Gravity, if you think about it, is a phenomenal thing. The sheer fact that the mass of our planet binds us to it, illustrates how small we as individuals are. It is my thesis that there are two primary policy options for any political body committed to Aeonic Politics (AP). The immediate reduction of greenhouse gases and largescle investiment into research and development of an SSTO.
Both of these problems are being tackled. Climate change is more than a political movement of concerned citizens but also a sheer force pressing on civilization. Thus there is reason to believe policy will respond. Ideas for Single Step to Orbit Aircrafts have been floating around since the 1960s and the US space program has lost momentum since the 1970s. The recent and well covered launch of Virgin Galactic’s Space Ship Two (which is not an SSTO I might ad) and the confidence companies such as Virgin and Space X express at in a future and emerging space “tourism” market are further good news.
What is interesting about these two AP problems is that the seem to demand entirely contrary political climates. As Burt Rutan argues, governments cannot be relied on as driving actors for space “trourism” (which really is nothing but a prelude to colonization). Climate change and environmental policy in general, however, are the free market’s nightmare. If you look at the history of American environmental politics since 1945, you will find that the larger government grew and the more it was involved in regulation, the easier it was for congress to pass environmental bills. When Regan set the stage for a “small is beautiful” American government, it were the environment ministries that were always hit first since they are, for capitalists, a type of anti ministry.
I do not want to end in aporia since there are solutions to these problems. Lets just take a look at how much it currently costs to launch into space:
“All in all, the Buran-Energia program cost between 16 and 17 billion dollars, by comparison the US STS program cost between 3-5 billion dollars. There is no reliable data on the cost of one launch, but this value can be obtained indirectly, using the cost of the launching 1 kg of payload with the Energia superbooster, using data from Stanford University Studies. Using these figures, a standard Buran-Energia launch costs 131.25 million dollars all up. According, however, to evaluations by specialists at NPO Molniya, the constructors of the shuttle, the cost of lifting 1 kg of payload with Energia is in the range of 3000-5000 $/kg” How much establishing an independent moon base would cumulatively cost, I do not know, but the above figure suggests a lot!”
http://www.k26.com/buran/index.html
At the same time, a recent report released by the Pembina Institute, a Canadian environmental government watch dog, presented the results of an in depth study in to the costs of reducing greenhouse gases for Canada. I use the Pembina example since ina ranking of the 60 wealthiest countries in the world, Canada came out 59th (i.e. second last) after Saudi Arabia. Mitigating additional climate change is expensive for Canada. Right wing sceptics argue meeting its Kyoto targets would cost Canada 20 Billion $. Of course this is debated and needs to be taken with a grain of salt, like most things in the media and on the net.
Although reducing these AP goals to a simple decision between cutting carbon emissions and perhaps subsidizing the space industry is an oversimplification to say the least, both are variables at play and it is important to gain a grasp of the numbers involved.
The internet is full on nonsense about climate change. Further, when I tell people that we should colonize the universe, they laugh. But has anyone ever considered anthropogenic global warming as evidence for the “fringe science” of terraformation?
This website is an interesting space colonization thought experiment. I would argue that its end results (above) is plausible. If we can fuck up the Earth’s climate by emitting CO2 and other greenhouse gases, then we can geo-engineer atmospheres on other planets.
From an Aeonic Politics point of view, climate change is the greatest threat to humanity and civilization. Economic growth should be stalled immediately and greenhouse gas reduction should be the international community’s primary mandate.
Epistemology derives from the Greek word episteme, meaning scientific knowledge. In Ancient Greek Philosophy, it is usually contrasted with doxa, or common belief. Epistemology in the western tradition is the theory governing the articulation of the laws of the cosmos in the highest possible standards. It is important to also note the etymology of the Greek word cosmos; it is where we get our word cosmetics from: to put into order. A cosmos is ordered, governed by patterns and language or the logos is the articulation of those laws (which is tantamount to understanding). To put simply, what is around us unfolds in particular patterns (cause and effect). These are logical and rationality is how we understand them.
Doktor Faustus spent his entire life looking for “the logos” in all the disciplines at his disposal. As he aged and realized that he actually knew nothing, Faust despaired and wanted to kill himself. At that point, Mephistopheles, as messanger of Satan appears and offers Faust a second youth. In this sense the tragedy of Faust can be understood as an epistemological statement. Whenever we suffer deeply we understand things in ways we previously didnt.
Here Bronowski talks about the “ascent of man”. I would argue that it was Faust’s epistemology also that enabled man to leave “the plains” behind. Our ancestors would only have been motivated to leave there current habitat behind when it no longer functions. On a more sublimated level, Faust’s epistemology is also active today. According to Thomas Kuhn, science undergoes paradigm shifts when individuals expose the flaws of current systems. They embody the systems failure. Evolutionarily, this is significant since it suggests that these patterns we find acting in the natural world can be transposed to an intellectual level. We must have faith in reason.
URGENT UPDATE:
A 16th Oct. 2001 WARNING by Cosmologist
PROF. STEPHEN HAWKING
“The human race is likely to be wiped out by a doomsday virus . . . unless we set up colonies in space. Although Sept. 11th was horrible, it didn’t threaten the survival of the human race like nuclear weapons do,” said the Cambridge University Scientist. “In the long term, I’m more worried about biology. Nuclear weapons need large facilities, but genetic engineering can be done in a small lab. The danger is that, either by accident or design, we create a virus that destroys us. I don’t think the human race will survive . . unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet.”
All of the above concerns were expressed a quarter century ago in this following article by Mr. Falconi.
BUT, the “original” concept of escaping from earth in order to back up and preserve our civilization, as expressed by Mr. Falconi, was preconceived by over a quarter-century in the following prophetic paragraph:
“We must keep the problems of today in true proportions: they are vital – indeed of extreme importance – since they can destroy our civilisation and slay the future before its birth. The crossing of space may do much to turn men’s minds outwards and away from their present tribal squabbles. In this sense, the rocket, far from being one of the destroyers of civilisation, may provide the safety valve that is needed to preserve it.”
“The Exploration of Space”, 1951, p.194, by Arthur C. Clarke, F.R.A.S.
I recently decided to watch a number of science fiction films and review them. This is the first post in the series.
Alien, 1979
Review: 3/10
The film, though initially beautiful and visually intriguing, fails to live up to its cult status. As the movie began I had a strong feeling of being transported into a foreign world consisting of cities built on platforms drifting through unknown parts of some unidentified solar system. However, as the “story line” develops, what initially seemed so strange and beautiful becomes something so very much familiar. Alien, in essence, is a story about a a group of scientists discovering and then having to combat an alien. The basic idea: the alien is really really scary.
Whilst watching there were a number of times during which I thought my negative reactions were perhaps too hasty. All of the initial encounters between the protagonists and the alien are driven by a strong human curiosity, suggesting that there is something about our desire to know which drives us towards some sort of bestial darkness. The film is at times also haunted by a sense of futility as the scientists use their technology to escape the death that this alien embodies. None of these associations, however, were developed in any form during the film.
If one were to reduce this movie to a mathematical formula they would consist very much of the same set of patterns and numbers as virtually any other Hollywood screenplay today. Scenes of silence followed by sudden and scary noises. Brief visuals of women crying. People screaming etc. Alien is complete nonsense.
Why? Because it is a cultural product of capitalism. Its purpose is not to inspire its audience or speak to those of them who want to strive for something higher. 20th Century fox made the film to make money. And to do this they need to appeal to the broadest, least interesting and comparatively speaking dumbest part of the populace. Anything else wont sell.
I know of only *one* respectably Kung Fu school in Toronto. All the rest I’ve looked at teach a watered down form of exotic exercise (including the school I go to) that attempts to boil the tradition down to a hollywood inspired form of LARPing. There actually used to be a Kung Fu temple in Toronto believe it or not, it wasn’t open to the public, students were forbidden to compete in competitions by the CCWA and it closed as the master retired. They taught White Crane, Wing Chun and Five Animal Southern Shaolin. I’ve also looked all the places that claim to teach zen meditation and chi kung, ‘couldnt find any respectable institutions (from the zen buddhist temple to the Toronto Zen Center to the JCC) none practice zazen properly. There used to be a world famous chi kung master in Toronto who was a world authority on chi kung and an advanced, combative form of tai chi but he left to live in California (he said it was too cold here but also that no one wanted to study his art. He had only one real student, a brilliant 15 year old who dropped out of high school and began writing books). It wouldn’t surprise me if this also applies to the high culture other ethnic groups could bring to this city.
The kung fu experience suggests the following:
- Emerging cultures are not integrated well into the city. (If a kung fu master set up a school here and didn’t have the money for all the pomp, how would westerners know? Further, if they had to spend 5 years repeating 10 sets of forms and sitting still on a pillow PLUS no UFC -gasp – and no money – gasp – , why would our air head children care?)
- Capitalism and culture don’t mix simply because culture is completely useless in business terms (How many books do you think Aristotle will sell?)
- Socialism and culture dont mix simply because culture is elitist. What do we do NOW?
- Universities are ill adapted to what I am arguing must happen. Universities were taken over by the merchant class (which needs to be marginalized) since the industrial revolution (Rotman anyone?) And even if universities were still concerned with culture, they are western entirely (you have a bacholars in zen?).
- Or also this: How do you think your average zen order will respond when you tell them that there is no necessary connection between the beta waves meditation induces and their nihilistic religion?
- Canadian politics in general is antagonistic to culture (Harpers budget). The Ministry of Culture anyone (insiders joke)?
- Multi culturalism in its current form is a dangerous illusion that does not promote cultural dialogue and is replaced by that disgusting thing called business (people today think imperial china was good because it made sushi).
If you are concerned about culture and if you recognize that inaction results in action by other parties with different (and in our case inferior) ideas, I invite you to participate in the Toronto Urgeist Movement or also this project:
http://www.buildwabashnow.org/
The goal is to create a space in high park where people can exchange ideas and things of value and generally make people understand that there is more out there than most way too specialized careers. Culture needs leisure. Capitalism needs work. Socialism needs, well, mediocrity. Is there a third way? The left looks up, the right looks down – let us rather look at the stars and far away into the horizon. Remember, culture takes centuries to emerge and can disappear in an instant, as it is today…
Speculations and visions for the future:
If we can get about 5 people here to work on this thing we can do a lot and perhaps get the community center running in a couple of years – for the community (not for outselves). If it works well, we can start a lobby for similar projects in other middle class neighborhoods. The problem with Wabash is that their building it out of an old factory. That0 isn’t necessary. Canadians have this neurotic obsession with renovating but there is no reason why government couldn’t tell the aesscetic priests inhabinting all of torontos churches to get the fuck out and convet those churches. Once these centers spread across the city (which will be a hard battle), they ought to be supplemented by another highly regulated corporate state type market that sells anything a person would need to live – and that only. Nothing should be allowed to be put on the market if it doesn’t last the lifetime of a person, all things should be produced locally (bioregionalism) food shouldn’t be sold if it isn’t healthy and things which are superfluous entirely (think fun) should be generally forbidden (environmentalism but also the possible diversion of human resources away from production and capital towards culture – Im not saying this to be an asshole but because it is a luxury we cannot afford *over millennia*). Toronto would have realized itself as a city when technology has been built so well that it hardly needs maintenance and certainly no upgrading. This coupled with other value inspired authoritarian policies would give us citizens lots of leisure which we would spend with culture and become more complete human beings who are so superior in their understanding of and engagement with life that they would laugh at today’s elite flashing yachts, BMWs, rolex watches and colonizing the third world. And a final word to those cynics of you, this is not utopian, there would still be so much tragedy and suffering in the world as there always will be.
You might say this is dreamy, but we have to dream. And I also want to tell the public this. Toronto as a society suffers from entropy. That is why people like us are organizing the underground – and you’d be surprised how many of us there are and how pissed off we are at how things are unfolding.
The three story house I live in here in Toronto needs heating. The Canadian winter is cold. Since we believe in sustainability which is basically just another word for doing things properly, we recently installed air tight double glassed windows and a new heating system. The heating system, however, is flawed. We chose it because it uses less water, which is heated and pumped through the radiators on each floor. It is a new design.
The plumber just came over and told us that this heating system doesn’t work that well. Each year, he says, companies that design these things bring out “new” models that are different than previous systems and even require new parts. This means that plumbers need to supply their customers with parts that are incompatible with their old geiser, which costs a lot of money – exactly as the business making these things hoped.
We find the same thing with computers. A desktop is basically a motherboard and power supply, RAM, a video card and a hard drive. Each new generation of computers, and they have improved significantly in performance, requires hardware that cannot be fit into the old system (even the case) because the manufacturers know that people want new computers (perhaps the old one was designed to become obsolete in 5 years) and that they will spend money to make it. Unfortunately, you need to throw out all the old shit – that new CPU wont fit on the old motherboard, even though it easily could!
Government needs to regulate industry. And not at the general will of the people as this is usually done, but because we need to do things properly – otherwise we have problems. Wouldn’t you want government to strictly regulate your local nuclear power plant? Why are the other things we build less important?
urgeist
