of magnitude easier, and we are decades away from achieving even that. I don't think we really need to worry about a massive moon based industry mining something that is more or less useless. Someday the Sun will supernova. Maybe he should worry about that instead. It is a more immediate concern.
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Presumably we would have that little detail figured out by the time we would be in a position to do large scale mining on the moon.
Or a cost benefit ratio of how much its going to cost per unit of energy retrieved compared to other energy sources. No doubt helium 3 is there for the taking. It's just really costly to get there and take it and transport it back. Figure in the energy required to launch transport ships back and forth and it makes one even wonder whether this would be a net increase in energy reserves or not.
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What environment? It's the god damned Moon. It's a lifeless near-vacuum
No one said it was a GOOD environment...
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You're not going to notice any difference between today's Moon, and a Moon mined of its helium.
Mining could conceivably change the surface color of the region mined. Lunar soil exists in a variety of colors and there is the debris/soil/dust that rains down after impacts. Recall the orange soil that Apollo 17 found, wasn't that under a thin layer of gray?
Also a perceived color change could occur due to shadows from indentations in the soil left by mining equipment, a dithering like effect.
Re:Useless academic is useless. (Score:5, Funny)
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).
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Aside from that declaring it "evil" is specifically a move to shut off debate?
Good point. Thanks.
Automated mining is under development in northern West Australia, but yeah. More experience can't hurt. If only there were something worth bringing back from the moon...
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)
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:5, Interesting)
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).
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? Because if you get that first basic question wrong then potentionally everything after that becomes immoral because it infringes not on the privelige of some inaimate lifeless celestial body, but real people, here on earth. And if it is immoral, then technically one could consider it evil (although that is a strong word).
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.
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2 questions:
1. Why would you assume that a country is the entity which will begin mining the moon?
2. Why would this be any different from any other energy market? Just because Russia is sitting on the lions share of natural gas doesn't mean Europe doesn't benefit. As a customer to someone else who did the mining I still benefit in getting a product and supply and demand dictates that everyone would benefit as a result (except in the case of a monopoly when the whole system breaks down).
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2 questions:
1. Why would you assume that a country is the entity which will begin mining the moon?
2. Why would this be any different from any other energy market? Just because Russia is sitting on the lions share of natural gas doesn't mean Europe doesn't benefit. As a customer to someone else who did the mining I still benefit in getting a product and supply and demand dictates that everyone would benefit as a result (except in the case of a monopoly when the whole system breaks down).
1) I just used a country as an example, but whether a country or a corporation, it really doesn't change the questions.
2) Because Russia is drilling their own natural gas. It would be different if Europe sat on the lion's share of the natural gas but didn't have the resources to mine it and Russia drilled at an angle from their territory to get to Europe's natural gas, effectively stealing it, would it not? I don't know about natural gas, but it is usually considered illegal to do it with oil. So, back to
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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? Because if you get that first basic question wrong then potentionally everything after that becomes immoral because it infringes not on the privelige of some inaimate lifeless celestial body, but real people, here on earth. And if it is immoral, then technically one could consider it evil (although that is a strong word).
It's an interesting question. I imagine the answer is something along the lines of "If you don't like the fact that we aren't sharing, then get you own asses up here and grab some for yourself, or, alternately, get your own asses up here and try to stop us".
...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.
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But... but... they're going to RAPE Mama Killa!!! [wikipedia.org]
(seriously, what a loon)
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Seriously - does this guy have any clue...
Not one little bit, it appears.
When I was in school, I always wondered what people actually -did- with a PhD in Philosophy, now... I know.
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"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...)"
You're confusing the far side of the moon (which we can't see from earth) with the Dark Side which is the side currently not facing the sun.
Except when there is a lunar eclipse "there is no Dark Side of the moon really, matter of fact it's all dark"
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.
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Why would fusion energy be cheap?
Fuel cost is trivial for current fission reactors. Do they produce cheap energy?
Re:Well of course (Score:4, Informative)
Taking into account assorted opportunity costs as well (including reduced productivity from pollution-related illnesses from other sources), I would say the correct answer is "yes".
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.
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"Too cheap to meter" only makes sense with government-owned utilities, and then only if startup and maintenance costs (including fuel under maintenance) are both negligible.
That said, I suspect geothermal power is actually better-suited to being "too cheap to meter", but getting the necessary power output requires significant advances in mining-related technologies anyway (ideally your heat-uptake loop has as large of a heat differential as possible, meaning drilling a borehole near or even into the mantle
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Do they produce cheap energy?
Yes they do, but because production from this source is greatly limited by decades of NIMBY politics the price is still mainly rooted on the less efficient methods.
Supply cannot meet demand.
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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.
Well, to a point. Even if one eliminated all the environmental aspects of creating energy... say we just invented a zero-point energy extractor that ran on dreams and produced infinite electricity, there is still the other side of the equation: Its use.
I'm not aware of any electronic device that doesn't produce heat, and if we suddenly increased energy consumption by a few orders of magnitude, that might not be negligible in the grand scheme of things. Whenever you put an infinity symbol in any equation, ma
missed it by a mile (Score:2)
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.
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remember, world power comes not just from mining natural resources, but preventing others from mining resources.
It's not even that noble: Where will you find people who will be satisfied by abundance (be it ever so great) at the same time they suffer the knowledge that their enemies are not suffering scarcity and want and the subjects of their petty jealousies and rivalries are not doing worse than they are?
You could hand people a post-scarcity utopia on a silver platter and they'd damn you for making their wealth worthless and their inferiors equal.
Short sighted (Score:5, Insightful)
lol (Score:5, Insightful)
sounds like the sort of individual who's opinion I certainly give a fuck about
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And yet, somebody at Yahoo dug a random paper he wrote out of the Annals of Tedious Philosophy (Volume 167), wrote a quick clickbait screed about it, and now it's on Slashdot...
And then... (Score:2)
We discover the Moon is actually a giant Egg.
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.
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I like computers, and air conditioning, and cars, and concrete, and aluminum cans, and cheap plastic bottles.
Add to that: a greatly reduced birth rate (helping stabilize the population), vastly lower infant mortality, and life expectancies in the mid-70s in the developed world (early 80s if you live in one of those horrid north European socialist countries). None of this would have been possible without the huge increase in prosperity and productivity brought by industrialization. People tend to think of
Well of course! (Score:2)
We should all be happy to go back to the pre-industrial ages. Sure it means the vast majority of humans will have to die off, and the ones that live will have much shorter, harder, lives but hey, it would be good for the planet (depending on how you define good)! As such all of us should be happy, no honoured to do that. Excepting for professors, of course. They advance knowledge so they clearly need to be allowed to keep all of their modern conveniences. But the rest of us, back to the dark ages!
That is wh
No. Not even that. (Score:2)
Ah, so the classic "we should all live in the dark and grow our own food" argument. Beautiful. Give King Ludd my warmest regards.
This guy is basically arguing (among other things) that because 100% of the energy from He-3 mining would not be used to directly power "a great life-enhancing project" - it is all bad and it should not be done.
Furthermore, in the absence of a radical alteration in patterns of human behaviour, a good deal of energy from He-3 mining is unlikely to go towards a great life-enhancing project. It is likely to be used for comparatively trivial purposes such as advertising, waste and the enhancement of prestige.
This is part and parcel of living in a society where choice is valued. However, there are some choices (the choice to be cruel, aggressive, destructive or wasteful) which may not be worth having and which, in some cases, we ought not to have.
You know... kinda the way paper and pens should not be produced because not all of them are used to create works of Shakespeare or Michelangelo.
Anyone willing to dig for more pearls of wisdom, here is his academia.edu [academia.edu] page with his other works.
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Who said anything about "wreck"ing the moon?
First of all, TFA's arguments have more to do with morality than aesthetics. I poked fun at that, not whether or not I consider the moon "pretty".
And second, "wrecking" involves a subjective analysis of value. With the arctic, we can take about aesthetics, but we more commonly mean the loss of biodiversity (ie, polar bears). The moon has no biome, an
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I mean I think the Arctic is just as beautiful as the moon. Are you saying that if there's an energy source there we should wreck it because you like plastic bottles?
Well, if there's something valuable there, I'm good with moderate levels of wrecking. We seem to be able to manage that. As to the Moon, one of the great ironies of this ethics article is that we probably wouldn't be able to notice complete mining of the lunar surface unless we happened to be there. Overturning the top couple of meters of lunar surface isn't really going to look all that different to us on Earth.
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And THIS is why I fear finding life on Mars (Score:2)
Cart before horse (Score:3)
I'm still waiting on that slashdot article introducing the worlds first working economically viable fusion generator.
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Cross out fusion generator and add in any of many alternatives.
My favorite would be flying car.
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Cross out fusion generator and add in any of many alternatives.
My favorite would be flying car.
They have flying cars. One even won a Darwin Award.
OED: Artifact (Score:2)
So, is this guy an intelligent design proponent? Oh wait, that's just the summary. In TFA the word appears once:
Man is actually part of the universe (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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.
Cultural Artifact? (Score:3)
“Cultural artifact” has a specific meaning: A remnant of something created by a culture.
Hm, what if he’s on to something?
ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS, SAVE FOR THE ONE THAT’S RELATIVELY EASY TO GET TO
Waste of time (Score:3)
I will do my part by not visiting this topic ever again.
He wanted to visit Torino, so he wrote a paper (Score:2)
Here's the call for papers [iaaweb.org]
So he wrote a paper on the ethics of Lunar Mining that actually considered possible ethical objections to the proposed activity. Is that so odd? Wouldn't it be better to hash this all out before the technology exists to strip-mine the moon?
A
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"So he wrote a paper on the ethics of Lunar Mining that actually considered possible ethical objections to the proposed activity. Is that so odd?"
Not in abstract, but the specific objections seem odd, to say the least.
"After all, do we really want whalers on the moon?"
Whalers are people too.
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Whalers are people too.
And they carry a harpoon. [youtube.com]
Need that energy for the laser on the moon to... (Score:2)
Need that energy for the laser on the moon to destroy Washington D.C and I will destroy another major city every hour on the hour. That is, unless, of course, you pay me
one hundred billion dollars.
Okay, wait until that North Sea oil runs out (Score:2)
Then this fellow will begin to say that access to energy is a good thing.
Red Mars (Score:3)
Sounds like the plot of Red-Mars. Environmentalists don't think we should be messing with mars and sabotage efforts to terraform it.
I wonder (Score:3)
I wonder if this nut was with that group/movement a few years back that was trying to get some resolution passed (in the UN maybe?) designating the moon (and eventually all celestial bodies) as some kind of nature preserve to prevent any kind of utilization/exploration. I agree completely that we need to be conscientious of our actions as we spread into the solar system and perhaps one day the galaxy, but we should expand the reaches of our understanding, exploration and habitation. Large swaths of the moon should be left alone for future generations and we should go out of our way to prevent any significant alterations of a celestial body without careful consideration. That said the universe is not some static art-piece that should/could be preserved in a single state. 600 million years of our own planets many massive changes should have been more than enough evidence for this idiot.
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.
I don't want to live on this planet anymore (Score:3)
What the subject says.
It's not Evil it is Stupid. (Score:4, Informative)
Mining the moon for helium-3 is merely stupid. (1) there are no fusion power plants, (2) helium-3 is crap fuel, and (3) there is hardly any helium-3 on the moon anyway.
Oh and Hanlon's Razor [wikipedia.org] comes to mind: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Evil (Score:3)
... and that too much access to energy would be bad for the human race.
Rubbish! - With unlimited energy we could easily fix both the CO2-related issues from centuries of burning various fossil fuels, and any byproduct from having all this energy.
With unlimited energy we could control the weather for instance. All the damage from extreme weather would be only in history books.
Oh, and of course mining Helium-3 is evil. That's why the nazis hiding on the back side of the Moon is doing it. They went to the Moon because is was the evil thing to do, and the nazis - being ultimately evil at heart - thus had no choice but to go to the Moon and do the evil thing: Mine Helium-3. Returning to Earth in a huge flying saucer called "Götterdämmerung" to set up their nazi-utopia is actually less evil than mining the Helium-3. They even made a film called "Iron Sky" about this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1034314/ [imdb.com]
History (Score:3)
History says otherwise:
"Besides, of all ways whereby great wealth is acquired by good and honest means, none is more advantageous than mining; for although from fields which are well tilled (not to mention other things) we derive rich yields, yet we obtain richer products from mines; in fact, one mine is often much more beneficial to us than many fields. For this reason we learn from the history of nearly all ages that very many men have been made rich by the mines, and the fortunes of many kings have been much amplified thereby."
From here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38015/38015-h/38015-h.htm [gutenberg.org]
So we are mining energy instead of metals now, anybody know a good book about energy?
Beyond that I first want to see a space efficient fusion reactor that works. What ever happened to Bussards wiffle ball reactor the US Navy swallowed?
Re: (Score:3)
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Re:it's puritanism (Score:4, Interesting)
Eh, some of the trends are unsustainable projected into the long run.
That said, projected into the long run, there's a 100% chance of the Earth being destroyed.
Re: (Score:3)
Eh, some of the trends are unsustainable projected into the long run.
That said, projected into the long run, there's a 100% chance of the Earth being destroyed.
First I think you mean 100% probability of the earth being destroyed, not chance. 2nd, it is not 100%. There is always a chance, no matter how remote that something happens and the earth is left intact, regardless of the scenario. There is never a 100% certainty of the earths destruction. It's pretty damn close, but not close enough.
Re: (Score:3)
Nuclear winter -> global warming? A bit of a non-sequitur, don't you think?
I think everyone, even conservatives, can agree that nuclear war and its consequences would be really bad. You don't need to be a bleeding heart liberal to dislike the idea of nuclear war.