RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Full Version)

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Ricardo -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 2 2025 21:34:06)

quote:

ORIGINAL: estebanana

One last thing, in response to Ricardo’s quip about scientists wanting to get it on in space. I do know through extensive experimentation at engaging in acts of romantic sex that when you put on that Sade album or whomsoever you choose to get it up with, that lesser atmospheres are not as fun. Example, I’ve had lots of sex in swimming pools, hot springs and even the ocean and it’s not as good. The ocean is salty and offers a near neutral buoyancy environment for doing sexual activity which could work as a stand in environment for zero gravity sexual encounters. Let me tell you from vast experience that weightlessness during the act of copulation isn’t as good. Sex is hotter under the friction of gravity, Earth is the place for love.


Since you refuse to watch Ariel's video, etc., but continue to comment about space activity, let me say, there will be ZERO space activity by humans (unmodified humans that is) without artificial gravity....which if you watch expanse you realize there are several ways to deal with it, as it is necessary for any biological system that goes up there. That includes the biological activity in question, which is not the point of doing it up there in frustrating zero gravity...(also since you did not watch there is no such thing as zero gravity as she explains). But that is fine. Continue the political rants.



Richard Jernigan -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 2 2025 23:58:13)

quote:

estebanana: Why doesn’t that happen at Mc Murdo station in Antarctica? Is it because they population there is unified in a goal of producing research in a place that we established a foot hold in that’s a harsh environment? What would happen at McMurdo if the population were not all on board with the same goal?


Among the people I know who have spent significant time in repeated tours "on the ice," I have a few friends. Every one of them is a person who, before going to McMurdo, had left the USA to work for years overseas, surrounded by decidedly non-USA cultures.

My idea is that continued exposure to foreign culture had vaccinated them against unreasoning prejudice. They saw the common humanity they shared with the foreigners.

This is far from a reliable result. During my years at Kwajalein I met a sizable fraction of the American population who had simply transferred their American prejudices to unreasoning hard feelings against the Marshallese natives.

I have always lived in a divided and stratified society. During childhood and adolescent summers in south Texas I was a member of the 10% minority who spoke English at home, and of the even smaller percentage who owned more than a few square miles of land. All but one of my south Texas cousins proudly demonstrated their prejudice against anyone with a Spanish name, much less those of Tex-Mex culture. The only exception was a woman who pioneered bilingual education in the early elementary grades, with the objective of starting in Spanish and gradually transitioning to English as the students mastered it.

It's hard to imagine a society more stratified by visible signs and prerogatives of rank than the military I grew up in. My experience of the Army at Kwajalein tended to show that the military had largely eliminated visible signs of racial prejudice, but officers and enlisted men could not socialize, nor could their respective wives. However in a Facebook group, former service brats who lived in Germany report a general unawareness of rank among schoolmates. From observation at Kwajalein I conclude that their teachers in the Department of Defense schools were almost all civilians without military experience.

In 1949-51 Alaskan Natives were viewed and treated with contempt. There wasn't a single one who had made it as far as Anchorage Junior High. Natives have gained some political power, and a part of the non-Native population show some concern for their struggles in the modern world.

Twenty years ago my girlfriend, who grew up in Japan until she was 14, felt that racism and sexism were default human conditions. Now on Facebook she says she is from San Francisco, and is grateful to the city for its accepting multi-cultural environment.

During the Obama era I felt some hope that my country might become the multi-ethnic democracy that could show the world it was possible.

So there are signs of progress--but now we have the backlash.

You can supply the details from the daily headlines. Instead of "speaking softly and carrying a big stick [T. Roosevelt]" our president bellows incoherently and brandishes the cannons of tariffs, which regularly backfire--all in revenge against hallucinated grievances.

Yes, "free trade" has had bad effects on the U.S.working class. But it's not as though the Japanese set out to impoverish Detroit's working class. They just wised up to the fact that high quality sells, while Detroit floundered. The Chinese didn't wrest Apple's manufacturing away from California. Steve Jobs found a way to manufacture high quality stuff at a competitive price. Taiwan didn't set out to destroy Intel, they just outcompeted them. See "chip foundry."

Trump likes tariffs because he has almost unlimited power to impose them. I even have some fear that he may actually believe the lie that the foreigners are going to be the ones who entirely pay for them.

Half the voters might disagree with me. They went for him.

The only Trump voters whom I know and talk to already have serious disagreements with his actions.

Stephen and I share parallel visions. But for me, experience makes their eventual attainment subject to doubt.

RNJ



estebanana -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 3 2025 0:27:16)

I haven’t refused to watch the video, dude, I’m incredibly busy the last few days…



estebanana -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 3 2025 1:22:15)

Richard,

Interesting points, I’ll and my dime of quick observations.

On installations of scientific research or strategic intelligence usage, those two branches of applied science and research science break along lines of national interest. From the large telescopes in the Atacama desert, to CERN, the ISS, The Syncrotron at Berkeley, McMurdo etc these are research facilities where a lot of international cooperation happens. Ours and others Intel gathering stations like Kwaj are different, it’s science in the service of a national interest of a particular government. The kind of guys who do maintenance contracting on Kwaj are thinking differently than the ones that go to The Ice House. The Antarctica station and ISS ( save for the ruskies) is a place of scientific curiosity where everyone sees common goal across race and culture. The HVac guy on Kwaj is probably like a trump voter or something conservative and is only there for a job, not to be an observer of culture. Those guys get local women as second wives, get drunk, stay for 2 - 3 years and cycle back stateside. Scientists might hook up in the Ice station ( Ice Station Zebra) but they will also drill ice cores and spend years writing papers together. Different stuff.

Currently the same group of fellows and nerds that helped Musk take over twitter and turn it into a cesspool of grievances from privileged American whites has just wrested control of large swaths of the US Treasury Department computer system and locked out federal employees. It’s a coup in slow motion, this is very, very bad.

Next up, Trump sees trade as a winner take all negotiation, I win you lose. That’s a style of negotiation that doesn’t work out side hys narrow understanding of how you rip off a building contractor. He’s about to learn how tariffs work, which is they are applied carefully to balance trade power dynamics to enable different countries with disparate economies to have better trade overall and better distribution of products in demand in each country.

He’s probably going to severely F up the US export market like he did last time, but the question is, given a chance to return to a sane negotiating position who and how long will it take other countries to trust the US traders are stable? The U.S. exports billions in construction goods, manufactured with raw materials from Canada and Mexico ( plywood and gypsum and plaster products) before the moron tariffed our northern and southern border counterparts with 25% the tariffs were already stable at 14% - an 11% increase. Is going to ultimately raise prices on US exports thus making the situation worse. US companies w
Pay more for raw materials. The orange moron doesn’t understand that the US manufacturing sector is not self reliant on domestic raw materials.

We’re about to get hammered and ultimately this has an excellent chance of hurting the global economic order. So hopefully some people in Congress will quickly grow balls and spines and check this runaway executive idiot.

DOGE = department of grift and exploitation



BarkellWH -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 3 2025 3:10:55)

quote:


Yes, "free trade" has had bad effects on the U.S.working class. But it's not as though the Japanese set out to impoverish Detroit's working class. They just wised up to the fact that high quality sells, while Detroit floundered. The Chinese didn't wrest Apple's manufacturing away from California. Steve Jobs found a way to manufacture high quality stuff at a competitive price. Taiwan didn't set out to destroy Intel, they just outcompeted them. See "chip foundry."


Well, "free trade" gets a bad rap because many mistakenly think it has resulted in the offshoring of American manufacturing and the loss of American jobs. This is a fiction perpetuated by both Republicans and Democrats. There is plenty of evidence that demonstrates the loss of American jobs has been primarily the result of technology and automation, not offshoring. A prime example of the ignorance that permeates both Republicans and Democrats is the Trans Pacific Partnership, a free trade agreement that was negotiated under the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. At the time, Hillary Clinton called it the "gold standard" of free trade agreements. Then in the 2016 presidential election, Hillary reversed her position in order to win over the voters who supported that economic illiterate Senator Bernie Sanders. The TPP would have been a boon for the United States. It was more than just a free trade agreement, as it provided a forum for much more with the US in the lead. Trump pulled us out of it, and Biden did not attempt to revive our role. Thus we were left out of what could have been a great free trade agreement and a bulwark against Chinese encroachment in Asia and the Pacific (including Peru and Chile).

It would take a dissertation to explain all that's going on, but in my opinion, it can be laid at the altar of misplaced nationalism and protectionism. We are going back to the 1930s and Lindbergh's "America First" movement; of the stifling of free trade and the imposition of high tariffs (which will only make goods more expensive); of being in the pocket of the unions as well. Biden was a perfect example of being in the pocket of the unions when he walked the UAW picket line (a dumb move for a president). Moreover, Biden vetoed Nippon Steel's acquisition of US Steel. Interestingly, the rank and file USW members wanted Nippon Steel to acquire the US asset, as Nippon would modernize the plants and production facilities. It was the USW leadership that was against it, and Biden dutifully followed the USW leadership's script.

Trump may be the worst of the lot, but the Democrats are not far behind. We appear to be living in an age of economic illiteracy that runs the political spectrum from Trump and Musk to Bernie Sanders and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. Keep foreign direct investment out of the US, even though it would modernize some industries and create jobs. Raise tariffs against both our friends and adversaries, even though they will result in higher costs and prices paid by American consumers and potential shortages that could result in black markets.

There have been several books written about Americans no longer believing in experts and expertise. It seems that many Americans want to believe the drivel put out by charlatans, conspiracy theorists, and the like instead of people who really know their field. That is demonstrated in spades by the election of Trump and his Cabinet picks, but it was demonstrated by many of Biden's policies as well. It would not be wrong to conclude that we are living in an age that puts a premium on ignorance.

Bill



Richard Jernigan -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 3 2025 3:56:28)

quote:

Estebanana:You may differ with his opinion, but what he says about the motivations in the early 1960’s to enter space are predicated on American fears during the Cold War period.


Yep. I was a sophomore at the University of Texas. The day after the Sputnik launch became public knowledge my parents stopped by Austin on their way to visit one of my aunts in Dallas.

Dad had not been a member of the Air Force's ICBM-advocating generation. But as a ranking officer he clearly understood and was deeply concerned about the strategic implications of the Soviets' accomplishment. He shifted from mild ICBM skepticism to strong advocacy.

Years later, every NASA person I met during the Apollo era didn't hesitate to say that they were strongly motivated to race the Soviets to the moon, in order to demonstrate U.S. technological superiority to the world.

My brother went with the Apollo 11 crew on their globe girdling victory lap. He told us about the strong impression the U.S. moon landing had made on the foreign big shots, and the crowds that had turned out to cheer.

RNJ



estebanana -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 3 2025 4:20:53)

On Japan auto industry, Lee Iacccoa the leader of GM for some years says they made a major mistake by creating the SUV, which is a machoed up station wagon mounted on a GM standard truck chassis. He says they F-ed up because the public was going to move to more fuel efficient cars at that time and enough buyers took to Camrys and Subaru Foresters that the GM SUV was outclassed. They misjudged he public on daily driver cars. To further he F up Congress suppressed the development of electric vehicles thinking this would be better for the oil industry (duh) and that a private company that didn’t need any government backing to develop would better path.

They missed the opportunity in the mid 1990’s to be start that up. GM promised an electric small truck /van option in the early 2000’s at a cost that small contractors would buy at. Then they quashed the USPS contract to outfit large parts of the delivery fleet with EV - I saw the first EV mail delivery trucks and jeeps being used in California, but that was too ‘woke’ for these mother fackers. This was largely Mitch McConnells handy work, and I will piss on his grave ojala.

Another McConnell sgit show was pulling the funding solar development, then China stepped in and for some time dominated the sales leaving the U.S. worker to be an installer instead of a manufacturer. It burns my soul to see how the pink working class votes for these politicians who are the enemies of skilled labor.



estebanana -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 3 2025 7:07:00)

I don’t know of any if you read Substack, but this is out of control activity:

Search Letters from an American by Heather Cox-Richardson

Elon has taken control of the treasury dept and USAID and locked out the federal employees of these agencies. He’s using a team of young computer hacks picked by Peter Thiel to access information none of have security clearances for. It’s outrageous.



estebanana -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 3 2025 7:21:31)

quote:

ORIGINAL: BarkellWH

quote:


Yes, "free trade" has had bad effects on the U.S.working class. But it's not as though the Japanese set out to impoverish Detroit's working class. They just wised up to the fact that high quality sells, while Detroit floundered. The Chinese didn't wrest Apple's manufacturing away from California. Steve Jobs found a way to manufacture high quality stuff at a competitive price. Taiwan didn't set out to destroy Intel, they just outcompeted them. See "chip foundry."


Well, "free trade" gets a bad rap because many mistakenly think it has resulted in the offshoring of American manufacturing and the loss of American jobs. This is a fiction perpetuated by both Republicans and Democrats. There is plenty of evidence that demonstrates the loss of American jobs has been primarily the result of technology and automation, not offshoring. A prime example of the ignorance that permeates both Republicans and Democrats is the Trans Pacific Partnership, a free trade agreement that was negotiated under the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. At the time, Hillary Clinton called it the "gold standard" of free trade agreements. Then in the 2016 presidential election, Hillary reversed her position in order to win over the voters who supported that economic illiterate Senator Bernie Sanders. The TPP would have been a boon for the United States. It was more than just a free trade agreement, as it provided a forum for much more with the US in the lead. Trump pulled us out of it, and Biden did not attempt to revive our role. Thus we were left out of what could have been a great free trade agreement and a bulwark against Chinese encroachment in Asia and the Pacific (including Peru and Chile).

It would take a dissertation to explain all that's going on, but in my opinion, it can be laid at the altar of misplaced nationalism and protectionism. We are going back to the 1930s and Lindbergh's "America First" movement; of the stifling of free trade and the imposition of high tariffs (which will only make goods more expensive); of being in the pocket of the unions as well. Biden was a perfect example of being in the pocket of the unions when he walked the UAW picket line (a dumb move for a president). Moreover, Biden vetoed Nippon Steel's acquisition of US Steel. Interestingly, the rank and file USW members wanted Nippon Steel to acquire the US asset, as Nippon would modernize the plants and production facilities. It was the USW leadership that was against it, and Biden dutifully followed the USW leadership's script.

Trump may be the worst of the lot, but the Democrats are not far behind. We appear to be living in an age of economic illiteracy that runs the political spectrum from Trump and Musk to Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Keep foreign direct investment out of the US, even though it would modernize some industries and create jobs. Raise tariffs against both our friends and adversaries, even though they will result in higher costs and prices paid by American consumers and potential shortages that could result in black markets.

There have been several books written about Americans no longer believing in experts and expertise. It seems that many Americans want to believe the drivel put out by charlatans, conspiracy theorists, and the like instead of people who really know their field. That is demonstrated in spades by the election of Trump and his Cabinet picks, but it was demonstrated by many of Biden's policies as well. It would not be wrong to conclude that we are living in an age that puts a premium on ignorance.

Bill



And of all of the folks you mentioned Hillary is the most economically astute and correctly positioned the US to be in the TPP. Bernie is very frustrating, he became intoxicated when in late 2015 he got a little adulation from simple minded leftist populist types and then rode populist wave on nonsense right into the DNC convention. Then every stupid dude/bro exhibited a snobby form of misogyny by refusing to vote for Hillary over trump, and here we are today with the trump team trying to dismantle the federal government.

But her emails…. gee. I’m definitely pro free trade, then you apply tariffs in moderation to even out power and distribution to imbalance

Well I’m on the fence about the Nippon Steel deal. Japanese companies have problems too. Sapporo corporation took over some US businesses 4 years ago and shut them down to avoid competition, the sold them. A pure jackass move which destroyed some US legacy businesses.



Piwin -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 3 2025 11:01:03)

Probably nay for now. Most of what we would do on Mars can be done equally well on the Moon, for a fraction of the cost. So, I would start there, figure out what we need to figure out, and then over time, as a result of doing that, the costs for manned Mars exploration should drop considerably, at which point, sure, why not. But I'm European of course. It's a somewhat grounded stereotype that overall we tend to be more risk-averse than our North-American counterparts.

I don't see Musk as being a particularly central figure. SpaceX's achievements are considerable, but, as far as I can tell, so far they seem to have little to do with manned Mars exploration, and even less so with establishing a durable presence there. They may be a part of the puzzle, but it's a pretty damn big puzzle. Big enough that it will almost certainly be institutionally-led. Which is why debates over priorities are perfectly justified: it doesn't matter whose sticker is on the ship; tax-payer money will be funding most of it. If there is a necessary trade-off, then I can only hope the other end of that trade-off is something like weaponry rather than deep sea research, which is already cruelly underfunded.

Either way, relying on the statements of a single businessman to chart a course to Mars strikes me as a rather ditsy idea. About as ditsy as relying on a fictional Netflix show to accurately predict the future of space exploration.

As for incentives, I'd imagine if we reach further back than history, the line between exploration and migration blurs quite a bit. I wouldn't be all that surprised if more trivial and relatable factors, like not getting along with your in-laws or whatever, were more common causes of "exploration" than we tend to think. At that scale, the commercial incentive may turn out to be the exception rather than the rule. Nonetheless, we've been stuck on that exception for so long that it's hard to imagine how it could be any other way. In my own experience, in polite society, to suggest that our socio-economic patterns of organization could leverage the entire spectrum of human qualities, rather than just greed, is to be branded as an idealistic simpleton. So goes it. That being the case, assuming the status quo (which admittedly is becoming harder and harder to assume with each passing day), then greed will likely be the incentive to Mars exploration.

All of the above assumes some degree of rational decision-making. In the current context of fear and loathing, all bets are off. If tomorrow a tabloid publishes pictures that prove without a shadow of a doubt that Xi Jinping has bigger hands than all of the men in US government, you might be going to Mars a lot sooner than you think.

As a last point, unrelated to space exploration, I'll just point out that assuming that criticisms of free trade necessarily stem from "economic illiteracy" is anachronistic. You could do that in the 90s. But if you're still doing that today, then I'm afraid you haven't followed the remarkable shift that has occurred in North American economics in the last two decades, or at the very least haven't registered its importance. The 2008 financial crisis was probably the biggest trigger in shattering that consensus, but suffice to say that they recognized that, as a profession, they had something of a "spherical cow" problem, and radically shifted away from that, in favor of more ground-up, empirically sound methods of analysis. As one of the more visible examples, Paul Krugman, one of the loudest and harshest critics of anyone who cautioned against the risks of globalization in the 90s, has famously gone on something of a penance tour starting in the early 2010s, acknowledging that they had vastly underestimated the negative effects free trade would have on labor markets and apologizing to many of those he had previously maligned. Within limits of course: he still believes he will be proven right in the long run, but thinks he failed to consider the short-term effects. By "short-term", he means things that have been happening for several decades now...

None of that is to say that protectionism is the answer, nor should it be taken as support for current policies. In fact, I suspect that, used as a generalized blunt instrument, it will only worsen the effects that free trade, used as a generalized blunt instrument, had in its time. Krugman thinks so as well. His line of reasoning is temporal. He believes that the harmful effects of globalization, which he failed to predict, are largely behind us now, that economies are now functioning on the assumption of free trade, and so any reversal of that would just generate further harm.

But in some ways, the shift in economics wasn't about free trade, but rather about universalist principles. They simply came to realize that economics isn't physics, and that, no matter how elegant the math, it is simply not the case that what works in one specific area will necessarily work in another specific area. And the focus on "macro" without considering what happens at the local level can lead to faulty analyses. Autor, Dorn and Hanson's 2013 paper on the impact of Chinese imports on US labor markets was a good example of this. I don't think anyone serious has dismissed their work as somehow misinformed. On the contrary, it was welcomed as precious insight, a contribution that only more local, ground-up studies could provide and that "macro" studies would necessarily miss.

In that context, dismissing the negative effects of free trade because of some association with whichever political opponents you happen to have strikes me as rather misguided. If you can't stand Sanders, Trump, etc. then take it up with Krugman. Or with any economist for that matter, minus the morons that populate the halls of the Hoover Institute. From the perspective of the current consensus in economics (to the extent that there is one), saying "I'm pro free trade" or "I'm pro protectionism" as a generalized position that applies across the board is no longer a tenable position IMHO. Whatever our political inclinations happen to be, we shouldn't ignore what the scholarly, technical literature has to say, even when it's uncertain of itself and rapidly shifting. You can still argue for the 90s view of free trade of course. You just can't dismiss everyone who disagrees with you as economically illiterate. Not anymore.

edit: after a trip to the Amazon last year, I can think of one good reason to go to Mars. An entire planet without a single bug on it...



RobF -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 3 2025 15:15:07)

Is history doomed to constant repetition?
Same play just different players?
I can't help but feel humanity is heading towards a reckoning.


-Published 100 years ago by T.S.Elliot


The Hollow Men


A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour.
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the ****ly pear
****ly pear ****ly pear
Here we go round the ****ly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.



RobF -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 3 2025 16:26:11)

By the way, the current US administration last night indicated that tariffs will remain in place until Canada ceases to exist as a nation.

To my American friends here on the Foro...it's been nice knowing you guys, but these statements are an existential threat and are considered by Canadians to be tantamount to an act of war. Please do not be so arrogant as to discount the opinions and feelings of Canadians when it comes to our commitment to and love of our country. That would be an enormous mistake.



BarkellWH -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 3 2025 16:38:42)

quote:

To my American friends here on the Foro...it's been nice knowing you guys, but these statements are an existential threat and are considered by Canadians to be an act of war. Please do not be so arrogant as to discount the opinions and feelings of Canadians when it comes to our commitment to and love of our country. That would be an enormous mistake.


Rob, don't know to whom on the Foro your comment above is directed, but I hope it is not me, as I think I have been as critical as anyone of Trump and his minions with their misguided tariffs and statements against our friends, including Canada.

By the way, thanks for posting TS Elliot's "The Hollow Men." Agreed it fits.

Bill



RobF -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 3 2025 16:51:35)

Bill, I consider you to be a friend. I consider many members here on the Foro to be friends and I have met and broken bread over two continents with a number of you.

I'm just pointing out that this is not an academic discussion. We should leave that to the historians.

What has been occurring this year in America is a concern for the world, but also should be a concern to Americans. Your country is undergoing what appears to be, in many regards, a coup, and there is a sizeable portion of your population that appears to be either blind to this or actually supports it. In two years, if we survive that long, do you really think the current administration will allow anything but sham elections? In four years will there even be any? Canada is currently under threat, but it's not reactionary to suggest that so is your democracy.



BarkellWH -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 3 2025 17:59:19)

quote:

I'm just pointing out that this is not an academic discussion. We should leave that to the historians.


Rob, I think several Foro members have registered our concern how Trump and his incompetent (but dangerous) minions have attempted to distort American democracy. I hope Stephen and Richard won't mind me bringing them up as among those who have done so as well.

I don't think it is an academic discussion to bring these concerns up within the broader context of policies pursued by the administration. Discussing economics and tariffs can get into the academic weeds, but they are part of the broader picture. When a good half of the American electorate votes for Trump, knowing what he stands for, there is ample reason for concern. But in my opinion it is all the more reason for discussion rather than leaving it up to historians down the road.

In any case, it is always a pleasure reading your comments.

Bill



RobF -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 3 2025 19:00:58)

I don't disagree with you, Bill. But the rules are being changed on the fly and, for the power brokers and a sizeable portion of the population in the US, there has been no rational or truthful discussion. They do intend to leave this for study by historians. This is a pre-negotiation power play and this time around the world is in no mood to play ball. Ripping up trade agreements (one's actually made by Trump during his last term) and threatening sovereign peaceful nations is not an avenue conducive to rational discussion.

This is an international forum. As I stated before I do value my friendships here, but discussions about international policy calmly held by Americans for Americans isn't going to cut it when your nation is threatening other nations with war and assimilation. At that point, it is no longer academic. Things are moving very quickly and while the old papers, etc do have merit, we are players on this global stage and history is being written as we speak. Let's not forget the statement made by a member of the Bush administration about the "reality based community".

*- from Wikipedia *

"The phrase was attributed by journalist Ron Suskind to an unnamed official in the George W. Bush administration who used it to denigrate a critic of the administration's policies as someone who based their judgments on facts.[1] In a 2004 article appearing in the New York Times Magazine, Suskind wrote:

"The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' [...] 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do'.[2]""

This time around the world is saying "no thanks". Politicians realize their own populace is in no mood for any more shenanigans which weaken their nation(s). I give the current bunch less than four to six months before this whole ridiculous charade blows up in their faces. "Move fast and break things" indeed. I worked with many yahoos like that during my career and the only given when you would get saddled with one of them for a project was that they indeed would be true to type and break things. I'd be a rich man today if those dimwits never darkened the doors of the number of my projects that they managed to derail through their hubris and incompetence.



P.S. @Stephen could you remove or repair the substack link? It's making the page load weirdly. Very difficult to read because the borders are somehow messed up. 👍



kitarist -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 3 2025 19:15:53)

quote:

P.S. @Stephen could you remove or repair the substack link? It's making the page load weirdly. Very difficult to read because the borders are somehow messed up. 👍


Yeah, just this is enough: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-2-2025?publication_id=20533&post_id=156354706

The rest of the added parameters are just filler/junk not needed to reach the article. The 'token' specifically is what breaks things here; Stephen, at least excise that from the link.

BTW Rob, agree with everything you are saying on this thread, I am just too angry to participate at the moment [&:]



estebanana -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 4 2025 0:35:07)

quote:

ORIGINAL: RobF

By the way, the current US administration last night indicated that tariffs will remain in place until Canada ceases to exist as a nation.

To my American friends here on the Foro...it's been nice knowing you guys, but these statements are an existential threat and are considered by Canadians to be tantamount to an act of war. Please do not be so arrogant as to discount the opinions and feelings of Canadians when it comes to our commitment to and love of our country. That would be an enormous mistake.



Simmer down Rob, really relax we’re embarrassed by that fools behavior. In my entire life I have never met one American who harbored disrespect or animosity toward you guys. You are ideal neighbors and this numbskullery will be stopped.

We the people of the American public, except a few maga idiots are not the least bit interested in any friction with the gentler people of Canada. We are going to push the orange fool to back down.

Americans in general admire Canadian manners and comportment, except that one crazy guy who was mayor of Toronto 😂



Richard Jernigan -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 4 2025 0:36:55)

"Move fast and break things" leaves out a critical component of a workable, or even to say, ethical strategy.

I said that SpaceX's strategy was to "move fast, break things, find your mistake and fix it." This can work with relatively simple physical objects like rockets.

If a device is sufficiently complex, for instance each of the radars I supervised at Kwajalein, with more than a dozen embedded computers and millions of electronic components, one dreaded the occurrence of two faults, each of which prevented diagnosis of the other. This happened only a handful of times during my long stay there, but each episode was memorable.

For social systems, with even greater complexity and unforeseeable responses to change, trying to apply any version of "move fast and break things" is not only unfeasible, it is unethical. Particularly so if those in charge are as clueless or malevolent as the present executive branch leadership of the USA. They have proven unable even to notice that they have broken something important, and unrepentant if they intended harm.

My position is that any U.S. official who utters warlike threats to any friendly country should immediately be sacked. However the U.S. Senate has twice been guilty of cowardly refusal do their duty in other situations deserving conviction and removal from office. Sadly, I don't expect them to reform.

Any threatened country is entitled to respond as they may see fit.

RNJ



estebanana -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 4 2025 0:37:48)

quote:

ORIGINAL: kitarist

quote:

P.S. @Stephen could you remove or repair the substack link? It's making the page load weirdly. Very difficult to read because the borders are somehow messed up. 👍


Yeah, just this is enough: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-2-2025?publication_id=20533&post_id=156354706

The rest of the added parameters are just filler/junk not needed to reach the article. The 'token' specifically is what breaks things here; Stephen, at least excise that from the link.

BTW Rob, agree with everything you are saying on this thread, I am just too angry to participate at the moment [&:]



Done, sorry about that.



RobF -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 4 2025 1:13:39)

quote:

ORIGINAL: estebanana
...Americans in general admire Canadian manners and comportment, except that one crazy guy who was mayor of Toronto 😂


😂

Hahaha, Thanks Stephen.

I actually kind of liked Rob Ford, but I didn't live in Toronto. He was a total lunatic but had a genuine big heart and didn't take himself too seriously. I knew a number of people who had phoned him with concerns and he did personally take calls and would often act on them.

His brother, Doug, is the current premier of Ontario. Liberals don't like him but I don't mind him (I started out as a Liberal but now I lean pretty well dead center and don't vote along any party lines.). He's also been known to take calls. A friend of mine's daughter had a bone to pick with one of his policies and phoned him. He took the call, listened to her concerns and then took the time to explain his position. They never did agree but she, in her mid-teens, said he was polite and respectful throughout and never gave her the impression he was rushed. I like him for that.



RobF -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 4 2025 1:50:45)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Richard Jernigan

"Move fast and break things" leaves out a critical component of a workable, or even to say, ethical strategy.

I said that SpaceX's strategy was to "move fast, break things, find your mistake and fix it." This can work with relatively simple physical objects like rockets.

RNJ


Got it. And well put. 👍



estebanana -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 4 2025 3:39:40)

Re Rob’s post which starts out with “the rules are being changed” : the rules are not being changed, the trump administration is breaking federal laws and there are now about 20 lawsuits filed with numerous stays of his insane executive orders issued by federal judges.

What’s happening is that the trump asshats are trying to press the legal system into defining what these radical right lawyers call ‘the theory of the unitary executive’. This means they are testing the limits of how many laws a president can break and get away with it. Their ultimate intention is to see as many of these cases go to the US Supreme Court where the radical right has installed a very conservative majority ( via stealing justice appointments from Obama and the luck that stalwart Justice Ginsburg died before the end of trumps last term, plus the coward Justice who stepped down during last trump term)

The unitary executive theory if supported by the SCOTUS would position trump as a kind of federal CEO (read dictator) who will bully Congress and the Dept of Justice to persue his own interests.

The situation is on razors edge, but the skill of lawyers working to prove trump is wrong is very good. Democratic governors of powerful states like California have pressures to bear, and the democrats in congress are about to swing a sledge hammer of allegations in public.

As for the debate on the pros and cons of free trade, that’s not really important as trump is using tariffs as a cudgel to create havoc rather than applying them to any strategy that is meaningful. I have feeling he’ll be slow walked back from this nonsense fairly soon.



estebanana -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 4 2025 4:36:40)

Here is my argument- underlined in yellow. We’ll get distracted by the ****s like musk and dumph and hello we’ll end up with a juicy asteroid plowing towards us. Oops



Images are resized automatically to a maximum width of 800px



Piwin -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 4 2025 8:45:04)

quote:

This is an international forum.


ha!



BarkellWH -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 4 2025 13:15:54)

quote:

Re Rob’s post which starts out with “the rules are being changed” : the rules are not being changed, the trump administration is breaking federal laws and there are now about 20 lawsuits filed with numerous stays of his insane executive orders issued by federal judges.


I agree, Stephen. What we are witnessing is a hostile takeover of the Executive branch. My concern is, even if federal judges rule against him, who is going to enforce their ruling? With Trump loyalists in charge of the Justice Department and the FBI, who will enforce the court decisions? Some may go to the Supreme Court, but my question still stands.

Regarding economics and trade, yes, Trump is an economic illiterate (as are some on the left). For years he has insisted that the exporting countries pay the tariff instead of the importing countries. That is just pure ignorance. With regard to his threatened tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods, when the Dow Jones tanked 600 points at the opening bell yesterday, he backed off, supposedly for 30 days. I don't understand his obsession with fentanyl coming from these countries. We are the problem. Again, simple economics would explain to the dullest interlocutor that demand drives supply.

Trump may be the worst of the lot, but our close NATO allies aren't doing much better. Britain for the last few years has been facing the consequences of withdrawing from the EU. Germany is having a political crisis. And France is suffering the misguided call for elections by Macron. Interestingly, the one leader on the right who has exhibited some sense is Giorgia Meloni in Italy. She at least supports Ukraine in its war with Russia, and she supports the NATO alliance. The far right in Germany and France, both gaining strength, supports neither that I can see.

Bill



estebanana -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 4 2025 14:29:31)

Bill,

So interesting that a few years ago I thought Meloni would be make Italy great again, but she’s turned out to not be such a goof up as her firebrand campaigning routines would indicate. Perhaps Simon had chat with her and cited the folly of Brexit as a warning to play fair.

Yesterday I was musing on how much I wish trump were more like Berlusconi. If he’d just have young girlfriends, stuff a few extra dollars in his pockets and sing badly to the nation trump wouldn’t be so bad. The thing should be that if you’re stupid profiteering president at least respect the country and leave it intact the next admin of grifters. I just loathe a grifter who thinks they actually own it all.

I was in Argentina when Monica Lewinski / Clinton scandal broke. My friends couldn’t understand why this was a big deal, they said as long as the president does the job, we don’t care how many mistresses he has. And getting back from Argentina I was working as the manager of the graduate dept of the San Francisco Art Institute, students were posting copies of screeds against Clinton with drawings of how to separate the Oval Office into a surveillance room to keep an eye on the president, silly art students. Then an artist professor said to me quietly, she was from Switzerland, “Americans are so puritanical, who cares who the president
screws? “

I certainly don’t. The strange thing is how the inflexible left and right cast moral judgments, but allow the grifting and abuse as long as their boy talks their talk.

An aside about the FBI, I have a friend who is DA in Boston and she’s worked with FBI for years and has connections which are communicating with prosecutors and lawyers they work with. They are circulating information within FBI on how to resist being controlled by the next director. As I’m sure the top officers in the pentagon are calculating how to keep the head of DoD busy. I really don’t see the FBI rolling over when they work so hard and the trump admin is so transparently urging agents to give up their dirt on other agents assigned to Jan 6 cases. I bet they are super angry about trump pardoning the cop murders they arrested and built cases against. I know I would be.



El Burdo -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 4 2025 19:47:46)

In International News:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/03/the-guardian-view-on-donald-trumps-power-grab-a-coup-veiled-by-chaos



Estevan -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 4 2025 21:47:22)

quote:

I don’t know of any if you read Substack, but this is out of control activity:

Search Letters from an American by Heather Cox-Richardson

Elon has taken control of the treasury dept and USAID and locked out the federal employees of these agencies. He’s using a team of young computer hacks picked by Peter Thiel to access information none of have security clearances for. It’s outrageous.
Agreed, Heather Cox-Richardson is worth following.

Olga Lautman also has some important observations on the repercussions of this destructive activity:

If Russia had a wish list, it would include gutting the DOJ and FBI to eliminate counterintelligence operations and successful prosecutions, crippling U.S. sanctions enforcement by weakening the Treasury Department, fracturing America’s alliances to isolate the U.S. on the global stage, and dismantling USAID to eliminate vital democratic and humanitarian aid programs worldwide. That wish list is now being fulfilled—not by the Kremlin, but by Elon Musk and Trump.

Each of these attacks is a direct blow to U.S. national security and global influence but I’m going to focus on the dismantling of USAID—a move that Russian officials and state media are openly celebrating.

cont'd:
Elon Musk and Trump Shutting Down USAID—A Gift to Russia



estebanana -> RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (Feb. 5 2025 2:07:00)

USAID interference might have grave repercussions for trump admin. I read that already some money allocated to provide guards to some bad guys who were convicted of terrorism was withdrawn and the guards stopped showing up. US foreign aid makes up point seven percent of the federal budget, and for that small sum buys a lot of security, plus helps people who are in need of medical services. Wait till kids start dying and the press in those countries who are not scared of trump release that in European media. We look like absolute 💩 stains.

Since USAID makes up such a small part of spending the Elmo faction delving into it is either very stupid, or they are looking for certain pressure points to withdraw funding from to make Elmo richer by creating slack for China to take advantage of. He’s greasing some sleazy politicians overseas with my tax dollars. The DC district attorney is about to go after the mod squad of twinks that are working for Elmo.

There are going to be marches and demonstrations and democrat push back, organized boycotts etc. The Democratic Party just got a new leader from Wisconsin and he’s no puff pastry. And Hard ass Rahm Immanuel is very pissed off…


But rest assured my dear Canadian loves, we shall not come to fisticuffs with you, neither here on the Foro nor otherwise on the border. We also don’t want you to become the 51st state, because we’d have to learn your accent, aay.



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