Liberal Talk Radio

Name that tune.* (Hint: the band’s first “major” release was Come On Pilgrim)

Great piece in the NYT today about how it’s imperative that we continue our efforts to colonize Mars (one of the only things the brain-dead chimp’s got right, even if his plan is a half-baked “lookoverthere”).

In 1993, J. Richard Gott III computed with scientific certainty that humanity would survive at least 5,100 more years. At the time, I took that as reason to relax, but Dr. Gott has now convinced me I was wrong. He has issued a wake-up call: To ensure our long-term survival, we need to get a colony up and running on Mars within 46 years.

Longtime friends of B&P will remember that I’m an unabashed supporter of manned space flight. My reasons?

1) Humans have an inherent curiosity that’s one of our gifts from the gods. Without a powerful, symbolic outlet for this curiosity, we tend to turn introspective. And our collective introspection often manifests itself in violence and other social pathologies.

2) Our economic system depends for its survival on the constant creation of new wealth and new opportunities. Without new opportunities, our societies tend over time to settle into a class-ist stasis, with increasing centralization of power (see: China after the emperor put the kai-bosh on Cheng Ho).

3) Inevitably, whether through our own actions/inactions or some cataclysm of extra-terrestrial origin, we will face a crisis severe enough to threaten the existence of our species. Colonization of other planets is the one and only insurance policy we can take out.

We are only as magnificent as we can dream ourselves to be, and that’s as true of societies at large as it is of their individual members. So, whadayasay, join me on Mars?

* “Space (I Believe In)” by the Pixies on Trompe le Monde. Easy one, eh?